Establishing your own firm or practice is an incredibly daunting task. From myriad of legal and regulatory hurdles to the financial and career related risks, professionals who choose to start their own firm have to overcome so much and so we wanted to reach out to those who’ve done it successfully for advice, insight and stories.

Patrice Tillery

I decided to start my own business after planning a wedding. I loved it so much and was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. After making this decision, I researched other companies to try to narrow down the kind of brand I wanted to have and to identify gaps in the market. My advice for future entrepreneurs would be to just start. It’s ok to make mistakes, just make sure you learn from them. Also, if you do work that is client-facing, as long as you prioritize the clients, you can make up for anything else. Read more>>

Brittney Jackson

I am very community based with how I developed the business model. I focus a lot of my efforts on giving back to local organizations and donating my time to local organizations and being on boards within the local community. Read more>>

Rachel and Stephanie

We started Diverge in late fall 2022. Prior to this, we had each been providing very minimal independent contracting on our own, while working full-time gigs for employers. This part-time contracting allowed us to dip our toes in the world of freelancing without fully diving in headfirst. Stephanie and In November 2022, we took the plunge. Rachel began full-time Diverge. Read more>>

Mitchell Schroeder

As with any journey to starting your own business, mine was a winding road. I started my career out in a traditional outpatient physical therapy facility in California. It was a high volume clinic, and though seeing 11-18 patients a day was great for building my clinical experience fresh out of school, it didn’t take too long before I started feeling burnt out. Read more>>

Britney Perlowin

My coaching business journey has always been tied to my motherhood journey. So I just don’t know how to share the story of the former without speaking to the latter. When I was laid off as the world shut down, I was 3 months into my first pregnancy. After the shock wore off, I decided I had been given the gift of time: Time to prepare to be a parent and to build my business. Read more>>

Mansur Nurdel

I came to the United States as a refugee in 1989. After finishing my undergraduate studies at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, I was accepted the Doctor of Optometry program at university of Missouri- St. Louis. I earned my Doctor of Optometry degree in 1997 and moved to Denver, Colorado. I worked at an Eye Surgery Center from 1997 to 2001 when I stablished my private Practice called Eye To Eye Care. I also purchased six other established offices called Look Optical later that year. Read more>>

Jennifer Emch

After meeting my (who would end up being) my business partner, Erin Moore, in 2013; we would often talk about how we would love to open up a holistic clinical practice. With my background in dance and Erin’s background in massage therapy, we both felt that current mental health services didn’t give complementary and alternative interventions and modalities the credit it deserved. Read more>>

Kaylee Nelson

Below I’ll share about the journey I took to establish my yoga retreat business (Your Dream Retreat which I co-own with my best friend Lisa) and lessons I learned along the way. Your Dream Retreat is one year old. The decision to embark on this entrepreneurial journey was born out of Lisa and I’s shared passion for creating transformative experiences. Read more>>

Michael Balk

My wife Amy and I have always dreamt of owning a business specializing in health and wellness. For a while, we thought it would a fitness center, or even a local gym that offered fitness classes. We realized early on, this was an incredibly tough industry for small business owners to compete and stay relevant in, especially with all the other larger names and franchises to contend with. Read more>

Dr. Meg Byrne & Dr. Bonnie Brock

Dr. Brock was running a successful dietetics and natural health medical practice in Illinois when I proposed a crazy idea. We knew integrative health care was the future of medicine and made a decision to take a leap of faith and open our own integrative clinic. Dr. Brock moved to Arizona to start Acacia Natural Medicine November 2020 and our doors opened January 2021. Read more>>

Susana Riera

I always dreamt of owning my own private practice to support children of all abilities Back in 2019 I was working at another practice while working towards to one day creating my own. In my free time, I would take courses, plan and build the foundation to what OAK Therapy (my practice) would be. Read more>>