Have you ever had a business idea, wondered what tools you needed, or wanted to know how to just start? Join Rico Figliolini and Karl Barham as they interview Erin Igleheart, program manager with the Start Me accelerator program. Erin has experience and answers to all of the questions you may have about starting a business.
Podcast transcript – generated from voice recognition software.
Karl: [1:11] Welcome to the Capitalist Sage Podcast. We’re here to bring you advice and tips from seasoned pros and experts to help you improve your business. I’m Karl Barham with TransWorld business advisors. My co-host is Rico Figliolini with Mighty Rockets Digital Marketing and the publisher of the Peachtree Corner Magazine. Hey Rico, how’re you doing?
Rico: [1:27] Good. Good, Karl.
Karl: [1:28] Excellent. Why don’t we talk about our sponsors for today.
Rico: [1:32] Sure. Let’s give a shout out first to Atlanta Tech Park located here in Tech Park Atlanta, like the name switch, in the city of Peachtree Corners. Robin Bienfait and her innovative team is curating this place. Allowing accelerator startups and small companies to be able to grow in it. Phenomenal organized environment here that allows for workshops, seminars, all sorts of supportive groups that can take a small company to its success. So one of the podcasts from here is located in that place, and it’s a good place to be.
Karl: [2:11] Absolutely you could always stop by, check out its website; AtlantaTechPark.com check out upcoming events. You know in November, I think November 14th, is a tech showcase going on here from North Atlanta. Lots of events and you happen to be on the path of the shuttle, the driverless shuttle.
Rico: [2:28] Curiosity Lab of Peachtree Corners and Ollie the Driverless Vehicle. We just saw that before driving up and down as we were coming in.
Karl: [2:36] Absolutely. It’s a free shuttle, you have to get a ticket, a virtual ticket online and you’re able to ride that. So just a lot of really cool things happening in Peachtree Corners in the Atlanta Tech Park Village area. Well today, I’d like to welcome our today’s guest; Erin Ingleheart, program manager with the Start Me accelerator program and affiliated with the Emory University business school. Which is an outstanding program that helps local entrepreneurs help grow their business, learn some critical business skills, and help skills that help them to grow their business. How’re you doing today Erin?
Erin: [3:18] I’m great. Thank you so much for having me.
Karl: [3:21] Well, we’re here to talk today about business mentorship and how it could impact the community and in entrepreneurs that are starting businesses. One of the things that is amazing when you get into small communities, especially communities that may have more economic disadvantage, entrepreneurs are thriving in those areas. But the success rate could be a challenge there because they don’t have access to some of the critical things that companies, if you’re in Silicon Valley, there’s plenty of capital. There’s plenty of expertise, there’s network, there’s mentors. But in other communities they may not have those same resources as readily available. And so creating an ecosystem where that can thrive is really one of the missions of the Start Me accelerator program. I’d love to talk about that some more. So why don’t we tell,
start off by telling us a little bit about yourself and how did you get started in this passion of yours?
Erin: [4:20] That’s a great question. So Prior to joining Emory, my background was really all in private sectors. So I started out in banking at Morgan Stanley. I did a grad-degree in Silicon Valley and sort of saw some of that, a little bit of that divide if you will, in the support for entrepreneurs operating in the tech space particularly in that area. And perhaps some of the other small businesses that were struggling a little bit more to get started. I worked actually right around here and kind of proximate to Peachtree Corners for a start-up consulting firm for a few years and then switched over to the Social Enterprise Center at Emory just over three years ago where I was really looking to, kind of marry those business skills with more of a community focus and community impact component.
Karl: [5:07] So tell us a little bit about this social enterprise at Emory. What is that for folks that may not be familiar with that?
Erin: [5:13] That’s a great question. So it’s a research center within Emory Business School and the overarching focus is on making markets work for more people in more places in more ways. And we do that through research that several of our faculty members are doing. We do that through student coursework so several classes around social Enterprise and nonprofit management. And then we do that through fieldwork. And so we run a couple of different field work programs. Start Me in particular is focused on the Atlanta Community and several sort of historically under-resourced to communities in Metro Atlanta. But we also run the entrepreneurship database program, which is a large research study of accelerators and incubators around the world really looking at what works and what doesn’t in acceleration and incubation. So it’s the largest longitudinal study of those types of programs globally and then we also run a program that’s called Grounds for Empowerment that supports female coffee growers in Central America.
Rico: [6:16] So can I ask you, since you were out in the west coast like that, how’d you find that? I mean being a woman in the midst of, I guess stereotypical of what the research shows right now, it’s mostly men being there. How’d you find that working in a field like that in that environment? Erin: [6:33] That’s a good question. So I was in grad school while I was out there, so you’re in a little bit of a bubble as it is. And I really loved living out there but I didn’t necessarily get the bug, if you will, to stick around. I felt like I answered, a lot of times, the question of like why I didn’t have an app or why I didn’t have my own Tech startup. Which I respect as a path for entrepreneurs, absolutely, it just wasn’t a path that I was on. A conversation I felt like I sort of had over and over again. But I think what you see is so much passion in and around tech that it creates the, almost this bubble of enthusiasm and excitement that I really respect and enjoy and I think that it’s nice to be able to replicate that in other places that frankly are maybe more accessible to local populations if you will. So, you know, I think one challenge that we’re faced
with in Atlanta or any major city that has wonderful young people and wonderful entrepreneurs with tech ideas, that we don’t want to lose everybody to Silicon Valley. We want to create that same vibrancy and keep people in communities and the same is true for other types of businesses. You want to see that enthusiasm for all of your makers and bakers and fixers and doers. We’re operating in community.
Rico: [7:48] Which from what I understand isn’t really the type of company Silicon Valley wants to fund. They do want to fund the apps and the tech. And they don’t understand maybe the baker’s the makers and all the…
Karl: [7:59] You can’t eat an app.
Rico: [8:01] No you can’t. And it’s not sexy and it doesn’t provide the return in the short term that they want. It’s a lot different, you know. So coming into an area like Metro Atlanta where most of the startups are not necessarily tech startups. They’re mainly business things that we would normally eat drink and be merry with. But real different than in Silicon Valley.
Karl: [8:24] Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I’ve looked at data and studies shows. It’s probably somewhere north of 95 percent of businesses are not tech businesses. Your Main Street businesses, your neighborhood pizza shop, the person that fixes your car. These are the businesses that drive our economy and they’re found in every neighborhood. And these business leaders also are really important in the community that they’re in, they’re typically community leaders. They’re making sure that resources are being applied to problems. Their sense on the pulse of that area in there. It’s a great foundation for leaders and community, which is interesting. When you think of the program Start Me probably, describe what it is and in particular, I’m going to put you on the spot because you know part of the Emory School You got to tell me; what is the problem that Start Me is trying to solve?
Erin: [9:19] Yeah, absolutely. So it actually ties back to your question about the work that we do at Social Enterprises, so the program kind of originally grew out of research and so a lot of our fieldwork programs are kind of tied to research in that way. But one of my colleagues, Professor Peter Roberts, was really looking at what some of the differences are between communities with higher concentrations of poverty and lower concentrations of poverty across the United States. So kind of zip code by zip code. And one of the things that he found was that there really isn’t a market difference in the number of big businesses per capita, but there’s on average about a 26 percent gap in the number of micro businesses per capita. And so those are your local Moms and Pops. It’s your auto body shops, it’s your catering companies, it’s your local hair salons and natural hair care providers. And if you’re not finding those in and around your community, you’re finding them elsewhere. They’re not necessarily creating jobs. They’re not necessarily offering a gathering space for people who live there and they’re not attracting outside resources into the community. And so, you know, twenty-six percent gap for kind of an average population neighborhood would translate to 125 to 150 local small businesses. And so the program really originally grew out of that as we were looking at other cities or other neighborhoods around
Metro Atlanta that maybe aren’t necessarily served by the wonderful services you can get at Atlanta Tech Village or ATDC because they’re not necessarily as tech focused.
Rico: [10:50] So did you find the economic issue as part of that? I mean was there a correlation there as far as poor neighborhoods had a bigger gap?
Erin: [10:59] Poorer neighborhoods have that gap and so that’s where if you’re looking at high poverty residential neighborhoods, residential urban neighborhoods versus low poverty residential urban neighborhoods. What you’ll see is about a 26 percent gap and so, you know, you’re not seeing that gap in Midtown or Buckhead but you’re seeing that and in some of the neighborhoods that we operate in and then and also in many other neighborhoods in and around Metro Atlanta, and frankly cities across the United States. So this is not an Atlanta specific thing, but we particularly operate in those communities that are historically under-served, really trying to foster and build the businesses that are growing there that have a tide of those communities and that feed into that local economic and social vitality.
Rico: [11:45] So what can you do? What does the organization do that’s actionable that’s ground, that’s on the ground that you know… I mean, yeah, that’s on the ground accessory that you can say you can do this and within weeks or months, you’ll be at a better place.
Erin: [11:59] Yeah, and we try to do everything physically on the ground in the communities that we operate in. So we, Start Me as a 14 Session placed base accelerator program for small businesses. So we’re really focused on those micro businesses. Typically that’s one to five employees, including the founders, less than fifty thousand dollars in start-up capital. Oftentimes far less than fifty thousand dollars in start-up capital and you know, we’ve worked with everything from farmers to freight truckers to beer brewers to natural hair care providers. So it really runs the gambit of what you find in and around your neighborhood or what you might be looking for. If you’re a resident or an employee of a particular neighborhood. We run in three Metro Atlanta communities. We originally started in the Clarkston Community serving entrepreneurs and that economic corridor that also is kind of inclusive of Tucker and Stone Mountain. We also operate in the Economic Corridor of Edgewood Kirkwood and Eastlake and then the southside of Atlanta, which is a really large geography, south of I-20 ITP. But really try to support the entrepreneurs who live there, who work there, who provide valuable products and services to those communities. We deliver sessions in community. So we’re meeting at local schools from meeting at local community centers, and we’re really trying to bring an injection of business know-how, what do you need in order to effectively operate an early stage small business. Networks are really frankly that probably the most important piece of that and that’s peer entrepreneurs who are operating different businesses. But also going through a very similar entrepreneurial journey, all the ups and downs and kind of empowerment and challenges that that entails and having a network to draw upon there. And then we bring in with each cohort of 15 to 18 businesses, we bring in 20 to 25 volunteer business mentors from all walks of life, but with a lot of collective expertise and collective passion for small business who really work hand in hand with those entrepreneurs to build and grow businesses. And then each
Community has a peer selected capital component as well. So we have ten thousand dollars in grant funds for each community and the entrepreneurs and mentors peer select and allocate that capital over the course of the program.
Karl: [14:16] So one thing that you mentioned in each one, what is a typical session feel like? Give us a sense of.. what if I’m an entrepreneur and I show up in one of these what can I expect?
Erin: [14:27] That’s a good question. So, I mean it is an accelerator. It’s not a class and so we don’t want it ever to feel like, I read at people for three hours from a book or any of my colleagues do either. We open every session with dinner. It’s a great way to break bread with your neighbors, build connections with entrepreneurs and with mentors. We like to share some accelerated moments if you will and so that’s both the things that have gone really well in your business. That’s towards achieving major goals or milestones and then also the struggles. Things don’t always go well and sometimes it’s really hard to find a safe space to share that and we try to foster that safe space. We have a short curriculum component to every session and each one is a little different but you know, whether we’re introducing the key components of a business plan or walking through business financials, whatever that piece is, we try to keep that really short and then you spend the rest of the time applying it to the actual small businesses in the room. So entrepreneurs and mentors are working hand-in-hand to take those concepts and start to put that into place. So we want every business over the course of 14 sessions to exit of course with strong relationships and good networks, but also a short concise actionable business plan that they use and continue to build upon. We want them to have a good understanding of their financials. We want them to have really good comfort telling their business story to a wide variety of different stakeholders and to feel like coming out of an intensive and yet also very short 14 session roughly three month period of time that they kind of have that acceleration to their business and are kind of moving towards their strategic goals for where they want to take that business.
Rico: [16:09] This way they don’t feel alone out there on the prairie doing the work. And sometimes you feel alone. But yeah, just doing the work in a small business and sometimes you just gravitate to what you do best. I think you mentioned that. And you know to rejoin, you get stuck doing things maybe you shouldn’t be doing and other people should be doing and you have to grow that business.
Karl: [16:31] There’s a simple example of that that plays out. You take the financials and if you were to ask most small business owners, what’s your goal on profitability? And they’ll answer the question probably saying; make profit. But if they had to break that down and say well, where is that going to come from? How much? How much revenue do you need? What are the costs are going to have to do? They often don’t sit down and kind of put that on paper. But in a session where they’re putting that down on paper with peers, with other entrepreneurs as well as mentors, they start realizing; maybe I’m not charging enough to cover my costs. Now imagine not doing that math on paper before you actually go out there and start implementing it. By the
time you find out that you’re not, that the math isn’t working. You’re already in debt. You’re already struggling, you’re already frustrated. So you could avoid a lot of those things just by getting some of those ideas and said well, you know, maybe I can increase the price but can I lower the cost? Or my portion is this. If a simple caterer may do a delicious meal but you look at the portion that it can serve four people and most people aren’t going to eat four people’s worth of food. And so there’s a cost savings of maybe they only serve for two people. So that’s some of the exciting things that in the session you see people actually the light bulb going off and clicking and it’s just wonderful to see that.
Erin: [17:58] I think it also helps, again, to realize that you’re not alone. I would say the biggest fear that folks, and this is broad strokes, but that we see kind of coming into it as most folks are either afraid of standing up and talking about their business or they’re afraid of that financial session. You start to see people even been with well, I might be sick that week. You’re probably not sick that week, that’s in two months. And you know part of that is saying, is making it clear to them that they’re not by themselves. They’re not the only person who’s been kicking that can down the road and you do definitely get people who are like; so I’ve finally crunched the numbers and I’ve realized I’m losing X number of dollars on every single thing I sell, what do I do? And then you at least have something to act on and you can start to think about what the right lever is that you can tweak. But otherwise you’re just doing what you love and you don’t realize that it’s not necessarily working for you.
Rico: [18:54] Right, until it’s too late. The mentors that you bring out do they stay consistent with it? Do they sort of hook up with the individual entrepreneurs or startups? You know, are they in relation with them for a period of time? Or does it vary?
Erin: [19:09] So it’s a bit of both. So we work with the cohorts of about 15 to 18 businesses. 22-25 mentors and we have people rotate around for the first several weeks. And that’s so that everybody kind of gets a feel for the different businesses in the room, the different skill sets in the room, and trying to find a little bit of that art, if you will, of who clicks. And around week 4 we assign dedicated teams, and typically that’s about two businesses and about three mentors. And we try to really match people with those that they’ve clicked with. So you know, kind of expressed a particular interest in continuing to work with. But then also mentors that have a variety of different skill sets and so perhaps they have particular industry expertise that’s related to the businesses at their table. But otherwise trying to make sure that you know, we’re putting together folks who have experience with operations and marketing and communications and finance at the same table so that collectively they have that expertise that really serves the needs of the small businesses.
Karl: [20:08] And I would say it also extends beyond the room. It’s been about a couple of hours, 2 to 3 hours working on it, but then the phone calls after, midweek where, here’s my second iteration on my plan. Can you take a look at it? Or it could be an introduction to someone. Here is a retailer that might carry the product that I’m doing. They mentored me, have networks or people that they make those introduction they may bring them to events. So the role of the
mentor plays, is expands beyond just a session and years later, you will see the mentors. And even if you don’t directly work with them during the session, through the social events that happened you might connect with someone else that’s in another business and you might help them along a path as well.
Rico: [21:00] It’s all about networking.
Karl: [21:02] Yeah, it’s a critical component. I see it in a lot of successful businesses. You would think, you know, you have a better product and you execute, but the relationships you build, the people that could open doors. I heard the term the other day; the rich uncle. And most successful businesses, I thought it was a beautiful way of describing it, you might have someone that, I know a guy. You need printing material done in particular way, I know a guy. and when you’re a struggling entrepreneur and some of these communities you may not know that person that knows how to do that thing. And if you can get connected that can help you, you know, get over a hurdle that like.
Rico: [21:42] That’s funny, in New York we used to call it, it would be the rabbi. I had the rabbi. My rabbi tells me this, even though I’m a Catholic, doesn’t matter. Everyone has a rabbi.
Karl: [21:51] Everyone has someone that’s able to do that. So if someone was starting a business, you know early on, so your experience of working with all these entrepreneurs. Any tips and advice you’d give to someone that’s either thinking about starting a business or in that early stage of starting it? Any advice you’d give to those folks?
Erin: [22:12] That’s a great question, you know, we’re actually in the midst of the application cycle now, and so I’m meeting with lots of entrepreneurs who are thinking about starting businesses. Are currently operating businesses and looking for additional support that have been operating for a long time. So I’ve been having similar discussions and you know, I tailor it a little bit around what they want to do and where they are, but with a lot of folks it’s encouraging people to just start. Sometimes they’re waiting for the perfect moment, that exact perfect confluence of events. If you will, they want the perfect program the perfect partner, the perfect market conditions. And if you wait it might never happen. And if you know that you’re passionate about it, you just start and that way you at least can start doing it on your own time on your own terms and you can figure out what you’re looking for. Sometimes what you figure out is; you didn’t really need any of those things that you were waiting for in the first place. You know, there are tons of different resources out there both online and then in person. Lots of workshops to get people started, regardless of where they are, if they’re a serial entrepreneur and they’ve done this a bunch of times or this is the first time and they’re thinking about starting out on their own. There are so many different support programs out there and kind of resources that they can access.
Rico: [23:28] So you don’t have to feel alone.
Erin: [23:30] Exactly. You’re not alone.
Rico: [23:32] Right. You always ask about the bookkeeping or the money. I have this idea for an app or I have this idea for a clothing company. How do I get that process going? That could be scary. I mean, I love talking shop, but that could be scary to a young person not knowing what they’re doing.
Erin: [23:49] Yeah, and actually what’s interesting, you know, we run a program with High school students in the summertime and the younger people are less fearful in some ways. Like they come up with an idea and they’re like, I love it, I’m doing it, and I’m going to make this work. And I think sometimes there’s a little bit of that fear as you maybe get a little further on in your career. Or maybe even a little more afraid to put that idea out there with the risk that someone will say they don’t get it or they don’t like it. And maybe that person’s probably not your target audience.
Rico: [24:17] And that person could also be paying the bills and because they’re too far along in life, maybe. Where they’re thinking, I’ve just got to pay the bills.
Karl: [24:27] You even find very often, a lot of people that work for large corporations get trained on having all of the data. And having you know, a business plan that’s 40 pages with with all of that. And I’ve seen people that will write all of that stuff for years and they never start doing anything. So this concept of agile, being quick, fast fail. A business plan could be drafted on a piece of paper. There’s a couple of key questions you’ve got to answer. It doesn’t have to be complex, but it’s enough for you to examine the business model on what you’re trying to do and who your customers are and how you’re going to make money and how you’re going to find your customers to get you started and guess what’s going to happen. Even if you did a 40 page business plan, three months in guess what? The world changes, you’ve got to pivot, got to change. So it’s more dynamic.
Rico: [25:19] But doesn’t that, isn’t that a little different from how, I mean the world is funny. That’s my rent yet the bank wants to see a business plan. But then venture capitalists really want to see the passion, they don’t are about the business plan. They just want to see what you’re doing and they want to see proof of concept maybe. Or if it’s way before that, they just want to know that you’re really so into it that you can bleed it before you leave. Yeah, I mean so different ways.
Karl: [25:46] It is. But I’ll also say the the 40 page business plan can be a way to hide that you don’t know what’s important. If someone’s asking to invest money, whether it’s a bank lending you money. The people that do better can explain what their business is. They could explain who their customers are, they could explain how they’re going to make money out of it and what’s critical to success. And whether they do it on one page or a five minute pitch or they do it on a half hour or an hour long presentation and 40 pages. The essence of that, you gotta still answer those questions in there. And so for small businesses, if we’re talking micro-businesses,
you don’t need a 40 page business plan. You know to get started you need to, you need to think through some things, but it’s about taking action and being prepared to put yourself out there. There’s no illusion, every entrepreneur I think would tell you it’s a lot of hard work at the beginning but the passion carries them through a support network around them. A little bit of knowledge will carry them a pretty long way.
Erin: [26:55] And I think it’s okay to be comfortable with the fact that it’s not going to be perfect the first time. The first time you outline or draft your business plan. You’re going to get a bunch of things wrong, but you’ve got to make smart assumptions and figure out what you don’t yet know and then revisit it. And it’s a living document that will grow and change over time or you hope it grows and changes over time. But I think taking that first leap and putting some words down on paper goes a long way and then doubling back a little bit to what we were talking about before. You know, find a network, find people who have gone through a similar experience, who are micro business owners and in different industries or the same industry. And find mentors who can coach you and support you and are really just excited to see you thrive. And there are different ways that you can do that, whether you’re an extroverted person and you love to go to networking oriented events, or there are a lot of ways that you can do that work for more introverted individuals as well. But I think finding those people who are good sounding boards who don’t have as much of the emotional investment that you have and maybe can see past some of the flaws can be invaluable in helping you cultivate that early stage business idea.
Karl: [28:08] So I’m curious. This sounds, this is a great program and it’s out there for folks. But what if you’re in the business community and you know, you want to get involved. What are the ways that they can help their communities and/or get involved with this program?
Erin: [28:25] That’s a good question and there’s a couple of different ways that we sort of broadly engage different people. So one is in investing in local community programs. So that’s you know in supporting programs like ours that are free and support local small businesses in Metro Atlanta. But there are also other organizations and programs out there that are doing really important work. And in order to do that, you need financial resources in order to make that continue to work. You can also invest your time. I mean a big part of the value of what we bring together is bringing together networks of excited and engaged passionate people who are really passionate about supporting the entrepreneurs in the room. And so, so much of what we need is really good business skills, really good passion and you know, kind of that passion for helping others and asking the right questions. And you know, kind of supporting the growth and interests of others who are starting small businesses. And then the last thing is, you know, being a good community member yourself. You know, some of that is captured in small business Saturday, you know one day a year. But that is supporting your local businesses. That’s sourcing locally. That’s you know, finding local providers if you’re looking for a website or you’re looking for a wine shop or whatever it might be. And that doesn’t mean that everything you buy needs to be local, but you can find a lot of wonderful local businesses through business owners associations, by looking at the shops around you, by figuring out what the kinds of businesses that your neighbors are operating formally or informally out of their homes and supporting that.
Karl: [30:04] And you think about the holiday season is coming up and I know lots of people are going to be doing gifts for various reasons. Not only is it around Thanksgiving, the season for giving, there’s a lot of gifts that are being given. Supporting your local small business in these communities is a great way. If they wanted to learn, where they can find some of these businesses out there where they can purchase things and support in that way how do they find that?
Erin: [30:31] So we, on our own website keep a kind of a Shopping Guide if you will of our local small businesses. So we worked with about 200 businesses across Metro Atlanta and you know, they do everything. If you think about it, so, you know, some are offering the kinds of products and services that you might typically see around the holidays, so lots of different caterers. You know for after the holidays, we’ve got lots of folks that are focused on health and wellness and physical fitness. You know, we have folks who are doing lawn care and repair and help people get their homes ready with spring cleaning, you know for small business owners. We have those who work in, you know, digital media and build beautiful websites. So they kind of run the gambit. But you know, those are two hundred businesses that collectively are doing wonderful things in Atlanta, but you can also find lots of great businesses right around you, wherever you are. I mean looking around Peachtree Corner, there are corners, excuse me. There are so many right here that you’d be able to draw upon and that’s you know, walking into a local shop and asking. That’s you know, when something pops up in a social media news feed that’s a local business that’s checking it out. There are great festivals and events and Becraft experience is always a really fun one if you’re interested in makers and you know, kind of handmade and vintage products.
Rico: [31:54] And Johns Creek Festival just had, I think it was this past week. Lots of local makers there.
Erin: [32:01] Yeah Refuge Market over at Refuge coffee. And in Clarkston is a wonderful one and that’s a lot of new Americans and refugees that are building and selling beautiful products and a lot of times those are really fun things to pick out for others. I’m not necessarily much of a shopper myself, but I love shopping for other people and I think it’s really fun to find something that looks like it would be really special to a parent or significant other or a child. And feel like I put a lot of thought and energy into selecting something for them.
Rico: [32:32] It’s always nice to find something different rather than going for the same product at the same three stores that’s mass produced.
Karl: [32:38] And there’s often a story behind it. When you see a lot of these products, where it was made, how it was made, the traditions or culture that’s built into it is also a great way to get. And what if somebody wanted to be a mentor, how do they get involved in that process?
Erin: [32:53] That’s a great question. So we do engage a lot of mentors. We have about 80 volunteer mentors across our three programs. Our programs largely run from January through the very beginning of April. And so what we really have mentors do is they’re there week in and week out meeting and working with entrepreneurs. So it’s a very much a Hands-On role. And then throughout the rest of the year we do other programming. You had mentioned some of the social activities. We do also mentor office hours for mentors continue to kind of plug-in. So we do try to continue to foster that network. Folks can really find a lot of that information on our website. So we’re at StartMeATL.org there is a mentor tab for under a kind of get involved and you know who we’re working with but you know, we work with business professionals from across Metro Atlanta with a wide variety of different skill sets. Entrepreneurs often times make fantastic mentors, they get what it’s like to work on a business and in a business and balancing wearing all of the hats with also everything else going on in and around their lives.
Rico: [33:54] And if people aren’t ready yet they can go to Facebook or Instagram for Start Me ATL.
Erin: [33:59] Exactly, yeah. We’re all over our social media as well. That’s where you can certainly also find out about local small businesses to shop. But we can all, you can also find out about ways to continue to engage and I think it’s a fun way to put your business skills to work in supporting other individuals. And you know, I find it to be really rewarding to be there week in and week out. But it’s really fascinating to see how much ground you can cover in a small business and how much excitement people have coming out of a 14 session accelerator for you know what the months and years after that hold.
Karl: [34:37] So the website is StartMeATL.org. If you want to find out more information about the Start Me program fine, and I know there’s a deadline coming up soon for entrepreneurs people that are looking. When are applications due Erin?
Erin: [34:54] They’re due this weekend. So it’s an exciting stretch for us. Yeah, we’re approaching the very end of our application cycle for entrepreneurs interested in going through the program come January. So we’re open through October 20th, and then all applications go through a detailed paper review. We do a selection night and from all the applications were selecting 15 to 18 businesses per cohort and then we’re running also all those cohorts in parallel. So we’ve got, we’re in Eastlake on Tuesdays, Clarkston on Wednesdays and the Southside on Thursdays working with entrepreneurs, you know, kind of night after night after night to build those businesses.
Rico: [35:30] If they miss the 20th and the sessions start in January is there another set of sessions later in the year next year?
Erin: [35:38] That’s our next set of sessions for kind of accelerator for this particular program. We do also keep a really detailed resources page. So we think, not only is it important to support entrepreneurs through our program but really important to connect people to other
resources in and around Metro Atlanta and then also online. So we keep a running calendar of upcoming events that we think are really helpful to small businesses. And then we have links to the different organizations that are doing really important work in these different communities. Whether it’s for those who are just trying to decide if entrepreneurship is a good fit, to those who are operating really established businesses and just looking for that support system as they’re kind of taking the next step in scaling or expanding or even thinking about selling.
Karl: [36:25] Well, I want to thank you so much Erin for joining us today. Erin Is programmatically with Start Me and works at Emory University business school. You shared a lot of information, a lot of insight for people. And I don’t know if people realize how much is going out there in the community. And just being aware that there’s resources available for people to be entrepreneurs. And it’s not always have to be a big tech idea. It could be as simple as a micro business that is being grown and there’s support there for that. We’d also like to thank Atlanta Tech Park for hosting The Capitalist Sage podcast. We’re here every month and get to talk with folks and have a great conversation about business. Great place to work, great environment to follow your entrepreneurial pursuits as they come through. Rico, what do we have coming up?
Rico: [37:28] There’s so much going on. I just don’t know where to start sometimes. But so let me hold this up. The Peachtree Corners magazine, yes, this is one of the jobs that I do, I own this magazine. It’s a great magazine I think, I’m hoping everyone enjoys it. It comes out six times a year. The next issue is December/January. If you have someone under 20 that you want to nominate to our first 20 under 20 issue list, that would be great. It has to live in Peachtree Corners Middle School to High School, college. Someone that has had either an impact on the community or success with their own within their own lives. Whether it’s sports or writing, performing, sciences. That’s who we’re looking for. Someone, an individual young person that would inspire others is essentially what we want. So that’ll be the next issue. Deadline for that is October 31st. Visit our Facebook page, Instagram, or come to LivingInPeachtreeCorners.com and you’ll find the page with information there. Aside from that I also do social media marketing, I do other things I’m in the middle of a product video I’m doing for a client. And the first time I’m ever doing stop-motion animation in my garage. I’ve set up the studio and it’s a learning experience, but it’s cool because you get, even at my age, you get to learn a lot of stuff that you haven’t done before.
Karl: [38:52] Oh, fabulous. Well, I’m Karl Barham with TransWorld business advisors of Atlanta Peachtree. We help entrepreneurs at any stage, whether they’re looking to find a business, to acquisition, where they’re looking to exit their business and sell their business. We help them with that but where our passion is around, is really supporting the entrepreneurial, the small business community here in the Metro Atlanta area. You could find out more about our process and what we do at www.TWorld.com/Atlantapeachtree and just reach out if you’re thinking of becoming an entrepreneur, I’d love to have a conversation with you and help you start planning for it. And if you’re been in business for a while and you’re looking for your next adventure, there’s plenty, it’s a good time to find the next leader of your business and we can help you with
that as well. Again, thank you Erin for joining us today. And we want to thank everybody out there for listening to this podcast and following us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube.
Rico: [40:01] You can listen to the YouTube Video from this which is well, when I post it. Or you can get the podcast on iHeart, Spotify, Boxcasts, SoundCloud, anywhere, iTunes. Anyway, you can find it.
Karl: [40:14] And LivingInPeachtreeCorners as well.
Rico: [40:16] LivingInPeachtreeCorners.com.
Karl: [40:18] .com. Absolutely. Well, thank you everybody. Have a great day.
Join UrbanEBB host Rico Figliolini for a conversation with Gabrielle Mills, co-founder and CEO of Sourced, a full-service back-office firm supporting small to mid-market businesses. She shares how she and her mother built a company that provides accounting, marketing, HR, staffing, and administrative support—all under one brand.
Learn about the challenges entrepreneurs face with business operations and how outsourcing can provide the help they need. Gabrielle also discusses:
A $12M business that never checked its financials
The importance of trust in outsourcing key business functions
The balance between people, technology, and business success
Sourced’s commitment to giving back to local charities
Timestamp: 00:02:20 – Sourcing Solutions for Entrepreneurs 00:07:26 – Building Trust and Expertise to Serve Clients 00:14:53 – Fixing Broken Books for Business Owners 00:18:18 – Encouraging Diversity in Talent Acquisition 00:19:57 – Embracing Mistakes and Developing Processes 00:23:12 – Giving Back to Local Charities 00:25:34 – Leveraging Technology to Enhance People-Centric Services
Podcast Transcript:
00:00:01 – Rico Figliolini
Hey, everyone. This is Rico Figliolini, host of UrbanEbb here based in Peachtree Corners, Georgia. I appreciate you joining us. We’re a little smart city just north of Atlanta. I have a great guest here, Gabrielle Mills. She’s the founder and CEO of Sourced. Hey, Gabrielle. Thanks for joining us.
00:00:20 – Gabrielle Mills
Hi, good morning. Thanks for having me.
00:00:22 – Rico Figliolini
Yeah, no, I appreciate you being here. We’re going to learn a lot from you, I’m sure, this morning. And this is one of those freezing mornings here in Georgia that really never happens, like down to 20.
00:00:32 – Gabrielle Mills
It is so cold. I’m very cranky about it.
00:00:36 – Rico Figliolini
Yes, it’s amazing. But it’ll warm up in a week. But before we get to our interview, I just want to say thank you to two sponsors we have that have been with us. Appreciate the support of our journalism, these podcasts, of the magazines as well. One of them is EV Remodeling, Inc. They’re a company that has done work from design to build. whole house renovation, as well as just redoing your kitchen, your bathrooms and such. They’ve worked with over 260 families. They’re based in Peachtree Corners. Eli, the owner of the company, is a really great guy. I think you should check out their website. You could do a virtual consultation with them as well and check out their portfolio. So go to evremodelinginc.com and find out a little bit more about them. Also, our second sponsor is Vox Pop Uli, also based here at Peachtree Corners. They’re a company that takes your brand and brings it to life, essentially. They’re a family business, father, son, other family members in there, another daughter in there handling marketing. And even members of their employees are considered part of the family. It’s just a great, well-run company. We just did a podcast with them recently. You should check that out. But they try to bring your brand awareness out there. They can do anything from truck wraps to print on any object, just come to them, give them a challenge, and they will actually step up to that challenge. You might think they can’t print on it, but God knows they’ll find a way to do what you need to bring to that trade show and to make your business stand out as a retail operation or whatever. So check them out, vox-pop-uli.com, and it’s V-O-X-P-O-P-U-L-I.com. So now that we’ve gotten our sponsorships out of the way, Gabrielle, appreciate you staying with me like that. So tell us a little bit about how you started the business, why you chose the word sourced, and what the business is.
00:02:39 – Gabrielle Mills
Good morning. Thank you so much for having me. So I can’t tell you the answer to that question without acknowledging my business partner, Chrissy Strohmeyer, who is also my mother. So we are a mom and daughter team. We have just enjoyed the heck out of building this company together, but really my stories are her stories and vice versa. We started the business because we wanted to be entrepreneurs and we wanted to help other businesses grow and be successful. We think entrepreneurs are the salt of the earth people. They’re the reason for our economy. They create jobs. They’ve got so many great ideas. And they are the last people that get a helping hand because they don’t always have enough cash, right? That’s why we started Sourced. We actually went to business owners and asked them, because we didn’t have this idea. We asked business owners what they need, where they were underserved and how, if they were to do it all over again, kind of what they would do. And we put all of their answers up on a whiteboard that’s currently in our office. In fact, you saw it when you came over to our office the other day. If that whiteboard could talk, man. And we looked at all of their problems, all of their suggestions, all of the things they were struggling with. And our services came out of that. So Sourced is a back office services company serving small to mid-market companies. And the easiest way to describe what it is that we do is we basically have five businesses under one brand name. So on the fractional side of our business, we are a full accounting firm, full service accounting firm, a full service marketing agency, outsourced HR, administrative support. And then not fractionally, we do direct hire full time placement. So all of those ideas came from entrepreneurs that we spoke to that they needed help. And we said, we’ll do it.
00:04:38 – Rico Figliolini
It’s amazing. All under one roof.
00:04:42 – Gabrielle Mills
Well, we didn’t mean exactly to create five businesses at the same time. That was more of God’s plan. But, you know, here we are.
00:04:51 – Rico Figliolini
No, no, I can appreciate that. I’ve come across a lot of people in different businesses doing different things. So you do look at where your services can expand into. So it makes sense for where you guys are coming from.
00:05:04 – Gabrielle Mills
So you asked me where the name comes from. And I don’t get that question a lot. And it’s actually a really funny story. When I was working my big girl corporate job at IHG, Intercontinental Hotels Group, I had a relative that worked in the company. And she was the only person that knew that I was thinking about leaving and starting my own thing. So I floated the concept to her. And she loved the concept. At this time, we didn’t have talent acquisition. We only had a fractional client or fractional services. And our name was the Atlanta Assistance Group. And we were going to go by TAAG, T-A-A-G. And she was in branding for IHG. And she goes, I have to tell you, that name isn’t scalable. It’s easily forgettable. And you also have TAG, the Technology Association.
00:05:57 – Rico Figliolini
That’s right.
00:05:58 – Gabrielle Mills
And she’s like, I really think that you need to rethink your name. This was seven days before I was going to quit my job and do this and tell them I was going out. In which case they would want to know what the company is, what our name is, all the things. And so the next seven days, Chrissy and I were just on fire trying to think of everything. The amount of hours we spent digging through the thesaurus was crazy. And one day we were, I was driving and I was playing around with the word outsourced, resource, I was trying to come up with a play on words there and Sourced just came about and I called her and I was like, what do you think of this? And she’s like, I love it. And I think we came up with it two days before I quit.
00:06:48 – Rico Figliolini
Wow. And I love the website name though, getsourced.com. I mean, it just like makes sense to be able to do that. So, you know, you’ve been dealing with a lot of businesses, helping them and stuff. Sourcing is an issue sometimes, especially if you’re doing financial fractional work like that. And small business owners, maybe the larger ones like 10 million plus different, or even let’s say 5 million plus different, right? And I’m not sure what your sweet spot is, but the trust process to get a business to trust you to do their work because they’re sourcing it out to you. You’re not in the office. How do you do that? How do you gain traction with that? How do you gain their confidence to be able to provide the services that will make their business better?
00:07:37 – Gabrielle Mills
I think there’s a lot of ways that we do that naturally. First and most importantly, we have an amazing, amazing team of people and they really do the selling for us. Most of our business comes from word of mouth and referral because the people that work with us have such a great experience with our team and our people that that trust is kind of transferred already over because the referrer has had a great experience. That helps. Chrissy and I are involved in every single sale at this point before we pass it off to our team. We obviously have been through the entrepreneurial journey. We’re in our ninth year. We’ve done all the bumps and bruises, made all the mistakes. We’ve seen a lot of other people’s mistakes. We can kind of provide a lot of guidance during the sales process. So I think that builds trust. And not to be understated, the processes and the standards that we’ve built over time, we know how to fall back to the level of our training, regardless of the situation at hand. So we really lean into that when we’re talking to clients or prospects because they want to know how things are going to go. You can have a really good person who’s really friendly, but they may not know what they’re doing. That’s where the processes and our training comes in. We don’t have to do a lot of training because our people are already very experienced. But the way that we do things, we want that to be standardized. So we train on how the Sourced way is. So the client is experiencing something consistent.
00:09:14 – Rico Figliolini
So when you’re training, obviously, that’s an internal thing that you’re doing. There’s always industry trends, right? I mean, taxes is one thing where there’s always an update every year, different things going on. God knows probably this year will be a lot of things going on, accounting and stuff. But how do you keep ahead of some of the trends then or adapting to the needs of the entrepreneurs that you’re reaching out to? Because I’m sure that changes and evolves too.
00:09:42 – Gabrielle Mills
It does. I mean, you keep up with current events. We listen to our clients. Our clients know a lot. Our clients are very, very smart and we’re industry agnostic. So we get the benefit of seeing lots of different things from lots of different people and lots of different industries. So we just kind of like by osmosis learn things. But I think any good leader, regardless of if you own the business or you’re just working in the business or you have some kind of your stakeholder somewhere, I think anybody that is worth their salt is kind of always keeping up with. What’s going on and how does the business need to adapt and how does my department need to adapt and how do we grow and how do we improve? And I think just by having a regular practice like that, where you’re always kind of investigating it and looking at ways of improving, it’s more natural than it is forced to grow and change as the world changes.
00:10:37 – Rico Figliolini
Do you find going through the things you’re going through that, I mean, obviously, The day-to-day work is never-ending, right? It’s a process. Some days, some weeks, it’ll be the same as other weeks. But every once in a while, you get a challenge. You find something that you have to overcome within a business maybe, within your own business. Do you have any success stories that you can share that relates to that?
00:11:06 – Gabrielle Mills
Yes, I’ll tell you my favorite one. And it’s one of the more recent ones too. In our nine years of business, we have seen a lot come through our doors. We always tell people, especially those coming in for accounting. Accounting and talent acquisition are our two most popular services. And we started in accounting. That’s kind of our bread and butter. And people are always very vulnerable about like, oh, my books are bad. I had a bad accountant. I don’t know what I’m doing. We always tell them we’re like doctors. We just want to, give us the real, real, we’ll fix it. Like accounting is not a human body. So like we can actually fix it because it’s just numbers. But we’ve seen a lot of horror stories. You cannot scare us. You cannot surprise us. We’ve seen a lot in nine years. Recently, I think this client came on board early last year. And it was a $12 million construction client. And they have been in business for like 20 years or something. And when we were working on, we got referred into this client and we went and we talked to them and they were having an issue with their accountant that was internal. And they wanted to let that person go, but she knew way too much in the business. So they were like, we need somebody that can fix the craziness that’s happening in the books. And you can imagine they’re large books, $12 million company. We need to create some kind of redundancy in a situation where we need to let somebody go and we can’t, we’re beholden to them. And we just don’t know anything about our books. We’ve never seen them. And the best part of that meeting was that Chrissy asked, or she was talking about the financials, the financial reports. And the client stops her and she goes, wait, why do I need to look at my financial reports? And our jaws just dropped because this is a $12 million company. They’ve been in business for like 20 years. They have done a phenomenal job building their company. They had no idea the importance of their numbers. They didn’t know what their, like how their money was transacting. They, I don’t know how they were running it. And so that was a lot to overcome. It was probably one of our longer onboarding processes, but we got that client off of QuickBooks desktop and onto QuickBooks online so they could see their numbers, right. Their books were done and I’m not blaming this person that ended up leaving. There was reasons why this was, but the books were entirely backwards. So where there were things that should have been a positive, they were showing a negative and a negative should have been a positive. So all their numbers were backwards and then nothing was set up properly. So we had to do a whole setup. We had to clean the whole thing and we just had a meeting with them yesterday just talking about our usual check-in, how things are going. We’re constantly looking at improving this account. And they were just saying they have never felt more secure in an accounting firm. They said, regardless of how our team changes, you guys are our people. You’ve taught us, you’ve changed everything, you’ve done everything. And we just, they were showering us with lovely things and it just warmed our hearts so much because this was one heck of a undertaking. But I also, give them a lot of credit too, because that one, it was not a cheap project. And two, that took a lot of trust in them too, to be like, I don’t know you guys and you have to fix all of these problems at once. And it was a lot of work that they had to do and we had to do. And so they put a lot into the relationship as well. And it was, they’re probably one of my favorite clients now. And it’s, will probably be my biggest success story for a while, just from the scale.
00:15:01 – Rico Figliolini
Yeah, no doubt. I mean, I have a friend, Karl Barham, who owns Transworld Business. He consults, he buys and sells business for people. And it’s constantly amazing how many, not just half a million dollar companies, but $10 million companies, sometimes their books are so bad that they have to like step away and say, you know what, let’s fix this up. You may have to wait a year before you can sell this business just because the books are so bad. You know, it’s just like, there’s that.
00:15:31 – Gabrielle Mills
We don’t like to see it. Obviously it breaks our hearts and we can, we can fix it. We have the, we can fix anything at this point. But it’s unfortunate because they didn’t get bad because of that person. They got bad because that person didn’t have the support that they needed. Likely that the entrepreneur was not an accountant. They shouldn’t be. They should be building their business, doing whatever it is that they’re doing. Accounting is important, but this is why we went into businesses. You need to go do your dream. We’ve got the stuff that, yes, you need to keep up with, but you don’t need to know how to do it. We can show you, but you don’t need to know how to do this. You just need to know what your numbers look like.
00:16:19 – Rico Figliolini
Yeah, I’m surprised that when their accountant did their work at the end of the year, I can’t imagine it was the same person doing it. It had to be someone else doing it. And no one figured it out.
00:16:33 – Gabrielle Mills
Well, with this particular client, there was a couple migrations in systems that caused that reversal. So they started on one system and moved to QuickBooks Desktop. which reversed everything. And then the person that was working in the office, she would do a lot of things right. But there’s a lot of different ways to do accounting right, quote unquote. But she continued the backwardness because that’s how it had to be done. It was very complicated.
00:17:02 – Rico Figliolini
And I’m sure. And sometimes you’re down a path and you don’t want to leave that path. You just keep going and just figure it’ll work itself out at some point.
00:17:11 – Gabrielle Mills
That happens in accounting of like, we just start fresh. Like right now we’re getting a lot of clients that need cleanups and we only have to go back a month and a half because it’s the 21st today. When we’re in July, we’re like, okay, how far back do you want to go? Or not July, but more like October. They’re like, we can clean up from January or we can just hold off and start fresh in the next January.
00:17:36 – Rico Figliolini
Yeah. Okay. Well, that’s a tough decision. You said before you’re agnostic business-wise a little bit, but are there types of businesses that may benefit most from what you all do or that you target or that you’d prefer working with? Or have strength in those industries.
00:17:53 – Gabrielle Mills
We have developed patterns of clients that tend to come to us. So on the accounting side, we do a lot of construction. That’s the example that I gave. We have a couple of YouTube clients, which is kind of neat. We do a lot of work for attorneys. Accounting for law is very specialized. So we do that. On the marketing side, they’re completely across the board. There is no consistency whatsoever. Same with administrative support. HR gets thrown into any monthly recurring service that we have. So again, there’s no consistency. On the talent acquisition side, we have quite a bit of consistency. Although there’s randomness throughout. We do a lot in, we still do a lot in law. We get a lot of financial roles. So we do anything from accountants, tax managers, tax seniors. We do a lot in IT, particularly in the cybersecurity market. A lot in finance, some in construction, not really all that much. Did I say finance? Property management in talent acquisition. Yeah, those are about the consistent ones in talent acquisition. But again, we kind of see it all. At this point in our business, we actually get really excited when we see a business or an industry that we’ve never worked in before. So for marketing, I was just pitching a client yesterday who’s opening a shooting sports facility and gun range. I have never done that before. And I was like, oh, this is different. This is unique. We’ve got research. Same with anything in our talent acquisition department. If it’s different, we’re like, okay, this is exciting. Because usually, I mean, we just see a lot of businesses come through here.
00:19:48 – Rico Figliolini
Well, that’s cool. Yeah, especially when you see a lot of different businesses like that. We talked about success stories. As a business person, I think any business person, if they’re honest with themselves, will say, yes, we make mistakes every once in a while. New situations arise that they’ve never seen before and it’s a problem that they have to overcome. Have there been any mistakes in your business journey or that you’ve seen in other businesses besides, obviously, the accounting issue? But anything that you’ve overcome as an entrepreneur, as a business person?
00:20:27 – Gabrielle Mills
No, Rico, we’re absolutely perfect. We’ve never made a mistake.
00:20:30 – Rico Figliolini
I could see that.
00:20:34 – Gabrielle Mills
Oh gosh no. I tell people, people ask me about our journey a lot. They’re just curious about our story and how we came to be. And we love telling it. I always tell people, Chrissy and I didn’t have experience in any of these things before we started. We just had a dream and wanted to be, help businesses and build a business ourselves. All of this we have learned from the ground up, having no experience with the exception of like general business acumen and general sales acumen. But we’re not accountants. We are not recruiters. I did start in marketing, but not tactically. So I always say that I went to the school of hard knocks, got a couple of degrees from there. And that’s how I got to where I’m at because we’ve made every mistake in the book. We’ve had clients that have trusted us and loved us through some mistakes that we’ve made to get us to where we are. I would say the biggest piece of advice or mistake that I made that I learned from was Chrissy came into the business from day one. And she was telling me and our director of account management, Maureen, she was like, we’ve got to focus on our processes. We’ve got to focus on our processes. Maureen and I were focused on the people and just serving the people. And in year three, which was our hardest year yet, we got so many different challenges and scenarios that were really, really difficult. And what Chrissy was telling us from day one finally got through to Maureen and I of like, oh, this is why we need processes and standards. This makes sense now. So it took a lot of heartache to really understand why those are important. But now it has been the secret sauce to our business because we know how to hire off of them. So if people aren’t already operating or have experience with that certain frame of mind, we know that they’re likely not a fit or they have to be at least willing to be coached into that direction. We’ve developed consistency because our process is our standard. We’re always making our processes better. We’re always looking to make them beefier. We never would have gotten there if we didn’t learn that lesson.
00:22:53 – Rico Figliolini
And sometimes you do. I mean, you have to learn your lesson. It’s like bringing up kids. They want to do their own mistakes. They don’t want to be told to watch out for that step. And they’ll do their own mistakes.
00:23:04 – Gabrielle Mills
She was a broken record there for a few years. And then the light bulb finally went off. And Maureen and I were like, oh, okay. Now it took us some tears to learn it. But we got there. Now we’re on there.
00:23:19 – Rico Figliolini
I’m sure. So you’re a local business. Obviously, coming out to meet with you and your mom and the rest of the team was nice to take a tour and find out what you’re doing there. You do give back. I know you’re good people. You’re giving back to the community. Why don’t you tell us a little bit about some of the local charities that you’ve given back to?
00:23:45 – Gabrielle Mills
So early in our business, we decided that we’re not in business, we’re in business for the joy of being in business. We’re not in business to make a gazillion dollars and cash out. While that would be lovely, we would totally not turn our noses up at that. We wanted to at least serve our clients and then serve people that never really came into contact with Sourced and use the business as an opportunity to give back because we believe that if we’re successful, we have been giving blessings and so we should be giving blessings out. So we committed from day one that we were going to donate 10% of our monthly profits to charity. And those charities would be selected by our team of people. So every year, in December, we put out a survey to our team. And our team can nominate a charity that is important to them. And we decided in January, up to three charities that we’re going to give to that year, and every quarter we look at each month that we’ve made profit, take that pool of money, cut it by, divide it out equally across however many charities we have that year and give them out. We have served, some of those have been large organizations, but our favorite ones are the ones that are smaller and local. We started the first couple of years working with an organization called Connections Homes, which is out of Suwanee. They help kids who are aging out of foster care really like with support to become adults, but also they’re not really adults. They’re 17, 18, 19, and they still don’t know how to do the world. That’s an organization that we’ve supported. We’ve supported an organization called Ignite Hope, which is another foster care association. We’ve done neighborhood cooperative ministries, which is a, for those who are local, you guys know that it’s a very large nominal nonprofit here in Norcross. And this year we’re partnering with an organization called Because One Matters, which ironically is another foster care organization. I just realized that there seems to be a pattern. So we tend to give to the kids.
00:26:08 – Rico Figliolini
No, I like that. I like the fact that you’re giving locally and it’s 10% of your profit each month is what you split up, which is great. It’s almost like tithing in a way.
00:26:18 – Gabrielle Mills
Yeah. And that’s how it came about. We wanted to tithe using the business. We give once a quarter based on the months because what we didn’t want to do is we would have one month go to one charity and that was a particularly good month. But then the next month maybe wasn’t that good of a month. So we wanted to balance it out. So we look at all the profits that come in from the quarter and then equally disperse it.
00:26:39 – Rico Figliolini
That is cool. Alright. We’ve gotten sort of to the end of our interview time, but I’m sure that there’s things that we could talk a lot more about. Is there anything that I’ve left out? Anything you’d like to share? Maybe services that you may be looking at expanding into the coming year or anything along those lines?
00:27:00 – Gabrielle Mills
So we’re likely not expanding into other services because we have five already and that’s enough. We are finding that there’s a lot of growth to be had in our talent acquisition department. So we’re eager to see what that ends up looking like through the year. What we really want to focus on in terms of like diversification or innovation, which I think is really where your question comes from, is how we utilize technology to make our services more streamlined and more advanced. We will never not have the support of our people. We are a people business. We will go under before computers take over our jobs. However, there’s a lot of really great technology that if you use it right and smartly, we can make profit margins better, save our clients money, be able to reach more people. So we’re going to try to figure out how we can lean into that a little bit.
00:28:02 – Rico Figliolini
So that’s a great path to go down for a quick minute, maybe. Because AI technology is something that everyone, every business is tackling and using in a variety of ways, right? ChatGPT, Grok3, there’s a bunch of them. Claude, I mean, there’s a whole bunch. DeepSeek, I mean, you could just go on and on with these things. And every business, every industry is trying to figure out how they can use that, right? And some use it badly and others use it better. Sometimes it’s used for support or for research versus making decisions. So are you finding that you have to also look at that to augment or to add a complexity to the service you provide?
00:28:52 – Gabrielle Mills
So what stands out in your question to me is the have to. I think that nobody really has to, but I’m in an industry that if I don’t look at it, my industry will die because it is based on people. And if you don’t lean into the technology, you run the risk of the world thinking they don’t need people anymore. And then you’re obsolete. So we don’t have to do anything. But if we want to stay in business, we should be looking at how to utilize it better. The beauty of our business is these are things that people are always going to need. And computers can’t replace entirely. You always need a person overseeing or creating or some version of managing what the computer does. So we always have a people element to it. What we’re looking at with technology is how do we make ourselves and our processes and how we do things better and faster using technology and use the human brain where the human brain needs to interject.
00:30:01 – Rico Figliolini
Yeah. Okay. Great explanation. Well, we’ve reached the end of our time together. Where can people find out more about your company? Of course, we’ll have it in the show notes as well, but how can they reach out to you?
00:30:14 – Gabrielle Mills
Yeah. So if you’re local, just come and see us. We are off of Scientific Drive in Technology Park, down by the Forum. If you want to check us out online, we are at getsourced.com. We’re on all the socials under SourcedATL, or you can always just look at my name, Gabrielle Mills. Unfortunately, very easy to find out on the web.
00:30:39 – Rico Figliolini
I’m sure. Check her out on LinkedIn. It’d be easy to find her there. I want to say thank you again to EV Remodeling and to Vox Pop Uli for supporting us. Everyone else, you have comments, leave them in the comment section below, depending where you’re watching this, whether it’s Facebook, YouTube. If you’re listening to this on Apple or any of the audio podcast places, Spotify, leave a review, like, share. We’d love if you would support us that way. Gabrielle, thank you for being with us. Appreciate it.
The Peachtree Corners Business Association (PCBA) celebrated the opening of Fifth Third Bank’s new branch in Peachtree Corners with a ribbon cutting on February 20.
Located at 3210 Holcomb Bridge Road, the new location features lobby and drive-thru hours, regular banking, investment services, loans and more.
“We are growing [and] proud to open up our new financial center at Peachtree Corners,” said Randy Koporc, EVP, regional president GA/AL Fifth Third Bank. “Congratulations to Financial Center Manager Jasmine Youngblood and her team, Retail Executive Dewayne King and all involved in getting us to this day.”
photo credit: Keri Zampano; courtesy of Peachtree Corners Business Association
“Thank you, Lisa Proctor of the Peachtree Corners Business Association, for helping us celebrate at our ribbon cutting,” Koporc continued.
Fifth Third plans to build more than 60 financial centers in Georgia and Alabama over the next five years and looks forward to strengthening the communities that they join.
“We love welcoming new businesses into Peachtree Corners,” said Lisa Proctor, president of the Peachtree Corners Business Association. “Fifth Third Bank will be a great addition to our banking community. We can’t wait to watch them grow.”
photos: Keri Zampano; courtesy of Peachtree Corners Business Association
About Peachtree Corners Business Association
The Peachtree Corners Business Association (PCBA) is a business membership organization that focuses on innovative approaches, programs, shared resources, community outreach and opportunities for member businesses and professionals to connect, develop, grow, and prosper.
The PCBA is made up of businesses of all sizes and types who want to expand their reach and grow their business within Peachtree Corners and the greater metro-Atlanta area.
Sequel Coffee Co., a new specialty coffee brand, is set to open its flagship location in Peachtree Corners in the summer of 2025.
The new coffee shop will open alongside shared workspace provider, Roam, at Town Center and will feature a convenient drive-thru complemented by an inviting in-shop experience.
Premium coffee and locally sourced offerings
Committed to delivering an elevated coffee experience, Sequel Coffee Co. will serve freshly brewed coffee and handcrafted espresso beverages with responsibly sourced beans from Valor, a local metro Atlanta roaster.
Interior rendering courtesy of Sequel Coffee Co.
The food menu will feature a curated selection of locally sourced café favorites and convenient grab-and-go options from local vendors Two Chefs and A Seasonal Affair.
Guests can expect a variety of delicious offerings, including breakfast sandwiches, quiche and freshly baked pastries, as well as yogurt parfaits, homemade granola bars and protein-packed power bites for on-the-go fuel.
In addition, rotating seasonal flavors and limited-time menu items will offer new and exciting food and beverage options throughout the year.
Strengthening community connections in Peachtree Corners
A concept created by Roam, the hospitality-focused work and meeting space, Sequel Coffee Co. is built on the belief that coffee is more than just a morning ritual — it’s a catalyst for creativity, productivity, community and connection.
Image courtesy of Sequel Coffee Co.
Sequel’s tagline, “start your story strong,” reflects its mission to inspire the potential in every day by championing stories, embracing moments and thoughtfully crafting coffee.
Sequel seeks to become an integral part of the Peachtree Corners community by fostering meaningful interactions through hospitality-driven experiences. With a brand philosophy centered on people, purpose and belonging, the company aims to inspire customers through delicious coffee and intentional service.
Bringing Sequel Coffee Co. to you
Ahead of its brick-and-mortar opening this summer, Sequel Coffee Co. is currently serving the community through its mobile coffee cart, offering a full-service espresso bar and trained baristas for offsite events.
Ideal for corporate offices, networking events, school functions and private gatherings, the mobile cart provides an opportunity to enjoy Sequel’s signature coffee experience in any setting — before the shop even opens its doors.
Sequel is also currently hiring a Shop Manager to lead daily operations and cultivate an inviting experience for customers. Interested applicants can learn more about the position and apply at sequelcoffeeco.com/shop-manager-job-listing.
About Sequel Coffee Co.
Sequel Coffee Co. is dedicated to inspiring potential in every day through thoughtfully crafted coffee and warm hospitality.
Offering handcrafted espresso beverages, freshly brewed coffee and a curated menu of café favorites — along with a convenient drive-thru and cozy café space — Sequel aims to create a welcoming spot for guests to fuel their day and transform the daily coffee routine.
Roam is a comprehensive workplace solution offering co-working memberships, private offices and meeting space for professionals and businesses of sizes.
Opening in Peachtree Corners at 3847 Medlock Bridge Road in summer 2025, Roam provides flexible and inspiring environments to help individuals and teams accomplish their best work. Now leasing private offices and pre-booking meetings and events.
Food & Drink21 hours ago
