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When Karen Percy started her own web and graphic design company two years ago, she thought she'd found a network of self-employed mothers who, like her, were eager to share business tips and help each other out.

So Ms. Percy was flabbergasted when she approached one seemingly helpful fellow mompreneur to do a joint project - and the woman ended up stealing the idea for herself.

"I was just so caught off guard by it. It's just crazy. I couldn't believe it," said Ms. Percy, founder of Kaper Creative in South Surrey, B.C., and soon-to-be mother of three. "[Self-employed mothers] should be a group of people helping each other succeed, not trying to sort of backstab and take things away from each other."

But in the world of mompreneurs, in which moms leave the rat race to start baby- or child-related businesses, not everyone plays nice.

Young mothers are finding that mompreneurship can be every bit as cutthroat.

With legions of self-employed moms jockeying to promote their own products and services, stories of sabotage, pilfering ideas and undercutting prices abound.

Such aggressive tactics are hardly unexpected in other business communities, said Ms. Percy who, after being burned, has expanded her clientele beyond mompreneurs. But among young mothers, she said, "you'd think they should be in a mind frame of setting a good example for their children."

Shani Sam, founder of Vancouver-area baby sling maker Tot-to-go Design Inc. and mother of one, said she has seen mom entrepreneurs openly bash their competitors to try to get ahead.

Some, she said, go as far as naming competing brands on their websites and detailing their shortcomings while they boost their own products.

Lara Leontowich, founder of online resource Westcoast Moms' Network Inc., has seen her share of ruthless business tactics among mompreneurs.

Price undercutting is commonplace, she said, while some mothers try to exclude others from their market. In one case, she said, one mother asked her competitor to set up shop elsewhere, claiming dibs on the area she was in.

Jo Thomas, co-founder of Whistler, B.C.'s MilkShaxs Baby Gear, was burned when a prospective baby merchandise supplier, who operated among the same network of mompreneurs, stole some of her ideas to become her direct competitor. "[Using] our ideas that we had discussed, she did the exact same thing on babies' clothes in the same market," said Ms. Thomas, who is not a mother herself. "We were gobsmacked."

The woman in question eventually discontinued her line of babywear, but the incident proved to be an important lesson for Ms. Thomas: "Earn that mutual trust and respect before you go giving them your latest, biggest, best, greatest ideas."

Ms. Leontowich said she sees a split in the mompreneur sector. The majority play nice, but the ones who play dirty are usually more driven by the bottom line.

"You have moms who really believe and are passionate about their product, and then you have moms who are out there trying to bring a buck home," she said. "And I think it's [the latter] ones that will really try to take advantage of other people."

It's up to individuals to follow their own codes of conduct, Ms. Leontowich said.

However, practices that some mothers might deem cutthroat or devious are simply fair game in the broader business world, said Anita Love, co-founder of The Family Book, a coupon book that promotes parent and child-related businesses in the Vancouver area.

When she and business partner Kim Rothenberger first started their company a couple of years ago, they discovered that an unexpected competitor was about to launch a similar product at the same time.

Worried that the market wasn't big enough for two family-oriented coupon books, Ms. Love e-mailed her competition under the guise of a potential client to case out their advertising rates and distribution.

It was a move that Ms. Love admits was "a bit sneaky," but "absolutely necessary."

From there, she said, "We adjusted our advertising prices ... and we just went [ahead] pretty aggressively."

In the end, their competition folded.

Ms. Love said some mompreneurs might feel uncomfortable taking such measures to further their businesses, but any company that wants to make it to the top needs to know its competition inside and out.

"From a gender perspective, women are still for the most part considered more soft-spoken, gentle, not as aggressive," she said, adding that for that reason, many companies started by mompreneurs fail to take off.

Despite becoming inured to the nastier side of the business, most of the women said they still cherish the help and encouragement of other self-employed moms.

But they've also learned to be more cautious.

Ms. Percy said she now recognizes the importance of putting all business transactions in writing, and vowed to never again deal with the mother who stabbed her in the back.

"It's really sad," Ms. Percy said of her experience. "For a while there, I was just like, 'Can I work with some men?' "