She took her Atlanta IT firm from basement digs to multimillion-dollar company
Marissa Maldonado was finishing business school at the University of Georgia when her older brother Carlos Maldonado came to her with an idea.
Carlos Maldonado had a Buckhead information technology business that had grown to serve about 1,500 users.
He offered her a majority share of the company to take on the expansion, with the help of her business school credentials.
Carlos Maldonado said he told her, “‘Run with it. … Take this business and grow it.”
After weighing the idea for a while, Marissa Maldonado eventually decided to take on the challenge.
“So we started it in his basement,” she said, building the firm “just brick by brick.”
That was about 15 years ago. Now, their company, called Proda Technology, is a multimillion-dollar managed IT and cybersecurity firm with about 35 employees.
Last year, it was named an Inc. 5000 company, with 164% growth over three years, making it one of the 5,000 fastest-growing private companies in the country.
Marissa Maldonado says Proda has also reached a threshold most managed service providers, which manage IT for clients, have never reached: bringing in more than $5 million in annual revenue. Proda hit about $9 million in annual revenue in 2025, she said.
First-generation college grads
But it has been a journey. When Marissa Maldonado first took the leap into becoming an entrepreneur, her parents — who thought she would be climbing a corporate ladder — were concerned.
“‘You’re hanging out in your brother’s basement. You have no benefits. … What are you doing?’” she remembers them asking. “And I was just like, you know, I think we’re onto something here.”
Carlos Maldonado is still a co-owner and network and cybersecurity engineer for Proda, and Marissa Maldonado sees the successful growth of the firm as “validating.”
“We are first-generation college graduates. My mom immigrated from Mexico, my dad (is) from Puerto Rico. So it’s a really cool thing to see my see how proud my parents were,” she said.
A medical focus
Proda Technology serves wealth management firms, industrial clients and nonprofits. But many of its clients are in the health care industry, with Proda serving as the IT department for doctors’ offices.
One of the company’s first clients when it operated out of a basement was Atlanta Women’s Obstetrics & Gynecology in Midtown. Reghan McClain, an assistant practice administrator there, said: “We saw them grow up. Now they’re, like, big time.”
Carlos Maldonado “built our network, so he knows it like the back of his hand,” said Stacy Kinchelow, practice administrator at Atlanta Women’s Obstetrics & Gynecology.
The focus on the medical field for clientele is close to home for Marissa Maldonado because, she said, doctors “saved my brother’s life.”
Carlos Maldonado was in a nearly fatal accident as a child while riding as a passenger on a motorcycle, ending up in a coma for six weeks and having his leg amputated.
Their mother wanted to give back, and so she and her brother were active with fundraising for Scottish Rite Children’s Medical Center, which is now part of Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta.
Eventually, when he was older, Carlos Maldonado noticed there wasn’t much competition for IT services for pediatricians.
Marissa Maldonado said that may be because pediatricians “kind of run like nonprofits” (Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta is a not-for-profit organization), and competitors want to go after higher profit margins.
Proda decided “to make sure that the pediatricians are being taken care of and getting good quality of work,” she said.
Balancing work and life
Today, as she scales the business further, “I’m always thinking of … ‘How do I need to be, for that next phase of growth in the entrepreneurial journey?’”
The challenge involves balancing work and life, including as a mother and a leader.
Maldonado said one of the most challenging periods she has had leading the business was when she had her first child.
“Postpartum. … That was tough, especially being in a very male-dominated industry,” Maldonado said. “It’s not something we really talk about.”
She said her husband has a picture of her working on her laptop in the labor delivery room the night before giving birth. She remembers the nurse telling her, “‘You’ve got to stop working.’”
During that same period, Proda moved into its current location in an office building in the Cumberland area of metro Atlanta — and then COVID-19 began to spread around the country.
“All of a sudden, the shutdown happened. And at first there was this moment of panic,” Maldonado said, because she had just put up her house as a guarantee on the commercial lease.
Then, after she had her second child in 2022, Maldonado was traveling frequently for work while also trying to lead her team through the growth of the company in her vision.
She acknowledges “there was a moment of erosion of trust with me and my leadership team. … We started seeing some turnover.”
“I wasn’t giving enough time to my family, and I wasn’t giving enough time to my work, so I was doing neither one well,” Maldonado said. “That was the moment where I felt the organization and my role was at its most vulnerable.”
Maldonado recalls a time when she and her husband were rotating out their baby’s infant clothing, “and I’m sitting on the floor, and my husband comes in and he looks at me, and I just start bawling.”
He asked what was wrong.
“I don’t recognize any of these clothes,” she said. “Because … I wasn’t here.”
Maldonado said her mindset was changing dramatically as a mother.
“But coming out of it, it kind of became my superpower,” improving her instincts and intuition, Maldonado said.
Today, the company offers sabbaticals for employees with five years of tenure, as well as continuing to offer six weeks of maternity leave.
A big sign
Proda has continued to grow, and in 2024, it expanded to enough square footage to get a sign outside the building.
“It was such a big celebration day,” Maldonado said. “‘We’re big enough to have a street sign. We’re a real company now.’”
In December, Proda celebrated its latest expansion of office space to occupy more than 8,000 square feet in the building. At a party to mark the occasion, Maldonado told the crowd:
“My brother, he’s the quiet one who believed in me when I had just finished business school,” she said. “It was just hope, dreams, grit and a basement.”
Tips for Atlanta entrepreneurs
Maldonado shared with AJC Her+Story what helps drive her success as an entrepreneur in metro Atlanta.
Edited for length and clarity.
Q: Where’s the best place for a client lunch?
A: I have two. One is Ray’s on the River. The other is Rumi’s Kitchen — for me, it’s the Sandy Springs one (which closed for renovation in March 2025). There’s one in Colony Square and Avalon as well. So if I’m in the area, I’ll take clients to those places as well.
Q: For people who may be looking for a networking group, what would you recommend?
A: If you’re a woman in health care IT, Bluebird Leaders is a great, great networking group (based in New Hampshire with events nationally). Especially if you don’t even know how to network, you will be taught how to network in that organization.
But I’m a huge advocate of the local chambers, so I’m diving more and more into the Cobb Chamber. And you know, it’s all about giving back. So, actually, finding the opportunities to serve on a board is a great networking opportunity. And it’s a win-win, because you’re serving a mission, and you’re also getting the opportunity to network with like-minded individuals that are working on a similar mission as yours.
Q: What’s the most important event to attend in Atlanta?
A: Meals on Wheels Atlanta has A Meal To Remember, and it’s super-fancy. I always kind of joke, I’m not cool enough to be in this room, because it’s like the Who’s Who of Atlanta, that inner circle of business leaders. So I’m always really, really blown away when I go. It’s a very, very, very prestigious event.
Q: Where’s your favorite place to relax and unwind?
A: Jekyll Island. It is such a slower pace. It’s so beautiful. I feel like I’m in the middle of the Caribbean ... because it is just such a small island vibe. And it’s definitely one of the few vacations that we’ve gone with the kids where we were all relaxed the whole time, because it was just about being present. There wasn’t a lot of distractions, and it was just beautiful.
About the Author
As business team lead, Kelly Yamanouchi edits and writes business stories. She graduated from Harvard and has a master's degree from Northwestern.
