We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Shambi Broome. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Shambi below.

Shambi, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What was it like going from idea to execution? Can you share some of the backstory and some of the major steps or milestones?

I have two companies that I founded, JMB designs, LLC and the nonprofit Webgyrlz Code.

JMB Designs was started because no one would hire me. It was early 2000s and I just finished school for web design. Our professor prepared us and told us that more than likely we would end up either working for a startup company or we’d have to start your own company. Because of this our final project was a business plan for a web design company.

I went on two interviews where the men interviewing me spent more time trying to convince me that I want to be their sales person and not the web designer. I had a strong sales background, but I was ready to take on new challenges with the emerging use of websites for marketing. I was so frustrated after my second interview that I said, “well if they think I’d be such a great sales person, I’ll just be a sales person for myself.” I already had a business plan, and I got started with cold calling.

I researched my local area found out where small businesses were in my area and they did not business website (which was most of them at that time). I went to a small shopping plaza and started with the first business in the strip of companies, which was a tax business. To my surprise family the owner listened to my sales pitch and said yes to my proposal of creating a basic four-page website for them. That immediately built up my confidence and I continued doing cold calls and joined the local chamber to be able to connect with small businesses directly.

My second client I actually met in line at a chamber event while we were waiting to get food. We started a conversation and he became my second website client and my first Google search client. He had a unique case where some information from years prior that was not favorable was showing up in Google searches. My job was to try to flood Google with positive news about him to push those results down in the organic search results. Because of this client I really got excited about the potential with search engine optimization. It was still something very new and this experience allowed me to add services to my business beyond web design.

By 2006 we were able to expand and grow clients by working with, a contractor. I would get the contracts and she would build the websites. We specialize in customizing websites and adding features using Adobe Flash to make the website stand out. We worked with a lot of existing small businesses that needed a web presence and a website that could compete with their larger competitors. Our portfolio grew, we met our initial business goals that were outlined in that business plan that I did while in college.

The story with my second company is a little bit different.

I had an idea that was being tossed around in my head about creating a safe space where girls could learn about computer science. It came from my experience as a Mom volunteering in my daughter’s fourth grade class. I was helping them learn how to build a Google website. I noticed when I asked questions the boys would just blurt out the answer or jump out of their seat and take over the conversation. As I walked around the classroom, the girls were sitting there quietly and where one or two steps ahead of where we were in the instruction, but they didn’t want to participate. It reminded me a lot of how I was in school. Even if I knew the answer, I was going to let those that were more vocal than me speak up while I sat quietly.

Around that same time I also had an experience while working as a substitute teacher in a middle school. A group of kids in the class that day wanted to build a website to present their report to the teacher. I was super excited to be there that day. What a great opportunity to share my web design skills with them. By the end of the class the kids were so frustrated because they couldn’t figure out some of the basic website platforms. I realized their teacher assumed that because the kids use websites they would easily be able to figure out how to build one for the project. I imagined that if those kids were able to learn web design in elementary school their project experience would be different.

Those experiences help me come up with the idea for Webgyrlz Code. A nonprofit that focuses on teaching girls and women computer science in a way that makes them feel included, gives them leadership skills, and hopefully will encourage them to want to pursue a career in tech.

An email can change your life. I received an email from a local chamber about a local pitch competition. The only requirement was that you had to have a great idea. No business plan required, just an amazing idea. I made it through all of the preliminary rounds of the competition and eventually was able to pitch live in front of an audience. The audience would vote to see who would receive the $5000 award. My idea for Webgyrlz Code ended up being the winner of that competition.

As a result of that night I made tons of local connections of people who wanted to learn more about the program, see how they could help me as a mentor, or how the company I would eventually create would become a vendor for their organization.

Before we won the competition, I was presented with an interesting choice. Originally I was just going to run this company like a regular for-profit business. I was actually challenged at an event that allowed me to practice my pitch before the final pitch competition and someone from a large nonprofit asked me why I was planning to run Webgyrlz Code as a for-profit.

As a Entrepreneur, my answer was, “well because I want to make money”. He said we have to meet. The following week I met with him, the CFO and their CIO of a large nonprofit. They explained to me the benefits of being a nonprofit organization. They told me that when it comes down to it you run a nonprofit like any other business – the only difference is what you do with the money at the end of the year.

They opened my eyes to a whole world that I didn’t understand, but was eager to learn more about. I contacted my attorney and my accountant to ask them how much they would charge to help me set up my company as a nonprofit. They both said to me “you’re smart enough to do it yourself”. This was great advice because I saw companies that were charging $2500 or more to set up a nonprofit.

It took me $400 and about an hour of my time to do the IRS filing. I was told it could take months to get an answer of approval or denial from the IRS. Somehow we got an answer in 10 days that our nonprofit status was approved.

Because the pitch competition e won was so public, we actually had people contacting us to do news stories and meet with me about our program. Keep in mind this was all before I even created the first web development curriculum.

I hired a temporary assistant to help with marketing efforts, which completely paid off. The first year our marketing efforts was a struggle to get our self-hosted camps filled and I couldn’t figure out why. Then it dawned on me that we were reaching out to the wrong target audience. Yes, our nonprofit would serve young ladies in the community, but we had to target the adults that made the decisions of what activities they were participate in. I realize we had to reach out to not only parents, but also community members who wanted to support education initiatives locally. As a result, donations increased, class & workshop participation increased, and we’ve continued to see genuine interest in people wanting to support our program throughout the years.

Shambi, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

After high school, I really wasn’t interested in pursuing higher level education. I think I burnt myself out in high school. As a result, I start working in retail furniture and decided to use that as my “college“ experience and learned all I could about sales and marketing while I worked at the company as a sales person. It was an invaluable education. After about eight years in the industry, I was getting burnt out (again) and my love for technology and innovation took over my thinking. I really wanted to be in the tech industry.

Web design excited me. I was exploring the emerging Internet ever since I was a Senior in high school. I’d been building websites for myself just to learn and created a family website. The opportunity came up in 2003 for me to take an initial web design certification course at a local technical college. I received a scholarship and loved learning how to build websites. I had no clue that that training would eventually allow me to later call myself a full stack web developer.

The goal when I founded JMB Designs, LLC was to service startups and small businesses by building websites and managing their websites. I wanted to give small businesses the opportunity to truly compete with larger companies that had larger budgets to be able to build impressive websites. I wanted to give them a beautiful and functional website so when a potential client searched for them online they would look professional and it would build credibility for the client.

As MySpace and Facebook became more and more popular I really want to explore how those could be used to market your business. I started learning by marketing our family business through those social media channels. I learned how to do website reviews, keyword searches, learned Google worked, and eventually learned about Google Analytics. As a result of this self teaching, I’ve been able to create customize marketing plans that work for clients. I love being able to get feedback from clients when they let me know how their business has increased as a result of our search engine optimization work.

Once I became a parent, then I became more in tuned to the needs of the community. I volunteered at my daughters school, and soon began working on advisory boards for other schools in their school district. I saw where our nonprofit services were truly needed.

That has really been where my passion lies nowadays, supporting the community and helping other nonprofits to make adjustments in their business models, Because many nonprofits are started as a passion project or their heart moves them to want to help the community, many founders don’t understand the business side of a nonprofit or how to properly market their nonprofit.

I love also being able to do consultations on both sides of the business community, for-profit & nonprofit. I’ve always believed in customer service. During consultations I ask tons of questions of clients. When it comes to my web agency I make sure I fully understand where the lead is in their digital marketing and where they need to be. On the nonprofit side I do the same. I ask lots of questions and then really try to hone in on what their mission is, what problem they are solving, and how can I can help you reach those goals?

I have to admit I am a content junkie. I love creating content for social media, especially my personal brand. It’s a great creative outlet for me. I have become a part of some amazing online communities and made great business connections along the way.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

I’m actually currently in pivot mode. I was diagnosed with colon cancer in December 2022. I had successful surgery and was “cured“ of my colon cancer in January 2023. I’ve spent most of 2023 going through cancer treatment.

It’s been the hardest thing to keep two companies running while going through chemotherapy. I’m almost at the end of my chemotherapy journey and I’m looking forward to seeing how I can use the fourth quarter of 2023 to revitalize both businesses with the expectations we set back in 2022.

My cancer journey made me focus on making sure we are maintaining existing client relationships, working to onboard new clients as our bandwidth allowed, and fulfilling contracts that were already in place for 2023.

It’s been extremely hard. As an entrepreneur the mindset is you don’t give up, you work hard, you sacrifice, you do what you have to do to get the job done.

How did you build your audience on social media?

This is always an interesting question about social media. One thing I’ve learned is that every social platform is different and your audience can be vastly different from platform to platform.

For example, on “Twitter” X I started out following tons of people. Eventually, I was able to narrow down those communities and went from thinking I needed to follow a bunch of celebrities and people who might give me business to really looking at who I was engaging with. I was engaging with people in the education field, the tech field, and the college sports field and those are some of the best conversations I’ve has as a result, I’ve been able to get business from people in those communities.

On Instagram i learned a valuable lesson in 2021. I’ve always use my personal branding Instagram account to let people know what our web agency does, and also get them to go check out our nonprofit social media. In 2021. I went hard into trying to get more clients for the web agency through Instagram. I realize something at the end of the year. Our web agency paying clients were not the people who were following and engaging with me on Instagram.

Most of our clients are Male business owners that are in the service industry. Most of my followers who engage with me on Instagram were moms and women-owned businesses. I stopped trying to get clients through my personal brand account. I found that when I spoke more to my Instagram audience, I was eventually contacted to get paid partnership opportunities from companies who wanted to reach out to moms and women on Instagram,

I also started being more focused on engaging with communities with moms and women business owners, and I have been able to grow my following as a result.

My number one advice with any social platform is first of all ask yourself “why are you there?”. Sometimes you think you have to be on a social platform and you realize It’s not going to benefit your business. Once you’ve identified why you are on a specific social platform start reaching out to those communities that you want to engage with and hopefully you can get business from.

If your business services educators, then start engaging with schools and teachers online. If you have a service that deals with homeowners, those are just your average people, so start finding people in your local community that has something in common such a sports or food. Start engaging with them on that level and once they get familiar with you and they learn from your profile what your services are, you’d be surprised the business that you can get from that.

Finally make sure your profile is welcoming and not a sales pitch. Include a link to your company, but don’t make your whole profile a sales pitch. Let people get to know who you are as a person and that’s what’s going to drive them to want to work with you.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.jmbdesigns.net/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/webgyrl2/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/webgyrl2/
• Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/webgyrl2
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/webgyrl2
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@webgyrl2
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/jmb-designs-columbia
• Other: https://webgyrlzcode.org/ https://shambibroome.com/

Image Credits
TEDxYouth@Columbia