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Route To Success

Jewish women entrepreneurs grow their businesses through technology.

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Five entrepreneurial women, each with
local roots in Metro Detroit, are bucking
the trend and have found business success
by using technology. They are not recent
college graduates who have grown up with
Facebook, Twitter and e-commerce; these
serious entrepreneurs are middle-aged
professional women who have discovered
ways to exploit the Web, mobile apps and
social media to grow their businesses.

Uber Driver

Lois Shulman of West
Bloomfield was looking to gen-
erate more income. She consid-
ered several business ideas, but
when her friend Cindy Ather
recommended she consider
becoming an Uber driver, her
ears perked up.
Uber, the billion-dollar
Internet startup that lets any-
one with a valid driver's license
become a hired driver, has
become a convenient way for
women like Shulman to make extra money
or even an annual salary.
The only barrier to entry for Shulman
was that she had never used a mobile app
before, let alone downloaded one.
Ather, whose daughter works for Uber's
corportate office in San Francisco, taught
her how to install the Uber app on her
iPhone and how the system worked.
"I have a short time to respond when
Uber pings me through the mobile app,
and then I take the customer where they
need to go using GPS," Shulman said.
Her first Uber pickup was easy. Shulman
drove to Ather's mother's home so that
when she ordered the ride, she would be
the closest Uber driver in the area and
could accept her inaugural job.
Shulman is now more tech savvy and
hungry to be more successful. She's also
more confident using her iPhone and is
quick to respond when she's pinged for
a potential job. She has always rated her
customers on the Uber app with perfect
5-star scores, and she has only received
perfect 5-star scores herself. She loves the
company and has become something of an
Uber ambassador, telling other women her
age how easy it is to get started.
Shulman knows that the more Uber
jobs she accepts, the more popular she'll
become as an Uber driver — leading to

a larger annual salary. A job
benefit, Shulman says, is when
customers are talkative and
share insight into their own
background. However, she
always waits for the passenger to
speak first in case they prefer a
quiet ride.
She also likes that she's able to
grow her business on her own
time and schedule. If she's busy
doing other things or away on
vacation, she simply
doesn't respond in
the required time
limit and the job
goes to another
driver.
There's relatively
no startup cost to
become an Uber
driver, and it's
becoming more com-
mon among women.
Shulman isn't con-
cerned about safety
because she can
check each passenger's rating
using the mobile app.
"I strive to be the best Uber
driver I can at all times:'
Shulman says proudly.

Harnessing The
Internet
Carrie Lachman is a fourth-
generation owner of Lachman
& Co., a custom awards and
engraving store in Southfield.
Her great-grandfather started
the business more than 120
Uber driver Lois Shulman is ready to pick up a passenger.
years ago as a jewelry store in
Detroit. Succeeding her grand-
father and then father, Lachman
became the first female to lead the com-
clients all over the country and in Canada:' emergency, and we were one of the first to
pany. She likes to say she
she said.
embrace the new technology that allows
took a bricks-and-mortar
"We used to rely on sending out large
us to provide products quicker than ever
business in Southfield
catalogs of our items through the mail
before'
and made it global,
and on customers calling in or faxing us
thanks to the Internet.
their orders:' Lachman explained. "But
Taxes For Expats
Diane Siriani, a local
"Engraved awards and
as soon as we had to change an item or
customized promotional
its price, it was cost prohibitive to reprint
CPA, says that "technol-
products are a highly
the entire catalog. The Internet has made
ogy" has been the buzz
personalized industry,
everything easier for us. Our catalog has
word in the account-
Carrie
ing and tax industry
but with a dynamic
moved online, and we use social networks
Lachman
website and an interna-
to tell our clients and prospects about new
for as long as she can
tional reach on social
products.
remember. She started
networks like Pinterest, Linkedln, Twitter
"The Internet has changed everything in Diane Siriani
her career with a mid-
our industry. For clients, everything is an
and Facebook, we've found new corporate

Route To Success on page 10

8 July 23 • 2015