We were lucky to catch up with Jacquie Mahan recently and have shared our conversation below.

Jacquie, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Your ability to build a team is often a key determinant of your success as a business owner and so we’d love to get a conversation going with successful entrepreneurs like yourself around what your recruiting process was like -especially early on. How did you build your team?

My business, The Awesome Company, is a custom screen printing dedicated to empowering and employing autistic adults. I run it with my partner, Hannah Graham. I started with a very small team of three people when I first opened in 2015. When I realized the way I could hire more autistic adults was to sell more custom apparel, I put a lot of emphasis on connecting with my community and educating them about the importance of autism employment while also trying to earn their custom apparel business. This formula proved successful. It warms my heart to see our customers embrace and celebrate our mission.

When hiring an employee on the spectrum, I do not use a traditional interview process. I simply sit and have a conversation. I try to make the experience as easy as possible. I stay positive. I find out what their strengths are. I acknowledge their disability and assure them that I respect them for who they are. Once hired, I make sure my new employee has a lot of support and encouragement. It’s difficult to be neurodivergent in a neurotypical world. It takes time to relax into a job and I’m happy to be patient.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I started The Awesome Company because I wanted to help employ autistic adults. I knew that custom apparel would be a great business because the jobs within that profession lend themselves well to an individual with autism. I knew I could create so many meaningful jobs. As an autism mom myself, I saw that autistic adults had little to no opportunity once school was over. Where would they go? Who would they work for? Who would respect their disability and make adjustments to set them up for success? I decided I wanted to be that person.

At The Awesome Company, we sell custom apparel of every kind. We want to be your one stop shop for all your custom apparel and embroidery needs. We work with schools, businesses, sports teams, non-profits, spirit wear and many more. What sets us apart is our commitment to empowering the autism community. When a customer buys apparel from us, they can feel safe that their purchase has helped enrich the lives of our very deserving employees.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

I believe in life that our failures are our best teachers and I have failed a lot. I opened this business with one goal that I would not budge from. That goal was to find a way to have a profitable business that actively recruited autistic people to work. How I accomplished this goal has been ever changing and at times, stress inducing. I started out very confident with my business plan but the numbers didn’t lie. It wasn’t going well for me. You can’t have a business and not make money. I tried to sell one product, and it didn’t work because no one bought it. I had to admit failure there and try again. I tried another series of products but they didn’t sell enough, so I had to bag that idea too. I lost business partners. I got new business parters. I changed my entire business to provide custom apparel and to my relief, it finally worked financially. But that’s only one piece. How do I keep this stream of income flowing? I knew now from experience that failure and fear go hand in hand with being an entrepreneur. I would never be in a position where there wasn’t a problem to solve. I realized that I actually enjoyed solving problems. That was a pivotal moment for me. If you hold onto the core value that motivated you to get up and get to work that first day, then you can make as many mistakes as you need to and survive. The business will evolve and get better as you evolve and get better.

How’d you meet your business partner?

My business partner, Hannah Graham, and I have known each other for decades. Our parents worked together so we knew of each other as kids but we had never met as adults. Fast forward to three years ago. Hannah and I crossed paths. We started working together at The Awesome Company. We realized quickly that we were a solid team that shared the same core values. I believe Hannah coming on board has taken this business from being good to being great. In business, the best lesson I was taught was to always hire and work with people that are smarter than you. Hannah is definitely that person for me.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.theawesomecompany.com
• Instagram: @theawesomecompanyofficial

Image Credits
I have the rights to these images, I don’t believe I need to provide image credits, but you’re welcome to contact me if I need to provide you anything.