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.

Bob Gold

For most of my adult life, I wanted to have my own company. But honestly, I was terrified. I was married, with kids, a mortgage and nanny, and a sole provider to my family. It took the universe to merge my employer Prime Sports with Fox Sports and learn I could only stay at Fox if I accepted a demotion. So I chose freedom. Read more>>

Deeppa Ravindran

I was employed for many years but decided to start my own Pilates after the Covid pandemic. Pilates helped me manage my back pain and I wanted to share this with others. Along the way, I had to learn entrepreneurship skills and various ways to market myself, I glad also had lots of support from family and friends who believe in my work and have been supporting my business. Read more>>

Kia Randall

My plan after high school was initially not to go to college; I was in a cosmetology program partnered with my high school and I had planned to become a licensed cosmetologist. Last minute, senior year, I changed my mind and applied to Bowie State University. After testing at the end of their Summer Bridge Program, I was enrolled as a student unsure of my path. Read more>>

Avery Kalapa

My yoga journey officially began more than 20 years ago, though my quest for exploring consciousness and being in service to healing started in early childhood. As a queer genderfluid teen in the late 90s, living in NM, I was hungry for belonging, which led me to find gay community that included raves, hip hop, drugs and sex work. Yoga opened the door to heal from shame, stop using and reclaim authorship of my life, build self acceptance, and gave me tools to discover new worlds. These queer stories are very much a part of my yoga, though. Read more>>

Maliah Wilson

The decision to start my own firm was not an easy one, nor did I jump into the decision. I have always loved working and have been told I’m a workaholic from time to time. It wasn’t until after I had my daughter, that I realized I had to make a decision. Although I truly love what I do and strive to be the best in my field, I also wanted to be a great mom and wife. I had begun working so many hours that I would go days without seeing my husband or my infant daughter. Read more>>

Ashley Coffey

Through the pandemic, I decided to leave the corporate world because my passion for supporting women in leadership grew. I found that no matter what consulting job I took or what CEO I coached to build their teams, the conversations were the same; women were still continuously being left out of important conversations, denied growth opportunities and the pay gap was going unchecked. Read more>>

EJ and Tarah Kerwin

Tarah and I started Relationship Renovation because of our own struggles in our marriage. We were therapists who had worked in the field for a long time, and we loved each other tremendously. But, we found ourselves struggling profoundly in our relationship. We knew that we could take our own personal struggles and use them to help couples understand themselves and each other better and build the loving and lasting relationship that they craved. Read more>>

Marsha Harris

I had the opportunity of starting my own colon and rectal surgery practice. It was never my desire to start my own practice, However, after a tumultuous end to a previous partnership with another colon and rectal practice I decided to take the leap. I trusted that my relationships with my current and previous patients were strong and they would follow me into this new endeavor. I was also confident in my referral base and my reputation in my surrounding health care community. Read more>>

Suma Metla

I established my business, Three Little Ducks, out of necessity for the ‘Oahu community. I realized that families did not have a place to seek out further information about baby development and there were very few options for children requiring pediatric physical therapy interventions. Read more>>

Aubrey Redd

As a woman of color, I fall into the minority 3% of black dietitians working in the field of nutrition. That’s a small number, right? In school, of course, I noticed that I was the minority – but I had no clue it was this staggering. After graduating college, I started working for a program called Eat.Right.Philly in the Philadelphia School District to teach students about nutrition. Read more>>