One of the most under-the-radar benefits of entrepreneurship is its ability to build fortitude and make the entrepreneur a more formidable person. Challenges – particularly the crazy, unexpected ones that take on a life of their own – build character and confidence. And the unexpected surprises to the upside, the crazy good moments offer a high that’s hard to reproduce elsewhere. The charm and the challenge of entrepreneurship is dealing with the crazy things that happen and so we’ve asked some fantastic business owners and leaders to share some of their stories with us below.

Brandon Parker

Even though our business has thrived throughout the most recent years, this has not been the easiest task. The kind of crazy stuff we had to deal with came just 18 days after we first launched our business. After opening our business, the worldwide pandemic had thrown a huge gap into our progress. We were legally shut down for three whole months. This left us with not much hope of how to get things running again or how to bounce back to any type of normality. Read more>>

Isaac Barrocas

Before starting my own business, I worked in the large format industry as a designer, producer, and installation specialist. One day, while driving on the freeway, I noticed a massive mural being painted. As a longtime fan of street art, I couldn’t resist the urge to stop and get a closer look. I navigated through a construction zone and discovered that the mural was being created by Shepard Fairey of OBEY, along with his team. Read more>>

Kelsie Overacre

In April of 2021, we purchased our first home after learning that we would no longer be able to rent the home we were currently living in. We had just gotten married in November and found out that I was going to have a baby right before Christmas that year. we purchased my aunt’s home. When we moved in we found mold underneath of the flooring so we replaced over half of the flooring in the house and the subfloor below. We did not notice any immediate issues with our home however, after bringing home the baby, her and I both began to develop health issues. Read more>>

K’in Xi

Okay sure, thanks for asking. So I had a client that came to me who had a situation go down at his job, he is a Black American man and he was put in a situation where he had really bad racially charged things said to him where after he reported to Owner; the Owner named Casey Larue berated him and inevitably fired him soon after. That’s not over the top rare because this happens all over the country to Black Americans where usually they have no legal help to really fight back.  Read more>>

Randi Vought

One Saturday night I was out in Manayunk at this tiny, little dive bar. The Phillies were playing in the World Series and that meant there were literally four other people in the bar. This woman came over and started chatting with me, ended up being from Oregon and an owner of an all female cannabis brand and grow farm. We instantly connected and she soon became my client. After doing multiple services, she invited me to fly out to Vegas to glam her and her partner for her sponsored brand after party for the medical cannabis convention. Read more>>

Ricardo Araya

In my early years as an AutoCAD Drafting Specialist, I received a call from a friend informing me about an interview for a project in 1997. Initially, I didn’t have much information about it, just the meeting instructions. Upon signing the contract, I discovered that the project was the prestigious Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas. I worked on designing the villas and part of the commercial kitchen for two years. It was an amazing and challenging experience. I remember stepping up to complete assignments when my colleague was absent, and I handled the tasks with ease. Read more>>

Trisha Duvivier

My former business partner, emailed me while I was in Spain to tell me she was quitting Workhero….1 week before we were scheduled to pitch to a company together. She’d only been working with me for a few months and She didn’t even give me notice! It was so scary and shocking because I didn’t believe that I could go it alone and felt powerless as I read her email. Looking back, I should have never felt powerless and believed in myself way more. I learned the hard way. Read more>>

Zach Adams

Oh man, so when I started out I thought nobody would have the same name as me and it was so unique lol. I thought because it was my birthday that call my photography business 1221 Photography was going to stand out. That’s until I got the most craziest instagram DM ever! This woman screenshot a post of a photoshoot she had done. She said she had paid me and it had been 6 months and she still hasn’t received the images she paid for. Me not thinking I just wanted to make this right for her so I started searching through my photos and I didn’t have any of this woman. So now I’m really panicking lol. That’s when I went back to the original post and seen it was different 1221 Photography.  Read more>>