About Kayla

I started in business in a non-traditional way. I didn’t go to a fancy college. I am entirely self-taught in every aspect. I am struggling with my sobriety when I was younger and started my early adult years couch surfing and trying to find my way in this world.  Now, I am a Portfolio Entrepreneur, Small Business Guru + Wedding Portraitist + Online Presence Manager.

When I was 19 years old, I started my photography company (Clever Candid Photography LLC) to give myself a creative outlet and control back to a part of my life. Over time, I grew my photography company into a full team of Wedding Photographers that I love and can’t wait to work with every season. 

When I was 24 years old, I put myself up for adult adoption after having a toxic relationship with my biological family and learning that I needed to heal and let go before growing as a person. As an adult in the USA in some states, you can put yourself up for adoption if you have someone willing to take you into your family. Step-parents do most adoptions, but you can put yourself up for adoptions to a family outside your circle on rare occasions. It was that rare occasion for me when I went through my adoption. I put myself in a family that wasn’t in my “circle.” This started my shift in my businesses and my life. This showed me that I had it in me to grow and make life-altering choices. 

When I was 25 years old, I went overseas to live for six months in Cambodia with my husband for a business opportunity that fell apart within the first six weeks. I had to move fast and figure out what I need to make money to keep things rolling. I started making connecting and figuring out how I could serve the ex-pats living outside their home countries and trying to make a living. This was when my online presence company was born (Kurkowski Business Management LLC). I also have added a virtual assistant agency since opening the doors. It has been a crazy three years, and I would never have thought that a failed business opportunity would have extended these kinds of doors for me. 

In late 2019 I wanted to expand my reach and start to help those that were in the same spot I was at one point. I opened the doors of Busy Building My Empire LLC. I began to help photographers build their photography companies and understanding of photography. Over the next year, I began to evolve Busy Building My Empire LLC into a coaching company that would help build the foundation of their business and teach things like making the backend of a business and how to have structure and stability to grow. In February of 2020, I started recording a podcast to document my path in business and life. Later in 2020, I expanded my reach in the coaching part of my business and started Building Your Empire Academy. I opened the Academy up to not only photographers but small business owners also. Since then, I have had over 1,500 students enrolled in the academy, and each month we are still growing.

Build Your Empire Services