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.

T3MPO TAI

For me this subject of team building is one that I try to stress so often with other business owners and artists in the music entertainment industry. Early in my career I was fortunate enough to read a quote from an artist manager saying that “majority of the time your manager and publicist are the people closest to you already”. Read more>>

Samantha Solich

It was just me for the first year, mostly because the pandemic hit very shortly after I started the business. I spent the majority of 2020 learning and educating myself while building on ideas I hoped I could implement when business could resume. Read more>>

Avi Rubin

This thing started in our home office in 2008 with my siblings and parents. No employees, just pure love from a family that wanted to make a lasting impact in our community. After my younger siblings learned that they had to actually “work” to participate in the magic we were building – they bailed. Leaving my Pops and I to run the show. Read more>>

John Dabrowski

Starting a restaurant in August of 2020 saw more challenges than most. Many people were still receiving unemployment, and we wanted to create a professional and safe environment that encouraged them to return to the work force. In addition to juggling the 50% capacity for restaurants & the fluctuating food markets, we had a work force dealing with the challenges of rising rents and costs of living. Read more>>

Kevin & Amy Minnett

Starting our business has been an interesting journey, and building the right team from the beginning was a top priority for us. We wanted our employees to not only be skilled and talented but also aligned with our vision and culture. It was crucial to set the right tone and create a strong foundation right from day one. Read more>>

Taiye Singletary

Building a team was a bit scary in the beginning. Yes, I was a leader in retail management but real estate is a little different. I first had to build trust with my partner Chantre’. We talked about building a team but had reservations in doing so. Although we have a lot of similarities we still had difference set us apart. We set down and talked about what makes us both different and how that value can add to the team dynamics. We wanted to ensure that we could provide value to each other but also to the team members we desired to add to our team. Read more>>