Getting your first client is an exhilarating experience, but it’s also an experience that far too many aspiring entrepreneurs never experience. Sometimes, the difference between an idea dying in the idea stage or going on to change the world is getting that first customer – the first tiny win that creates the momentum to make an idea real. So, we connected with some of the smartest folks we could and asked them to tell us the stories of how they got their initial clients.

Megan & Kenneth

As wedding photographers, getting our first client was an exciting and important milestone for us. We knew that capturing someone’s wedding day was a big responsibility, so we made sure to prepare in advance and get lots of practice with couples sessions. These sessions helped us perfect our posing techniques and made our subjects feel comfortable in front of the camera. Plus, they were a lot of fun! Read more>>

Tonja Knake

Getting my first client was tough but exciting! I spent months sending emails, calling prospects and I even went inside businesses to speak to owners and management directly. I got my first lead after three months of being in business. I met some friends for brunch on a Saturday and we decided to sit outside on the patio tables. As we were waiting for our food, I noticed how sad the plants looked inside the table. Read more>>

Marissa Tijerina

I had started getting my ducks in a row for private practice in 2020. I was furloughed during the pandemic which gave me a lot of time for thinking and self-reflection. I also had twin 2-year-olds at the time and the thought of a private practice kept coming back to me. The thought of me seeing my own clients privately was not well embraced initially so I started making plans to slowly transition myself into private practice. My first step was to leave my current position and work in a completely different setting for a while I worked on the start-up paperwork and website building. Read more>>

Kijan Simmons II

I got my first client by being consistently driven and providing a high quality of work everytime and someone noticing. I believe I represent three brands when I’m in the field as a protector. I represent myself, because Kijan Simmons will always put forth 1000% effort into anything that has my name attached to it. I represent the clients’ brands as I am a reflection of them on and off the clock. Lastly, I represent the industry as a whole. Protectors don’t get enough respect or credit, usually. People notice when you take your job seriously and when you leave things better than you found them. After that, word travels fast. Read more>>

Summer Lee

Cold pitching! I joke all the time that at the beginning of Spark’s journey, I was a one-woman show behind a computer pretending like we were an established talent agency. Even to this day, our team does a ton of cold pitching. There is money out there to be made, but sometimes you have to really seek it. Read more>>

Kylie Barrett

My first client reached out to me on September 22, 2022. It was a women who was an old family friend that reached out to me to order dessert items for an upcoming baby shower she was planning. She ordered a few pumpkins chocolate chip cookies (one of my favorites!) and lemon bars. I was so excited to fulfill my first order and couldn’t be happier that not even one month after launching my home baking business, I had received a customer! Read more>>

Matt Denton

This is kind of funny, but my first client has no idea that he was my first client. I’d gone from self-produced musician to collaborating with other musicians online, to doing a bunch of free mixing, mastering and production for friends and musicians in my circle. At some point, like a bunch of other people I was reading about, I wanted to make the jump from amateur to paid professional, which can feel like a huge deal. Read more>>

Krista Hill

I had been traveling and working remote for the last few years when I started sensing I needed to make a shift in my income and work style. I had reached my glass ceiling at the company I was working with and really desired to transition from product design and branding back into painting, a medium I hadn’t tryout touched in years. I began dreaming of painting murals and traveling all over the world to do so. Within a couple months of that first thought I was laid off from my remote design gig, curious what I could dream up. Read more>>

Pamela Morse Garland

First, I have to say that my friends, and friends of friends, have been so supportive of my new business. As soon as I opened my little shop on Etsy, I had many orders from friends of the past, even my most lovely 4th grade friend whom I hadn’t had contact with in decades. But my first sale to an unknown was at my very first festival. It was a gorgeous day, I had no idea what I was doing or if I would even make a sale. Read more>>