Do you remember your first hire? There is so much that goes into building a company, but few things matter as much the quality of the team you assemble. Given the immense importance of team building, we wanted to create a series where we ask entrepreneurs who have been there and done that, to share their stories and lessons with the community.
Kari Ringer
Owning a business is deeply personal. In contrast to large corporations or working for a small business owned by someone else, your business is YOUR baby: you’ve birthed it, raised it, and continue to want the best for it. For me, the hiring/team building process is like choosing godparents for this baby; who will best nurture it? Lead by example? Read more>>
Audrey Sargus
Our non-profit organization KSU Flashathon started over a decade ago and since the beginning, we have had a team of Internal and External members. From day one Flashathon had a family of college students who were all ready and in it together to fight and change kids’ health. I took over this organization in 2022 and we had close to no team – literally, it was just four of us, including my Co-Executive Director Karsen Damon. Read more>>
Samantha Ponomarenko
Positively Portraits started with just me and my camera, exactly how I would start today if I had to do it all over again! As I began to book more sessions and grow my business, I realized that behind the scenes content and creating stories about my clients’ experience of being photographed really made them feel special. That is when my sister Alexandra joined me at all of my sessions. Read more>>
Dawn Sipley
In my job prior to starting my business, I had started as a part time employee at a staffing company where I proved myself extremely valuable to the ownership. As a way to keep me engaged with the company, they offered me sweat equity and just like that, I was a business owner! This was something I had never set out to accomplish so I was so proud of myself. I constantly was self learning different aspect of the business, marketing, sales, A/R and more. Read more>>
Carrie Stockwell
Building an amazing Team, with different and unique strengths, is my super power. I love to discover individuals natural and core strengths and then polish them until they shine! I believe in focusing heavily on what empowers people and not on their weaknesses. Everyone has powerful talents and when you are able to help people maximize those talents, they will rise to the top! The current Teams I lead are so incredible that every time we choose a focus, we can shift anything seemingly overnight! Read more>>
Stephanie Shuster
I was employee number one, when the business was owned by its founder, Carl Trent. We had worked together on his website, dadsguidetowdw.com for years and launched WDW Magazine as a way to monetize that site. I took a huge leap of faith leaving my day job to make my side hustle my full-time gig – that was back in 2015. Carl and I had worked together for 6 years at that point and instead of a formal interview, this was a natural evolution of my responsibilities. Read more>>
Dakota Seger
When i opened the doors to my salon it was just my mom and I. She is a licensed stylist of 35+ years and she decided to join in on my new salon! As for today we have added 3 other amazing and talented stylist and an amazing lash artist! The “interviewing” was pretty simple basically we talked through a walk through showing them where everything was and we discussed everything we have to offer! I am so happy our team works so well together and is so helpful towards one another as a team should. I wouldn’t have done anything differently or sooner. Read more>>
Elsa Turull de ALma
At Larimar Films my best asset is my crew, my employees, they are the backbone of everything. We spend most of the day at the office. When we are filming on Set, we spend 6 days and 12-hour weekly work schedules. We need to get along very well and have the same work ethic. It’s the only way we can respect each other’s space and personality and work under pressure with self-control. Read more>>