Successfully leaping from paycheck to project work.

Adrienne Gould-Choquette, P.E., worked for Lucent Technologies and Bell Labs in the semi-conductor industry after earning a degree in mechanical engineering. After pausing her career for 10 years to raise her children, she pivoted and entered the world of academia. Viewing that as her day job, she decided to open an HVAC design engineering firm on the side. Two years later, she took the scary leap to quit teaching and is now the principal engineer at Adicot, Inc., in Florida.

After pausing her career for 10 years to raise her children, Adrienne pivoted and entered the world of academia. Viewing that as her day job, she decided to open an HVAC design engineering firm on the side. Two years later, she took the scary leap to quit teaching and is now the principal engineer at Adicot, Inc., in Florida.

She recommends Jim Collins’ book “Good to Great” to anyone wanting to start a small business. Even though she is Adicot’s only employee, she followed Collins’ advice to act as though she has 100 employees and document her practices. That makes it easy to perform those tasks that only come up once every 6 months. It also smooths the road when she does add staff.

For now, she uses tools to automate as much of her business as possible. That frees up time so she can focus on her engineering work, which is often very cerebral. For example, if she’s interrupted by a phone call when working through a math problem, she often has to start the whole process from the beginning. Adrienne reduced this distraction when she switched from an Ooma residential phone system to a business one that lets her send robocalls directly to voicemail. Listen and learn about her other tips to keep her business running smoothly.