Posted Under: Entrepreneurship, Our Heroes

Our next entrepreneur under the “Our Heroes” series is Amy Keimach whose breaking point was being laid off from her job as a technical support trainer. She was fortunate enough to have solid business and management skills which she used to start up Border7 Design Studios and thus follow her entrepreneurial dream. Let’s find out more about how Amy dealt with the transition into entrepreneurship…

DD: Who are you and what kind of corporate job were you at?

AK: My name is Amy Keimach and I used to be a technical support trainer at an Ecommerce Solutions provider. I started at the company as a tech support representative and two years later worked my way up to being a trainer there.

DD: What made you leave the job? When did you realize that you wanted to be an entrepreneur & why?

AK: I always knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur. When my employer laid me off along with my best friend we realized that we were tired of working for other people and figured that with my business and management skills plus his design skills that we could start a design firm providing designs for the very company that we just left. We decided to take the risk and go for it. It was a very difficult transition, particularly the change in pay. Fortunately I was still in college studying business and I would utilize everything I learned to push my business to succeed.

DD: How did you prepare yourself for the employee to entrepreneur transition?

AK: The first few months were really hard because it was a matter of changing your lifestyle and mindset to match the business. Like I mentioned earlier, the pay was not the same so budgeting with less money was of course a challenge. Secondly, you no longer have anyone telling you when you’re supposed to work and without someone telling you it was very hard for us to set business hours and adhere to them in the beginning. Over time though, we developed habits that helped us to get where we are today.

DD: What are your top tips for employees who want to be entrepreneurs but are hung up on something?

AK: 1) Make sure you save enough to live on for at least six months (probably even longer). When you work for yourself you don’t know how much money you’re going to make. And you’ll find that you’ll waive your salary to try and keep your business afloat. I wish we had saved enough capital so that the first few months were not as hard.

2) Make sure you have a really strong support group. I know that I would have had the hardest time if my loved ones didn’t support me as much as they did. I racked up a lot of debt and was finding it hard to make ends meet but my parents were there to buy me food every now and then and that little bit was very helpful. My brother would call me every day and tell me I was amazing for starting something. That encouragement goes a long way.

3) Make sure you enjoy what you’re doing. If you don’t enjoy it you’ll burn out a lot faster and you’ll have wasted all that time for nothing.

4) I’d suggest partnering with someone or becoming friends with someone also starting a business. It’s really helpful to have someone who’s going through the same thing as you. You have each other to talk about the problems, to help each other through the problems, and the added support is tremendous.

DD: How are you now? Are you still in the same business, and how do you feel?

AK: Right now my firm employs seven people including myself and my business partner. We’ve grown tremendously and have amazing clients and we keep learning new things every day. There are times when I question why I did this, but at the end of the day I’m really happy with the chance I took and am excited for what the future holds.

DD: Thank you Amy! Your journey from tech support to design firm is a very inspiring one for others who are also tired of the 9to5 jail and are looking to pursue something more along the lines of their own passion.

AK: Thank you Devesh, for your interest in my entrepreneurial evolution and for supporting entrepreneurs like myself who would rather put in the effort to work for ourselves than to do it for anybody else. Although it is difficult to become accustomed to working on your own, with the right support and attitude it can be extremely rewarding!

DD: That was Amy Keimach everyone, former tech support trainer who decided to break the cycle and open up her own design firm with a friend of hers; another successful story of entrepreneurship gone right.

Success to all!!