Following is an article written by Rebecca Contreras, Founder and CEO of AvantGarde, on building a successful business by leveraging the skills and tools you already possess. The article is part of Exeleon’s 2024 Women History Month Celebration.
Building a business is not for the weak at heart. Overnight successes are rare. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Business Employment Dynamics, only 50% of businesses survive their fifth year of operation, and only 30% of businesses will make it past the ten-year mark. Being an entrepreneur is filled with challenges and setbacks, but it can provide you with opportunities that you can only imagine working as a W2 employee.
I never thought I would go from being a government and W2 employee to a successful entrepreneur. My mentors and people I worked with were the first ones who brought up the notion.
After I quit my long-term government career, I took a position as an EVP at a small company. Even though I held an executive position, I had no ownership of the company. For six years, I helped the owners grow their business, but I wasn’t able to share in the profit despite being responsible for developing the growth of a practice area which ultimately represented 80% of the company’s revenue. I started to think twice about what my mentors and people I worked with said, “if I was successful in helping someone else build and grow their business, I can do the same for myself.”
When I first began, I knew nothing about starting a business or running a business. What I did know was that I had fifteen years of experience working for the state and federal government, twelve of those years growing aggressively in my leadership execution, so I took what I knew and used them to build AvantGarde.
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