Get The Right People On Your Team

The Inventive Journey
Episode #332
Get The Right People On Your Team
w/ Renee Rosales
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"I think the biggest piece of advice is to get the right people on your team and don't be afraid of doing that. Take the time in the beginning to strategies and hopefully move forward in a way that you can afford to financially invest in those people. For me, I have a wonderful business consultant and he has been really helpful to me as far as moving forward and giving me those gold nuggets and pieces of advice to build right in the very beginning and the structure that I need to have in place to start things right."

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What Is The Inventive Journey?

Starting and growing a business is a journey. On The Inventive Journey, your host, Devin Miller walks with startups along their different journeys startups take to success (or failure). You also get to hear from featured guests, such as venture firms and angel investors, that provide insight on the paths to a successful inventive journey.

ai generated transcription

 think the biggest piece of advice is get the right people on your team and don't be afraid of doing that um and i think take the time in the beginning to strategize and hopefully move forward in a way where you can afford to financially invest in those people for me i have a wonderful um business consultant um kenya shaw and he's been really helpful with me as far as moving forward and and giving me those golden nuggets and those pieces of advice to build right in the very beginning and the structure that i need to have in place to start things right [Music] hey everyone this is devin miller here with another episode of the inventive journey i'm your host devin miller the serial entrepreneur that's grown several startups in the seven and eight figure businesses as well as the founder and ceo of miller ip law we help startups and small businesses with their patents and trademarks if you ever need help with yours just go to strategymeeting.com grab some time with us to chat and we're always here to help now today we have another great guest on the podcast renee rosales and renee came from uh in her own words hard working family parents always had side gigs and so in college she had multiple jobs while earning the earning a degree including i think a painting business or something to do with painting at one point got a degree in education worked in public education for a while got married had some kids um and just got going doing some side gigs while she was raising the family and i think it might have something to do with teaching school or she can correct me wear a bra and then with covid all the kids went online decided to launch your own business and she'll get into a little bit more as to what that is so with that much as an introduction welcome on the podcast renee thank you so much seven i'm so happy to be here and i love what you're doing with the inventive journey i think it's awesome for us to be able to share our experiences with one another and hopefully gain a lot of wisdom along the way we all have a different journey but um we share a lot of the same struggles and challenges and hopefully we can help each other share some of the same victories um absolutely no and i think that's great now it's always fun to hear everybody's journeys and to help each other along the way so now maybe to kick off you know talking a little bit about your journey so we uh we i gave the 30-second version the high-level version which doesn't i'm sure do any justice to it so maybe with that tell us a little bit how your journey has started with working in you know we're coming up in a hard working family and how you did multiple jobs going through college yeah sure um basically my parents were they're wonderful people they both have full-time jobs throughout my childhood but they always had a side hustle they always had their own business that they did together um and i come from a lot a history of creative people and my parents were crafters my my father's a carpenter and so they created home decor together and they sold that um to different individuals it was before the internet so they had little home groups that would come over and i was a part of that and it was always kind of like the i never even thought about it it was just something we did as a family they recruited us to help them do things i'm a painter um an artistic painter and so that led into me developing a business called artistic accents when i was in college just to kind of supplement i was also waiting tables and getting my degree in english education with a concentration in art and um i enjoyed doing that and i but i had a difficult time really dialing in exactly what i wanted to do with the exception of i knew i wanted to help young people and i saw education as being this huge um benefit and an opportunity for kids that potentially didn't have this kind of resources i did growing up having a way um out or a way um through some more of the challenges it's like you know we know that with an education and now the landscape is changing but in the in the 80s and the 90s you needed to have that degree to get the job and to make a way and so um i went into english education and i loved it but i uh early on recognized that i had leadership uh qualities that other people didn't necessarily share like i was always doing extra i have a i am a high functioning adhder like i i have the energy of the energizer bunny you know i always have done extra and so i got a lot of ed tech experience and that kind of launched me into um online schools and at the time those were i've been clicked on that so because we i think jumped over part of the journey which is so you went to school you got it you know you worked at multiple jobs and doing those things while you're in college you came out with an educational degree now before you got into ed tech and online schools i think you mentioned that you can create more imran you worked as a you know normal teacher in the educational system or teaching kids to face-to-face is that right yeah so i started as an english teacher and i taught inner city cleveland i'm at a middle school and i waited tables on the side and i still had my artistic accent thing going so i was doing a lot of different things all at once um and i loved it i love working with um kids and i i really love alternative um education that's kind of what my niche was i i've always had an easy time working with kids that other people may have found challenging or difficult to reach that was kind of always an easy uh uh ex it's a point of that excellence for me i could just dive right in and find that connection and making connections has never been a problem oh and i think that you know it sounds like plenty to keep you busy and i think that you know but being a teacher is a full-time job and then you add on a couple things now one of the things that we haven't talked before but i thought it was interesting so um what just out of curiosity what part of cleveland were you in the group didn't actually and then i moved to little italy and cleveland i don't know if you would know where that's at that's that's funny just because i went to case for a lot for my law degree as well as my mba degree i went to case western so i actually lived in little italy as well so it's always kind of funny to how small the world is but yeah so we we lived in little italy for the whole time i was uh going to school and so certainly uh familiar with that area as well yeah and i waited tables at corvo's the golden goal when it was awesome still that's always funny that how small the world could be so we'll focus on that but i just had to add there i thought it was an interesting side note that we both had ties to cleveland it sounds like we're in the same area so with that um so now you're saying okay i'm doing you know doing the being a teacher doing additional side hustles trying you know to continue to do that now how did you start to get into ed tech or to doing more online and kind of making that transition was that kind of just branching out from what you're doing as a teacher or as a side hustle or kind of where how did you get into that it's kind of interesting because honestly i had a vocal cord issues when i was um and when my first three four years of teaching and i had to go through some vocal cord operations and at the same time i had met my husband and he was going into his residency and we relocated to arizona and so and my voice wasn't still full throttle i mean i was in with a headset in my classroom because i there was like six months where i could barely talk louder than a whisper and i still push through and we moved and then i was looking for a job in arizona and i ended up they didn't have an english teaching position open but i um found a job they wanted me at mountain view high school in marana which is near tucson and i and i they put me in a computer lab and like i'm very high energy so i happen to know the software system and i developed a credit recovery program um for the students there and it was the first credit recovery program in marana and so after doing that my i went from having no kids in the class and just being monitoring the lab to having seven periods of the day the class was completely full and then the um superintendent came to me and said you know we're recognizing you as an emerging leader we want you to build this school without walls um and that's when really online high schools were first coming to fruition um so i partnered with date was or what year was this just curious you know because certainly now as we've hit covet and now everybody has had to probably experience online schools through degree whether they're done well or not it's a different question but you know what year was this when you started to get into that so i moved um it was around 2000 between 2003 2004 we had to write um and get approval to have the school get rights from the state for that we went through the process and the school doors were open um by the spring of 2004 we had the first students enrolling um and then we moved to flagstaff my husband finished his residency and we ended up moving to flagstaff so we partnered with mesa unified which is the largest school district in um arizona and they were the first public school district to have an online school program so we used their curriculum we shared students um and i went to the then director um doug bernard it's now jennifer eccles and um i said hey can we do this again in in northern arizona so he said sure just find me the partners and we'll make it happen again so i we moved to flagstaff i started teaching at flag high i was teaching english i said you give me a job and i'll bring you an online school and so that's what we did and in 2005 i started another school then it was a program and we made it the 16th school in flagstaff in 2016. so it sounds like you know you started all the way back early 2000s and it's been a bit of an evolution that uh kind of as you're teaching and being part of the the school system that you were continuing to be you know develop that and implement things and be a lot of the point person so now as you've kind of gone through that and you're continuing to go through that how did your journey transition a bit to where you're at today and i think you mentioned correct me again where i'm wrong that has started out a bit with kenna koben and seeing your kids and others having to go online and do things that maybe had not done as well or something along that lines and so how did you kind of what prompted you to kind of go after the endeavor you're at today and did you leave this teaching system are you still there is this a side hustle this is a full-time gig kind of clue a sentence to the kind of how your journey leads you to where you're at today my husband and i did keep a side hustle so when we moved to flagstaff we started in real estate we started renting properties buying properties um dipping into short-term and long-term rentals and airbnb um and we've kept that going from the very beginning uh from our first days in flagstaff but then at the same time i'm building up a school i'm having kids um and really it was a combination of things but um kovid launched me into going into my own business i ended up leaving on fusd in uh this last july to go full throttle with fiara which is um my new company and in large part that was due to my experience as a school administrator and as a mother um i i have five kids but one of my uh my middle son is profoundly dyslexic he was also um born with a condition called childhood apraxia of speech so he didn't really talk till he was almost four for someone that's life is full of words that was really hard for me and at the same time i was pretty well versed in the world of special education at least from an administrator standpoint i was in iep meetings and 504 meetings all the time and i was able to see areas where there were like disconnections and um places we could create bridges and opportunities for better collaboration between parents and schools also you know i was in the thick of it with my own children trying to manage jobs and um i i put together things that really worked for me at home in relationship to well-living and so um in april we were i mean my school northern arizona distance learning tripled in size overnight and um we were we all went online there were some people that wanted to go online with the the school that had been online all the way through and uh i manage it i'm not the type of person that leaves you know it when you're in the middle of a storm i don't do that you know i stick things out and um we successfully got through the year and then i really decided this is time for me to um work from the outside in versus from the inside out i mean when you're in a public in the public sector um there's bureaucracy and there's red tape that you have to work through where as when you're working privately you can kind of make strategic power moves and i think my experience as um in entrepreneurship even though it was kind of minor and a side thing all the way along it's really helped me see because i did struggle in that we didn't lay the right foundation and um i learned i think along the way what needed to happen to to have a more powerful impact right up front no and i think that you know that makes sense and sometimes it is interesting you have to almost get from the outside and it's one where there's multiple things and i didn't i'm not quite to the outside because i'm still in the law or the law practice but a lot of the things i'd even love to do with the legal practice and what we do with miller ip law bugs are trained and you know it doesn't really feel like it until i start talking with other attorneys and kind of explain how we do things and how we approach things and how we tackle them and why it makes sense to us and then it's like yeah this really isn't the norm and sometimes you have to kind of get outside of what people are used to to make that make that difference so it sounds like you kind of found that as well and so now you decide okay i'm going to make the leap kind of make this a more full-time focus and go after that how has it gotten since then i mean certainly coleman has changed things but i think that it's also exposed you know some things that should have probably been available and being being done beforehand and it just kind of accelerated some of that but how has things gone is it you know gone well and it's been well adopted and accepted or is still a struggle or kind of where where are things at today um it's gone extremely well um you're never gonna get in a position i don't think where you're void of struggle that's part of this business right when you're doing new things and when you're an innovator and a trailblazer you're gonna have to you're gonna you're gonna hit challenges you're gonna have difficult times um but i think having building right and having the right mindset going in and that's really kind of the core of what i'm doing with fiara with the ara we're lighting the way to well living for the neurodiverse and those who love them at home at school and at work and i'm doing that by building curriculum well really online training that's very potent easy to follow things that you can take away um to to really help people maximize their reach their fullest potential maximize the time that they have in their day um use principles we give guided principles we use a lot of acronyms i know everybody kind of we i feel like acronyms are overlooked sometimes because they're such incredible memory tools and so i use a lot of acronyms and one of the things that i've really incorporated is the build acronym that we use at theater and that's be the bridge um not the barrier utilize your resources and that was probably one of my greatest challenges is i was doing a side hustle on my own i wasn't i my husband and i would work together but he was like my main point person versus inviting other really talented people onto our team and realizing that you know with that you're inviting creative solutions that's the i in the build so so you're inviting new people new members that have new ideas and then listening intently to those people um that's the l and then directing positively like i think it's really important we have a no negativity role and that's not to say that you're not going to meet those challenges you are but you always have to step back and say okay what's the golden nugget in this yes this is a hardship but it's also training for me how can i take something away what can i learn here how can we do this better so um the journey definitely is a great a great approach now one question i've had that i maybe you'll be able to share shed a bit of insight i mean certainly there's been a large acceleration with covert right a lot of online schooling people are shut down forced by necessity and and you know without getting into political overlays as to when things will change or when things line up i think it's a bit of a crystal ball and the wet state hearing probably overlays that as well but within all that uncertainty but also opportunity you know kind of with all of the change going around where do you see things headed in the next you know six to 12 months for you guys well i'm hoping so the curriculum that i've developed that we're developing is is for home for parents at home for early childcare workers it's also for educators k-12 so it's guiding people through the academic journey and the parents of those students and teaching them how to most effectively collaborate together and then we have know the way at work which is diversity equity and inclusion training that has a neurodiversity focus and we also have a piece that's emerge nd which is how to emerge positively as a neurodiverse individual you know people don't oftentimes wear a t-shirt that says i'm dyslexic in fact i just had a conversation with my son and the car was 12 and he's like you know mom am i gonna what's high school going to look like for me and we i mean literally it was this morning and he had tears in his eyes thinking because he's extremely intelligent he's double exceptional and um he he's like i don't want to sit in a classroom with different kids well that's the whole reason i'm doing theara is to change the landscape and i think what has happened historically or what i saw for many years is kids who struggled in this way a lot of times felt um insecure socially and they would end up online and it can be very isolating for kids online they i think they struggle more with issues like anxiety and depression when they're at home and they're just sitting with the screen and not getting that face-to-face encounter so i think the best when it comes to education is a system where we're merging the best of our technologies and our in-person encounters with one another and that's really what vr is trying to capitalize on how can we do this together most effectively how can we build relationships in the most impactful way no and i think that there's a lot of opportunity and it's i don't know that it's easy or straightforward because i think that to find that balance and we do a lot with our firm of doing you know servicing businesses that are all across the us and trying to find that balance of personal touch and interaction and be able to establish relationship and that's where it's not even an everyday and ongoing thing and it's still a ton of work to find that right balance and so kudos to you guys because i think that there's a lot of their issues to address but a lot of opportunity and done right it can certainly be very impactful with that as we start to reach towards the end of the podcast um if i always have two questions i ask at the end so we'll jump to those now so the first question i always ask is along your journey what was the worst business decision you ever made and what'd you learn from it worst business decision and it's kind of counterintuitive i guess but it was just i always dove right in and i didn't always lay the right foundation for that and so i would end up scattered and uh stressed out and full of anxiety when we were hitting trouble zones and i think that that kind of leads right into probably i think what the best thing or or my biggest takeaway was and the biggest takeaway is really building right and that's you know the acronym i was sharing before which is be the bridge utilize your uh all your resources invite creative solutions listen intently and direct things positively so those are my my my best piece of advice um in relationship to entrepreneurship no i think that that that definitely makes sense and i think that that's a easy mistake to learn or to make but also a great one to learn from so the second question i'll always ask is if you're talking now to somebody that's just getting to a startup or a small business would be the one piece of advice you give them i think the biggest piece of advice is get the right people on your team and don't be afraid of doing that um and i think take the time in the beginning to strategize and hopefully move forward in a way where you can't afford um to financially invest in those people for me i have a wonderful um business consultant um kenya shaw and he's been really helpful with me as far as moving forward and and giving me those gold nuggets and those pieces of advice to build right in the very beginning and the structure that i need to have in place to start things right awesome well i think that's definitely a great uh great takeaway and i kind of like that getting those i think getting those pieces in place on the the front end and getting that setting it up for success can have a big impact on the business so with that if people want to reach out to you they want to be a customer they want to be a client they want to be a employee they want to be an investor they want to be your next best friend any or all of the above what's the best way to reach out to you contact you find out more investment contact news at ciara.com t-h-d-a-r-a dot com and we're also on a that's social media and tick tock on twitter on instagram svr away um just w-a-y so t-h-e-a-r d-w-a-y well i definitely oh go ahead um i should be available there you know we i've got a blog going and we're going back with people and there's also an opportunity to describe subscribe to a monthly newsletter and an opportunity to donate and we need all the donations we can because i truly believe the neurodiverse are the innovators of our future you know you have people like like elon musk people like um bill gates steven spielberg you know they all are are self-identified as neurodiverse and they're world changers and so i think we need to really capitalize on that competitive advantage oh i couldn't agree more and i think there's a lot of ways that we can or help people to uh be able to learn the best way possible to have the most benefit and otherwise set them up for success so i think that's definitely a great takeaway and i definitely encourage people to reach out find out more and if you whether you want to be a customer employee an investor or just be uh renee's next best friend definitely a a great opportunity with that thank you again renee for coming on the podcast it's been a fun it's been a pleasure now for all of you that are listeners if you have your own journey to tell and you'd like to be a guest on the podcast we'd love to have you um just go to inventiveguest.com and apply to be on the show a couple more things as listeners make sure to leave us a review subscribe share because we want to make sure that everyone finds out about all these awesome episodes and last but not least if you ever need help with your patents your trademarks or anything else with your business just go to strategymeeting.com grab some time with us to chat well thank you again renee for coming on the podcast and wish the next leg of your journey even better than the last thank you for having me this has been wonderful i really appreciate it hey my pleasure have a good one you too [Music]

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