3A - My Entrepreneurship Story

Entrepreneurship has been in my family for some time now.  Both of my grandfathers started their own businesses and were successful, my father’s father started and sold one every few years, he chased the market.  My father started his own business at the age of 21 and actually just sold it about 18 months ago for quite a large sum of money, he is now retired at the age of 54.  I have always sought and learned the values of starting, operating, maintaining and growing a business from these three men.  I am now 24 years old and have had my own company, JLC Marine Management LLC since 2011.  I look after customers boats, keep the clean and make sure they are up and running as well as captaining the vessels for them.  The experience is a good one but also a scary one, waking up realizing you have bills to pay and no paycheck to pay them unless you get out there and make it happen.  I had no clientele at first, but through the full-time job I got in the marine industry, I met clients, enough to where I did not have enough time to work full-time and started working on my business full-time, plus overtime!  I am at the point where I would like to grow and hire an employee or too and this led me to this class.  I do graduate in April and this class was a must before I left UF.  I am honored to be in this class and am honored to be surrounded by other entrepreneurs and future ones as well!