Occasionally, Ronda Spring likes working in her pajamas. For her, the creative juices really begin flowing after 3 p.m., and her productivity often peaks in the evening. By working from her home in High Point, Spring says she is able to take advantage of the best hours for her Web design firm, Pixel Dezign. For Spring, having a home-based business is about freedom, flexibility, and making a living. It also allows her to be her own boss and gives her the opportunity to eventually have children and devote time to them.

But, contrary to the stereotype, home-based businesses aren't just for working mothers. For many women, being a home-based business is more than convenient, it's strategic. Women are discovering that being home-based allows them to avoid a high overhead, allows for a varied schedule, and is a way to get their businesses off the ground.

Cost effective
For women who are solo entrepreneurs, starting a business from home just makes sense. Students at the Wake Forest University Office of Entrepreneurship and Liberal Arts often begin their businesses right where they live, in their apartments, and even their dorm rooms, says Director Betsy Gatewood.

Winston-Salem resident, Becky Brown, finally listened to all of her friends and family and started selling her cheesecakes from home, which were garnering quite the reputation among those who came over for dinner. Four years ago, she started Cheesecakes by Becky in her home, baking two cheesecakes at a time in her own oven. It was, she found, a convenient and cost effective way to lay the foundation for her business.

Adrienne Cregar Jandler started her Greensboro-based Web development firm, Atlantic Webworks, 10 years ago and spent the first six and a half years working it from home. At the time, she was single and didn't have children. "It was a cost-saving measure," Jandler says. Although having a home-based business saved money, Jandler says she was always working. At 2 a.m., she was still working. If she didn't have plans for the night, she'd be eating dinner at her desk.  "It's very easy to be a workaholic when you work from home," Jandler says.

Jennifer Gentry, owner of Gentry Visualization in Winston-Salem, agrees. Working her medical illustration business from home was a way to avoid the overhead of an office while being comfortable and convenient. But, she says, "It's difficult to step away from the work, or just not check e-mail." Like Spring, Gentry likes the fact that she is able to work when her energy is high. Working from home gives her the flexibility to do that. Gentry can set her own hours, using her natural patterns better. She's a big advocate of the nap or just a simple break, saying that if it's a productivity issue; it's best just to step away from work and come back later.

Stigma
Women with home-based businesses say they sometimes run into the stigma that having a home-based business is not legitimate or is not the real deal. "I worry about that," Gentry says. She is able to overcome the issue by leveraging the efficiencies of her firm. She can react more quickly to her client's requests because they don't have to go through multiple layers of contact—it's just her.

When Jandler was home-based, she also combated that stigma. Her home office was set up with cubicles, computers, and even a multiline phone system. She served international clients from home and the two full-time employees she had at her home base even had their own spaces. And, the Internet has made it possible to serve clients without having to leave home. There are so many businesses where you never see your customer from where your office location is, Gatewood says.

Growth
But as time goes on, it may become necessary to see more clients in an office setting, although some women continue to see clients in their homes. For Jandler's business, growth meant adding more employees. Faced with the issue of giving out her house keys to various employees, she decided to make the move into an office. An office allows the formerly home-based business to have more clients over, as the office location is equipped with a conference room. It's also more comfortable for the employees, Jandler says.

Brown also outgrew her home and moved into a shared office space with her husband's business three years ago. While she hasn't added any full-time employees, she needed more ovens to keep up with the demand for her cheesecakes. Last December, she baked 250 cheesecakes out of her office bakery. She also gets more walk-in traffic with a bakery location. Brown wants to eventually open up a satellite storefront location, perhaps in downtown Winston-Salem.

The lack of a retail presence can present challenges for many home-based businesses. But there are strategies for that as well. Susan Cutter, the owner of Cutter Clay Works in Browns Summit, says that after her children grew up, she turned her hobby of pottery into a business. She participates in a home tour with several other artists in the region. With a combined mailing list of 1,800, the artists -- potters, painters, sculptors and furniture designers -- benefit from the collective draw of the tour, as well as sharing the marketing costs.

Cutter says women go through periods in life where they devote their time to raising a family, and "then we come back to who we are as women, as people."