Risk is a topic that comes up a lot in our conversations with entrepreneurs and creatives, but a related topic is investments. Investments come in many forms – investing your time, money, heart and soul, etc. So, with that broad definition of investment in mind, we asked rising stars in the community to tell us the stories of the best or worst investments they’ve made.
Brandon Vargas
You know of all the investments I have ever made, whether that be time invested, or monetarily— I cannot personally label any one investment good nor bad. Ironically, I have extracted the most VALUABLE lessons in life from my greatest failures. Read more>>
Vanessa Correa
When I first decided to start my own business it was the scariest thing I’d ever done. I was barely making ends meet at my full time job (making $13/hr as a Chief Financial Officer fresh out of college). I took a $1,000 per month pay cut when I went out on my own at the ripe young age of 27. In addition to taking a paycut, I decided to (for the very first time) invest in a program called Next Level Firms which proposed to help me get to making $250,000 per year without having a CPA license. It sounded INSANE, I FELT INSANE! I thought “What have I done now?” every day, mutiple times per day. I was so grateful that my spouse was kind enough to humor my aspirations (even assuming I was going to fall flat on my face). It definitely sounded too good to be true – how could I go from making 3,500/month as an employee to making 2,500/month as an entrepreneur with NO experience running a business, oh and while I was at it decided to commit to a $1,000/month expense for the Next Level Firms program. I had followed the guy promising these big dreams for about a year (daydreaming about how cool that would be if it were real, or weren’t a scam. etc etc). I consumed all the free content I could from the guy who WAS a CPA and seemed to really know his stuff – but what was more important was he knew how to build relationships. Emotional intelligence was a term I didn’t even know back then, but I recognized in this new mentor parts of myself in relationship building context. So, in one fail swoop I took 2,000 from our household to chase a pie-crust-dream that sounded way too good to be true. Read more>>
Myles Ragin
We’re thrilled to share that our most impactful move has been strategically reinvesting resources from our inaugural year into the subsequent one. While offering a highly sought-after service, breaking into the market proved challenging initially. However, by channeling our efforts into dynamic marketing strategies and assembling an exceptional team, we’ve experienced substantial growth. The journey has been exciting, and we’re genuinely grateful for the positive impact these investments have had on our success which allows us to make more magical moments happen. Looking forward to more milestones ahead! Read more>>
Alexa Wroten
I’ve made many investments as a business owner in an attempt to keep up with trends. I saw what other artist in my area where offering and felt I had to offer the same service. I saw was popular on social media and felt like I too had to offer those same things. Let’s take the chiara wall for example. You may know them as those large curved walls that are customized in different colors, sayings and adorned with balloons. They were all the rage in the last 5 years or so. Read more>>
Duane Ackley
The best investment and biggest most important thing I’ve done to date that in turn fuels everything else was to begin to invest in myself. This sort of began at the beginning of the end of a 16 year career in tattooing and has landed to where I am currently with life in general. So it starts with being someone heavily tied to their emotions and experiences, and how that influences a life that’s creative expression is entangled with those very things. I found myself in a dream career of tattooing, but with it ultimately being someone else’s dream. Imagine living a life where money isn’t much of a concern, creating for a living, and being dramatically unfulfilled by it. Creative torture! That was my experience and it took years of drowning in the muck of discontent before a simple question on the back end of my complaining changed everything. “What do you want?” So simple, and lovingly asked out of frustration from a friend. I was definitely ungrateful for where I had found myself, in a career that to a large degree snuffed out my creative expression and adventure for what the customer wanted. Filtered creativity for hire at it’s best, tattooing is a commissioned, glorified, graphic designer applied to the skin. Don’t get me wrong, there are many great reasons to be a part of such a thing for a job, but it lacked one thing for me, my artistic voice. So a simple question turned into a 7 year adventure out of the particular creative pigeonhole I’d found myself in to a new found appreciation for what I actually wanted all along. Creative freedom. That’s it, whether it pays or not, the ability to express myself and my voice creatively without restraint other than my own. The path to this involved a deep dive into examining my life, call it a form of therapy and introspection, as well as the development of the spiritual aspect of being human. It was by no means and continued to not be anything short of messy, but there’s a beauty to it. I don’t feel like this was a decision to be made, as in there seemed no other choice, and if I had known what lay ahead I probably would’ve found another way. Life doesn’t work like that. A jump into the unknown reveals the most and rewards the most, but always comes with a hefty price tag. What unfolded as some of the most psychologically and emotionally painful moments of my life, where I experienced things that I had avoided my whole life, eventually led me peace and the spark of my creativity. I’m definitely still in process and may be the rest of my life, but it continues to become more freeing and open to how I fully express myself. As far as lessons, so many, but I’m not trying to write a book currently so I’ll end with what I’ve said as enough. Read more>>