The Nob Hill Gazette

Women Wonders: Launching Unique Businesses

By Erika Mallman

We've always known California was progressive. It's ranked #1 in the country in the number of women owned businesses, the number of female employees in those operations, and the sales they've generated. Since so many California women own their own companies, the sky, not the glass ceiling, is the limit.

You might be surprised to see how far some entrepreneurs will go to see their visions through to the end. One woman pulls in six figures by crawling around clients' homes to find unsafe places where babies might play. Another earns a living capturing spiders and insects and taking them around to schools teaching students which ones to avoid. Still another founded a technology company to gather ideas for female friendly products.

So who are some of these women—particularly those entrepreneurial souls who found a niche not previously occupied, and forged ahead with a lot of smarts?

Women of mystery Janet Rudolph, for one, is the person behind those corporate team-building dinner theater events. Her customized audience participation whodunit business, Murder on the Menu, has been up and running for 16 years, Her clients include such names as Hewlett Packard, Sun Microsystems, Hitachi, Merck, Pacific Bell and TCI.

How did Rudolph get started? Simple: she's always loved mystery. Besides founding Mystery Readers Journal in the 70's, she has also taught mystery fiction classes and is on the board of Directors of Mystery Writers of America. So in the early 80's when a partnership ventured in Mystery Dinner Theater failed, Rudolph picked up the reins and carried on solo.

Today, Rudolph writes the script for each performance, personally tailoring it to the company by using names of actual employees and industry jargon.

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