Denice Hopf

I definitely had a lot of good help in terms of financial backing and support from my parents to start, but I think in the end, a lot of it comes from within. You either have the drive to do it, or you don't. While I needed the schooling to get hired for the big corporate jobs, it was really the hands-on professional experience that gave me the expertise I needed, not the schooling. And entrepreneurship is something that nobody can teach you - it's a whole different animal because you are truly the one making all the decisions.

Everybody can tell you why not to do something, but very few people can tell you how to really do it. Don't let other people's doubts stop you from pursuing what you want to achieve.

I would say that construction is male-dominated, but don't let that be the reason why you can't succeed. If anything, let it be all the more of a challenge for you. I specifically work in a very male-dominated field now, and I learned a lot early on from watching female mentors like Chris Weinstein, who was a female vice president of mine when I was a director. I really liked the way she conducted herself in a male-dominated field, and I watched her demeanor and learned from her.

One of the biggest challenges in construction is that it's typically poorly operationalized - there's lots of yelling and lack of professional management. That's actually the opportunity we're pursuing: to redefine waterproofing by developing KPIs, creating a better culture, and producing better work products through professional operational standards. Another challenge specific to waterproofing is that you're dependent on what the general contractor is doing - you don't get to choose what the pathway looks like, you have to wait until that trade is ready. The big opportunity for us is that private equity companies are trying to buy out small trade companies like waterproofing, HVAC, plumbing, and electrical, and our goal is to sell our company to private equity within the next 4 years.

Having free time is extremely valuable to me. As I've got young children who are only young for a small period of time, being able to choose when I take calls and where I get to be at what time is incredibly important. That's limited sometimes in entrepreneurship, but generally not as much as corporate life. I left my corporate role at Envision Healthcare specifically because I realized I didn't want to be away from my children in airports and Hiltons overnight. The ability to work from home and have flexibility while still running a successful business has been life-changing - honestly, I don't know why I wasted so much time working for corporate, though it did give me the degrees and skills I needed.