How she built a great team--and multi-million dollar company--on a shoestring budget

INC. THIS MORNING How she built a great team--and multi-million dollar company--on a shoestring budget Good morning, Shortly after Donna Hager founded architecture and engineering firm Macan Deve in 2015, she faced a tough dilemma. Hager launched the White Plains, New York-based company after seeing the number of opportunities for women-owned businesses skyrocket in the early 2010s. An engineer by trade, she figured that her stellar personal track record would help Macan Deve secure clients. She was wrong. “Until we were profitable, [bigger] companies wouldn’t take us seriously,” Hager tells Inc. “We couldn’t hire people because we didn’t have the work, but we couldn’t get the work because we didn’t have any people.” She started hiring senior people who didn’t want to retire on a part-time basis, and used their patchworked schedules to secure small jobs. Eventually, Hager was able to to hire some younger full-time employees. That’s when she noticed something interesting: The new full-time hires were falling into natural mentor/mentee relationships with her more experienced part-timers. It got Hager thinking about developing talent from within, no matter an employee’s starting point, from non-English speakers to housing project residents. Read our story to [learn how she used that idea to build a great team]( a multi-million dollar company--on that shoestring budget. JOIN US: When it comes to the business of blowouts, Drybar founder Alli Webb isn’t just a big player--she created the industry. Now, her business is facing unique challenges during the coronavirus pandemic. Join Inc. for a conversation with Webb, where she’ll share the pivots and passions she and her team are pursuing to survive and thrive in tough times • Thursday, August 20, 2020, 4:00 pm Eastern Time
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