Becoming an Entrepreneur takes time and hard work, but the success of running your own business is worth it. Bakersfield College student William Alderete owns Paradise Water Treatment.
“Nothing is easy and money doesn’t grow on trees,” said Alderete.
His business involves water treatment and purification for residential and commercial buildings, which includes water softeners and reverse osmosis drinking water systems. He started the business this year at age 30.
“It takes dedication and time, I have a family and I have to work many hours at times,” said Alderete. He has five employees and makes his own hours.
“It’s called work hard, play hard. The rewards always come after the work, so if you don’t want to work, to bad, everyone always seems to need you for something,” he said.
Before Alderete’s success came failure.
In 2004 at age 27 Alderete started West Coast Water Solutions with a co-owner. “I had the brain and my business partner had the money,” said Alderete.
His partner and Alderete bought a local dealership in Los Angeles and ran it out of his home office.
Alderete was the financial and office manager while his partner was their number one sales representative. Their biggest obstacle was the need for another building as they started to grow. At the time, real estate was going up and so did the rent in commercial buildings.
“We searched for a couple of months and found a nice place with a great layout for us. The first month in our new building with new employees was our best month since we opened eight months prior,” Alderete said.
As their business continued, Alderete and his partner began to see things different. Their bread and butter came from new homeowners, when the decline of new homeowners started his partner wanted to raise prices, but Alderete disagreed.
“We bumped heads for four more months and I just had to call it quits as we were not seeing eye-to-eye, so I left and started all over,” he said.
In his failure and triumph, Alderete has learned how strong he is physically and mentally. He feels like he is making a difference. He is helping others who have a problem with their water. He wants to just take it slow and build up his business.
“My best advice for someone who is running their own business is your going to make mistakes. No one is perfect, just learn from it. You’re as good as your weakest employee,” said Alderete.