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.

Stephanie Fortune

My business did not have employees from day one. Essentially, I was the first employee. It started when I was working for a previous employer and my current clients or prospective clients would continue to ask me whether or not I could assist in other areas. They would ask if I could support in securing talent, offering general liability insurance, do specialized and individual consulting for their business. Read more>>

Valeria Stoyanova

Just like most business it all started from an idea, then the first client, then more… As the business was scaling the work become too much for one person to handle… I knew it was time to hire help, I truly believe delegating time will bring more growth into the business, being able to multiply myself will not only scale the business but bring impact into more people’s lives. Read more>>

Claudia Tejeda

Prior to starting my own brokerage firm, my previous broker at Platinum Properties International afforded me a wonderful opportunity by letting me build my own team, which I called The Tejeda Team at Platinum. That experience allowed me to practice creating spaces for deep learning as well as building really strong bonds with my team members. Read more>>

Claire Lardner Cris Sweeney

Over the years, we have built our team intentionally with the core belief that diversity is simply who we are. Our team has grown and been added to based on looking for individuals with both natural skills and skills that can be developed, not necessarily selecting candidates based on their college degree or resume. FrameWorks gives an opportunity to those who might not otherwise be offered one for their unique skills. This reflects our profound commitment to a place that makes a difference. Read more>>

Liz Magura

Over the last two years in my Creative Director role, I’ve had a huge opportunity to build a robust UX/UI creative team. As the organization became more focused in a product-centric state, we needed Design Leads in place as a key team member for any user facing product team. As we scaled the product teams, that meant we needed more Design Leads and Writers in place as soon as humanly possible. In the state of the current market due to companies quickly pivoting and adjusting because of COVID, we had the opportunity to begin our recruiting outside of the Phoenix market. Read more>>

Samantha Joule Fow

I started my business in 2017 while I was living a nomadic lifestyle. The entire company consisted of myself, my jeep, and my laptop. I would travel around the country from one Wi-Fi hotspot to the next, bootstrapping a technical writing and content marketing business from the bottom up. Read more>>

Hedras Ramos

As an Independent Producer and Talent, my business has been mostly one-man-band, with the exception of a secretary in the earlier years, who was doing talent booking, invoicing, calls, and other small tasks for me. Read more>>

Thierry Denis

In my line of work (Commercial Video Production), having a solid crew is absolutely key. Between the location, talents, gear and crew, video production is an expansive endeavor where everything is “custom-made” to the requirement of one particular project. On a typical shoot day, not being able to finish capturing the shot list on time can have huge creative and financial implications numbering in the 10s of thousands of dollars. Read more>>

Joe Klein

When Axis Culture Group was started, I moved away from my design company of 6 years and looked for a more fulfilling purpose in helping business owners and nonprofit organizations succeed. The design company was plenty busy, but I wanted to do more than make things look good on the outside. A close friend proposed that we start a marketing and consulting company that helped our target market in a more holistic approach, and Axis Culture Group was created in late 2016. Read more>>

Jay Chen

“Hire slow, fire fast.” I feel like everyone has heard that motto, but every single lesson I learned from the process of building a team seems to tie back to that. In the world of creative productions, a good team is crucial to the success of each project. I absolutely adore every single one of my team members, but it wasn’t always easy. I’ve gone through the hiring, training, retention, and firing process quite a bit. Overtime, I perfected that process for my specific business. Read more>>

Kelsey (K.Alyse) Jones

During the time I opened this business, I also began working a full-time job and realized very quickly my ability to perform at a high level at both jobs while also writing and performing spoken word poetry all while transitioning out of college was taxing. I then began the search of hiring on high school and college interns to work with me. In my spare time, I created job descriptions, uploaded those to Indeed.com and conducted phone and in-person interviews at a local co-working space that was all no cost to me. Read more>>