The Hware Story

A Short History of Hware’s Founders

Hi, I am Brenda Tello Horton.  I help women entrepreneurs start and build their dream business.  But not just any woman entrepreneur or any dream business. I specialize in helping women entrepreneurs who want to make a difference in the world with their business and life. I believe that the life you live is the legacy you leave behind. And if  you are an entrepreneur, then you know that you spend much of your life in and on your business. However, as women, we know that our lives are much bigger than our business. We know that we cannot be defined solely by our business.  So, how do we build a business model that will support the life we envision?  How do we launch, build, and grow a successful and profitable business that will empower our lives, not deplete our lives?  My work passion is coaching and supporting professional business women who are Green and Conscious of our planet and her people. I use our very own successfully proven methodology called ENVISION PLAN ACT to help awakened women entrepreneurs increase sales and revenue.

I am also the president and partner of Hware LLC., a software company. Hware is short for HumanityWare. Our software is designed to improve and impact lives in positive and meaningful ways. You are on this page because you are curious to know more about me and or my company. Okay, let’s get started.  After I graduated from the college of  Communications at The University of Texas in Austin I launched and owned 3 businesses:

Massage Therapist (my first business in my 20s.)

Online Corporate Gifts (internet-based business, sold to floral company in the late 90s.)

Real Estate Agent (became a Top Producing Realtor within 18 months)

Sales and Marketing

I have always enjoyed working for myself. However, I have also worked for large companies too. While in my 20s, I worked for an office product company as an outside sales representative (100% commission based.)  That’s where I learned the power of building a community. While working as a sales rep, I signed up for a Dale Carnegie Sales Training Course and won numerous sales training awards. I was even invited back to help teach the sales training course.  Naturally, I agreed. It sharpened my skills as a sales trainer and communicator. When someone invites you to teach something that you have a natural talent for, take the opportunity, it will make you even better. The Dale Carnegie experience laid the foundation for my love and passion for business training.

Helping Non-Profits and Charities

Giving back to my community has always been important to me.  I guess that is why I felt incredibly motivated to volunteer my time for a local children’s non-profit called Sierra Forever Families. While working full-time as a top producing real estate agent, I  fundraised $350,000.  Yes, three hundred and fifty thousand by spearheading and organizing a live and silent auction charity event with gourmet food and wine tasting at my private residence. Over 600 guests attended and my team of 100 volunteers and I felt proud that we were able to help many children find permanent loving families.  Being a community fundraiser taught me the power of giving back. It also proved the importance of leveraging your team to accomplish your goals. You can’t build a successful organization without the support of the right people helping you.

Business Structures

I have also worked and held managerial positions in the hotel, restaurant, and airline industries. Again, even though I attained many business awards and accolades, I always had the entrepreneurial spirit in me. While working within these company structures, I took advantage of studying and analyzing each company business model, organizational structure and corporate culture.  I honed my business skills everywhere I went as I quickly and inevitably stepped into leadership roles.

The Business World Is Shifting

The business world has radically shifted over the last few years with new skills needed, but the fundamental principals are still there. Provide great value to your customers. Deliver what you promised. Over-delivering is even better. Listen to your customers. Respond to them in a timely manner. Build credibility by showing competency, consistency, and care. Put systems in place to help automate the work flow. Leverage the power of your team. Manage cash flow. Keep overhead low. Understand your ROI. Have a way to measure it. Communicate your thoughts and ideas clearly. And, most of all, but not least, always have fun and passion for what you do.  Otherwise, don’t bother showing up. Life is just too short.

My Dream Business and Lifestyle

In 2002, I built my dream home, a straw bale home on a hilltop in Northern California with my business partner and husband, Chuck.  I live on 28 acres where I have 2.5 miles of hiking trails. I am incredibly grateful to move my body every day on those beautiful quiet trails.  Much of my inspiration comes from my time spent on my hiking trails and my yoga studio that sits above my garage. While I have enjoyed eating organic food all my adult life, I am currently learning to grow an organic vegetable garden. I work out of my home office and virtual offices where I manage my company. My business model and lifestyle is mobile. As long as I have high-speed internet access and my laptop, I can work anywhere in the world. I designed it that way. It was intentional. I am living my DREAM business and lifestyle and now I want to help you design your dream business and lifestyle. As a thank you for stopping by, here is a gift from me. My good friend and client, Gena Livings has created a beautiful FREE e-book on being INSPIRED. Please take it.

In 2008, I became a business partner with Chuck Horton where we teamed up to form Hware’s software division for niche markets. Today, I am spending much of my time working on an e-book for eco-conscious women entrepreneurs and business training.

If you would like a free 30 minute consultation, please call me on my Google Voice Toll Free at 530-392-4298. Let’s brainstorm on your biz idea today!

Chuck Horton is a serial entrepreneur with vast knowledge and expertise in  technology and business strategies. He sold his first business at the age of 17, a well drilling business.  While in college, he started one of the first computerized Bulletin Board Systems, the predecessor to internet chat rooms, social media, blogging, forums, and open source software. He has owned 5 businesses and has created, launched, merged, and spun-off many businesses on behalf of  his clients.  As a business consultant, Chuck has become known to all of his clients for taking extremely complex business problems and simplifying them in a very easy-to-understand manner.  He then provides a solution with a step-by-step action plan which ultimately helps them become more profitable.  As a technology consultant in Silicon Valley, Chuck became known as the “go-to-guy” for automating and systematizing the businesses of his clients.

After 20 years of becoming a trusted business advisor to Fortune 500 companies, as well as small-to-medium size businesses, high-tech companies, entrepreneurs, start-ups, non-profits, and service industry professionals, Chuck was looking for a new endeavor. He had helped his clients make hundreds of millions of dollars in profits, and he had earned the reputation of “the Strategist” by providing high-level consulting, coaching, strategic planning, and developing customized software for his clients. In addition, as a futurist, he could foresee that the internet was going to revolutionize the way people do business. So in 2000, he and his business partner, Brenda left the Bay Area and moved to the foothills of Northern California and bought 28 acres and built their dream home on a hill-top which is solar-powered and straw-baled. While fully taking advantage of technology such as wireless high-speed internet via an 80 foot antenna perched up on a pine tree and virtual means, Chuck continued to offer business consulting services and customized software for his clients over the next eight years…and he did 99% of it remotely from his home-office!

Hware Today

After experiencing tremendous success with their own businesses, Chuck and Brenda teamed up as business partners in 2008. They had a burning desire to help entrepreneurs succeed.  With the high failure rate of start-ups and small businesses, they believed that they could make a difference in the lives of these courageous and self-motivated people by helping them with the tools, methods, and systems they themselves have used. Hware was then restructured and together they relaunched Hware. Chuck and Brenda bring a combined 42 years of vast knowledge and expertise in the following industries: Telecommunications, public utilities, grocery, agriculture, manufacturing, banking, medical, publishing, high-tech, legal, accounting, commercial and residential real estate, government, office products, residential and commercial construction, hospitality, service industry, non-profits, start-ups, Fortune 500 companies and many, many more.

Today, Chuck and Brenda are tapping into their vast reservoir of business experiences and knowledge and thereby fueling their passion towards helping entrepreneurs become successful.  They have taken the top systems and most effective methods that Hware has used over the years to help many of its clients become very profitable by converting them to online usage for the masses. These methods and systems have been transformed into online business tools that are easy to use for small business owners who are ready to take their business to a higher level.

Chuck is the vice-president of Hware LLC., and CTO. He currently sits on the board of directors for Sierra Forever Families as past president.

The 3 biggest problems small businesses face

1. No clear vision of where they want to go.  They don’t know what their “end game” is.  As a result, they try a lot of different routes and chase a lot of ideas, costing them vast amounts of time and money.

2. No solid plan in place. Most entrepreneurs are guilty of this because they tend to be action-takers and they will “figure-it-out-as-they-go.” This is the biggest mistake entrepreneurs make and the costliest. Eventually, most start-ups run out of capital due to lack of planning.

3. Not taking action or taking action on the wrong items. Small businesses tend to spend too much time on things that don’t make them money. As a small business owner it is very easy to get caught up in the day-to-day operational procedures of running the business. Unfortunately, unless there are strong systems and talented people in place, the small business owner spends way too much time wearing way too many hats and focus.

The solution to the 3 biggest problems small businesses face.

ENVISION PLAN ACT.  A better way to build your business! Coming soon in Beta.

ENVISION PLAN ACT is a very simple-to-use online business planning tool for the small business owner.  Here at Hware, we believe that a vision without a plan is just a dream. A plan without a vision is drudgery. A vision and a plan without action is a disappointment….but a VISION with a PLAN put into ACTION can change the world!

Chuck and Brenda are very excited about bringing the small business owner ENVISION PLAN ACT, a web-based business planning process and method for growing a solid and profitable business.  With ENVISION PLAN ACT, they have put together an online, systematic and easy-to-use process for growing an entrepreneur’s business to huge profits.

The problem with most business plans and strategic plans is that they end up collecting dust on a shelf.  Much work goes into creating them, but then they tend to soon be forgotten. ENVISION PLAN ACT is interactive with no software to upload.