How They Did It | Amanda Armstrong From Nonprofit to Tech Startup to Entrepreneurship
Amanda’s career coaching business is based in Toronto and it serves to help clients find their “purpose driven careers”. Before transitioning her service from a side hustle to a full time business, she accumulated 10+ years of experience working in the nonprofit world in places like Kenya, Guyana, South America and the Carribbean. In our conversation, Amanda explained WHY social enterprises are an effective way to make an impact and HOW she plans to reach more in the future.
This is a summary that accompanies the original interview published on Work In Progress Podcast. Here we highlight the main takeaway and some useful resources. Listen to the full interview here.
Why Amanda Made The Switch
- Amanda’s first career transition was from nonprofit to sales at a tech startup. Nonprofit organizations have meaningful goals but come with challenges like inefficiency and bureaucracy. Her role as a social impact lead gave her insight into business development and sales, which she quickly realized was very similar to what she had been doing all along in nonprofit and she enjoyed talking to people and building relationships immensely. Amanda also learned that she has a lot of transferable skills that helped her transition to sales and startup. After years of working in nonprofit and startup she found her niche in social enterprise — companies with missions to not only generate profit but also benefit people and the planet
- Amanda’s coaching service: throughout her years working in nonprofit organizations Amanda had been mentoring and coaching young people all along. A few years ago she was approached by someone online who lived in Sweden and wanted to find a job and moved to Toronto. Amanda was not formally a coach back then but she accepted the challenge and successfully helped him land a job. This was her first paying client. After that, she would get clients from word of mouth and speaking engagements. This started to generate income on the side while she continued to work at her day job
- Why Amanda turned her side hustle into a full time business: she had always wanted to own her own business and wanted to do that before turning 30. While her departure from the previous career was unplanned and excruciatingly stressful (listen to the episode for full details), she was able to turn the adversity around and bring her coaching service full time in October 2019 — two months before her 30! She named her business Athari, which means impact: the impact she has on young people and women she gets to help and in turn, their impact on the world. This was a very tough transition: first, owning her own business was far more challenging than she ever imagined, and financially it was difficult because she had a very good income when she worked in sales. On top of that, she was not yet ready for the change (although it had always been a goal to own her business)
What Amanda Does Now
Amanda offers coaching services to young people who want to find meaningful careers and she specializes in areas she excels in: non-profit, international development, sustainability, social enterprise, BCorporation, tech start-ups, and CSR roles. Her core program (job search program) includes 5 sessions of unlimited support through whatsapp/email/phone.
- Get clarity: figure out what types of roles suit you, what you are passionate about, what skills you want to develop through vision board and exercises. Figure out your elevator pitch for when you network with people
- Resume upgrade
- Cover letter upgrade
- Networking
- Interview prep
Amanda’s Advice On How To Find The Right Career
Amanda recommends hiring a career coach to help you clarify on your strengths and what you really want to do. On top of that she recommends exploring and networking with people to hear their stories
Amanda’s Next Career Goals
Her next step is to take the coaching business online. Eventually she wants to be a serial entrepreneur who provides meaningful employment in developing countries
Where to Find Amanda
- Best place to connect is her Instagram
- Email: amanda@athari.ca
