Bet You Didn't Know These 10 Well-Known Companies Were Started By Women

Dr. Katie Rodan and Dr. Kathy Fields, Founders of Proactiv

Consumers buy products and services every day without giving a thought as to who started or owns the company that produces the products. With more than 9.4 million companies being owned by women, the chances are pretty good you will be buying something at some time that is made by a company that is woman-owned.

These 10 businesses are owned by women

#1 Cisco - technology giant Cisco was founded by Sandra Lerner. Lerner later started Urban Decay, a cosmetics company, and today she's heading up a certified organic farm in Virginia.

#2 Flickr - this popular photo-sharing website was founded by Caterina Fake in 2002. She and her husband sold the company in 2005 to Yahoo for $35 million in cash and stock options.

#3 Liquid Paper - was invented in the 1950s by executive secretary Bette Nesmith. She sold her first bottle in 1956 and sold the company for $47.5 million in 1979. At the time, the company was selling 25 million bottles a year.

#4 Build-A-Bear - this company was founded by Maxine Clark in 1997 and remains active today with 400 stores worldwide. The company offers workshops where people create more than 100 million stuffed toys. Clark is still the "Chief Executive Bear."

#5 Proactiv - this skin care products company was started by two dermatology students at Stanford University, Katie Rodan and Kathy Fields. Their product is now one of the top-selling acne medications in the U.S.

#6 Ruth's Chris Steak House - Ruth Fertel opened her first restaurant in 1965. Today there are more than 130 company and franchise-owned locations around the world.

#7 The Body Shop - Anita Roddick started The Body Shop in 1976 in England. The company, which makes bath and body products, went public in 1984. Roddick sold The Body Shop in 2006 to L'Oréal for $1.4 billion. The company has more than 2,500 stores in 61 countries.

#8 Birchbox - this monthly subscription service company was started by entrepreneurs Katia Beauchamp and Hayley Barna. They met at Harvard Business School and started a company that specializes in subscription-based boxed high-end beauty and grooming products for men and women. The company makes $96 million a year in sales.

#9 Bark & Company - this company, which makes dog toys and clothes, was founded by Carly Strife. Forbes estimates the company's current valuation between $150 million and $200 million.

#10 SlideShare - Rashmi Sinha founded this company in 2006. The company, which offers slide hosting service, was sold to social networking giant LinkedIn in May 2013 for $118.75 million and now has more than 16 million registered users.

Read more at www.businessnewsdaily.com/2156-women-owned-businesses.html