An entrepreneur needn’t sacrifice personal life or ethics for the bottom line, insists Sharon Rowe
In the world of “Shark Tank,” Gary Vee, and entrepreneur culture, nothing gets glamorized more than the hardships that go into developing a business. The grind is the place where entrepreneurs earn their place at the table.
Sharon Rowe ’79 insists that shouldn’t be the case. In 1989, she founded Eco-Bags Products, which is dedicated “to produce responsibly made and sourced bags at great prices, so that reusable becomes a way of life.” For nearly 30 years, Rowe has run her company without sacrificing personal or professional goals. Last spring, she published “The Magic of Tiny Business,” a book inspired by her lifestyle.
In her book, Rowe takes budding go-getters into the story behind her game-changing company, sharing personal anecdotes that show how they, too, can build a focused business that turns a profit without ever conceding personal or social values for the sake of the bottom line.
Sharon Rowe ’79 majored in theatre arts at Clark and pursued acting before founding Eco-Bag Products. Above, she hold an ECOBAG.
“You can work long and hard to do things you don’t really want to do, or you can use your energy to work long and hard on things you want to put your energy into,” Rowe says.
It’s an ethos she has held since her days at Clark. Rowe “lived in the humanities,” and created most of her own curriculum. She was an active member of the arts scene and even wrote and choreographed her own play, “Transitions.”
Soon after graduating with a degree in theatre arts, Rowe moved to Washington to pursue acting full time. There, she joined the Living Stage Theatre Company, a traveling improv group that performed for children and at area prisons. Rowe wanted more, though, and moved to New York.
“I was filling seats [acting], but I wasn’t filling my wallet,” she says. By this point, she also was working and had become a new mother. It was exhausting. “And then I saw an opportunity to change behavior and to make a living,” she recalls.