Page 38 - BusinessWest May 15, 2023

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38 MAY 15, 2023
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From the Grounds
UP
Hayley Procon Takes the Route of a True Entrepreneur
BY GEORGE O’BRIEN
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Hayley Procon entered college with the goal of one day getting into broadcast journalism.
In fact, her ambition was to be the “next Erin Andrews,” as she put it, referencing the well-known sideline reporter for FOX on its NFL broadcasts.
“I loved baseball, and I still love baseball; I just wanted to be on the sideline for the Red Sox,” she told BusinessWest, adding that it wasn’t long after arriving at Suffolk University in Boston that she realized that this wasn’t a realistic, or even desirable, goal.
And upon transferring to Springfield College, she would set a new goal — to be her own boss.
“I definitely didn’t want to work for someone else,” she explained, with a note of extreme confidence in her voice. “I didn’t want to put in the work and put in the effort and see someone else basically reap the benefits; I don’t want to work hard for someone else’s success.”
She kept pursuing that goal and made it reality in what would be called a joint venture with her mother, Kristen Pro- con. Together, they acquired an established business, Common Grounds, a coffee shop on busy Boston Road in Wilbraham, while she was still in college — a venture for which she would win the Spirit Award from the Harold Grinspoon Foundation.
Together, the partners made a few subtle changes, build- ing on an existing foundation, and have built on that success story. While doing so, though, they have taken things to a dif- ferent level, becoming serial entrepreneurs with the opening of Aura Day Spa in Ludlow, a new venture they have taken from the ground up — as opposed to the grounds up with the coffee shop.
As she talked about these ventures, Procon used many
of the words and phrases summoned by others profiled over the years in BusinessWest’s Women in Business sections.