PREFACE
Sometimes when people walk into my office and see the beautiful space of a well-established company headed by a confident entrepreneur, they think, Wow. She’s lucky to have had all this good fortune. They often presume I come from privilege or that success came easily for me.
Nothing could be further from the truth. My childhood was difficult, to put it mildly. As a child, I was often sad and anxious. When I was old enough to realize my situation, I felt vulnerable and trapped. Books provided a means of escape, and I dreamed of going to college, hoping that a degree would be my ticket to a better future. At age 14, I also got my first glimpse of entrepreneurship when I spent a year living in Ireland with my grandmother, who was a fourth-generation entrepreneur. She was such a savvy woman, and I fell in love with the idea of being a businesswoman, too.
After graduating high school, I went to a community college, and that is when my life really changed—but not in the way I’d hoped. I was living with a volatile person, and I was in really bad shape emotionally and psychologically. One night during an evening class I was taking, I got a 911 page from my therapist. I hurried to a pay phone to call her, and she told me that the violent person I was living with had contacted her. “You need to leave the college now!” she said urgently. “He’s on his way there, and he said if he finds you he is going to kill you!”
I ran to the parking lot, but I was in such a panic that I couldn’t remember where I’d parked. As I frantically looked for my car, I saw the person’s car driving slowly back and forth near the entrance to the lot. My legs felt like quicksand, and I was screaming but no sound was coming out. My only thought was, Run, Kedma, run! Just then I spotted my car and ran toward it, ducking down and dashing between vehicles. Staying crouched down, I opened my car door just enough to grab my books, the only thing I cared about, and ran back to the pay phone. I called a friend, who came and picked me up on the other side of campus, out of sight of the parking lot. Meanwhile, the perpetrator continued to drive back and forth, searching for me.
It was unsafe to go back to my place of residence. In fact, the person posed such a threat to me that I literally went into hiding. I had no money, no job, no car, and I was homeless. I stayed with a friend at first, and a group of friends banded together to find me my first home and purchase items for me to live there. It was an illegal basement apartment in a squalid house in what was essentially a ghetto. But that cockroach-infested hovel was my safe haven for five years. In addition, my friends helped me find my first full-time, minimum-wage job as a bill collector. In my interview, I communicated that I was in hiding, and if they hired me I needed to have my information held with the strictest of confidence.
The problem was that I couldn’t afford my education. One of my professors, who was among the few people who knew about my situation, encouraged me to petition the college for a hardship scholarship. So I wrote a letter to the college’s finance committee explaining the painful circumstances I was facing, and I was called in for an interview. After answering a few questions, I pled my case, stating that I’d lost everything—my home, my family, my car, my identity—and the only thing I had left to live for was the opportunity for an education. Afterward, I was directed to wait in the secretary’s office while the committee deliberated on my case. As I waited nervously, I asked the secretary for a pen and a sheet of paper. I wrote a letter to God, having little faith that my request would be heard since God had never showed up to help me before. In the letter I promised that if the scholarship committee would give me a scholarship, I would use my education and abilities to help other people in need for the rest of my life.
About two hours later, I was summoned back to the conference room. One of the committee members walked over to me and said, “Kedma, please stand up.” My knees shook as I rose from the chair. The woman took my hand and shook it, saying, “Thank you for the woman you are. You’re getting a full scholarship to this college.”
Because that small group of people believed in me when they had no reason to, I set out on the path that led to where I am today. And I made good on the promise I’d made in that letter. But it didn’t happen quickly or easily.
It took five years to get my bachelor’s degree, the last three at a local university, on a full scholarship from the hospital where I worked as a bill collector. The whole time, I continued to work full-time and to live in the basement apartment. My goal was to become a business coach, because I realized there were two ways to positively affect someone’s life: in the home or in business. Being a business consultant rather than a family counselor, I could not only help people in their personal lives, I could also help give them the financial means to move their lives forward.
After graduating from college, I moved across the country to Arizona, where I’d never even visited, didn’t know a soul, and had no job. I thought, Oh, big me. I have a degree. Of course someone will hire me! It didn’t take long for me to realize that an undergrad degree in business did not guarantee the position I’d trained for and the paycheck I’d hoped for. I started out working as a temp and then was hired as a customer service rep at a call center.
A few months later, the call center closed that entire operation, and I was part of a massive layoff. Suddenly, I was jobless at a time when the job market was abysmal. The regional reemployment center offered two programs: assistance finding another job or a small business training program to help prepare me to start my own business. I decided to give entrepreneurship a try.
I came up with a great idea that combined the cozy comfort of a bed-and-breakfast with a luxury spa experience and spent three months researching the market and developing a business plan. At that point, my business counselor at the reemployment center, Sandra Hoy Johnson, told me, “Okay, you’re ready! It’s time to move forward.”
I made an appointment with a loan officer at the branch where I’d done my personal banking for several years. I handed him my shiny new business plan and told him I wanted a loan for my unique B&B offering full spa services.
“How much are you looking for?” $300,000.
“Is this for a startup?” Yes.
“Have you ever owned or operated a bed-and-breakfast or health spa?” No, but I frequent them and have researched them extensively.
“Do you have any collateral?” Well, I have a beat-up old car, worth a few thousand.
“Do you own a home?” No, I rent an apartment.
“Do you have any money to put down?” No.
“Do you have family or friends who can lend or invest in the business?” No.
“Who is your current employer?” I’ve been unemployed for a few months, since my last employer closed its offices.
At that point, the loan officer looked me straight in the eyes and said, “We can’t help you. You need to go get a job.”
That pissed me off, and when I’m pissed off, I make things happen. So I took my business plan, which he hadn’t even looked at, and walked out, even more determined to find a way to launch my business.
By the time I got back to my apartment, I’d lost some of that steam. I knew I had a great business idea, but the only funding option I thought might be available to me had just turned me down flat. Then I had an aha moment: Why did I need to own the B&B? I didn’t. I could provide spa services to an existing B&B. Within six months, I opened my business, and I didn’t need any startup capital. My team of practitioners—from massage to acupuncture, pedicures, facials, aromatherapy, mud baths, you name it—got a percentage of the customer fees, the B&B owner got a percentage, and I got a percentage. That business model was different from the one I’d worked months to create, but it worked. So many people bury their ideas in the Cemetery of Dreams because they aren’t willing to negotiate their dream. They’d rather kill the dream than start small and move forward from there.
My business was a hit and earned a nice profit. But after a while I realized the liability risk that was involved in working on people’s bodies and decided I didn’t want to subject myself to that kind of risk. So I closed my business and got a job as a corporate sales trainer in Colorado. Teaching 100 telemarketers a month how to engage the consumer, break through reluctance, and make the sale honed my negotiation and communication skills. It helped give me the backbone to handle the resistance, problem solving, planning, and dealmaking that being a successful business owner requires.
One day I got a call from Sandra, the director of the reemployment center in Arizona, who had become and still is my best friend. She said, “Kedma, there’s a big job opportunity at the Women’s Business Center here, and they’re looking for someone like you—a business degree, has owned her own business, background in sales.” I got the job as the Women’s Business Center Director for the SBA in Tucson. Our clients were socially and economically disadvantaged women who were business owners or wanted to start a business. Finally, I was fulfilling the promise I’d made when I wrote that letter asking for divine intervention so I could get my education. For the first time I felt like I was doing what I was meant to do. This is why I’m here; this is why I exist.
During that time, I fulfilled another life goal. I completed a master’s in business administration through Troy State University’s weekend program at the Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson.
But soon after getting my dream job at the Women’s Business Center, I experienced a major blow, and it was a double whammy. I left my troubled marriage, and it impacted my financial situation. When we divorced, I was left with our communal debt, which was significant, and I was advised to file for bankruptcy. In one fell swoop I lost my husband and my good credit. As I walked out of bankruptcy court, I felt humiliated and defeated. It was one of the lowest points in my life.
Two weeks later, I got a Capital One credit card in the mail. The interest rate was really high and the credit limit was only $200, but it gave me such a boost that it might as well have been $200,000. I jumped up and down in my apartment screaming “Capital One, you believe in me!” Then, I had an aha moment: What if I could find a way to help other people like me—with no or insufficient collateral and no credit or bad credit, or even a bankruptcy—obtain funding. That became my mission, and over the next 15 years, I was obsessed with uncovering funding sources and other resources for good people whose circumstances inhibited their ability to secure traditional financing.
To that end, I continued working as a business counselor at the Women’s Business Center in Tucson. Soon I began to work with minorities and people with disabilities in addition to women. I also served on the finance committee for the state vocational rehabilitation program and taught entrepreneurship and business leadership at the local university. I loved helping people help themselves by becoming successful business owners!
In 2002, I left those positions to relocate to Oregon, get married, and start a family. My first business interview in Oregon was with the Portland Development Commission. During one of those interviews I met an amazing guy, Tyrone Henry, who said something that lit a spark in me. “Kedma, I can get you a job at PDC, but think of all the people who will never have the opportunity to work with you because you will be limited to PDC’s parameters.” At that moment I knew I had to start another business.
I launched my company, AVITA, in 2003, to provide business advising to people with disabilities. I rented a 150-square-foot office for $150 a month, but I wasn’t sure I could afford the rent, so I shared the office with a friend. We each paid $75 for 75 square feet. I remember my landlord saying, “If you can’t pay $150 a month, you may not be ready for business.” He wasn’t the only one who was skeptical about my venture. When I began AVITA, several colleagues were convinced that a company targeting socially and economically disadvantaged business owners would never make a profit. AVITA grew 300 percent in gross sales in the first 12 months. I hired people and moved into a 300-square-foot leased office, and then a 1,000-square-foot leased office, and in 2008, I purchased my 2,000-square-foot office. Today, I serve as the semi-absentee owner of AVITA, which focuses on assisting women, minorities, and clients with disabilities in achieving their business goals.
In 2006, I launched the Micro Inventors Program of Oregon (MIPO) to help independent inventors bring their products to market. I did that until 2014, when I became the director of the Mount Hood Community College Small Business Development Center in Gresham, Oregon. Finally, I was working at a community college, where it all began, paying it forward to other students and entrepreneurs! From 2005 to 2009, I was also the director of the Women’s Business Center for the Oregon Native American Business Enterprise Network (ONABEN). Through that experience I had the opportunity to coauthor Indianpreneurship, an entrepreneurial curriculum designed for Native American businesses.
I have dedicated my life to removing the barriers to business success for those who are socially and economically disadvantaged. One of the biggest barriers to successful business ownership is undercapitalization. For almost 20 years, I have made it my mission to find and to open the doors to funding opportunities for those who are usually denied access to traditional funding options. I have helped more than 10,000 people understand how to fund their small business ventures so far, and through my work and this book, I will continue to help other people realize their business ownership dreams.
This is how I’m paying forward the scholarship I received so long ago. I will never forget that group of people who believed in me when I did not believe in myself. It’s my bucket-list dream to one day go back to that community college as a keynote speaker and share my story with the graduating class. I am eternally grateful for the opportunity the college gave me to pursue my dream and do what I was meant to do. As a business advisor, I never judge someone by whatever circumstances they are facing. I believe that with the right opportunities, resources, and funding, anyone can lead a life filled with possibilities. And I am living proof of that.
Kedma Ough