Lorraine Williams, owner of Café Dodici, recently spoke as part of a panel on “How to Start Your Own Business” at the Iowa NEW Leadership Conference.

Advice she would give to entrepreneurs is to be passionate about your work and understand that it is hard and there are sacrifices along the way. The other women on the panel with Williams were a photographer from Iowa City and an attorney who recently opened her own law practice in the Quad Cities. The conference is for 35 women in graduate and undergraduate programs across the state.