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.

Mystie Oldham

BLUM (Beautiful Life Upward Momentum) started in late 2019. Coming from a nursing background I knew exactly ZERO about starting a business. I felt like I needed to know all of the steps, how it would all work out, have all of the systems and answers. It was terrifying to not know. I had a vision and I knew this was the direction I needed to faithfully walk in. Read more>>

Joy Carter.

My journey to start my own practice began about 20 years ago. When I started my social work career, my plan was to be a clinical social worker with a private practice providing mental health therapy. The idea of having my own business and supporting people through their life’s journeys was appealing to me, so I thought this would be a great way to have the best of both worlds. Read more>>

Jayme Pronger

My career started when I was a young 22 year old in the Aesthetics Industry working under a well respected Board Certified Plastic Surgeon. I was, at this age, a licensed Aesthetician assisting with all pre-operative and post-operative cares of the skin and body. I also learned all the in’ and out’s of running a successful practice by helping with anything I could assist with in the office. Not realizing that I too, 20 years later would be opening my own practice. I later became a Registered Nurse and then a Certified Surgical Nurse. Read more>>

Sequoyah Sherrill.

No problem!! Yes, it is, but luckily for me, my first time around was not independently. Though I started Onmycouchhh independently, it was not my first time setting up a practice. My entrepreneurial journey began with Solid Ground Wellness, an outpatient mental health clinic I founded with two friends in 2017. When we started Solid Ground Wellness it was beyond daunting! Much of this was due to not having any real direction and having to learn things the hard way because of the lack of public information about starting a mental health practice. Read more>>

Dan Fifield

In early 2020, we were in the throes of praying over our future and pursuing the purchase of a building to house a permanent day center. Enter Covid. We were forced to pivot. Then pivot again. And again and again. Thankfully, we had an idea on the back burner that began coming to fruition right as the pandemic began, once again showing the power of God’s timing. In late March 2020, we introduced M.O.U. (“Moe”), our Mobile Outreach Unit. Read more>>

Elena Fleming

After graduating from Converse College with a Masters degree in Marriage and Family Therapy, I started my career at the Forrester Center, a government agency in Spartanburg County. There I worked criminal cases around substance abuse. At that time, I was open to any possibility in the mental health field since I had no prior mental health experience. I loved working with mandated clients because they were a challenge and every day was different. It was hard and fun at the same time. Read more>>

JJ Whicker

I am a pediatric audiologist who specializes in central auditory processing disorders – a niche practice that only three other audiologists assess and treat in Utah (that I know of). I was originally working at a children’s hospital, where doing this kind of niche practice was hard because of all the red tape. Yet, the need was there, and I saw an opportunity to take my skill set into my own hands by opening a private practice that specializes in the assessment and treatment for both central auditory processing disorder and sound sensitivity disorders in children. Read more>>

Drew Welch

I had been practicing massage for about 18 months working at a couple different chiropractic offices. I was growing increasingly frustrated by my employers limiting the type of bodywork I could do. I did not feel like I was able to offer my clients the best treatment for their issues. In early November 2016 just weeks after my father passed away, I started on a plan to open my own practice. Read more>>

Sashauni Aaeliyae .

The Pretty Girl Foundation actual began as a community outreach project idea that came to me in 2017. At the time, the experiences I had living in numerous households from birth to 12, and having not lived with a biological parent until the age of 12, led me to working with youth aging out of foster care. During this time, I found out firsthand that an insurmountable proportion of the homeless community is comprised of foster care youth ages 17-21 years old. Read more>>

Chris Latham.

The key challenges of establishing my own practice were figuring out which software to use and how to attract clients. When I started, I had no idea how to build a website or what to put on it, so I asked a few mentors who provided guidance. Building my own website was the first challenge. I used what I learned from my mentors and by viewing others’ websites. Attracting clients was the second challenge. Read more>>