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The French-American Chamber of Commerce Heads into its Second Year in Peachtree Corners

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Keynote speakers (left to right): SVP of Product and Digital Accounts at OVHcloud US, Pascal Jaillon, CEO of Pertinent Health, Bruno Jactel, CEO of sunday, Christine de Wendel, and Exotec VP of Operations, Stanislas Normand. Photos by La French Tech Atlanta. Photos courtesy of La French Tech Atlanta.

FACC boosts trade and investment between France and the Southeast.

Leaving behind airport-like security measures that allowed one-person-at-a-time access to the French Consulate building in Buckhead a year ago, The French-American Chamber of Commerce — Atlanta Southeast (FACC) planted its roots in the heart of Silicone Orchard. It has become a part of the innovation ecosystem of Curiosity Lab at Peachtree Corners and has much to celebrate.

How have things gone since they heralded their repositioning to a smart city with real-world connected infrastructure and 5G, using robot-delivered ribbon and scissors during their Peachtree Corners inauguration? I weighed-in with Katherine Lafourcade, Executive Director of the FACC since January 2021, to discuss how the well-timed relocation has played out to date.

Serendipity at its finest

It was perfect synergy — the strategic move to a vibrant tech environment in combination with the official launch of the La French Tech Atlanta community. Atlanta received this French government-backed accreditation in 2021. It’s now one of 12 American cities that aid French tech startups looking to branch into the United States and American tech companies looking to cross the Atlantic and branch into France.

Congratulations Hypercell Technologies and Bruno Jactel for winning the 2022 Crystal Pitch Competition from La French Tech Atlanta and the French American Chamber of Commerce Atlanta. Photo courtesy of La French Tech Atlanta.

The La French Tech presence in Curiosity Lab, along with the FACC, solidifies Silicone Orchard as a startup hub — a desirable destination for international tech companies and investors.

Curiosity Lab enables startups to prove out new technologies in a real-world setting with infrastructure that includes cellular vehicle-to-everything (C-V2X) technology, autonomous vehicles, drones, robotics and solar roadways.

Lafourcade deems the move advantageous. “The space at Curiosity Lab is amazing,” she said. “There’s always something new and different happening. It’s always evolving. It’s fun to be in that environment. They’re digging holes, moving walls, there are drones, robots — kind of everything. What a great thing to be able to offer access to all of that as a chamber of commerce.”

With a terrific team of people and fluid connections to the wider community around Atlanta, the FACC intends to remain at Curiosity Lab for the long haul.

“Onward and upward! Curiosity Lab generates interest and piques people’s curiosity. It’s an easy sell. Peachtree Corners is unique. It’s pretty special,” Lafourcade beamed.

PTC — The host with the most

The city has embraced the FACC, offering support every step of the way. “Peachtree Corners has been an amazing partner. They help by sponsoring events. I joke that they’re ‘the Yes People,’ but they really are! They help in any way they can. I think they’ve been instrumental in the chamber doing as well as it is now,” Lafourcade said.

French American chambers exist solely through their membership and events. There are no subsidies or funding coming in from elsewhere.

After having been hit hard by the COVID outbreak, the FACC is presently thriving. Being in a milieu that attracts the interest of French technology companies looking to expand facilitates partnerships as the Chamber has much to offer.

“We work closely with the French Consulate, the Metro Atlanta Chamber,” Lafourcade said. “We have really great connections with the city and the mayor’s office of international affairs. We’re in the heart of a bustling community. Our location really helps that role.”

A hub of innovation, open-mindedness and an entrepreneurial spirit

While the FACC has a special focus on France, the collaboration and development expand to other European countries. In turn, the cosmopolitan nature of Atlanta and surrounding areas astonishes Lafourcade, who moved here from Switzerland.

“I’m a bit amazed at the number of people here who weren’t born here. People have come for work or other reasons, and everybody is thriving. I think that is due in part to local people, southern hospitality and warmth. There’s a welcome for everybody. It doesn’t matter where you’re from. The attitude is, ‘the doors are open. We’ll help you on your journey,’” she surmised.

Curiosity Lab PR and Strategy Representative Kelsey Neely confirms that the innovation center was an excellent option for the FACC headquarters, especially partnered with La French Tech and OVHcloud US, their alternative cloud provider.

“We have such a great international presence. The Curiosity Lab can act as a launch pad for these startups expanding in the United States, and potentially beyond,” Neely said.

She recollected the first French startup to join Curiosity Lab through the FACC and the La French Tech program, Urban Canopee. “They make structures that are placed in urban environments to help bring greenery back to the space, keep the air cleaner and fight climate change,” Neely explained. “We actually have one deployed in the city of Peachtree Corners Town Center.”

You may have seen the ‘corolle’ there; it’s a modular, vegetation-covered installment intended to cool down concrete city expanses by “greening them up.”

At the first ever Crystal Pitch Competition this past October, part of the France-Atlanta event series that has been running for 13 years, Neely witnessed some startups present their exciting entrepreneurial undertakings. She shared a look of intense satisfaction.

“You can see through [this] event, Atlanta is growing as a technology hub,” Neely said. “It’s being recognized across the country now as having a healthy startup ecosystem. We’re really happy to be a part of that.”

The Crystal Pitch StartUp competition

Presenters from Strapt Vending, Rebillia Platform ADAXIS and Videtics. Photos courtesy of La French Tech Atlanta.

The October 24th France-Atlanta Evening in Tech was held at Georgia Tech and sponsored by Morgan Stanley, Peachtree Corners, OVHcloud US, Orbiss Inc. and Georgia Tech. Valuable startup pointers and insights were shared by seasoned entrepreneurs and keynote speakers Christine de Wendel, CEO of sunday; Bruno Jactel, CEO of Pertinent Health, who later pivoted and also pitched his startup Hypercell; Pascal Jaillon, SVP of Product and Digital Accounts at OVHcloud US; and Stanislas Normand, Exotec VP of Operations.

Presenters from Strapt Vending, Rebillia Platform ADAXIS and Videtics. Photos courtesy of La French Tech Atlanta.

The Shark Tank-type competition ensued, highlighting Atlanta’s growing La French Tech community aimed at expanding local and France-based startups in Atlanta, the Southeast and in Europe. The atmosphere was exhilarating; it was “on” between five startup companies.

Presenters from Strapt Vending, Rebillia Platform ADAXIS and Videtics. Photos courtesy of La French Tech Atlanta.

Entrepreneurs had a limited time to pitch their ideas to a panel of judges in the hopes of winning prizes like $120,000 in OVHcloud US credits, a year of desk space at Curiosity Lab, tax and accounting support from Orbiss Inc., two tickets to the France-Atlanta Gala (the signature business event of the FACC) and mentoring by La French Tech and French Trade advisors.

Presenters from Strapt Vending, Rebillia Platform ADAXIS and Videtics. Photos courtesy of La French Tech Atlanta.

The competing startups

Covering their inventive solutions, future plans and the global impact their businesses will have, the startups presented in the following order:

  • Strapt Vending — Recognizing a change in consumer purchasing, Founder and CEO Carly Simenauer developed dispensers as vehicles for consumers to sample products in a controlled way using a QR code. The premise is that users are more engaged after they’ve been able to try a product for free.A rapid authentication process to obtain the free samples allows companies to follow-up with and funnel consumers via email afterwards. Intended for feminine hygiene and personal products, Strapt helps companies bring new products to market.
  • Rebillia Platform — Co-Founder and CEO Snir Avidan presented flexible subscription management software that puts today’s consumer in control. Apparently, allowing customers to create their own subscription plans was a real hit.There are four million end users of this system, it forms the backbone of several famous brands and it has all been through word of mouth. They’re proud to have spent $0 on marketing.
  • VideticsVidetics offers intelligent video analytics software, AI for the sake of mankind – think a surveillance revolution, of sorts — for security, to track shopping habits in a mall or to address congestion and mobility shifts in cities. Deep Learning Engineers Alan Farbach, co-counder and CEO, and Pierre-Alexis Le Borgne, co-founder and head of research, pitched their simple business model.A license per camera costs 500 € annually and the software can be integrated so clients may keep what they’ve already installed. They hope to experiment in Peachtree Corners, testing the accuracy of their algorithms.
  • Hypercell Technologies Bruno Jactel, CEO and co-founder, delivered the winning pitch of the night with a solution to help prevent future pandemics by implementing rapid diagnostic monitoring and control of viruses in the food chain, specifically in animal reservoirs. Due to recent events, the appeal of mitigating the spread of infectious diseases to reduce cost and shield the human population is easy to appreciate.
  • ADAXIS —Based in Bayonne, France, this company aims to streamline the additive manufacturing industry by reducing human intervention. They’ve created a software platform capable of transforming any robot into a flexible 3D printer and have shown promising traction with over 30 customers in Europe, America and Asia.

Vive la réussite!

When I inquired about the criteria for participation in the Crystal Pitch competition, Sébastien Lafon, President of La French Tech Atlanta replied, “It was really for U.S. startups with the ambition to launch their businesses in Europe, using France as a platform. For French startups, it was to see how they are thinking about their business plan to expand into the United States. No series A, B, C or D. We just want to create those relationships between French and American startups!”

KatherineLafourquade, Executive Director of the French American Chamber of Atlanta. Photo courtesy of Katherine Lafourquade.

Lafon views Peachtree Corners as an invigorating place for the opening of La French Tech Atlanta. “You can see how Curiosity Lab continues to generate interest. We had several companies today that are interested in partnering with Curiosity Lab for the Smart City concept. We are incredibly fortunate and thankful to partner with Curiosity Lab,” he said.

Kelsey Neely PR and Strategy Representative at Curiosity Lab in Peachtree Corners. Photo courtesy of Kelsey Neely.

On the heels of their first anniversary at Curiosity Lab, Lafon declared, “We are happy we had an event like this. Twenty-two startups applied for the competition. This event generated so much interest, we’ll see about maybe having it twice a year.”

President of La French Tech Atlanta, Sebastien Lafon. Photo by Patrizia Winsper.

More La French Tech social events that foster French-American startup relationships can be expected.

As for the FACC, all signs point to Lafourcade having every reason to be confident in her snowball-effect vision of the future: increasing members and interest, creating additional connections and helping even more businesses. It’s a plan that seems destined to materialize, in large part, because they are now headquartered in Curiosity Lab at Peachtree Corners.  As if our fair city wasn’t alluring enough, the French connection gives Peachtree Corners an additional dose of je ne sais quoi, wouldn’t you agree?

Patrizia hails from Toronto, Canada where she earned an Honors B.A. in French and Italian studies at York University, and a B.Ed. at the University of Toronto. This trilingual former French teacher has called Georgia home since 1998. She and her family have enjoyed living, working and playing in Peachtree Corners since 2013.

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The Benefits of Outsourcing: How Sourced Supports Growing Businesses

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Gabrielle Mills, Sourced.

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

Resources:
Sourced Website: https://getsourced.com/
Social Media: @SourcedATLGabrielle Mills
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gabriellejmills/

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.

00:31:13 – Gabrielle Mills

Thank you for having me.

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Business

PCBA Celebrates Fifth Third’s New Location with Ribbon Cutting

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Group of people in front of a Fifth Third Bank location for a ribbon cutting

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.”

People in front of a new Fifth Third Bank location celebrating with a ribbon cutting and balloons
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.”

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.

For more information call 678-969-3385, email membership@peachtreeba.com or visit peachtreecornersba.com.

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Business

Sequel Coffee Debuts in PTC Summer 2025

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Rendering of a three story building with outdoor cafe tables and umbrellas along the side of it.

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.

Rendering of the interior of a coffee shop, with dark wood and white counters and tables and a sleek, modern design.
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.

Rendering of the exterior of a three-story brick and glass building with green space area and outdoor cafe tables.
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.

To book Sequel’s mobile coffee cart, visit sequelcoffeeco.com/mobile-coffee-cart.

Career opportunities

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.

Sequel Coffee Co. logo in gold type on dark green background

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.

For updates and opening announcements, follow @sequelcoffeeco on Instagram or visit sequelcoffeeco.com.

Night time rendering of the exterior of a three-story brick and glass building with roadway, green space and outdoor cafe tables.
Image courtesy of Sequel Coffee Co.

About Roam

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.

Learn more at meetatroam.com.

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