Tonia Gibbons
In 2019, Tonia Gibbons left a comfortable check and a steady job as director of community relations and engagement in the City of Augusta mayor’s office. Her plan? To open her own PR consulting business.
After she secured a couple of clients, everything seemed on track. Then COVID-19 happened.
Her client list dried up, and so did her income. Soon, she was forced to go on unemployment, earning just a fraction of what she was accustomed to. “It was touch and go for a moment,” she says. “But I knew I had to make this work and bring in income and pay the bills.”
She was familiar with her local incubator from her role with the mayor’s office, but she didn’t realize all the how they could help until she had lunch with friend who told her about their 12-week entrepreneurial skill training program that leads to a Make Startups Certificate.
Initially, says Gibbons thought, “There’s no way; I’m an entrepreneur and I haven’t begun to make money.’
But then came a silver lining: Because Gibbons had been on unemployment, she qualified for a scholarship through WIOA, from Work Source East Central Georgia, which covered all program costs. “Had it not been for that, I don’t know where I would be,” she says.
“I definitely wouldn’t be this far along without that scholarship and Make Startups.”
Back in 2019, because she’d been able to secure a couple of clients right off the bat, Gibbons says she didn’t take the advice she always gives her own PR clients: To kick off their business with a formal launch. “Even though I had a business license in 2019, I never really formally organized my business,” she says. “I think part of it was fear if I stepped out there. I didn’t want to fail, and if I didn’t say anything and something went wrong, no one would really know.”
But Make Startups, she says, was the push she needed, not only to formally launch her business but to structure it correctly. For example, she wrote up a business plan with concrete goals, and learned what her business needed to accomplish to secure bank funding. She covered herself legally and protected her proprietary data. She also created a fee and invoicing structure and gained the confidence to bill for what she was worth.
While her business is still growing, her goal this year is to gain five new clients a month and to maintain a consistent client base.
Her business’ tagline is “Farr More than you think, and Farr More than you expect”—“because we can do more than people think or expect,” she said. And she discovered that through Make Startups.
“Without a doubt, I truly recommend anyone who is serious about starting a business to invest in themselves first by taking this course,” she said. “It will make your journey a lot easier. I ‘started’ my business in 2019, but truthfully, I started it in July 2021 after being in this class and having more of a foundation and direction. The amount of knowledge and confidence you gain from the course is priceless.”
