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With $500 in his pocket and a will to succeed, Emilio Figueroa opened the yellow pages and started cold calling people as part of the first step toward opening an insurance brokerage firm.
Seven years later, Figueroa, who is now the chief executive officer of Gaslamp Insurance Services, manages a staff of 14 in a 1,700-squarefoot space in Downtown's Gaslamp Quarter.
"I don't like being an employee," he said. "The money is good but it's not about the money. It's about freedom."
Figueroa, who is also a partner in three other insurance related companies, has steadily increased his business every year, growing its revenues by about 400 percent from 2002 to 2004.
The company expects to double...