Bonnie Tran is a graduate of the UW Certificate in Women’s Entrepreneurial Leadership, led by Project Ascendance’s Christy Johnson
Bonnie Tran wanted a strategy to relaunch her career coaching business. She used to feel overwhelmed because she didn’t know where to start—and coming into the program, she was too cautious because she didn’t want to fail again. While she was confident in her coaching ability, she didn’t have a scalable business model.
However, WEL gave her the courage to pick herself back up, determine which customer segment could benefit most from her services, and craft a strategy to create value for them. As a result, she could focus on the most important priorities instead of getting mired in unnecessary tasks that wouldn’t help her reach her goals.
Determining the real needs of her customers helped Bonnie refine her coaching curriculum and optimize her sales and marketing channels. After receiving feedback from other students on her business plan, she refined her strategy to better address the pain points of her target segment.
While in the program, Bonnie decided to pursue a venture centered on career coaching for female college students in Vietnam. Her company, Volare, helps international students achieve their career goals by simplifying the complex process of job searching and work visa authorizations. Volare equips international students with cross-cultural skills, helps them tackle financial difficulties, and assists them with securing employment.
In addition, Bonnie is working on publishing a career-searching guidebook to bolster her credibility and open up speaking engagement opportunities. She also intends for the guidebooks to become a model curriculum for career coaching clients and train-the-trainer models.
