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.

Caleb Wiley

Our video production business is currently a force of two, comprising my cinematographer/steadicam operating partner and myself, the managing producer. From that starting basis, our company’s first step was to build our roster of extended team members to give us a variety of options for any particular project we’re developing. Several key favorites we’ve found were due to the benefit of a friendly connection with a local studio called Cinepacks, who produce short films and other content in-house. This location continues to effortlessly attract a wealth of talented artists and craftsman who are all hungry to work and build their network of frequent collaborators, allowing solid opportunity for mutual support and crossover among the groups involved. Read more>>

Alex Iceman

At the inception of Genium, it was just me—Alex Iceman, the founder. The quiet before the storm of growth was filled with strategic planning and laying the groundwork for what would soon become a thriving hive of innovation. In those nascent stages, the notion of ‘team’ was aspirational, a blueprint awaiting construction. Read more>>

Nicole Harris

My company did not have employees from day one. It was just me at the start. Financially it was impossible to bring someone on as an employee so I would work with event assistants at an hourly rate for a few hours on the day of the event to help out. It was tough to work on my own at the start but it taught me every role at my company which provided me with valuable perspective on the ins and outs of my event planning company. Read more>>

Jalyn Rangel

My husband and I ran our martial arts school on our own for almost two years. We eventually brought on my brother in law as an assistant instructor. At the time he was a senior in high school and we were his first job. He’s grown a lot in the company and is starting to take over classes for us. We’ve also had a few other employees come in and out. We recently brought on one other person to start assisting in classes. We are in a difficult industry to hire people in. Not only do you need to be a black belt, you need to be able to teach (just because you know something doesn’t mean you can teach it), you need to be good with kids/students and have good customer service skills with the parents. It’s a lot to ask from someone. Read more>>

Gail Kelley

We never have had employees; all our instructors are sub-contractors, responsible for their personal class schedules, pricing for their classes, and of course, taxes. Our instructors are mostly semi-retired creative individuals with vast sewing experience of all skill levels. We were very lucky in that a beloved local fabric store that held sewing classes was closing it’s brick and mortar location. Other instructors were interested due to the dedicated sewing instruction model. No selling of fabrics, etc., Just teaching. And our great commission rate. I brought with me another instructor, Jamie, who is an important person in the Studio. Currently we have seven instructors. Read more>>

Taryn Larock

For both of my companies – Sage Larock and Sea Sweepers, I was lucky to find aligned and passionate collaborators from early on in both ventures. As both are impact based, we were lucky to have had many of our team members come on board early on, because they believed deeply in what we were doing and saw the vision very clearly, they wanted to take part in what we are building. Read more>>