Last year, one of my peers on the other side of the US nominated me to a program called Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses. At first, when I got the email it looked like a spam email so I almost ignored it - man, am I glad that I didn’t!

Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses is a program created to provide business owners the opportunity to go through an intensive program to learn critical concepts and information business owners need to exceed and grow. It seemed interesting enough, so I figured why not. I threw my name in the hat and started the application process.

Getting Through Applying

The application process itself was quite an adventure. It was conducted in three stages: two written applications requesting all sorts of information (P&L statements, when I started my business, why I wanted to be in the program, how did I give back to my community, etc.). The third portion of the application was a video interview.

The video interview consisted of representatives from Babson College and Goldman Sachs. I was SO NERVOUS! To make things worse (better, but worse), the project manager from Goldman Sachs complimented me about the rapid growth in revenue and employees AK Lean had experienced. That made my nervousness sky rocket - someone from Goldman Sachs was impressed with my financial growth!

That video interview should have been a clue into what type of experience I was in for, but I didn’t realize it until after I was through it. Once of the questions they asked was about how much revenue I wanted to make in a year. I’ve always struggled trying to put a financial goal on my growth - I always viewed growth as how many businesses I can help, not how much money I make. So, I threw out my best guess and the representative from Babson college’s comment was that I was going to be making a whole lot more than that.

Preparing for the Program

True to my nature, as soon as I was accepted I started blocking off time on my calendar for the required virtual sessions and anticipated times to work. What I didn’t schedule, and was a hard lesson learned, was that I should have prioritized scheduling down time too!

I prepped my team and they were incredibly supportive. They were excited that I was going to be going through this program, and were excited to see what would come of it. It was wonderful to have their support, but I didn’t think there was going to be a ton of change. I can be skeptical of training programs that claim that you’ll make a lot of money or you’ll instantly get clients… I was wrong. Plus, AK Lean is running pretty well, so I didn’t think I was going to learn things I didn’t already know… I was wrong again!

The Process Experience

The Goldman Sachs experience was nothing like I’d ever experienced before. There were so many amazing learning experiences that were enhanced by the relationships I had created. Areas that I thought I was doing good with I realized there were a ton of “rookie” mistakes I’d made when setting up AK Lean. There were also other areas where I thought I had done overkill in my operational setups, come to find out I did exactly what I should do.

After weeks of intensive homework, virtual sessions, partner activities, and growth groups, I finally got to the end. The growth plan I had to create and submit to complete the program had now been rewritten THREE times! It was such a struggle to come up with a growth plan that would challenge me, a plan that I couldn’t implement in a weekend. I eventually came up with one and was proud of the work I did.

The next and final step was to go to New York in person for a week. I’d never been to New York, so I was pretty excited. I had booked a flight to arrive the day before so I had the chance to sleep off my jet lag (flying from Alaska to New York is no small feat!). That did NOT happen.

Travel Troubles and Getting to New York

I was supposed to leave on a red-eye flight on Sunday, arriving in New York on Saturday afternoon. I got to the airport at 10:00 pm, and walked up to the kiosk to get my ticket. The kiosk had other ideas, and told me I didn’t have a ticket - WHAT?! I went to another kiosk thinking it was a technology error, but I was getting the same notice. Tired and confused, I finally walked up to the counter and explained that it was saying that I didn’t have a ticket. I was told that the flight was CANCELLED (I’ll come back to this in a moment). The representative said that I was on a flight that leaves at 5:00 am Saturday morning, and that a different airline was operating it. I told her I hadn’t gotten a notice of the flight change, and she let me take a picture of her computer so I had it.

At this point, it was almost 11:30 pm and I didn’t want to go home and disrupt my children sleeping, so I stayed at the airport until 3:00 am the next morning. At 3:00 am I went up to the other airline kiosk to check in, but it said that I didn’t have a ticket… AGAIN! No one was at the ticket counter, so I waited for almost an hour and trying to call the customer service line. I tried again at the kiosk and was still getting the same error. So, on the off chance, I went back to the original airline kiosk and tried there - no ticket. At this point I was panicking.

I called the representative at Babson college as soon as it was 7:00 am New York time and explained my situation. He was getting on the phone with the travel agent, who was telling me that they never changed my original ticket for the flight before. I told them that the airline representative told me it was cancelled and put me on this new one. The travel agent insisted I had a ticket.

By this point, it was 30 minutes before the flight I was supposed to leave on, and I finally got through the line to talk to the airline representative - again. She told me that I couldn’t board the airline because it was too close to them taking off and I wouldn’t be able to get through TSA. She then, in a snarky tone, asked me why I didn’t come to ask a representative earlier. She said there were no more flights until 3 days from now. Super tired and frustrated at this point, I said that I did and showed her the picture of the computer kiosk two stands away. She told me to hold on a moment, talked to a manager, and got me on a flight that would leave at 12:00 am on Sunday morning.

At this point, I took an Uber home to wait for the new flight. I went to the airport again that night, and by the time I had gotten to New York it was Monday afternoon, 3 hours before the welcoming dinner was supposed to start. I had been up for 72 hours and EXHAUSTED!

Hello New York, New York!

I finally arrived in New York and it was so overwhelming! I heard more car horns blasting in the first 10 minutes of being in New York than I’d ever had in my life! I finally got into my Uber and arrived at the hotel. Thank goodness! I had just enough time to drop off my suit case, check my email, and change for the welcome dinner.

The hotel was just three blocks away from the Goldman Sachs headquarter, where we’d be all week, so I elected to walk. It was so overwhelming! All of the buildings were super tall, no one talked to anyone, and everything was so fast. To sum up New York - everything is tall, loud, fast, and lonely. It was quite a culture shock coming from Alaska.

The next four days were a whirlwind of trainings, working on my pitch, networking events, dinners, and meeting SO MANY PEOPLE! I can’t believe how many people I met, and the great conversations we had. I got to meet a lot of my growth group in person, and it was amazing.

Graduation

Graduation was super special to me. I didn’t walk across the stage, and our certificates were sitting at our seats when we came in, but it was super amazing. I was a single mom through college and attended online schools for both my associates and bachelor’s degrees. When I graduated from college, both times, I couldn’t afford to fly to the graduation so I just received my degree in the mail. No celebration, no recognition, just me opening an envelope.

I feel like graduating from Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses program made up for that. For about 15 seconds they said my name, I stood up holding my certificate and threw my hands up in celebratory success. For the first time, as an adult, I was acknowledged how hard I had worked in this program… and it felt like I was acknowledged for everything before that. For going to college twice as a single mom, for creating a business from scratch, for persevering despite how hard it had been.

Graduating from Goldman Sachs meant more to me than I had realized it would have.

Post-Graduation and a Second Round of Travel Troubles

After the graduation, I had planned to leave New York Friday evening, giving me an extra afternoon in New York. I got the opportunity to have lunch with my aunt, who I hadn’t seen in 5 or 6 years. It was a nice experience, eating in a little hole-in-the-wall café. I’m glad I got to see her.

A few hours later I was packed up, signed out of the hotel, and in an Uber back to the airport. Sitting in the airport, I was checking emails and kept getting notifications that my flight was being delayed due to weather. Eventually, after an extra three hours to board, they cancelled the flight overall. Shit… now what?!?

There was a line at the customer service desk a mile long, and I decided that the better option for me was to get on the phone with a travel agent. She spent an hour trying to help me find flights to get home - but there was nothing… absolutely nothing until Sunday morning. There was only one flight left. She said I was incredibly lucky because if I hadn’t gotten that ticket, I would have been stuck in New York for a week!

While I had been on the call with the travel agent, I was booking a room at the hotel I had been at. It wasn’t exactly a cheap hotel, but it was in a familiar area for me and it was already almost midnight. I didn’t want to try and figure out a new neighborhood in New York at midnight.

When I got there, I saw that my Alaskan peer had the same idea and was also checking in… but she had her suitcase! I was told they had lost mine and I was super frustrated that she had hers! I was stuck in New York for an additional two days without clothes or toiletries - I only had my laptop.

I got checked into the hotel and immediately fell asleep. The next morning I contacted the Babson College representative and let them know what had happened. After breakfast, I was on the hunt for clothes, just in case the weather went bad and I got stuck in New York for a week. Unfortunately, I was staying in the financial district so the closest place to buy clothes was in a mall that features stores like Gucci and Versache - I DO NOT have the budget for those!

I walked around for about two miles before I found an H&M. Fortunately, I was able to find a ew pieces that I could mix and match for a week, if needed. The only problem was that I didn’t have a suitcase, or space in my laptop bag, for clothes. The H&M employee, thankfully, told me there was a Target about a mile away. So.. I set off on the next lag of my walking tour of New York, trying to get the basics. I was able to find a carry-on suitcase to replace the lost suitcase.

Sunday morning came and I finally made it to a different airport in New York. This was the start of a VERY long day. I arrived in Seattle and had to sprint to the tram, and then sprint to the next gate in under 20 minutes. If I had missed my flight, I’d be stuck in Seattle for a week because there were no other seats available to go to Alaska. They even asked for people at boarding if they would give up their seat for $1,000 because the flight was overbooked. Hello no - I wanted to go home!

The flight to Seattle took me to Fairbanks, not Anchorage. When I was working with the travel agent, she was worried that the only flight to Anchorage would put me in Fairbanks. I said I didn’t care, I’d figure out a way home to Anchorage. I got to Fairbanks, completely exhausted, and then boarded a plane to Anchorage. I was finally home.

Would I Do It Again?

Thinking back, going through the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small businesses was fricken hard, incredibly hard! It was more homework than I expected, the time zone difference meant that I was doing virtual meetings at lunchtime for two hours, which was prime time for client work. It meant that I was taking partner calls at 5:30 am. It meant that I hardly saw my family for the last leg of the program.

However, I don’t know how I would be able to grow without it! It was an amazing experience, for so many reasons. I feel that I’ve grown so much as a business owner, and have a clear path for the future of AK Lean. I feel validated for all the hard work that I never received celebration for. I feel accomplished for being accepted into a program that, I later found out, only 25% of people who apply get in.

I felt proud.

I would 100% do it again (maybe with a little better planning), and would highly recommend business owners look into the program. The relationships I have made will be for life and have provided me with a national network to be able to refer my clients to. This is the best thing I could have ever done for myself as a business owner. I would certainly do it again.