“I’ve wanted to start my own business for over 20 years but I always stopped short of taking action. I had a lot of excuses and fears like self-doubt and lack of focus. One major hurdle for me was I thought that I couldn’t start a business if I couldn’t think of what I would call it, but for years the inspiration never came. The GMTA program helped me overcome my fears by breaking down the process of entrepreneurship into attainable short-term goals. I was hopeful that the GMTA program would help me define an area of focus for entrepreneurship so I could have a clear vision of what I want to do. The program exceeded by expectations because I actually completed all of the milestones that we agreed GMTA would deliver as part of the service package. It was like having a business partner to keep me on track. In just 3 months, I brainstormed over 40 different business ideas, picked one, identified services I wanted to offer, thought of a name, incorporated, secured domain names and social media handles. It felt really good getting clarity on what services I want to offer and the overall vision for my business. In addition to making progress on starting my business, this program helped me personally because I had to make lifestyle changes in order to find time to work on my business. I have a full-time job Monday thru Friday, am a new mom and a wife. I have a lot going on, but GMTA made starting a new business a fun experience that I looked forward to project management meetings each week. Outside of those meetings, I spent about 3 hours per week on average towards my business. GMTA anticipated some of the mental barriers that I would encounter along the way and helped me to overcome them with the use of visualization exercises, action items to encourage strengthening my business acumen and feeding my entrepreneurial mindset. This program also helped me identify and improve upon areas of opportunity in my personal life like envisioning the type of entrepreneur I want to be, setting up a work environment in my home and securing childcare so I could focus on my work. Overall I feel like my business acumen increased and has even helped me on my full-time job to be more confident in my leadership skills. I see a shift in my mindset from employee to business owner and I like it.”