FAQ

Businesses who meet the following criteria are welcome to register for this business.

  • For-profit business or sole proprietors
  • Registered or headquartered in Maine
  • 50% or more woman-owned

The Maine Women’s Business List is organized by the CEI Women’s Business Centers.

Coastal Enterprises, Inc. (CEI) helps to grow good jobs, environmentally sustainable enterprises, and shared prosperity in Maine and in rural regions across the country by integrating financing, business and industry expertise, and policy solutions. For more information, visit www.ceimaine.org.

What else do you do at the CEI Women’s Business Centers?

We work to build a network of peers, experts, and advocates who understand the challenges that disproportionately effect female entrepreneurs and provide resources to meet those challenges.  We help you build the skills to be successful in business, which includes everything from accessing capital, to making strong management decisions based on a deep understanding of your financials, to having the confidence to name your price unapologetically.

We offer a variety of workshops and events ranging from one-hour, topic specific courses (e.g. Intro to E-Commerce), and longer-term peer cohort programming which focuses of topics such as professional development, public speaking, and tech startup. We are passionate about our group courses and workshops, which encourage peer-to-peer learning and foster a sense of community.

We are currently doing all our work virtually. We are offering a robust set of online courses and continuing with our 1:1 advising via phone or web.

Visit us online, or follow us on FacebookInstagram, and Twitter.

No.  Signing up for this directory is NOT the same as becoming certified as a Woman-Owned Small Business (WOSB), or as an Economically Disadvantaged Woman-Owned Small Business (EDWOSB).  Both of these certifications make it easier for you to do government contracting (selling your goods or services to the government). The federal government’s goal is to award at least five percent of all federal contracting dollars to women-owned small businesses each year, and State and municipal governments also often purchase from small businesses.  You can read more about the WOSB and EDWOSB programs here.    We also suggest that you reach out to the Maine Procurement Technical Assistance Center for help determining if government contracting is right for you, and for help getting started.

At the CEI Women’s Business Center we often receive calls and emails from businesses and individuals looking to purchase from women-owned businesses in specific sectors or geographies.    These requests range from a University looking for a service provider, to a reporter looking for a lead on a story, to an individual wanting to do all their holiday shopping with women-owned businesses.  By registering for this powerful, interactive directory you can connect with customers and partners looking for ways to support woman-owned businesses like yours.

Yes.  If you are a sole proprietor who files a Schedule C, and you meet the criteria above, you can register for this directory.

No.  At this time we are not allowing 1099 contractors to register for this directory.  While we understand that you are self-employed, and value your important role in Maine’s economy, we are starting this directory by including sole-proprietors, partnerships, LLCs, L3Cs, s-corps and c-corps.   We will update this site if that changes.

No.  Your business must be based in Maine to register for this directory.  That means you must either: live in Maine (sole-proprietor), or have registered your business in Maine (partnerships, LLCs, L3Cs, s-corps and c-corps).

We made a decision to align the categories of this directory with NAICS codes.   (NAICS = North American Industry Classification System).  While somewhat clunky, NAICS codes are what are used for government contracting, and for many statistical purposes.  We determined that using these codes would ultimately provide the most beneficial information about the state of woman-owned business in Maine.   You can learn more about NAICS codes here, or on Google.

We think we’ve been pretty thorough, but if you have searched the directory and feel that an important category is missing, please let us know.   Please note: we are not interested in making categories that only fit one business, so we do encourage you to see if your business fits in an existing category.

We define woman-owned, for the purposes of this directory, as 50% or more woman-owned.

CEI aligns with the definition of women and female that explicitly includes not only cis women, but also trans women and femme/feminine-identifying genderqueer and non-binary individuals.

Type in the words that a customer might use when looking for your business.    This might include a specialty of your business, a hashtag you frequently use, something customers love about you, or a key differentiator.   Because of our wacky categories, much of the magic will happen in keywords so fill these up for sure!

Absolutely.   Register each business separately.

No.   Reviews are not a feature of this directory.

You can search by geography, industry, or key word.

Because we have chosen to use NAICS codes, we are following their categorization.   Some business subcategories may have a seemingly odd main category.   As your business is searchable by industry, geography, or key word, it’s OK if the main category isn’t the one you would have chosen.

We really respect, and frequently collaborate with, our colleagues at Black Owned Maine. We share their love of a good list, and the desire to make it easier for consumers to shop at diverse businesses. We are, however, not affiliated with them on an organizational level.

We work to build a network of peers, experts, and advocates who understand the challenges that disproportionately effect female entrepreneurs and provide resources to meet those challenges.  We help you build the skills to be successful in business, which includes everything from accessing capital, to making strong management decisions based on a deep understanding of your financials, to having the confidence to name your price unapologetically.

We offer a variety of workshops and events ranging from one-hour, topic specific courses (e.g. Intro to E-Commerce), and longer-term peer cohort programming which focuses of topics such as professional development, public speaking, and tech startup. We are passionate about our group courses and workshops, which encourage peer-to-peer learning and foster a sense of community.

We are currently doing all our work virtually. We are offering a robust set of online courses and continuing with our 1:1 advising via phone or web.

  • To register for workshops and events please visit us here.
  • To request no-cost, confidential business advising please visit us here.

Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

Yes!  Remember that our criteria is that businesses must be:

  • For-profit business or sole proprietors
  • Registered or headquartered in Maine
  • 50% or more woman-owned

Assuming your friend meets that criteria, please do send them the link to sign up.   This directory becomes more useful the more businesses we include.

We hear you.  That’s why we started this directory.  Whether you’re looking for a female auto mechanic, a woman-owned farm for your fresh veggies, a female fly-fishing guide, or a female softball coach, we want to help you find that person. Please help us spread the word about this directory so that we can encourage more Maine women to sign up and be counted!