Reviving Entrepreneurial Spirit

    Reviving Entrepreneurial Spirit
    By Suzanne Vanderhoef

    When DaYonne and Jamall Reed both found themselves being laid off from their corporate jobs in late 2016, they took it as a sign they should go out on their own. So in January of the following year they founded Revive Janitorial after seeing a need for commercial cleaning in commercial buildings, offices, schools, restaurants, construction.”

    It was just that leap of faith that everybody talks about, you know. For me, the scary part was the exciting part, you know, because that’s the part that really makes life worth living.”

    “We had a conversation, we already had a couple of small accounts, you know, it was like we’ll never have this chance again just to go all in, and we did and it was the best decision that we ever made, explains Jamall.”

    After some early success, the couple decided it was time to take things to the next level, but weren’t sure exactly how to do that, so they applied for the Diversity Business Accelerator Program for small businesses owned by minorities and women.

    “Obviously we don’t know everything about business and the industry,” DaYonne said. ”So we decided that we should be a part of a business accelerator to get some more insight to help our business grow as far as marketing, some human resources things and also we got some legal help to just help with like employee handbooks, business insurance, we just kind of got a lot of help to take our business to the next level.”

    The couple says their work with the Diversity Business Accelerator was a fantastic learning experience and helped them grow so they now have more than 35 employees servicing their 15 accounts.

    As DaYonne put it, “We’ve been full time entrepreneurs for 4 years and it’s just taken off. When one door closed all the others just opened.”