Run the Mile
You're In
Now Available — Evergreen House Press
A memoir about achieving the American dream and discovering that a Black woman’s success can become a threat to the systems that were never built for her. This is the story after the deal closes that doesn’t make it into the press release, but the one that people deserve to hear.
AUTHOR & ENTREPRENEUR
“Emotionally forceful without being tidy, unusually specific, and carried by scenes vivid enough to withstand the repetitions.”
—NetGalley Review, 4/5 Stars
Now Available — Evergreen House Press
The story after the deal closes that doesn't make it into the press release
I started a daycare in my basement with a dream and a waiting list. Within a few years, Smarter Toddler had four locations across Manhattan and a business model that worked. Then I sold it in a multimillion-dollar acquisition to Bright Horizons.
That should have been the happy ending. Instead, the company that bought my business turned around and sued me for $1.5 million.
Run the Mile You're In is for anyone who's been counted out and kept going. It's for the "strong friend" no one thinks to check on. It's for anyone who needs to hear that presence, not perfection, is what gets you through.
ONE FOUNDER’S JOURNEY THROUGH SUCCESS, LOSS & REINVENTION
Free Guide
You Are Not Starting From Scratch
5 things two business exits, a lawsuit, a bankruptcy, and a divorce taught me about beginning again — and why what feels like an ending is often the start of something new.
Why grieving a success is just as real as grieving a loss
What a monastery in Italy taught me about stillness as strategy
How to separate who you are from what you built
Why the next right thing rarely looks like the obvious choice
What Readers Are Saying
In Her Words
People always ask me when I became an entrepreneur. The honest answer? I didn't become one. Entrepreneurship found me. One late night, I picked up my daughter from a home daycare center that was so unsatisfactory I decided right there she was never going back. I had no formal plan to start a business, but if "necessity is the mother of all invention" were a person, that was me in that moment. I somehow talked my husband into starting a childcare center in our apartment, and well, the rest is history.
I started Smarter Toddler fueled by passion and a vision to create something better for my child, but I ended up building something extraordinary that filled a gap no one had yet identified or named. Manhattan parents needed quality childcare. I needed to build something that was mine. Those two things met in a basement of an Upper West Side duplex, and for a while, everything worked exactly the way you hope it will when you're up at 3 a.m. writing a business plan at your kitchen table.
Success can be a double-edged sword, and for me it brought complicated attention. The sale, the lawsuit, the years of fighting a corporation with deeper pockets and longer patience. I tell the whole story in the book because I think people deserve to hear what really happens after the deal closes. The parts nobody puts in the press release.
These days, I'm still building. I lead Black Theatre United as Executive Director, I write about the lessons that I hope will help someone on their own journey, and I'm working on my next book about what happens when a woman who has spent her whole life fighting finally learns to rest.
ABOUT
Kettia Etienne Ming
Kettia Etienne Ming is a Haitian immigrant, entrepreneur, writer, and cultural leader based in New York. She founded Smarter Toddler, a Manhattan-based childcare company that grew from a single basement location to four thriving centers before being acquired by Bright Horizons in a multimillion-dollar deal. Her experience navigating the sale, a high-stakes legal battle, and strategic bankruptcy became the foundation for her debut memoir, Run the Mile You’re In: One Founder’s Journey Through Success, Loss, and Reinvention (Evergreen House Press, May 2026).
Kettia currently serves as Executive Director of Black Theatre United, where she works at the intersection of art, activism, and institutional change. She writes the Substack newsletter Run The Mile You’re In, exploring the lessons that emerge when things fall apart and what it takes to rebuild.
She lives in New York.
Press & Speaking
Available for Interviews & Events
Keynotes, panels, book club conversations, and university events. For inquiries: kettia@evergreenhousepress.com
Kettia Ming has spent two decades building businesses, navigating legal battles, and leading cultural institutions. She brings a rare perspective to conversations about entrepreneurship, race, resilience, and what it actually takes to start over.
Kettia is available for interviews, panels, and speaking engagements on the topics below.
Entrepreneurship and exit strategy
What nobody tells you about selling a business you built from nothing
Non-compete clauses and founder rights
The legal traps waiting for entrepreneurs after an acquisition
Black women in business
Succeeding in systems that were never designed for your success
Strategic bankruptcy
Choosing survival over surrender when the odds are stacked against you
Presence as strategy
How staying in the moment becomes the most radical act of resilience
Let’s Connect
Whether it’s a speaking engagement, a media interview, a book club visit, or just a note to say the book meant something to you, I’d love to hear from you.
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Kettia is available for keynotes, panels, book club conversations, and university events. She speaks on entrepreneurship, resilience, the realities of being a Black woman founder, and what it means to rebuild after a public setback.
For speaking inquiries: kettia@evergreenhousepress.com -
For interview requests and press inquiries: kettia@evergreenhousepress.com
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Reading Run the Mile You’re In with your book club? Kettia is available for virtual drop-ins to discuss the book with your group. Reach out to schedule a visit.
For book club visits:
kettia@evergreenhousepress.com
For the book club companion guide:
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