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.

Jeremy Bumpus

I do today what we did in the beginning. It seems to work for us but with the profession we are in its very hard to know what you’re actually getting as an employee. We always take an application and do an interview as most businesses would. We fill out the person, try to get a feel more for their personality and how well we think they would jive with us. Read more>>

Assia Mahmood

When I first bought my childcare center, it was an existing center that had a full staff of close to 20 women. Unfortunately, the childcare center that I bought was not in line with what my ideal center was. It was a good business opportunity but I knew that there was going to be a lot of work put in to turn it around. So I don’t have any of the staff members that I had when I first started, and that’s intentional. Read more>>

Jaleel Harley

The start of Open Hand, I remember it like it was yesterday and now we 4 years in! My partner at the time for the label had an extreme amount of faith in me. So we started the label and our first artist became Profits from east St. Louis ! We met by me making a Super Bowl bet on Tom Brady ! I won that of course and then the bro profits told me he made music! Read more>>

Jeriesha Carter Johnson Andre Johnson

When we first started Divinestar Creations, LLC dba Divine Elegance. It was just the two of us but then we gradually added our extended family members. For a very long time, DE was just family. Andre and I have lots of god kids, at that time they really wanted to make extra money. It was hard on all of us at first because we were just learning and finding our way. What would at one time take us 3 hours to do will probably take us and 1hr & a half. Read more>>

Eric Hicks

Beings my business is a small independent podcast employees is a strong word lol beings enough money wasn’t being mad to pay any one but yes I started out with a cohost. Finding and building a team has been the hardest part of the process. Trying to driven individual ready to put in as much work as you to help the platform grow is not an easy task, because everyone wants to sit and talk but nobody wants to put in the leg work to help the show grow. Read more>>

Ligaya Kelly

We started our journey as employees. My husband and I were hired by the previous owner to run the business. Once she realized how busy we were, she allowed us to hire an employee. We started with a friend’s daughter who didn’t quite work out. But then that same friend referred us to a young woman who was working with her at a retail store. She ended up being the best find ever. Read more>>