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.

Om Yadav & Yash Vishwakarma   

THE EARLY DAYS — Starting & Building Yavi Media When Yash and I decided to start Yavi Media, we didn’t have a blueprint. We had skills from years of creating content — graphic design, video editing, social media — and a belief that we could turn those into a real business. That was the starting point. The first steps were simple but necessary. Read More>>

Ajiri Okoribe

Starting GirlLearn Africa came from a growing awareness of the gap between opportunities in the digital economy and the number of women who had access to the skills needed to benefit from them. I have always been passionate about education, women’s empowerment, and creating pathways to economic opportunities, and I felt compelled to do something practical to address that gap. Read More>>

Michael Walliser

I started in real estate at 22, joining a RE/MAX office that happened to be the brokerage I’d bought my first two homes through. From day one I was paying $600 a month in desk fees on top of a commission split, and when I sat down at my desk for the first time, someone handed me a phone book. Read More>>

Dr. Nore Salman

THCLI started the way most practices do. Not with a business plan, but with a breaking point. After years inside organizations watching brilliant leaders make decisions that quietly dismantled the people around them, I realized the problem was never strategy. It was psychology that had never been named. I founded The Heart Centered Leadership Institute because that gap needed a home. Read More>>

Claire Marie Kohout

I started my practice very slowly. It was scary to think of having my own business, even though it was something I really wanted and had been looking for throughout my young adult life. I decided to build my practice as an energy therapist primarily through word of mouth, using it as my main form of advertising. Read More>>