We love grabbing drinks with our entrepreneur friends because they always have the craziest stories. Sometimes it’s a big, unexpected win. Other times it’s a problem that came out of nowhere and couldn’t possibly have been foreseen. There is so much to learn from these stories and so we asked some of the brightest entrepreneurs and creatives in the community to share some of those stories below.
Dora Herrera
On a seemingly ordinary day, I receive a call from the Oprah team asking if they can share ER’s Noah Wyle’s anecdote about me being the Napkin Nazi on her show. Ecstatic doesn’t even begin to cover it. A mention on Oprah, even as the quirky reduce/reuse/recycle queen of Los Feliz, means an awesome amount of exposure. After I finish the call with them, I promptly call EVERYONE I know and let them know of YUCA’S good fortune. A week passes and I haven’t heard from Oprah’s team. I call after the second week and my excitement turns to disappointment when I am told that, due to time constraints, my mention has been left on the cutting room floor. I gather my courage and make the announcement to everyone who was looking forward to seeing me on Oprah that the Napkin Nazi will not be making an appearance after all. Read more>>
Amber Braxton
This story, while not for the faint of heart, is definitely the craziest thing that has happened to me while pursuing my career in adventure photography.
Just to paint the picture for you, my friend and myself were on one of our less exciting storm chasing adventures, because, well, everywhere we went, the storms ended up dissipating, or not living up to the forecast. There is always an element of luck in storm chasing, and this trip, we had bad luck. But if there is one thing that I am, it is persistent, which motivated me to drive from Colorado, up to the Sturgis area in South Dakota, and then to the Nebraska/South Dakota border for the slim chance in catching a storm to photograph. Read more>>
Joseph Tweedy
Well this story isnt about what an particular person or anything like that, more so, the consequences of my actions that led me down the path to start my first business…Carpentry. Read more>>
Sheetal Story
“I have a very specific set of skills” – cue the Liam Neeson sound bite. No I am not a contract assassin. I am a Psychic Medium, Professional Certified Astrologer, Grief Support Counsellor and Manifestation Master Coach. I definitely have an eclectic set of skills with many certificates to back them all up. But how it all started is quite the story. I was able to see spirit as a kid, but I used to get debilitating nightmares as a kid, and so at the age of 9 I turned off all of my gifts and just became a normal kid. I had a very good life. Born to immigrant parents, I was taught to work hard to make my mark in the world. I was an over achiever and graduated with a business degree and went to work in supply chain. After my 2nd child, my gifts flood back in. Now, mind you, this was now over 20 years later so I had truly forgotten what it was like to see dead people and what it felt like. It first started when my aunt came to visit from Texas when I was on maternity leave. My mom had brought her over to my house and she asked to see my iPad because she wanted to look something up. She was quite adept at using it for an aged East Indian woman, and I remember thinking “Wow! She’s good!” Read more>>
Oliver Doran
My craziest story, and perhaps my biggest break in the editorial world, began with a call from Karl Ibrahim, the creative director of The Rake Magazine – Middle East Edition. Karl, an extraordinary creative force, had designed this edition of the internationally acclaimed magazine from scratch, staying true to its brand identity. The owner of The Rake, interestingly enough, is named Bruce Lee – a name you don’t easily forget! Read more>>
Marlaina Trevino
Well, a few stories come to mind when I think of the craziest moments I have experienced as a photographer. I will start with the negative stories and end on a positive note. Two stories come to mind when I think of some crazy people I have encountered. The first was when I worked in the studio photographing senior portraits. After I had a great time photographing a young man taking photos on different backdrops, taking photos with his guitar and in different outfits, his mom approached me. She exclaimed, “I am going to HATE all of these photos.” I was shocked! All through the shoot, she didn’t say a word. Read more>>
Ali Hoss
In the pandemic, my journey as an entrepreneur unfolded. As the director of e-commerce for a company, when the pandemic hit and businesses shuttered, I found myself at home pondering the next steps. It dawned on me that I could leverage my diverse skill set to assist others in launching their online ventures. Read more>>
Jonny Cunningham
My background was design, presentation graphics, publications office management. I was happy to fly under the radar and help small businesses achieve their dream of getting a great look-n-feel to their logo, their brand, they external presentation to their customers. That’s where I thrived, but it’s a really, really hard thing to sell. Many business owners want to cut corners and do things themselves. I felt the weight of the ‘graphic designer’ world on my shoulders, trying to work convincingly enough to validate our existence as an industry. This is the upward climb I found myself challenged with to put enough contracts together to feed my family. We were barely making it with client work to support the growing needs of my wife and kids at around $50k annually. In my search for adding new clients and raising our baseline I offered to sub for a graphic designer who was going on maternity leave. Her job was to work for Berry Design, Crabapple GA. They had some amazing client contracts including but not limited to Popeyes Chicken n Biscuits, Outback Steakhouse, Dunkin’ (Bob Berry designed their most recent logo) and more. I was thrilled to be working on more high profile work, and yet just soaking in all I could learn during my short spell of working for Berry. I mentioned to the owner, Bob, that I’d had experience in putting small magazines together and showed him a few samples. He didn’t react much, but obviously – as I found out later – banked that small tidbit in his mind. Read more>>
Dylan Stevens
In the beginning of 2023, myself, and a few of my friends flew out to California to film at the Winchester Mystery House for our YouTube channel, Haunted Nights. At the end of our trip, we had a rest day worked in so we could catch up on sleep and post a video that evening- but also realized we were staying incredibly close to Alcatraz. Naturally we made the decision to visit, as most of us had never been. Read more>>
Leonardo Romero
The craziest story that happened took place on April 25th 2021, when a car crashed into our storefront. It was a Sunday afternoon and we had just opened. Two cars collided head-on at the intersection of Florence Ave and Holmes Ave, causing one of the vehicles to jump the curb, taking out a light pole and smashing into our business. Shattered glass flew everywhere inside, destroying our seating, equipment, and product. Luckily no one was injured and the building structure survived the impact, but we were forced to close shop for over a month. We suffered over $40,000 in damages. I remember arriving to work that day and couldn’t believe the destruction. It was like a scene from a movie, but real. It was a very scary moment for one of my staff also, who was working that day. She was serving a customer a few moments before the crash. If she was in the front, it could have been a lot worse. Definitely a story we all remember vividly. Read more>>
Jess Jankowski
We started our website, Easy Budget Recipes, in September 2019. We were a small website with under 100 recipes when 2020 started. We were growing slowly, and then the pandemic hit, and all of a sudden, everyone was at home. Not only was everyone at home, but everyone was cooking meals! The need for more recipes that used pantry items skyrocketed. This is when our website really took off. We began creating new recipes around the clock! While the pandemic was a crazy time and difficult for many people, in a lot of ways, it was a blessing for our business. Read more>>