Yulonda Beatty - Integrity Matters Virtual Solutions
“I took that leap of faith and decided to start my own business.”
-Yulonda Beatty
After a kidney transplant, Yulonda Beatty was ready to take on the world. But seven years had gone by since she’d been in the workforce, and the world had changed. Social media was everything, remote work was the norm, and being nimble had to be part of every worker’s vocabulary.
“But I learn fast,” she says.
At her first job at a real estate and community development company, she went from administrative assistant to executive assistant in one month. She also became known as the office troubleshooter, including running its marketing and social media initiatives.
She loved it—but then that job ended due to circumstances outside of her control.
(story continues below…)
Take a leap of faith…
“So, I said, well, I have education, I have knowledge and I have skills,” says Beatty, who also has an MBA from Howard University. “So, I took that leap of faith and decided to start my own business.”
It wasn’t her first go at entrepreneurship. Before she started having kidney problems, Beatty had run her own bookkeeping business. But now she wanted to try something different. So her former boss, Shirlonda Evans, a graduate of theClubhou.se’s entrepreneurial certificate program, Make Startups, encouraged Beatty to consider the program too. “I knew I needed a refresher [on business],” says Beatty. “When I was introduced to it, it sounded like it was going to be very helpful to me as I was putting together components for my new business since it had been a long time since I had been in the business world.”
When she enrolled, Beatty originally planned to launch a virtual assistant business. During Make Startups, she did her market research and realized the market was already saturated with overseas suppliers. But she also happened to see a study about how female entrepreneurs are overwhelmed with the process of handling social media for their businesses.
“I loved creating content, and I love anything that has to do with creativity.”
A lightbulb went on. “I loved creating content, and I love anything that has to do with creativity,” says Beatty. So, she went all in.
Her business, Integrity Matters Virtual Solutions, coaches female entrepreneurs on how to easily manage social media. During Make Startups, Beatty created and trademarked her own content planner as a tool for clients. She also developed a second service tier where she works directly with clients to create and post their content, including graphics.
Beatty says Make Startups also helped her get over her nervousness about networking in person to find and secure clients.
