Local limo giant uses unique combo to grow
With access to international conferences, politicians and a variety of red carpet events, D.C. is a great place for a limousine company to flourish. The head of...
One of the largest limousine companies in the greater Washington region used brides and government contracts in its early days to grow its fleet from five to 100 vehicles, said Kristina Bouweiri, president of Reston Limousine.
“When I joined the company, it only had five cars, and it was very small, and the first thing I said was, why don’t we do weddings?” said Bouweiri. “And within a year we were doing 100 weddings a weekend.”
Bouweiri also explained how useful government contracts can be for businesses that are just getting on their feet.
“A guy just knocked on our door and said ‘Hey, do you want to bid on a government contract?’ And I said, ‘What’s that?’” she joked.
“In the next 10 years, I won just about every contract in the city [and] grew the company to about a 100 vehicles doing government contracts,” Bouweiri said. She stopped bidding once the company grew too large to accept small business set-aside contracts.
“I think that as an entrepreneur, you can never really rest, and you have to always be looking for new opportunities,” said Bouweiri. This strategy is proven by her own success. “We’ve diversified our markets. We’re in 13 market segments,” she said. Reston Limousine has clients in areas such as universities, hospitals, sports teams, embassies, and “all sorts of interesting things going on in Washington, D.C.”
Bouweiri said being a woman in D.C.’s entrepreneurial sector was always only positive.
“I never felt for a moment that being a woman hurt me in any way,” she said. “In fact, I would say it’s only helped me. I think women are amazing with juggling balls and multitasking.”
Bouweiri also had some tips for budding entrepreneurs. “There’s so many good peer groups. I’m in one called Vistage, and I use that as a place to get great advice from other CEOs,” she said.
Bourweiri predicts that the transition to the Trump administration will have a positive effect on small business in the greater Washington region.
“The business climate is really good. Anytime there’s a change of administration, it always brings a lot of new energy into Washington,” Bouweiri said,
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