"Go for it. Not recklessly, but without waiting for perfect timing. If I hadn’t jumped, I’d still be on the ledge wondering. Worst case? You learn and try again. Best case? You reclaim your time, your confidence, and your voice.”
Laura Bowers
Climbing Mountains, Building Momentum: Laura Bowers’ Path to Entrepreneurship
Quick Facts
Location
Business Type
Independent
In Business Since
Customer Since
Employees
The Day Autopilot Stopped Feeling Like Success
For more than a decade, Laura Bowers built what most would call a secure career. Based in the D.C. area, she worked in government contracting and IT project management, most recently at the National Institutes of Health. When COVID hit, her teams helped the agency pivot to remote work overnight. It was high stakes and high responsibility – and eventually, highly clarifying.
With two small kids at home, Laura’s calendar became a loop of Teams meetings and toddler logistics. She remembers sprinting from potty training to video calls, then asking, “Is this it from here on out?”
The deeper truth: she wanted control. Control over her time, meetings, and energy. She wanted a bigger say in how the game was played.
“I’d worked my way to the big-kids table,” she says – senior enough to influence decisions, but not to call her own shots. “I started to feel like a chess piece in somebody else’s game.” When the contract she was leading wound down in 2023, she took the leap to build something of her own.
Values That Point the Way
Between 2020 and 2023, Laura joined a leadership program that challenged her to define the values that truly resonated with her life and work. She taped them to her monitor: authenticity, positivity, kindness, and levity. These weren’t just words on a page; they became a compass, reminding her daily of the direction she wanted to move.
Levity stood out most. “Life doesn’t always have to be so serious,” she says. Joy and humor – even the slightly inappropriate kind – are part of how she builds trust and resilience. But in high-compliance environments, that style only surfaced in side chats. The more she clarified what energized her, the more entrepreneurship – where she could set the tone and own the outcomes – looked like the right next experiment.
The Mountain That Moved Her
In 2021, Laura climbed Mount Kilimanjaro with the “Mountains and Marathons” program. That trip shifted everything. “There was a before-Kilimanjaro and an after-Kilimanjaro mindset,” she says. The ascent rewired her identity. “I’m not just a mom. There was a me before them, there will be a me after them. And I don’t need to wait until later to live like that’s true.”
The mountain gave her a frame: she could do hard things. That helped her face the real question: if the business failed, what then? “I could get a job,” she decided. “It doesn’t have to be a home run out of the gate.”
The First Business, Then the Real One
Her first move was logical: project management consulting. But she soon found herself relying heavily on AI for planning, brainstorming, and writing. She listened to podcasts, took trainings, and realized two things: she’d picked it up quickly, and small businesses desperately needed this capacity.
So she pivoted. Instead of PMO consulting, she focused on AI consulting for small teams: simple automations, practical workflows, and tools that saved hours with minimal disruption. She built reps with pro bono projects, sharpened her online presence, and refined her offers.
When the Runway Shortens
Eventually, finances tightened. “The financial stress is no joke,” Laura says. To stabilize, she took on traditional work. Some saw it as a step back, but she reframed it: the company didn’t disappear, the pace just changed. “I’m still building,” she says. “Just differently.”
That choice strengthened her discipline. She now plays the long game, using margins – fifteen minutes between soccer drop-off and a meeting, errands turned into learning time, gig driving as think time – to keep momentum alive.
Laura’s Micro-Habits
- Turn chores into classes: webinars or podcasts while folding laundry.
- Run ideas on the go: drafts and outlines roughed in on her phone.
- Use delivery hours as think time: audio learning plus voice-to-AI notes.
- Protect a weekly “owner block”: nights or weekends, no matter how small.
Responsible AI, Practically Applied
- Treat AI like a super-capable intern: give clear instructions, prompt questions.
- Model what already works: feed past content to replicate structure and voice.
- Make content social-ready instantly: condense, add emojis, draft hooks.
- Trust, but verify: always review for bias, accuracy, and brand fit.
- Start where momentum exists: inject AI into what already works, then expand.
The Confidence Dividend
Laura was surprised by the people who believed in her before she did. Another surprise: how long “overnight success” really takes. At 90 days, she hadn’t failed. She’d discovered what her business really needed to be. That perspective, valuing learning over vanity timelines, keeps her steady.
She also learned to detach. A missed contract hurts, but it isn’t fatal. “Nothing that happens in my business is going to kill me,” she says. Tomorrow still comes, her kids still love her, and she still has skills. When things get tight, “there’s always something you can do.”
How Guidant Helped Laura Fund the Leap and Stay Compliant
When Laura decided to bet on herself, she needed startup capital in a tax-advantaged way. An article on BizBuySell pointed her to Guidant’s 401(k) Business Financing (ROBS). “I didn’t know what I was doing,” she says. “Guidant was patient and explained things to me like someone who wasn’t a savvy business person yet.”
With Guidant, she accessed retirement funds without early withdrawal penalties, set up payroll, and gained compliance support. That last piece proved crucial when she chose to stabilize with traditional work but keep her company active. Guidant’s steady guidance meant she could focus on clients and momentum, not paperwork.
Where to Find Laura and What’s Next
Small business leaders curious about responsible AI will find Laura on LinkedIn under “PMO Boss.” She starts with conversations: what you do well (so she can amplify it) and where you feel friction (so she can target wins). From there, it might be a quick automation, a content engine, or a custom GPT blueprint. For deeper integrations, she partners with engineers to connect legacy systems.
Reach out to Laura via LinkedIn www.linkedin.com/company/the-pmo-boss/
Laura’s Advice to Would-Be Founders
“Go for it.” Not recklessly, but without waiting for perfect timing. “If I hadn’t jumped, I’d still be on the ledge wondering,” she says. Worst case? You learn and try again. Best case? You reclaim your time, your confidence, and your voice.”
Thinking About Funding Your Own Leap?
Guidant’s 401(k) Business Financing (ROBS) lets you use eligible retirement funds to start or buy a business tax-penalty-free, with no debt. It pairs funding with entity setup, payroll, and compliance support so you can focus on winning customers. If Laura’s story resonates, Guidant can help map your next steps.
Watch Laura’s full interview on Create The Life You Want with Jeremy Ames for her journey from Kilimanjaro to AI consulting, plus practical tips for getting started. https://youtu.be/HqvVmKoEwh8
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