An attorney, accountant and business coach have teamed up to form the Tejon Professional Group, designed to offer Colorado Springs entrepreneurs one-stop shopping for many of the services they need to start and operate a startup company.

 

JoAnn Schmitz of The Legal Center for Business, Etienne Hardré of Next Exit Advisors and Janna Hoiberg of ActionCoach business coaching formed the group in November; all share the same downtown Colorado Springs office at 620 N. Tejon St. The three met a few years ago at Peak Venture Group, a local organization for entrepreneurs, and began discussions this fall about sharing offices as Schmitz’s lease was nearing expiration.

 

“I was tired of being in a solo office and I was looking to co-locate with fun and energetic people,” Schmitz said. “I knew Etienne was changing jobs, so I invited him to join me and we started looking for space downtown. Once we found the space, we started looking for a third professional and found that Janna’s lease was expiring at the end of November. We are just settling in to our new offices now, but we are looking for ways to be more helpful to clients.”

The Legal Center represents companies ranging from startups to midsized firms in mergers and acquisitions, business litigation and intellectual property protection. Next Exit helps small and midsized businesses with buying, growing and selling businesses as well as offering outsourced financial management services for startups. Hoiberg’s ActionCoach franchise helps firms with sales, marketing, recruitment, information technology and customer service.

 

“Our thinking is similar in how we approach clients,” Hoiberg said. “We all consider ourselves entrepreneurs first and professionals second. We are entrepreneurs helping other entrepreneurs. We want to help our clients think about their businesses.”

 

All three members of the group have a background in technology — Schmitz spent 18 years as a marketing executive with Digital Equipment Corp. and Compaq Computer Corp. before getting her law degree, Hardré got a degree in computer science before he became an accountant and Hoiberg spent 25 years as a software executive before moving into business coaching. That experience gives them a perspective many other professionals don’t have, they say.

 

“We can brainstorm solutions to our clients’ problems by putting all of the disciplines together, and it will be a stronger solution by coming up with better ideas through collaboration,” Schmitz said. “Right now we are just referring clients to each other, but offering package pricing for all three of us is an intriguing option we are pursuing. There have been times when we have met together with clients to give them more than one perspective on a problem.”