Stephen Connor and Summer Douglass got serious about starting their own company as their disabled daughter aged out of high school. They needed the flexibility to take care of her while supporting their family. The decision was made in December of 2018, and DC Appliance Service came into being.
Stephen has been in the trades for over twenty years, moving from heating and air conditioning trade to appliance repair, and working for different companies. Summer had already run her own lighting design business on the side and knew the difficulties of growing a young business.
But what they learned in that first year of building a company together is that the highs are high and the lows are low: “The bad days are hard to deal with,” Summer explained. “It doesn’t matter if you have a hundred really awesome days and then five minutes of hard, it’s a hard crash. But then you wait it out, you go back up again and it gets easier over time because you understand the bigger picture.”
Stephen and Summer had grown their company to two full-time techs are were preparing to hire a third when the crisis hit. JC talks to them about how owning your own business is like riding a rollercoaster, how they’ve learned to be adaptable and find support and community.
