What prompted you to write How She Does It?

After completing THE NAKED TRUTH, I felt that real liberation for women lay in entrepreneurship. There are no glass ceilings when you own the company. That, together with the staggering statistics around female entrepreneurship, made me want to understand what was going on. I was also struck that almost everyone belittled female entrepreneurship - people were too quick to tell me women's businesses were small and insignificant. I didn't believe it and, when I dug a little, discovered what I suspected: that this was a very big business story indeed that no one was telling. Tom Peters calls it our most underreported business news story and he's right.

Through your research for this book, are there any discoveries that really surprised you about today's women entrepreneurs?

I was surprised at how female they were. These women aren't succeeding by emulating men. They aren't big, mean, tough deal-busting, 24x7 thugs and neither are they adolescents in garages. They are succeeding on their own terms in their own way. Nor are they risk averse (another commonly held belief about women.) The women in my book have taken on big risks; they've done so fearlessly. In the face of danger, they have not reverted to old fashioned command-and-control leadership styles. They have very strong values and they are successful BECAUSE they stick to them.

I was also intrigued by how well women were faring in industries not normally associated with women - such as technology, the energy industry, manufacturing. There really isn't anything women can't do. Every time I visited one of these companies, I came away thinking: why haven't I heard about this company before? Why isn't everyone trumpeting their achievements to the roof tops? It surprised me that the stories were so easy to find and yet so undiscovered. It also surprised me - and still surprises me - how completely the VC community has failed to see the value women bring to business.

What advice do you have for aspiring entrepreneurs?
1. Don't be afraid - but don't think it is going to be easy.
2. Don't think of the world as divided into Corporate People and Entrepreneurs. Many of the most successful entrepreneurs had their education paid for by the corporations that employed them. Learn wherever you can - and preferably at an employer's expense.
3. Don't give up. Many successful companies have been in the game for a long time. It often took them a long time to find their sweet spot.
4. Don't think about yourself: think about the Asset which is the business you are growing. Serve that.
5. It isn't about you; it is about customers. Without them, you are nothing but an expense.
6. The less your company needs you on a day-to-day basis, the more valuable your company is and the easier it will be to sell it.