TPM Focus Archives - Business RadioX ®

Monique Mills, TPM Focus

May 25, 2022 by John Ray

North Fulton Business Radio

Monique Mills, TPM Focus

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(North Fulton Business Radio, Episode 459)

With deep curiosity and a breadth of experience, Monique Mills, CEO of TPM Focus, is uniquely qualified as a tech startup consultant. She and host John Ray talked about the knowledge and wisdom she offers, and how her firm helps companies with revenue-focused strategies and honest, transparent business advice. Monique also shared how she got into consulting, the pitfalls she sees entrepreneurs get into, those who go back to corporate, dealing with investors, how to work with software developers, and much more.

Monique’s podcast is Unpolished MBA and can be found here.

North Fulton Business Radio is broadcast from the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX® inside Renasant Bank in Alpharetta.

TPM Focus is an innovation strategy consulting firm providing revenue-focused strategies and tactics that align sales, marketing, technology, and customer success with financial goals for startups and SMBs launching new, innovative products.

Focused Innovation Group, is a family-owned company created to acquire small businesses that are ripe for innovation and digital transformation to increase their efficiencies and profitability.

Company Website |LinkedIn | Facebook

**Monique Mills, MBA, PMP®, CEO, Chief Innovation Strategist, TPM Focus**

Monique Mills is a degreed electrical engineer turned serial entrepreneur. Having experience in everything from building software companies to building power plants, she’s worked in multiple industries including water, semiconductor, aviation, construction, and real estate.

She’s founded 5 companies and focuses on business innovation through her consulting and acquisition companies.

Monique currently serves as the CEO of TPM Focus, an innovation strategy consulting firm, and as President of Focused Innovation Group (FIG), a family-owned acquisition company. Monique serves as a Mentor, Advisor, Consultant, and Strategic Partner to several entrepreneurial and innovation organizations such as Advanced Technology Development Center at Georgia Tech (ATDC), STEM to Market, Founder Institute, Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA), National Minority Diversity Supplier Development Council (NMSDC), Winston Starts, and Operation Hope.

She is also an Adjunct Professor of Entrepreneurship at Georgia State University. With an electrical engineering degree from Rochester Institute of Technology and an MBA from Georgia Institute of Technology, she is an advocate for the diversification of STEM careers, expanded leadership, and equitable entrepreneurial opportunities for women and underrepresented minorities.

Questions and Topics in this Interview:

How starting a company is not necessarily the same as founding a startup.
What advice would you give to someone with a tech startup idea who does not have a tech background?
What advice would you give to those who are trying to create an entrepreneurial environment to drive innovation and growth in their city?
Why did you start Focused Innovation Group this year?
With all this talk about certifications over degrees, especially with the rising costs of tuition, were the degrees necessary for achieving success in my career?

North Fulton Business Radio is hosted by John Ray and broadcast and produced from the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX® inside Renasant Bank in Alpharetta. You can find the full archive of shows by following this link. The show is available on all the major podcast apps, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google, Amazon, iHeart Radio, Stitcher, TuneIn, and others.

Renasant Bank has humble roots, starting in 1904 as a $100,000 bank in a Lee County, Mississippi, bakery. Since then, Renasant has grown to become one of the Southeast’s strongest financial institutions with over $13 billion in assets and more than 190 banking, lending, wealth management and financial services offices in Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia and Florida. All of Renasant’s success stems from each of their banker’s commitment to investing in their communities as a way of better understanding the people they serve. At Renasant Bank, they understand you because they work and live alongside you every day.

Special thanks to A&S Culinary Concepts for their support of this edition of North Fulton Business Radio. A&S Culinary Concepts, based in Johns Creek, is an award-winning culinary studio, celebrated for corporate catering, corporate team building, Big Green Egg Boot Camps, and private group events. They also provide oven-ready, cooked from scratch meals to go they call “Let Us Cook for You.” To see their menus and events, go to their website or call 678-336-9196.

Why the Future, For Everyone, is Some Form of Entrepreneurship, with Monique Mills, TPM Focus

August 16, 2021 by John Ray

North Fulton Studio

Why the Future, For Everyone, is Some Form of Entrepreneurship, with Monique Mills, TPM Focus

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Why the Future, For Everyone, is Some Form of Entrepreneurship, with Monique Mills, TPM Focus

Monique Mills: [00:00:00] Corporate America has turned into a place that’s not reliable. And I think people are understanding that you hold your future in your hands. If you put it in the hands of a company, there’s no such thing as loyalty anymore. When they need to make cuts, when they need to go in a different direction, no matter how much they like you, you got to go. And so, you need to have a skillset to know how to create something out of nothing.

Monique Mills: [00:00:27] And that’s what I talked about in the beginning, about how once I received my MBA, I did it at Georgia Tech. And I took the track where we had to actually create a startup as our capstone project. So, the skillset is there. I can spin up a business literally in a week. Like, I know all the things to do, get it going, and get things set up. And so, I think that everyone is going to have to learn that skill because, whether it’s freelancing or just being a member of the gig economy, that’s still entrepreneurship in some way.

Monique Mills: [00:01:07] And as I’m noticing now, because I’m in this space of people that’s creating things and plucking talent from different things in order to create their businesses, is that, I may have a business and they may have a business and I hire their business to work for clients of my business. Does that make sense? So, it’s like it’s more of that happening where, you know, someone may have a business that does social media marketing. I have a client that needs social media marketing, so I’ll basically subcontract them to service my client.

Monique Mills: [00:01:46] But I’m still – as we say in construction – that one throat to choke. So, I’m that main person, but I make sure the work gets done. And so, a lot of that happens, especially in the small business world of people who understand how to do this. And I think it’s going to become more and more prevalent as people get laid off, and things become more automated, and just companies become less and less reliable for that paycheck.

Monique Mills, CEO, TPM Focus, LLC

Monique Mills is a degreed electrical engineer turned serial entrepreneur. She attended Rochester Institute of Technology for her engineering degree and completed her MBA, with a concentration on Management of Technology, at Georgia Institute of Technology. She is a licensed Realtor(R) as well as a certified Project Management Professional (PMP).

Monique began her career in the semiconductor industry then went on to hold positions in the energy, aviation, real estate, and technology industries. Monique’s earliest entrepreneurial experience began while simultaneously working in her engineering career. As a result of her love of real estate, construction, and desire to manage her personal investment transactions, she became a licensed Realtor and launched a real estate sales and consulting business to assist other investors in strategic planning and execution of their real estate ventures. Monique has expertise in buying, selling, leasing, and construction management of both residential and commercial properties. She is a Member of the Atlanta Commercial Board of Realtors.

Monique has founded four companies, one of which was a SaaS technology startup targeting the commercial real estate and retail industry. Currently, she is the CEO of TPM Focus, a strategy consulting firm providing revenue-focused strategy and execution services to startups and SMB’s launching new products.

Monique lends her talents to startup incubators and accelerators around the country including serving as a Mentor for Founder Institute, a Startup Coach for the Advanced Technology Development Center at Georgia Tech, and serving as an Advisory Board Member for Stem to Market, a Kauffman Foundation-funded accelerator of the Association for Women in Science that supports STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) entrepreneurs seeking commercialization of their research and technology. She is an advocate for the diversification of STEM careers, expanded leadership, and equitable entrepreneurial opportunities for women and underrepresented minorities.

Monique is an Adjunct Instructor of Entrepreneurship at Georgia State University in the College of Business as part of the University’s Entrepreneurship and Innovation Institute teaching students how to apply evidence-based entrepreneurship methods to go from an idea to a sustainable business model.

Company website

Monique on LinkedIn

Listen to the full Alpharetta Tech Talk interview here.

The “One Minute Interview” series is produced by John Ray and in the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX® in Alpharetta. You can find the full archive of shows by following this link.

New Product Launch Strategy, with Monique Mills, TPM Focus

December 15, 2020 by John Ray

Alpharetta Tech Talk

New Product Launch Strategy, with Monique Mills, TPM Focus

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New Product Launch Strategy, with Monique Mills, TPM Focus (“Alpharetta Tech Talk”, Episode 21)

Monique Mills of TPM Focus joined host John Ray to discuss her entrepreneurial journey, how she helps start-ups and other businesses with new product launches, why everyone’s own future involves entrepreneurship in some form, and much more. “Alpharetta Tech Talk” is produced virtually by the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX® in Alpharetta.

Monique Mills, CEO, TPM Focus, LLC

Company website

Monique on LinkedIn

Question/Topics Covered in this Interview

Taking an electrical engineering experience, adding an MBA, and leveraging it as tech startup founder.
Tech startup founder as a Black person and as a woman.
Facing burnout.
The addiction to the torture of entrepreneurship even though you have other “safer” options.
Connection to Georgia Tech and desire to be helpful in whatever capacity in higher education (especially STEM and even teaching entrepreneurship at GSU)
The challenges encountered with established small businesses.
The challenges encountered with startups.
How the future is entrepreneurship, in some capacity, for everyone.

About “Alpharetta Tech Talk”

“Alpharetta Tech Talk” is the radio show/podcast home of the burgeoning technology sector in Alpharetta and the surrounding GA 400 and North Fulton area. We feature key technology players from a dynamic region of over 900 technology companies. “Alpharetta Tech Talk” comes to you from from the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX® and is hosted by John Ray.

Past episodes of “Alpharetta Tech Talk” can be found at alpharettatechtalk.com.

Renasant Bank has humble roots, starting in 1904 as a $100,000 bank in a Lee County, Mississippi, bakery. Since then, Renasant has grown to become one of the Southeast’s strongest financial institutions with approximately $12.9 billion in assets and more than 190 banking, lending, wealth management and financial services offices in Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia and Florida. All of Renasant’s success stems from each of their banker’s commitment to investing in their communities as a way of better understanding the people they serve. At Renasant Bank, they understand you.