How Lasenta Is Helping More Women Build Businesses, Create Opportunity, and Rise Together

There was a time when Lasenta was not sitting at a million-dollar table.

She was a young mother trying to figure out how to keep moving forward.

She knew struggle. She knew uncertainty. She knew what it felt like to need help, to need opportunity, and to need someone to see potential in her before success had arrived.

Years later, Lasenta would build LLE Construction Group into a million-dollar company.

But her story is not powerful simply because she made it.

It is powerful because she decided she did not want to make it alone.

“I want to see more of us sitting at that million-dollar table,” Lasenta has said.

For women entrepreneurs, those words carry a deeper message.

Success is not just about getting your seat.

It is about helping create more seats for the women coming behind you.

She Had to Learn Her Way Forward

Lasenta did not begin with every answer.

When she started LLE Construction Group in 2011, she had education, construction experience, and determination. But she has openly talked about not having a traditional business mentor.

So she found other ways to learn.

She read.

She studied successful entrepreneurs.

She watched how people who had already built strong businesses moved, made decisions, and created relationships.

And whenever she discovered a weakness, she worked on it.

When she needed to understand financial statements, cash flow, forecasting, and other parts of business management, she sought out workshops and training.

That may be one of the most encouraging lessons in Lasenta’s story.

You do not have to know everything before you begin.

You simply have to be willing to keep learning.

Too many women believe they have to arrive fully prepared before taking the next step.

Lasenta’s journey tells us something different:

Start where you are. Learn what you need. Keep moving.

Starting Small Does Not Mean Dreaming Small

When Lasenta launched LLE, she did not immediately compete for the biggest construction projects.

She noticed that larger contractors often overlooked smaller renovation jobs.

So she went after the work others did not want.

One project.

One client.

One relationship.

She built the company, in her words, “one small project at a time.”

Within a few years, LLE had crossed the million-dollar mark in annual revenue.

That is a powerful reminder for every woman building something from the ground up:

Small beginnings are still beginnings.

The first client matters.

The first contract matters.

The first thousand dollars matters.

The first mistake you learn from matters.

You do not have to begin big to eventually become big.

Women Need More Than Encouragement

Lasenta is passionate about helping women in business because she understands how much women often carry.

Businesses.

Families.

Children.

Dreams.

Responsibilities no one else sees.

She has spoken about women being the backbone of families and communities. And she believes that when a woman-owned business grows, the impact can spread far beyond one woman.

Her company can create jobs.

She can hire another woman.

She can subcontract with another small business.

She can invest in her family.

She can create opportunity in her community.

That is why helping women entrepreneurs is not simply about inspiration.

Women need tools.

Women need knowledge.

Women need relationships.

Women need contracts.

Women need access to capital and opportunities that allow their businesses to grow.

Lasenta has learned that winning an opportunity is only the beginning. A business must also have the systems and capacity to deliver.

That means understanding your numbers, strengthening your operations, communicating professionally, building the right team, and knowing when it is time to ask for help.

You Were Never Meant to Build Alone

Lasenta knows what it is like to try to do everything yourself.

But growth eventually taught her the power of partnerships.

No woman has to prove her strength by carrying everything alone.

Sometimes strength looks like asking.

Sometimes it looks like collaborating.

Sometimes it looks like sitting across from another woman and saying, “You know something I need to learn.”

And sometimes it means turning around after you have climbed a little higher and extending your hand to the woman behind you.

Lasenta knows what that feels like, too.

As a single mother attending Midlands Technical College, childcare once became a serious obstacle to continuing her education.

Someone helped connect her with support that allowed her to remain in school.

She never forgot it.

Years later, Lasenta began providing scholarships, mentoring entrepreneurs, supporting women and minority-owned companies, and teaching business owners what she had learned.

Someone opened a door for her.

Now she opens doors for others.

Make the Table Bigger

There is a lot of conversation today about women getting a seat at the table.

Lasenta’s story challenges us to think bigger.

What happens after you get there?

Can you build something that lasts?

Can you create wealth?

Can you help another woman rise?

Can your success become someone else’s opportunity?

The goal cannot simply be to become the one woman who made it.

The goal should be to create so much opportunity that seeing women succeed no longer feels unusual.

Lasenta reached the million-dollar table.

Now she wants more women sitting there beside her.

And maybe that is what real success looks like.

Not simply rising.

Rising—and reaching back.