Wouldn’t it be grand if there were more opportunities for at-home moms to earn money and use bona fide workplace skills, without requiring outside child care? Cybertary founder Patricia Beckman, 40, thought so. Looking to spend more time with daughters Ashley, 12, and Kaelyn, 9, she left a travel-intensive financial services career to set herself up as a virtual assistant. From a home office, she began offering a palette of services (everything from bookkeeping to blogging, graphic design to thank-you-note writing) billed by the minute (15 minutes minimum). She subcontracted assignments to a team and was so quickly deluged with requests—both from clients and from moms wanting work—that she created a franchise opportunity to meet the demand and has since sold five franchises. She expects to have 37 open by the end of this year.

Workers earn $15 and $40 per hour, depending on assignment, and choose when they work—days, weekends, nights or naptimes. She’s hitting a niche unserved by traditional temp agencies, which require on-site work and full-day commitments, and which also typically don’t staff home businesses, a growing sector. Because no one drives to a job site and because most projects are paperless, delivered electronically, Cybertary reduces consumption associated with traditional employment, says Patricia. It’s gratifying, she says, how many women small business owners and at-home entrepreneurs Cybertary helps. “We get thank-you’s all the time saying they’re getting improved work-life balance because we’re lifting the [administrative] burden from them,” she says.
 

Cybertary: Roseville, CA
Mission: To provide virtual assistants to home and small businesses
Founded: 2005
First Profitable Year: 2005
Employees: 4 full-time
2008 Revenues: $150,000 ($850,000 projected in 2009 through franchises)