fbpx
Connect with us
Apply Now

Entrepreneurship

Seek Out Legal Advice, A Founder’s Story with Kim Hawkins

I am Kim Hawkins the President of www.EventsWholesale.com, an online discount event, and wedding planning supply company based in Watkinsville, GA, and in business since 2006. We specialize in wedding centerpieces, and have a huge offering of tablecloths, vases, candles, event props, and more at budget-friendly prices. Our customer base includes event planners, wedding planners, corporate event coordinators, caterers, the hospitality industry, event venues, and large corporations. Our products are also available to the public.

 

Tell us about your childhood and where you grew up?
I grew up in the small town of Winterville GA and was raised by wonderful parents. My mom and dad were always very encouraging of my every endeavor.

 

How did you get started as an entrepreneur?
I started my company back in 2006 when I had a full-time job so that I could work from home and start a family. I originally started selling items on eBay, and my goal was to get enough part-time income coming in to quit my day job so that I could stay home with my children. I started from scratch and invested very little money under a hundred dollars in fact) to get started, and then I would just reinvest the profit off of what I sold. Very quickly the business grew into more than a full-time job. Within two years, my husband was able to quit his day job to help with the business. The business has grown through the years. Today, we have seven employees and we are still growing. My inspiration was reading about someone who started a wedding favors business from her basement. She invested only a couple of hundred dollars in products and a website and ended up with a multi-million dollar company. This story inspired me to start my own business because I saw that given the right products and strategy, anyone (even the average person) can build a successful business even without a lot of start-up capital.

 

What is one business lesson you would tell a startup founder?
Our biggest challenge or roadblock was with our first employee who worked for us for several years. We trained her on everything having to do with running an e-commerce business and gave her supplier and customer information without a second thought. She had complete knowledge of confidential business practices as well as all of our advertising keyword information. Little did we know that one day she would go out on her own and start a competing online business! Moving forward, we always have all of our employees sign a non-compete/non-disclosure agreement to protect our business and prevent this from happening again. I would advise any new business owner to get legal advice about confidentiality and non-compete agreements before hiring anyone.
Related Topics:
Continue Reading


Copyright © 2022 Disrupt ™ Magazine is a Minority Owned Privately Held Company - Disrupt ™ was founder by Puerto Rican serial entrepreneur and philanthropist Tony Delgado who is on a mission to transform Latin America using the power of education and entrepreneurship.

Disrupt ™ Magazine
151 Calle San Francisco
Suite 200
San Juan, Puerto Rico, 00901

Opinions expressed by Disrupt Contributors are their own. Disrupt Magazine invites voices from many diverse walks of life to share their perspectives on our contributor platform. We are big believers in freedom of speech and while we do enforce our community guidelines, we do not actively censor stories on our platform because we want to give our contributors the freedom to express their opinions. Articles are not commissioned by our editorial team, and opinions expressed by our community contributors do not reflect the opinions of Disrupt or its employees.
We are committed to fighting the spread of misinformation online so if you feel an article on our platform goes against our community guidelines or contains false information, we do encourage you to report it. We need your help to fight the spread of misinformation. For more information please visit our Contributor Guidelines available here.


Disrupt ™ is the voice of latino entrepreneurs around the world. We are part of a movement to increase diversity in the technology industry and we are focused on using entrepreneurship to grow new economies in underserved communities both here in Puerto Rico and throughout Latin America. We enable millennials to become what they want to become in life by learning new skills and leveraging the power of the digital economy. We are living proof that all you need to succeed in this new economy is a landing page and a dream. Disrupt tells the stories of the world top entrepreneurs, developers, creators, and digital marketers and help empower them to teach others the skills they used to grow their careers, chase their passions and create financial freedom for themselves, their families, and their lives, all while living out their true purpose. We recognize the fact that most young people are opting to skip college in exchange for entrepreneurship and real-life experience. Disrupt Magazine was designed to give the world a taste of that.