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.

Tom Hipp

So, working in production, every day and every project is different. The creative asks vary greatly between projects, and they are a bit chaotic by nature. This being said – I’ve seen some crazy things on set; a few of which stand out. I thought I’d do a little list of some of the wildest ones here: -Once I was filming in Arizona for a football promo. For it we were demonstrating the harshness and resiliance of the desert by filming some of the animal life. So, we had a local animal wrangler bring out a scorpion and a rattlesnake. as a bonus, she also brought out a bobcat kitten, just to show off. We got some picture holding it before we began shooting. When the animals we’re on camera, the wrangler kept them in her car. We also filmed the scorpion first, and then the rattlesnake lunging at the camera. It was very dangerous, but we took all the proper precautions and it went well. As we wrapped our successful day, the wrangler does back to her car, to find that the baby bobcat had eaten the scorpion.  Read more>>

Tom Bachant

In the middle of 2022, we had been building an HR tech product for about 2 years. We had completely run out of money, our idea wasn’t resonating with customers, and we weren’t able to raise any more funding. We didn’t even have enough money for the wind-down of the business and I was ready to pay out of pocket to shut down. I was applying for regular jobs, and just for fun, I also submitted an application for the Y Combinator startup accelerator program. I got a few job interviews along with, to my surprise, a YC interview offer. Read more>>