Entrepreneur and author Lily Kanter at home in Mill Valley, where she has lived since 1998. By 2003, Lily Kanter had already made her mark in the corporate world — at Deloitte & Touche, then Microsoft — and was happily managing her nursery furnishings store, Mill Valley Baby & Kids, when Serena Dugan, a decorative painter and textile designer, stopped by and dropped off her portfolio. Kanter wasn’t there, the staff explained, because she was in the hospital giving birth.