A managing director has hit out at investors that force entrepreneurs to take huge financial risks whilst carefully balancing their own portfolios.

Claire Priest, aged 35, from Kingswinford, has so far funded her new business Blessd by herself.

She is now looking for expertise to help market her products by entering the Rowan Best Business Innovation Awards, a competition for innovators run in conjunction with The Birmingham Post.

Ms Priest, a former executive with an MBA from Cranfield School of Management, said she was increasingly frustrated with the attitudes of investors who require entrepreneurs to risk everything, whilst ensuring they maintain a balance of risk within their own portfolios. This, she believes, may be discouraging many women from starting their own businesses.

Ms Priest said: "It may be a personal feeling, but I think many women are less willing to risk the security of their home on a venture.

"But those investing in businesses - from banks, private investors and venture capitalists - ask entrepreneurs to put their house on the line, whilst they adopt a strategy of spreading risk and making sure that they have an exit strategy.

"But what they're asking an individual to do is to risk everything and, if you succeed and become an investor yourself, then you are allowed to spread your risk.

"Perhaps I am not an entrepreneur, but I am certainly a natural business person and I don't believe in putting your eggs all in one basket.

"I have made sure I maintain alternative routes of income, which reduces the risk and, I believe, makes it less likely that my business is going to end in failure."

Ms Priest worked for 10 years in the energy industry, working up to become a board member of Telford-based Volunteer Energy Agency, which was bought out by Gaz de France.

But when the company relocated to Leeds, she took voluntary redundancy and enrolled for an MBA course.

Having always planned to start her own business, Ms Priest continued to find short-term part-time contracts in the energy industry while also developing her idea - to provide clothes for women that did not fit the standard High Street sizes.

Ms Priest said: "In my late 20s I had done a lot of sewing in order to adjust clothes to fit me. Then, when my career took off, I didn't have the time and just wanted to buy things off the peg. But nothing would fit me. I am trim and keep myself fit, but my natural shape is curvy and it was upsetting that shops didn't cater for me.

"After doing more research I realised that women with hourglass figures make up 10 to 20 per cent of the market, but they are not being provided for."

The company was formed in 2005 and Ms Priest had to develop unique pattern blocks for her clothes, which are for women with a waist one or two sizes smaller than their hips and a bust that is D-cup or larger.

She said: "It's been very difficult to achieve because the industry works with a standard body shape and to develop blocks from scratch has been a very lengthy process.

But now I'm really happy how it has turned out. I am starting small with the clothes being manufactured in the West Midlands. As I get larger I will look to source the work overseas as it is the only way to be viable in the modern world. But I would like to keep the production of an exclusive range in the region.

"Being from the Black Country, I have seen the decline in manufacturing and I feel passionately about bringing jobs back into the area."

Ms Priest now hopes to grow the business, although she is concerned to find an investor that is also willing to offer expertise to help the business grow.

She said: "A fashion clothing expert would be great.

Ms Priest said she was entering the Best Business Innovation Awards as she saw a creative way of gaining profile for her business and accessing the marketing and sales experience of Coventry-based Rowan.

Blessd's range of clothes will go on display for the first time at the Women in Rural Enterprise (WiRE) events fair A Swanky Affair, which runs from April 26-29 at the Darwin Shopping Centre in Shrewsbury.

Ms Priest, who has recently launched her website www.blissd.com, added that she was still looking for models with a size 8 to 16 waist with hips one to two sizes bigger for the event.

From engineer Thomas Telford to entrepreneur John Caudwell, the Midlands has been at the forefront of innovation for centuries.

Now sales and marketing specialist Rowan, in association with The Birmingham Post, is looking for the next generation of commercial high-flyers.

* Do you have a product or service idea you think is destined to be the 'next big thing'?

Would you like to win £8,000-worth of expert advice and support to back your brainwave?

Be sure to enter the Rowan Best Business Innovation Award 2007, and your business dream could soon be reality.

For further information, click on the BBIA link. Competition closes on June 11 2007.