Entrepreneurs Share Success Stories

Four Entrepreneurs Share How They Turned Their Hobbies Into Successful Careers

By: Ashley Miller, Top of Virginia Regional Chamber

In February 2011 Meredith Hancock took a leap of faith and left her full time-job as Design Supervisor with Times Community Media and began a new venture with her own graphic design business out of her home office. Hancock Media was born. After becoming a Certified Network Engineer, Matt Parrill, found himself in a situation where he was running a 24X7 IT Support organization within a Fortune 500 company. The changes he made there became his business model at WinTech. Business is Crystel Smith’s passion. Improving lives is her purpose. In 2015 Smith knew her calling was to become a small business owner and she founded Crystel Clear Business Strategies. John Doleman enables small businesses and non-profit organizations to build and mange apps across operating systems and devices through his business Apps Twenty Four Seventeen. Many people, like these four small business owners have found a way to turn their hobbies and passions into a successful career. “This is why I’m so passionate about walking the journey of business life with entrepreneurs,” Smith said. “Life is short and every moment we’re gifted is precious.” Hancock’s passion for design began at 11, when she visited a Baltimore news station and saw a graphic designer working on a project. “I was intrigued,” Hancock said. As a military wife after college, she had the opportunity to move around the country. “Being stationed in Beaufort, SC I worked at a daily newspaper and also volunteered with the United Way on media kits, the local community theatre with set design and poster design.

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Matt Parrill, WinTech.

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Meredith Hancock, Hancock Media. Photo courtesy of Aliyah Dastour | Alimondy Photography).

design and poster design.” Whether it’s designing a branding package, website, social media ad campaign for a newly formed business, or a rebrand to help refresh an existing business, Hancock said being able to make a difference for a company, big or small, as well as volunteering design services to local non-profits, it is a true reward in itself while building lasting relationships. “During the pandemic, quite a few of my steady clients had to cut back. I was able to get over the hardships the first three months since Covid-19 hit with a PPP loan to lessen the blow. However, new businesses birthed and I have had the opportunity to work on many new logos, websites, and social media campaigns this year.” WinTech was formed in 2001 to focus on IT consulting and quickly became an affordable Managed Services Provider. We provide network design, help desk support, security, commercial wireless, VoIP, cloud management and á la carte services. During COVID-19 Parrill said they had a job to do! “Although we operate behind the scenes, the work we do touches tens of thousands of regional residents.” In her 22 years of experience, Smith said entrepreneurs tend to create businesses to give themselves more time and financial freedom. However, they spend countless hours and financial resources just trying to keep the business somewhat profitable, even alive. They’re exhausted, they miss family events, time with their children, their marriages fall apart, and the very reasons they started their businesses are what they never achieve. “My goal with every client is to create a business (or several) that allows them to spend their precious time doing what they love,” Smith said. “Whether it’s sitting on the beach, spending time with their loved ones, or doing their favorite hobby, their businesses must provide the financial and time resources.” Amid the pandemic, Smith said she didn’t find resiliency; she sought out opportunity. Which she added, is her advise for all small business owners. “There is a truth in the simplicity of “what you seek is you will find,’ Smith said. “Think about the gold digger. Sure, they expect that they’ll have to sift through some dirt to get to the gold. But their focus is always on finding the gold.” Small businesses that continue to focus on inability to serve the way they’ve previously served (focusing on the dirt) will certainly find more and more lack in their ability to sustain and grow their businesses.

In Virginia there are nearly 725,00

small businesses, which employ 1.5 million residents across the Commonwealth.

ability to sustain and grow their business. She said she suspects many of those businesses will even fail. “However, if they will focus on the opportunity that lies in these times they will find their gold.” For Doleman, Apps TwentyFour Seventeen derived from the idea of building a marketing team that consist of young students sitting down with business owners to interview them to understand their business requirements and how they align with developing mobile apps for their business. “I wanted to create a positive environment

where kids could learn about business and learn basic coding skills,” Doleman said. “I wanted to provide affordable options for small businesses to create mobile apps to increase customer engagement, brand awareness and sales.” The focus of his business was on helping small businesses and non-profit organizations who did not have a large marketing budget be able to implement mobile apps for marketing purposes or to just use internally within the company. “We are living in an era of constant change for the foreseeable future, change is the new normal,” Doleman said. “Technology changes practically at the speed of light. Technology wields an enormous influence these days, bringing disruption and profound change to the way we interact with customers and do business.” Doleman said the pandemic presented the opportunity for his business to show business owners how they can stay connected with their customers without being confined to a physical location. “It presented a time for us and our customers to think outside the box to build applications and connect applications in a manner to help them survive and grow.”