Overwhelmingly, media coverage of team building, hiring, training, etc. is often geared towards the issues faced by HR at Fortune 500 sized companies. Even when it’s positioned as advice for small business owners it is often coming from an executive or consultant working primarily with giant corporations. We think it’s far more relevant to hear from small and medium business owners who have successfully grown their businesses – and so we asked some very talented folks to tell us the stories of their initial hires and the struggles and lessons they can share.

Alex Spires

At the start of this business venture, the only employees were my wife, Megan, and me. We relied heavily on family, friends, and anyone in the industry who was willing to share. We knew that once we opened we would need a team to help us succeed. Read more>>

Tony Esposito

I started my business with my brother Alan. Then after 6 years I broke off on my own to create Espo Productions in 2007 and he kept his business Peak Technology Group. I’ve never had deep pockets to start up fast or dive into any of this business. I’ve had to build it slowly by myself and I’m still the only full-time employee here. I have a “call list” for all my larger jobs, or jobs I need to cover and also, we team up with other companies to get work completed. Read more>>

Katy Allison

We started out with just one aesthetician. It was always our goal to expand and grow our business. After interviewing the first few people and some trial and error, we reached a better understanding of the types of people we needed to make our business successful. We found some of them through online forums and some through word of mouth. Read more>>

Ashley Gerson

I actually started Stetts Management as a side-gig. I was fit modeling myself, but knew that I needed a plan for when I aged out of modeling or wanted to start a family. I ran the business alone for the first 2 years out of my apartment, and I was so scared to invest in hiring people to help me. I got incredibly lucky when I finally put out a job listing for an intern and got a response from a woman in Australia who was looking to do a one year visa in the US and had agency experience. Read more>>

Quentin Dickerson

So I happen to pastor two churches (non-profits) simultaneously. However for the sake of this interview I will discuss mainly the church that I started back in 2017 entitled United Family Fellowship. The church did have employees since day one. I knew from launching the church that volunteers could only take it so far. Typically with volunteers you can honestly only get a few good months out of them until they are looking for payment. Read more>>

Katlyn Landes

When I accepted the role of Event Manager at the Capen House, it was a team of one. It quickly became clear that I could not provide tours, book events, plan events, and execute them on my own. There were a lot of coming to terms moments, balancing acts, tears (unfortunately!) and relying on our Preferred Vendors to guide me through our busiest season. Read more>>