Client Spotlight: Jade Chang Sheppard on “What I Wish Someone Had Told Me When I Started a Business”
Jade Chang Sheppard is a serial entrepreneur that founded and scaled Gideon USA, a multimillion dollar construction company, purchased and relanched a Nicaraguan boutique surf resort called Malibu Popoyo and created Scarlet Society, a leading online resource for women’s sexual health and wellness after 40.
143 has been working with Jade to launch Scarlet Society - her latest endeavor! With Scarlet Society, Jade wants to inspire women to explore, live life boldly, try new things, not fear a fresh start, not fear divorce, not fear sexuality and not fear their bodies. It should be a time of great celebration and thinking about how we want to live the second half of our lives.
Jade went from clearing out her 401K to start her first business, Gideon USA, to self-funding her passion project, Scarlet Society. With all that experience, we asked her to share her top five things that she wished someone had told her when she started out.
Jade Chang Sheppard on “What I Wish Someone Had Told Me When I Started a Business”
Trust your gut. When I was working in a cube after college, I knew it wasn’t for me so I took the next logical route and went to business school. Still it didn’t feel right and I trusted my gut, took a big leap and started a construction business with little knowledge of the industry. But I knew I was onto something!
Love the journey, savor each step and love the moment you are in right now. This took me time to learn but I truly believe that manifesting this has given me the opportunity to build my “passion” business, MalibuPopoyo and Scarlet Society. There is something so fun and exciting about each stage of business and life. It is all a part of our story and I believe that all that I want is already done, but I’m going to enjoy every second of getting there.
Net profit is the number you should be looking at, not gross revenue. For a growing business, topline revenue means nothing, it’s the bottom line that counts. I learned this the hard way the second I realized that we were more profitable when we were a $10M business than we were at $27M. Also, as you grow, you have these inflection points where you must go through growing pains. For example, accounting software we used at $10M was $13K a year whereas the software we use at $54M cost $150K to simply implement and over a year to get the system down. They say that growth eats cash for lunch and it’s true. There are tons of big companies out there with huge revenues that make zero cash.
Take risks. Even big ones. I started Gideon USA with leftover student loan money, some 401K that I cashed out and credit card debt. My credit score didn’t get back to over 700 until 8 years after I started the business. But the hustle paid off.
Don't stress about what you are wearing. Just hustle, be prepared, be yourself and be professional. I started my first business when I was 26. Not only was I young, but also a minority and a woman in an almost entirely male dominated industry, construction. I used to fret about how I would dress. I needed to look respectable but also needed to fit my industry. I used to settle on cowboy boots and a button up shirt. Years later, after we had established our place in our industry and with our customers, I remember that I just stopped caring what anyone thought about what I wore, I just didn’t matter anymore. Our reputation preceded us and I had moved beyond it.