In our view, far too many ideas die at the imagination stage. It’s not because people are lazy, we think the primary reason is because many people don’t know where or how to start. So, we connected with some sharp and generous entrepreneurs who’ve agreed to share their stories of how they went from idea to execution.

Iris Patterson

In January 2020, I knew it was time to launch Chicago Integrated Health (CIH). You see, this wasn’t my first business. I owned two before CIH. In March of 2010, I became licensed as a Clinical Massage Therapist. I was self-employed for 5 years before launching Iris Botanicals, my natural hair care line that landed in Whole Foods locally here in Chicago. By the time I launched Chicago Integrated Health, I had already discovered who I am. I am an innovator and a visionary. Read more>>

Kyle Flynn

Once I finished playing college football at San Jose State University I moved home and noticed a void in the fitness space. I went to the gym and everyone was on their phones, nobody talking to each other or connecting with one another. Coming from a team environment and a culture built on positivity and connection at SJSU, I knew that I could create something special for the city I grew up in. I got started in personal training and started to grow my business through conducting sessions that made adults feel like they were at recess and were apart of something bigger than themselves. As time went on I turned the 1 on 1 sessions into group sessions and then group sessions into group classes. After building my foundation for 5 years, I decided to open The Blueprint LA and haven’t looked back since. Read more>>

Mirror Mirror On The Wall Interior Design & Staging

For nearly 20 years, we have worked together to coordinate events and decorate homes for our families and friends. We have also worked in ministry serving youth and several church groups. Our passion has always been to serve and help others. Within the last 6 years, we both had purchased new homes and had gone through the extensive design process with different builders. It was a challenging yet rewarding process and we both had the desire to help others do the same. In 2020, Covid disrupted our lives. We were all bound to the constraints of our homes for both work and school. Personally, this caused us to get very creative with our own homes. We knew that millions of other families we’re going through the same situations….where can the kids set up for school, where can I set up a home office, how can we create a flex place? So many things to figure out along with trying to survive during this time. After working to make our own homes more functional but still stylish, we thought…how can we do this for others? We are very involved mothers of 2 college students, 2 middle and high school students, wives and at the time, full-time employees in corporate America. We had a lot on our plates but still had a strong desire to design and decorate. We knew it would take commitment, time and sacrifice to do what we wanted to do and be successful in doing so. We started our research, created a business name & logo and in February 2021, we acquired our LLC and officially became Mirror Mirror On The Wall. Read more>>

Kayla Chanel

The original idea for Peculiar Creations came up in 2016 i was around the age of 18 . I’ve always dreamed of being a fashion designer/stylist and one day having my own brand, but i wanted my brand to be more than just another custom clothing side hustle. In these years the name of the business was simply Peculiar . The first ideas for the brand was to create and hire a crew of young creatives like me that had dreams of starting in the creative industry but didn’t really know where to start , didn’t really have professional experience , or that were just self taught like i was . I wanted the Peculiar Crew to be a one stop shop where people could come and get everything they needed whether it was a Fashion Designer , Stylist, Makeup artist, Photographer, Creative Director , Event planner , literally anything they could come to us and hire their team all in one place . I felt this idea would be very worthwhile because for the employees it was a place where young creatives could get their foot in the door . It would be the first big step to our long term goals. For our audience i felt it would almost speak for itself . Imagine you’re looking for someone to create you a outfit for a photoshoot and you want it to be made just for your style different and exciting never before seen and as you’re getting things together you realize i need makeup or who’s gonna do my hair or i need a Party planner., and you came across Peculiar Crew and found every single piece of the puzzle in one place. So I always strongly believed that this idea would grow into my biggest dreams. Of course with every big dream you have to have a starting point, even though i felt so confident in the plans that i had and it’s almost a devastating feeling to know that even though you dream of something and you’re confident in it you have to step back and realize things just don’t always happen that way . Yes i believed and still believe God is able to provide and work miracles but sometimes you have to put in the extra work for it , it won’t always fall in your lap because you feel like it should . With that knowledge and faith in 2017 i focused on just my field of work which was making and styling clothes. I rebranded to being Peculiar Clothing . I was restyling and creating custom pieces for customers and styling for different events. In these particular times i was dealing with a lot of self doubt and also negativity around me. I feel like a lot of creatives deal with a lot of the things i was battling with . I was a self taught creative coming out of high school , usually around that time everyone is pushing you to go to school graduate college or get a job and although i was always interested in college it was never my dream i always knew i wanted to be a entrepreneur and be my own boss . I never even thought about having a job , i can’t even remember a time where i talked about having a normal day to day job it was just never in my plans. Of course these things out me in a weird place i learned everything i knew from YouTube and research never took a class i believe God birthed me with a creative gift everything i knew how to do i lessened by just doing it. My business wasn’t really established at this time because for one i was still teaching myself the technicalities of running a business and i also had no credibility , most people don’t really do business just because God gave me a gift , there was nothing to really back it up but my faith and i feel that was the hardest time in my career because i believed God could make a way for me because he gave it to me but i doubted my own ability. I started applying to different colleges every year trying to please others and actually have some credibility and i never finished a class . Even with the doubt and the failures i had and still have so much faith in my brand and my future. In 2019 my official rebrand , we officially became Peculiar Creations LLC . I wanted to Brand my business in a way that it wasn’t trapped in one lane. I wanted my brand to be more than just a clothing brand especially because i created more than just clothing . I decorated and designed for events , made custom glass plaques , created murals and wall paintings and so much more, so i wanted to be known for all things creative and not just clothing even though clothing is our main focus i never wanted to be stuck being only a clothing brand. I also understood when other successful business owners would teach “find your niche and stick to it “ but i always believed even when you find your niche you shouldn’t have to trap your creativity and I took a chance with prayer, faith and hard work and created a brand that was exactly that. With more faith, research , and YouTube i learned the fronts and backs of running a business, marketing, sales, etc . I created websites , started doing my own graphic designing , and launched my business as a LLC . Read more>>

Nereide Santa Rosa

My initial steps as a writer were nurtured by the unwavering support of my family, particularly my mother, who provided me with an exemplary education and exposed me to the world of books from a young age. During my teenage years, driven by a desire to make a meaningful impact on the world, I embarked on a path that seamlessly blended my roles as a teacher and writer. Read more>>

Marissa Watts

My initial idea was only to customize Ugg’s with monograms. I planned to partner with an embroidery company, but a friend of mine told me to get the machine & learn embroidery. In 2020, I disagreed. That was so far fetched to someone who knew nothing about fashion or anything in the clothing industry. I’d been a journalist my whole life. However, when I unexpectedly got pregnant… I had to figure out how to flip the negative situation & create more income. I began to study embroidery on YouTube & was confident enough to give it a try. I invested in the machine, studied harder than I ever had in college because I had such a drive to make up for getting knocked up. It sounds crazy but they say people appreciate real & I’m just being real. I’m so grateful that we have YouTube because flipping through the manual, I would’ve given up. I had a guy who’s channel I studied and we connected on Instagram. I was able to ask him questions along with the Facebook groups that I had joined. As I mentioned, I was a media girl who studied broadcast at Howard University. I started a podcast in 2021, but I was tired of begging people to support me. I knew that people would spend money to make money & that I could be the next upcoming clothing manufacturer. I didn’t know a soul who did embroidery. The rest will be history. Read more>>

Messieurs Swank

I truly believe that we are all born with a rhythm; every one of us. And even though our rhythm helps us connect with the people and world around us, it is uniquely ours. I’ll start my story there. Read more>>

Shont’e Deramus

I’d like to believe that I’ve always had a niche for creating. I’d been taking different forms of art classes during school for years. It wasn’t until I stumbled upon digital design, which was known at the time as “Digital Imaging” that a fire was lit within me to explore this field. Years after taking those classes, I would continue to play around in Adobe suites- learning the ends and outs of photoshopping, cropping and editing till the final image I created was one that I felt proud of. I took these skills that I had been practicing and I began to create digital flyers, invitations, and more for friends, family members and mainly church events and functions. Read more>>

Stephanie Butterfield

Starting Activate House was a journey that blended passion, planning, and perseverance. It all began with a desire to create a fitness space that went beyond traditional gym experiences, fostering a community-driven approach to health and wellness. Read more>>

Saira Malhotra

The Dancing Elephant has seamlessly merged ancient Ayurvedic wisdom with modern culinary preferences, evolving from a humble incubator to a nationally recognized CPG brand. Our journey, driven by a vision to share the well-being properties of Kitchari, began with hands-on production and distribution by the 2 of us Female, Minority Founders where we made a heat and eat version of the kitchari (a spiced blend of grains and lentils) . Read more>>

Irene Hardwicke Olivieri

The most exciting part of being an artist for me is when I get an idea/inspiration for a new project and then have to figure out how to make it come to life. This might come from an intensely emotional experience, like when my father passed away. Or from the thought of how it would be if we could leap forward and talk to our future self, like sit down and have a conversation with our skeleton from the future. Or how I wish I could wear a terrarium suit instead of actual clothes and then how to paint this. During the past year I’ve been collecting cholla cactus skeletons because I love the way they look and feel and now I”m making people out of them. Read more>>

Benjamin Ballard

I actually started my foundation by doing the right procedures and protocols of getting a license to work with youth. The process of going from idea to execution was simple, I started out by doing small steps that eventually catapulted me into large scale executions. One of the main steps for setting up the business is laying the foundation structure, getting a business account, then finding the right people for my business. I had this idea to work with youth around Northeast Florida, the next day I couldn’t sleep, and in the next few months I started having visions of how i could help the community. Then, I acted on the visions and everything became a reality. Someone else was already doing the work that i have dreamed of; so, what were their fearing, how were they doing, and what was their deficiency, then how can I improve where others lack. Read more>>

 LAKESHA QUARLES

In 2020, I had a dream about Sunflowers and babies. It was shortly after my dad passed, the dream came to me. At first, I thought it was something that I had made up in my mind, due to the amount of research I had been doing about a certain topic. The dream then came to me again, but only this time it was so vivid, that I woke up and told my Husband about it. In the dream, I could see a big sign on a building named “SunFlower Births”, I was holding a small baby, and I was surrounded by many supporters. The dream felt so surreal! Weeks passed, and I was scrolling on Instagram and came across a post about training to become a Certified Holistic Doula, at that moment, I knew that it was a divine calling. Although, I didn’t know the proper terminology for a “Doula”, I knew that’s what I wanted to become and do in my community. I applied for the training and was later accepted, so I knew that this was the start of something amazing. Before I even started the Doula training class, I had my business name picked out and my LLC filed, I also had business cards premade, because I knew in my heart that this was a passion of mine. I remember telling the Instructor (Stormi) that I had all of those things ready to launch after my certification and she was amazed at what I had proactively completed. Fast forward to now when I look back from where I started, I can’t believe all of the many amazing things that I’ve accomplished since then. From more knowledge gained, more certifications, and thriving business. All it took was that leap of faith to get started. Read more>>

Johanna Grange

I had known my partner for just under a decade. We worked together previously under a different company and titles. We were friends from go. She was actually my boss but a friendship and comraderie grew very quickly. We respected each other, however, I had left the company when my second daughter was born. I was itching for something new. Read more>>

Julie Landi

My business was not one that took the pathway of ” I’ve got a great idea, now let’s get some funding, hire a team and bring it to market ” . This idea evolved from a place of desperation..After the sudden deaths of both parents who I was very close to and the ensuing legal battles with both brothers and the dismissal from a 17 year career all within a very short period of time, it was more like OMG where am I? I, who am I ? What am I going to do with the rest of my life? Honestly I was depressed but thought I must still be good for something, But what is it? At 49 I did not even know what that was. I had spent my life serving others with my husband, family and church being my main focus for decades. I felt like I once the fog cleared from all the radical changes I was left standing with nothing but a slew of questions and no real answers and no one to show me the way. I was so disoriented at that time. So I embarked on a journey to learn about the one person I knew the least about in my life….me and learned a lot about myself I had never known. Along the way I began to share vulnerably on social media my learnings. Sharing the new insights helped the learning process for me. And I had no idea that I wasn’t the only one who did not know who they were or what they were going to do with the rest of their lives. I just assumed everyone my age had figured that out. But not so apparently and many it seemed really didn’t have a clear place to even start to look. My daily postings became a voice and a pathway for many. That led to more than a dozen people reaching out to me to ask me how I was walking through this journey and if I could show them the way. A few people became dozens and now hundreds that have evolved into a full blown international coaching organization with a team of over 10 women helping to bring clarity, confidence and a concrete plan to many women who also need to and want to create a great next chapter for themselves. What a thrill to turn ideas into opportunities and that is what we do here at Live Your Vision. Read more>>

Glenda Maddox Reneé Brunson

We have both always wanted to be business owners, and when we found ourselves with some time off work, we decided to take advantage and explore that idea. Working in film, tv, and commercial productions throughout our careers, we already have the expertise and knowledge of styling, therefore creating a business for personal styling made sense. Also, this is a business that is service-based and didn’t require much initial capitol, so that made it very appealing to us as well. Over the next several months we began to research other similar companies, on-line and through mutual acquaintances, to determine how we wanted to structure our wardrobe styling business. Next we determined our business name, WE STYLE. When brainstorming names, we really wanted one that clearly reflected the services we would provide, and was also modern and memorable. Next, we worked on designing our website, and creating our custom styling questionnaire. The questions are very important in helping us discover the essence and lifestyle of our clients, as well as what their goals are in working with us. Next came the hard part, how do we get the clients? Our first client was a friend in need of styling assistance for her work and everyday life. Since she is a friend, it was a great way for us to determine our process and what worked and didn’t work. As time went on, we have been successful at acquiring clients mostly through referrals. Between clients we are also building a social media presence. On our account we love to highlight fashion that inspires us, and create style boards to inspire our followers. Read more>>