E86 - Courage

Our special guest today is the CEO of Accelity, a Milwaukee-based agency that helps software-as-a-service (SaaS) start-ups get to revenue and grow faster, and a co-founder of Women’s Entrepreneurship Week.

She is highly active on LinkedIn; she sparks discussions about the daily life and challenges of growing a bootstrapped company. She mentors student start-ups via The Commons, an initiative of The Greater Milwaukee Committee, a non-profit civic organization dedicated to making the region the best place to live, learn, work, play and stay. She is also a co-organizer of Start-up Milwaukee EMERGE, and an advisor with Golden Angel Investors. In addition to her professional involvement, she is an adoptive, foster mom, and future pilot.

She started her entrepreneurial journey with cookies, a vegan cookie company. She turned four cookie recipes into a business—designing packaging, finding a kitchen, and making the cookies, eventually outsourcing production, then selling and establishing distribution to 12 grocery stores around Wisconsin.

As a 24-year-old MBA, she did not picture herself hoisting up tents at farmers markets to hand out $5 bags of cookies or being the demo lady at the grocery store, but there she was. She still had a full-time job (running the marketing department at a SaaS company) and a baby.

She is so grateful for that experience because the money she made helped her start Accelity. What began as a one-woman consultancy blossomed into a kick-ass team of 17 and counting with a brand-spankin'-new office and a group of amazing, loyal clients all over the US.

LinkedIn has been a HUGE contributor to their growth over the past year. She got talked into publishing videos about her entrepreneurial experiences in mid-2018 and has steadily grown an audience to more than 70,000 followers, earning more than one million video views.

Outside of her professional life, she was a foster parent for two years and adopted one of her beautiful children from foster care in Milwaukee.

Her hobbies include working toward my pilot’s license, barre classes, exploring downtown Milwaukee, and playing many Star Wars Trouble with her kids.

Welcome to our featured guest, Jackie Hermes.

This is an episode that is surely worth exploring every minute of their discussion. Tune in and listen. #kut2thachase #podcast #unscripted #unbridled #episode4everyone #E86 #courage #satx #sanantonio #sanantoniopodcast #sanantoniopodcaster #sanantonioinfluencer