Women Who Lead: Genevieve Thiers

It's not nearly often enough that we hear about successful female entrepreneurs in the news, so Genevieve Thiers, who founded Sittercity.com while she was in college, is an inspiring and refreshing new face in the business world. Sittercity.com started as an idea that Thiers came up with during her senior year at Boston College.

Her idea was to start an online babysitter database that would connect parents and sitters at the click of a mouse. Though no one took her seriously at the start, she refused to take no for an answer. Now, that same idea has flourished into a booming multi-million dollar online business that has been featured in TIME Magazine, MSN, NBC, ABC, and Fox, to name just a few!

Once you got the idea for sittercity.com , how did you turn that idea into reality?

It took a while. I had the idea senior year in college, but had no money. I had to borrow $80 from my dad to buy the domain name. I made a business plan right away and took it to investors, and they laughed me out of the room, saying things like "it's a babysitters club" and "my wife handles that." So, I hired two college friends to design and program the site, sketched it out on pieces of paper for them, then I went and made 20,000 flyers that said "Want to be a babysitter" and posted them in 20 colleges around Boston. It was nuts. When I look back, I can't believe I did it.

What obstacles have you faced along the way?

Well, no one thought it would work in the beginning, but then again, I was mostly talking to men who either had no kids, or men who had wives that took care of the kids. So that was a challenge. In the beginning, too, it was hard to build the site out of my own money. I had none! I took a job at IBM from 2000-2002 with a $40,000 a year salary to fund my living and poured everything I did not need to eat into the company. I am so glad that gamble paid off. It was hard.

I noticed you're currently not only running sittercity.com but also working as a professional opera singer and running your own opera production company! How do you balance all of this, and what skills have you learned along the way to help you balance everything in your hectic schedule?

Yes, I also run operamoda.com. I have learned mainly that things like TV are optional. If you cut things like that out of your life you get a lot more time. Time that you can use to build things. It's a little nuts to run both at once, but operamoda only snaps into action big time a few times a year—during our major shows, some of our concerts and when we do our radio opera for the year. And operamoda has a great team, so it's not too hard to manage that alongside everything else. It's actually keeping up singing that is hard. If you don't practice, you start to lose your polish. I try to sing whenever I can and try to not strain my voice too much, but during trainings or board meetings that is nearly impossible. I perform in about 2 shows a year and do lots of recitals and concerts to try and keep my voice up. You can track my singing at www.genevievethiers.com and operamoda at www.operamoda.com.

Tell us about your own college experiences! How did you balance everything?

I was an English and music major. Something I find funny is that I never took a business class in my life! I sang a lot and played major roles in a lot of the shows at Boston College from 1996-2000. Patience in Gilbert and Sullivan's Patience, Lily in The Secret Garden, etc. I also worked a work-study job in the music office, and babysat almost every weekend, and many weeknights too.

What future challenges do you anticipate for yourself and for sittercity.com?

I am very excited about an expansion that is taking place next month—we will be opening a section of our site that contains 150,000 pet-sitters. This is a new area for us and we could not be more excited. I would also love to take the company international, to Canada and the UK.

Finally, what would you say to college women wanting to start their own business?