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.

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.

Trent Michels

When I decided to start Future of Neighborhood Development (FuND), I wasn’t just launching a company—I was committing to an idea: that real estate should be a force for cultural revitalization, economic empowerment, and lasting community value. My background in military leadership, public service, and finance gave me the operational grit and strategic foresight, but nothing truly prepares you for what it takes to build something from scratch. Read more>>

Imani Messiah

I would say the first steps to establishing my small business, Messiah’s Massage, was to first build a decent clientele. As a massage therapist you obviously need a client to massage, that’s a very important part of the business if I do say so myself lol. So after working in the field and at two spas for almost 9 years I felt like I had just enough. The next step was to try to find a brick and mortar location to thrive. I went into business with my classmate/co-worker Bry. I met her in massage school and we became the best of friends. Following each other from job to job, after graduation, until we created our own job, so to speak. Read more>>

Jihan Ansari

Before I talk about starting my own medical practice, let me backtrack to WHY I I decided to break free of the traditional health care system in the first place. I did my residency training in family and community medicine at UCSF Fresno. After residency, I chose to join a FQHC (Federally Qualified Health Center) in Sanger, CA a small farming town outside Fresno, CA. There I gained so much experience treating all ages and complex diseases. I was serving the under- and uninsured population, something I always had a passion for. However, I was also practicing medicine in a fast-paced environment that offered very little time to get to know my patients. Read more>>

Jenny Kell

I began my practice as an occupational therapist in 1999 in spinal cord and trauma brain injury rehabilitation. It was one of the most challenging yet rewarding experiences of my life. I witnessed firsthand the connection of the brain and body and the importance of functional movement in healing. Eventually I began working with people recovering from cancer treatment and became certified in manual lymphatic drainage. In 2013 I became a certified yoga instructor and began incorporating what I’d learned about linking breath to movement into my OT practice with great success. I worked in home care and clinical settings for nearly 20 years before deciding to begin my independent therapy practice. Read more>>

Hayden Schaff

The journey toward creating my practice, Summit Therapy, really began with my personal experiences as a queer and transgender person navigating the mental health system. I’ve always felt drawn to understanding people and supporting others through their inner worlds—but when I was seeking support myself, finding a therapist who identified as LGBTQ+ or truly understood queer experiences felt almost impossible. That gap in affirming care stuck with me, and it became clear that I wanted to help change that reality—especially here in Denver. Read more>>

Jan Osgood

My long-term plan has always been to start my own private therapy practice. From my initial days of graduate school, this was an aspiration I held in the back of my mind. Life continued as a worked as a School Counselor and I had children. At times it felt this dream was so far off but still swirling around. I reached a point in my career that I felt unfulfilled, and I began to use that feeling to reflect on what was not aligning in my life. It was clear-I had a bigger purpose and it was not getting met through my current career path. I knew it was time to make my move. I began my pursuit of becoming a licensed mental health counselor and started building my practice. Read more>>

Kate Sjostrom

If you had told me years ago that I would eventually be the proud owner of two businesses, I would have thought you were kidding. I can vividly remember years ago when I lived in Phoenix, meeting someone who had her own therapy practice and it didn’t even occur to me that doing such a thing was possible. And I certainly did not picture myself taking on this challenge. But here I am, with my private practice specializing in children’s mental health, and my most recent endeavor, my parent coaching business. Read more>>

Ronnie Costa

Starting my own firm wasn’t some perfectly mapped-out plan. It came from frustration, from knowing I could do better—for clients, for families, and for the people doing the work. I walked away from two respected jobs and decided to bet on myself. CounselingUNLMTD was born in 2016… but it didn’t fully take off right away. I let fear of financial instability pull me back into safety. It took a few more years, some tough life lessons, and a whole lot of inner work before I committed to making it real. Read more>>

Yasaman Roland

Setting up an office from scratch was an initial challenge in itself. Then later after becoming a mom of 4 and balancing family and practice was another challenge. Last, carrying on the practice through this journey has been the biggest challenge because most people are not aware that this kind of dentistry exists. In fact, it’s hard for people to imagine and understand how this works – which is why we share lots of before after pictures on our website to demonstrate the impact. Ofcourse getting through the patient treatments to build this portfolio took alot of time and skill which is a very difficult part of practice building so that people become aware. Read more>>

Elizabeth Morris

A big part of what I do in my many hats is networking, and that’s in both a one-on-one capacity, and in a much larger scale. The most important qualities I look for in partnerships is authenticity and alignment. We all run our businesses differently, and that’s because we are all different; but to be sure another business is going to work out, I look for their authenticity — do their words and their actions match in the present and historically, and alignment — does their authenticity align with the ethics and values that are non-negotiable to me. Once I know these two things about a partner, I know we can work through anything that arises as as we collaborate. Read more>>

Marty Leon

For us, finding the right vendor was all about relationships and referrals. I didn’t just Google someone and hope for the best, we leaned into our network, asked people we trusted, and got real feedback from those already working in the space. That helped us cut through the noise and connect with vendors who were actually capable of delivering at the level we needed. Read more>>