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.

Lisa-Gaye Shakespeare

I actually launched my business because of the pandemic. I had just gotten my dream job to travel the world and host group trips, but then I was grounded in April 2020 because I couldn’t travel anymore and ended up losing the job. I had no source of income so I literally had to put pen to paper and figure out what I could do to make money. I wrote down things I was passionate about that I could do online and that included social media marketing (because I had years of experience from the corporate world), copy writing (because I studied journalism in college), dance fitness (because I taught a class called ReggaeFit for fun) and travel (which is my first love and main goal). Read more>>

Grace Roche

The Make Your ImpACT Initiative was born out of a period of great uncertainty for ImpACT on Stage. We had been operating successfully as a nonprofit arts activism company for about six years, bringing our interactive programming into schools throughout the greater San Diego area to bring increased awareness about prevalent social issues, providing students and educators with concrete tools to advocate for themselves and their peers and establish a culture of compassion and kindness. Then, in March 2020, as I was transitioning from Actor to Artistic Director of the company, the COVID-19 pandemic brought our work to a screeching halt. ImpACT on Stage implemented an indefinite pause on our interactive, in-school programming to ensure the health and safety of our team and the students with whom we work. Read more>>

Annie Abrahamson

I have always been known as the “ideas gal” in my family…but an idea only comes to fruition if you have someone with enough guts to action. That’s Jess. One day, I pitched her the idea of owning a flower truck. Several months later, she was making us an appointment at a vintage auto dealership and we drove away with a 1967 International Harvester pickup truck. That was our starting point. Once we had the truck, there was a lot of trial and error. We didn’t really have any other existing concepts to look to. The city ran us around in circles with permits and licenses because our business didn’t fit in any of their boxes. On our opening day, it was pouring rain, we had an abundance of flowers to unload, and all the hopes in the world that people would like us and “get” what we were trying to do. Read more>>

James Coffman

First off, thank you Voyager for bringing me back to continue my story. Secondly, it’s been a wild time since we last chatted. Photography has taken itself to new heights and I started a publication, Coffee & Shugar, with some of my best friends. Here is the story behind it. During the pandemic, it felt like we all tried to keep ourselves from going stir-crazy by finding something to stay busy with. Around July of 2020, Morgan Shugars reached out via Instagram to tell me about an idea he had. The concept was essentially sharing his music interests with people. Read more>>

Brannon Peterkin

As a business owner, you are constantly in the mind-frame of problem solving. Looking back, some of the best ideas for us have actually come from a pain point we experienced in a normal day to day action. A recent example is actually what inspired us to break away from our normal business comfort zone and start development on a consumer-facing mobile app and site that is geared towards an entirely different audience. A few months back, I had used an app. The app was great. but the business model was one that, when you break it down, makes it hard for the users to leverage the app to generate income. Read more>>

Joshua Scales

I started by working for different organizations building software and seeing gaps where businesses and customers have a real communication barrier and level of trust. This inspired me to create my platform on the blockchain network to give power back to creators and users. Life is about choices and no tech company should control your data when they profit from you. The hardest part of my journey has been spent figuring out how to decentralize my social media platform without having board members deciding what our users see Read more>>

Gabe Ulibarri

Real American Heroes started as an idea between myself and my two best friends while we were deployed overseas in 2018. We knew we wanted to start a business and we would meet up at a coffee shop on base to begin the process of brainstorming ideas we thought would work. We came up with a lot of ideas about a branding and how we wanted to tell stories of Heroes when I said “why don’t we do coffee”? It made sense, We loved meeting up over coffee, it brought a sense of community, and all of our best ideas were created while drinking coffee. So, the idea of RAH (Real American Heroes) Coffee was created with the intention of telling stories of Real American Heroes. Read more>>

Nadia Decius

An idea will always remain what it is, an idea. I pack it along with the many visions we encounter in this lifetime. I have always told myself what’s an idea if can’t be acted upon. You thought of the idea yourself which was the hard part now its time to execute. See an idea comes from who you are as a person. The challenges, impacts and many other things you have crossed paths with that helped with molding who you are now. This experience is also what gives birth to any idea you come across. So execution was a mere thought of mine. Never seen baking as a career of mine nor did I see business owner. But I knew through the many experiences I encountered, the hurt, good, bad and ugly. Read more>>

Danielle Cross

I have been immersed in the hospitality interiors industry for years while working at some of the Dallas’ top design firms. This gave me exposure to high profile clients including luxury hotel brands, unique boutique hoteliers and many unique restaurant groups. I’ve had my fair share of interesting projects: a luxury penthouse in the Middle East where money was no object, creating brand standards for other designer’s to use as a guide for Waldorf Astoria Hotels & Resorts, and luxury . high rises here in Dallas. Read more>>

Courtney Taylor

The idea was there. It stemmed from my daughter being bullied in 1st grade. That was eye opening for me. Like wow, I know there are more little girls of color out here probably going through the same things or possibly worse. I already had a few little girls around me. I started meeting with them talking about different things like hygiene and having integrity and morals. After the legalities were in place, I started posting to social media and giving flyers out. It picked up pretty fast. The need is out here. Read more>>

Dairon & Kendrick Houston

It all started during a challenging spot in both of our lives. We were both, at the time, under the same roof and doing our sneaker ventures, but we had other plans as well. We both wanted something that we could claim as ours. We were in the car riding down the highway, and we thought to create clothing. We didn’t want to just do merch, we legitimately wanted a clothing brand that was inspired by us. We continued to play on the idea and began thinking of a logo immediately. The logo is what completely sparked the idea behind the message of the brand. Read more>>

Latasha Lewis

After making a big mistake over 9 years ago by getting illegal body injections, my health and body made a turn for the worst. To top things off I also wasn’t eating healthy. The doctors told me they could’t do anything for me unless I have surgery which I did not have the money for at the time. Instead I started looking into natural products to keep my body health until I can afford the surgery. I researched and tried a lot of the leading products, but nothing was working, until I struck gold with the best health & Wellness products using all natural ingredients. Which allowed me to start my own health and wellness business using these products on top of working out 3-4 days a week. Read more>>

Jen Krug

For 10 years, I worked in different salons between different states and was actually quite content in my career. At some point, I had this dear neighbor of mine who who would get to drinking and constantly ask me why I didn’t own my own salon! In his thick Somalian accent he would drill me with questions every weekend and I would HAVE to answer! Then I just started questioning myself! What do I need? How do I do it? I became obsessed with the idea of my own salon! Read more>>

Raveen Johnson

I host a journaling workshop series entitled #PositiveSelfTalk. It began as a conversation with a friend. We were chatting about her business endeavors, and she was talking about everything she had done in preparation for the launch, but she felt like she still hadn’t done enough. It prompted me to believe that we all have moments where we’re super hard on ourselves without acknowledging how far we’ve actually come. I’ve always been a writer at heart so I decided to write a blog about it. That single blog post turned into a blog website full of encouraging writings and posts. I then began to wonder how I could create a tangible experience for people to experience these types of encouraging words in a communal setting, and thus, the #PositiveSelfTalk: Read more>>

Rachael Ann Gliebe

Just start. start where you are at, with what you have and just don’t give up! Mentally prep yourself for failure and remind yourself that it’s worth it. Something fails, cry it out and get back on the grind the next day. Start again, start over, do what ever you need to do to simply keep going. And never forget grace for yourself and the process. Having a dream doesn’t mean it failed if it turned out differently than you expected. Often we get so set on the goal that we forget the growth is in the process. I think the key is in the unexpected! The lessons, losses, highs and lows during the process is what grounds you, builds you, strengthens you and makes you grow into the very person that is needed to execute ‘the dream.’ Read more>>

Joseph Binning

What we do as a company here at MEPCor is called BIM, which stands for Building Information Modeling. BIM is an acronym for Building Information Modeling. It is creating and managing digital representations of physical spaces. These representations can include not only two-dimensional drawings but also three-dimensional models, as well as schedules, material lists, and other important project information.  At the time of MEPCor’s conception, this technology was relatively unknown even though its conception originated in the early 1980s. When I was first exposed to it by accident, I could see the potential of the process, Read more>>

Roderick Rayson

Back in 2018 I launch my platform Esyntric. Ive always had the idea to expand my creativty over time. I started my platform as a blog. I blogged about my life, uplifting the people, music and local entrepreneurs in the city of Dallas. While blogging I was tapping into other areas of my creativity in the background. While blogging I grew my following slowly and prepared myself for the next phase. Read more>>

Jeff Smedstad

When I walked into my meeting with the first landlords for Elote I looked at the space and town and knew right then and there what it was going to be…. a place to throw a nice party every night in the red rocks of Arizona. I handed them a check right then and there and went to my car and sketched Elote Cafe on a piece of paper. It was just something that came together that fast and felt that right. I was open 6 weeks later. Read more>>

Jessalyn Italiano

The opportunity of ownership didn’t present itself to me until I had already been working for Caffe Boa for about 4 years as a server/manager. The founder of Caffe Boa told me he wanted to retire and thus the opportunity for ownership was born. During this time in my life, I was working at a Physical Therapy clinic full-time during the days, applying to PT graduate school, and going straight to my shifts at Boa by night. Read more>>

Allyson Garro

I had my business plan for 2 years before anything happened. I had been turned down for a loan by the SBA for lack of collateral, and my intention to open a Wig + Makeup sparkle boutique began to feel like an improbable fantasy, And then one night, a vision of my shop coexisting with other businesses inside of an old house came to me in a dream. It was so vivid, that the following day, I caught up with a friend who had wanted to open a vintage store, to tell her about my exciting revelation. Before I could say anything, she informed me that a mutual friend of ours had found an old bungalow on E Cesar Chavez where she wanted to open her salon, and that there was room for a couple more businesses and would I like to join them? It was my actual dream come true! Read more>>

Lily Zani

The idea started back on 2014 when I felt the call to create a community to connect women in the DFW Metroplex. The next step was to use social media as a tool to make it happen. My next step was to create an instagram account with a name that identified all women and made them feel like they belonged. That’s how DFWomen got started. Read more>>

Octavia Cephas Tiana Hoskins

Our business started in 2012 when a friend of mine told me (Octavia) that I should open up a business. From that point on is when I started doing research on how to open a business. I also did some benchmarking to verify who would be my actual competitors and their pricing. Once I’ve obtained my business license, insurance, and EIN I was ready for business. I started advertising on social media and vending at my local farmers market. Then my sister advised me into doing the Chicago Black Womens Expo. She introduced me to Alan Tapper. He submitted my application and from that point on my business started to blossom. Read more>>

Eva Clemens

I guess one could argue that having the idea is the easy part. I am a creative person with plenty of ideas in my head all day long – a medium told me once that I process everything super fast. The hard part for many creatives is to develop the skill to identify the ideas or goals worth pursuing and create a plan to achieve them. In my case, I work best when I create VERY clear instructions for myself. This reminds me of an article I read a while back in a magazine (I still have it if you want to come by and see it!) that showed 6 sketches, each from the point of view of the person doing the work – the drafting sketch, the engineering sketch, the quote, what was manufactured and finally – the sketch of what the client wanted. All 6 sketches were related, yet completely different! The entire team thought they were talking about the same thing, yet they were not. Read more>>

Jen Schwenk

any way possible to execute them and give them life. In my last business, a vintage store, I was able to shoot models in unlikely settings. With my recent project, I shot many businesses all over the country, and placed them in serene desert settings. This allowed the viewer to focus on the beauty of the subject rather than what was going on around it. After I sold many prints, and wrapped up two art shoes, I was able to give proceeds back to these struggling businesses. All photos were composites, Read more>>

Myah Brown

For several years I had the idea I wanted to start a business. I wanted to create something that would create generational wealth, catapult other business ventures, and break generational curses. I just wasn’t sure what I wanted to do. As I thought about businesses that I could be passionate about I landed on Jewelry. Jewelry has always been apart of my personality and I attribute that to my mothers love of jewelry. Once I settled on the business, I began researching the how. I reached out to people I knew that had launched businesses and asked all the questions I could think of. From there I made a plan and asked myself how I could make this “me”. Read more>>

Carrie Collins

The key for me opening Arcadia Coffee was to see what space there was in the community and looking at how we could fill that space. We are a family of artists and creatives. Where we were living at the time had no where that we felt spoke to who we were and what we had to offer. We wanted a space that not only served extremely good craft coffee, but had opportunities for artists to come together and collaborate in ways other than just hanging artwork. The first step was finding the building. Read more>>

James Bowden

I always loved cartoons and costumes. I woke up early every Saturday morning to watch all my favorites with a bowl of cereal on my lap. Halloween held a special place in my heart since I so loved dressing up as my favorite characters from Darth Vader to Scooby Doo to Batman. Imagine the blessing of discovering that I could get paid to dress up as my childhood favorites. The summer of 1997 I launched Kids Party Experts with the opening of the Batman and Robin movie. I scrambled to assemble 2 costumes for the opening. I learned about the muscle shapes for the underbody suits, how to sew, and I tracked down the materials needed to complete the look. It was much harder in those days since the internet was in its infancy. Once I completed the costumes, Read more>>

Cheryl Cote

I own an LLC, ICthings as a visually impaired artist. I am currently in an artist group. Martin Artisans Guild in Palm City, FL. The journey to reach this point has been challenging but oh so rewarding. I lost an eye, at 6 months old to retinal blastoma. In 2010 I lost a significant portion of central vision in my remaining eye to a condition known as retinal edema. This condition prevents me from driving or reading written text which requires me to use a magnifying glass. I am currently under the care of a well know retinal oncologist in Miami. Every 3 weeks I have an appointment to undergo extensive diagnostics and have an injection into my eye to preserve my remaining vision. Read more>>

Pat Nixon

I wish I could say it was “an” idea but the truth is, I had a bunch of ideas floating in my brain with one main goal… to make something work. Almost every plan I made played out another way. I thrived because I welcomed that fluidity into my success plan. I was a registered nurse with two options. I could complete the Nurse Practitioner Program and continue in corporate or I could find a way to overcome my intimidation of numbers, complete my business plan and learn how to invest in real estate. Needless to say, I changed my graduate major to Business Administration which forced me to take accounting. Read more>>

Sehar Tejani

Planning parties was something that I enjoyed growing up, and I would be the first one to take the initiative from the planning phase to the execution. I never imagined that this hobby would become a hustle. Around my mid-20s, I met this powerful, ambitious, loud but amazing woman who inspired me to make Bliss a reality. Something that was always just an idea in my head was starting to look more and more like a reality as time went by. Around the same time, my cousin was planning her wedding and asked me for some help with certain aspects of it, and I knew I had to jump on this opportunity if I ever wanted to make my dreams Read more>>

Shenal Hooks

I’ve always enjoyed designing and creating fashion items. I used to have a blog where I would showcase the different pieces of clothing I sewed from scratch or the different costumes I created. After having our son, I found it hard to bring out all my various sewing and crafting kits. Especially during those early years of him pulling up on everything and figuring out how to walk. But I was missing the creative outlet that I would turn to every day. I can’t really pinpoint the day and time the concept of The Modern Geek Boutique popped into my head. It was like, duh, I should do this! Read more>>

Trina Smith

It was when I was five years old, that my life would change and I would begin to walk in my purpose. My big mama(mom) would put me in a chair on my knees at age five and she would explain spices and measurements for some of her amazing dishes. Not knowing these intimate moments I would share with her, that it was also preparing me for my purpose, cooking! It was a seed that was being planted into me at a young age, that God would allow it to grow more into me into my adult age. Read more>>

Alfonso Cavazos

In the 40’s my great grandfather was a knife maker. He would make utility style knives from the saw blades from textile factory in our hometown in Mexico. Years later, in 1990, I started making knives as a hobby. I would make them and give them out as gifts to friends and family never really thinking it could be more than that. It wasnt until 2018 when my wife and two daughters gave me the push I needed to start selling my work. I am mostly self taught, but I wanted to expand my knowledge in knife making. I had the opportunity in meeting Cowboy from Forge in Fire. He taught me how to forge blades in his shop in Bellville, Tx. Read more>>

Berthine Crèvecoeur West

Do you ever wonder how someone comes to the decision to become an entrepreneur? Do you just get so tired of working at your 9-5 profession that one day you decide that you’re going to do your own thing or do you make a decision to turn that side hustle into your full-time career? The answer is “yes” to either or both. That’s the good news. The other news is that although the answer is simple, it is definitely not easy. Read more>>

Jeneé Porter

It was the summer before my last semester of college and I still didn’t quite know what I wanted to do after graduating. I had an internship in a traditional business setting. As I was sitting there in a cubicle day after day I thought to myself, “This can’t just be it.” I needed a creative outlet. Out of that experience Nascent by Nae was born. Fortunately, they didn’t give us much work during the internship. So I used my time there to create the name & look of the brand. I wanted it to be of me but have meaning. I liked using my nickname; Nae. From there I researched words that started with ‘N’ on google. Read more>>

Ayanna Jones

I started off by noticing that I have a hidden talent. I could cook. Very well, but I could still use some teaching to perfect it. I was having a conversation with my father about going to Culinary School. So, a week later I toured a school and was set on getting into this school. I ended up getting in and started classes July of 2017. I went through the highs and lows during school, stressed about homework, late nights trying to complete projects or assignments. Proud of myself for getting good grades. Everything. I struggled but I persevered, and I graduated in June of 2019. Soon before I graduated in 2018, I had a friend approach me about possibly Food Vending at an event they were throwing. Read more>>

Tia LaCaze

It started out when I first my husband. I had just ventured from Modeling to Acting, and he was writing books and plays. So we put our heads together, and came up with the idea of using my Acting background and his writing background, and created LaCaze Films. We started our first project ” Save Me From Me” in 2015. We ran into alot bumps and bruises, which definitely became a learning experience from the cinematography aspect. We had an brilliant story as an 85 minute feature, but we were not pleased with the quality, so we never released it. Read more>>

Stephen Brandt

Before moving to Phoenix in 2017, I worked as a hotshot firefighter for the Sacramento Hotshots. I loved working in wild land fire, but I always had this creative entrepreneur side of me that wanted to try something “outside the box.” Something that would make life easier for my customers. I came up with the dog potty box idea during my last year working for the Forest Service. I did some research and realized that Phoenix did not offer this kind of service for dog owners. I took a big leap of faith, sold my house in Cloudcroft, New Mexico, and moved to Phoenix to start The Pottio Box! Read more>>

Marcella Prieto

Early on, as student at Florida State University studying Fashion Merchandising my path had always been the route of corporate retail, working for large organizations in various buying roles. For many years, that path worked and was fortunate to had been in those roles in various retail industries, learning a lot about the industry and techniques one needs in order to be successful. Read more>>

Jamie Tatreau

I have always considered myself a “product junkie”… so naturally I thought it would be fun to make my own skincare line. I started playing around in my kitchen making body butters, scrubs and massage candles to use on my clients. Soon my family and friends started trying my goodies. Little by little this hobby began to evolve into a tiny little business. I found that it brought me a lot of joy and it was a wonderful creative outlet. Read more>>

Empress Simone’

You must first define if you want to be an entrepreneur or a business owner. Both are rewarding and require work, however one consist of you and only you. For me getting starting was deciding if I wanted to be all-in or delegating, which could cause burnout. Therefore my process began prematurely, with the idea aligning them with my skill sets, not well thought out driven by passion and no structure. The road was bumpy for sure. I’ve started several businesses most lasting 1-2 years and then it was on to the next. It wasn’t until I had the ah-ha moment of combining these skills into a business that covered all moving parts, because I’m an Empress of all trades. Read more>>