Owning a business is not easy but one thing that can help with the challenges of being the boss is networking with others who have been or are there.

Amanda Lang, owner of Forbid Me Not Photography, knows this — which is why she started the Eastside Business Networking for Women (EBN4W) Facebook group online. As implied by the name, the group focuses on networking and women helping other women in their professional endeavors.

“Networking and partnering with other women is very empowering,” Lang said.

The Redmond resident started EBN4W at the beginning of last month after meeting with a group of women who were all looking for jobs and learning that other women business owners were looking for a way to network with each other.

Already, EBN4W has almost 100 members and new member requests for the Facebook group every day. Lang said members include women who own their own businesses on the Eastside as well as women who work for Eastside businesses.

The group is open to any type of career or job and Lang said they currently have group members ranging from event planners and real estate agents, to dog walkers and women working in the beauty industry. EBN4W also has a few members who are just starting to get back into their own businesses, as well. And in terms of the age range of their members, Lang said “it is all over the board.”

She said having a diverse group of members has been good — especially with the latter — and people have been able to look past the superficial and realize there is always something to learn from someone else.

For Suchitra Iyer, co-founder and co-owner of the Sammamish-based event planning company The Whole Gamut, being part of the EBN4W has been a “fantastic networking space.”

“It is also a space for highlighting individual businesses and for asking questions,” she said. “I am always looking to build partnerships and relationships with other women entrepreneurs; I learn about other businesses and how I can partner with them through this group.”

Sammamish resident Simmi Kher has also found EBN4W beneficial. The CEO and founder of Rising Tomorrow — an organization dedicated to recognizing and celebrating cultural and global diversity — said the benefits have been “multi-fold.” She joined the group because she could not only use it to promote her business, but find support to grow her business.

“It was designed to form a community, which could support each other and help each other grow,” she said.

Kher said she has enjoyed meeting other business women in the group and getting to know them, noting that she has only been in the area for three years and has had a difficult time getting to know people.

Val Serdy, owner of Egg and Feather in Sammamish — which helps women find their voice and provides editing services for novelists and bloggers, coaching services for all writers and writing services for small business websites — has found EBN4W to be a place where she has bounced ideas off of with other members and found potential business opportunities. In addition, Serdy said she has also been able to contribute to the group, answering questions and making connections between members.

Lang said the group has been a good source for marketing and legal advice as well as advice on how to get along with employees and colleagues and more.

“Just everything business,” she said.

Serdy said Lang has created a community and service that seemed to be missing before this.

“I think women are naturally social creatures, and I think moms who start businesses can become unintentionally isolated because of the competing demands on their time,” Serdy said. “Purposeful Facebook groups allow women to connect with each other on their own time, in between momming and wifing and working. There are a ton of (Facebook) groups for moms, but fewer (that I’ve seen) for women entrepreneurs.”

In addition to the group on Facebook, Lang said there have also been in-person meetings at local coffee shops and they are working to plan more events in the future.

“We want to bring in speakers,” she said, adding that she envisions something similar to the popular TED Talks. “We want to give women a boost on how to run their business.”

On the EBN4W, members can post information about their businesses and any events they may have coming up. They can also look up events that they can attend to support each other or participate in as a business.

Lang also regularly spotlights members once a month. She will interview them, learn about their business and some of the behind-the-scene goings on. Lang will then write up a few paragraphs and post it on the Facebook group page.

She said these women have worked extremely hard to get to where they are and it can be empowering for women to see this.

It can also be empowering for the woman who is spotlighted. Kher was recently spotlighted and it gave her the recognition she had been yearning for.

“EBN4W provided me that platform and acknowledged my being,” she said.