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.

Dana Pineda

The road to opening Cyclebar Sherman Oaks has been long and it hasn’t always been a straight line. This is a business that I grew into, but I have a lot of experience that really helps me in what we are doing here. Before the pandemic, I worked for a clothing company as a sales rep, with my primary focus on the live event space, including concerts and festivals. In my free time, I worked as an indoor cycle instructor, initially as a side hustle, but with aspirations of making it my full-time job. Read more>>

Victoria Fantauzzi

What I planned and what transpired were entirely two different experiences. A lot of times in planning we focus so hard on the end result, but we miss opportunities. My end result was interrupted by a pandemic so I had to figure out how manifest my ideas during a period in which I literally had no control in building something tangible. Read more>>

Kelli Lucas

I didn’t grow up thinking I wanted to start a business one day. It never crossed my mind a single time until 2020. I was struggling mentally, like a lot of moms during the pandemic. My kids were struggling with virtual school, my husband and I were both working from home, I was leading a design team, and I felt like I was failing all around. I wasn’t getting the support at work that I desperately needed, felt like my voice wasn’t being heard, and like I just couldn’t be effective at my job. Read more>>

Meg Jerit

Ever since I was very young, I’ve believed that words are one crucial way that we can help heal our world. The stories we learn can help the heal the ones we need to release or have been told about who we are, or maybe have been wrongly telling them to ourselves. Stories help us see our humanity and parse out the meaning of our being, both as individuals and in this far larger context of interconnection. Read more>>

Imani Ogunro

I’ve always been into make up since I was a child. I never really thought of making it a career until I started working at MAC cosmetics. there I was able to gain clientele that I knew that could help my business grow, and it was very exciting because I got to meet people from all walks of life. Social media helped me a lot. It showed me how to gauge clients and what trends customers are into. It also show me how to improve my make up artistry. Read more>>

Alpha Patron

Our human brains extrude thousands of thoughts and Ideas every day that it’s hard to keep track sometimes. But there are some ideas that are supernaturally planted in our brains that we feel conviction of, this dying possession to execute and make the most of that idea that was given to us. Read more>>

Charles Mays

Well, the vision began back in 2009 when I was in college but, it all didn’t become clear until years later. One semester, I was working on a project to come up with a storyboard for a video game I wanted to create. God gave me the idea for a game that incorporated heroes from the Bible. During that time, there was nothing in the market that was Kingdom based and that still remains the same today. Read more>>

Ray’Chel Wilson

The best ideas often stem from real problems. You know, like the lightbulb, born out of the hassle of being stuck in the dark, or Fenty Beauty, addressing the lack of diverse makeup shades. Now, my predicament was a triple threat: drowning in student loans, stuck in the paycheck-to-paycheck teacher grind, and losing sleep over my students graduating clueless about managing money. Talk about a triple whammy! Read more>>

Dawn Higgins

“I get it from my momma.” my love affair with jewelry that is. My mom gifted me at an early age with beautiful silver bangles. That is why my favorite piece of jewelry to wear, and handcraft are bracelets. I loved the way the bracelets and bangles dance around my wrist. It absolutely puts a smile on my face! Read more>>

Juli Brocato

I technically started my business back in 2015, but I had been designing for friends and family for most of my life. For years, people would encourage me to do this as a “real job”, but I didn’t feel that I was qualified to do so. Yes, I had been doing it for fun for as long as I could remember, but I didn’t study Interior Design in school- my bachelors degree is in Voice (Music) Performance and I performed professionally in theatre for almost a decade after graduation. Read more>>

Ladianne Henderson

My cofounder and partner, Sheri, grew up running around on her grandfather’s farm in the Western part of North Carolina. Sometimes she’d actually get away with hotwiring her grandfather’s tractor. I grew up admiring all of the wool craftwork done by many members of my family. Read more>>

Dominique Weaver

Getting the Lady of Fire & Lord of Ash from an idea to a fully written story was the easy part for me. Going through the process of self-publishing on my own for the first time was the hard part. I grew up loving stories like “The Princess Bride” and “Lord of the Rings”, but I had rarely seen fantasy that brought people that looked like me to the forefront. Read more>>

Maddi Vohland

The process of my idea to execution went quicker than I ever expected! I was working my 9-5 job struggling to make ends meet. I knew there had to be another way I could help make extra money for my family. It was June of 2020, I had just had my third daughter and it was in the middle of the pandemic. Read more>>

Brandie Davis

In 2019 I was an accounting office manager for a pool service that wasn’t paying me my worth. I ran the company so well, the owners would leave the business for weeks at a time. After months of me not being happy with my pay, I decided that I wanted to have an extra stream of income to pay my bills. Read more>>

Abby Ekah

An idea in my head that became reality. Indeed, a story tell. It took me awhile to take the leap of faith, however I’m grateful that I did. I first got the idea of Ekquisite in March of 2020. I spent the next couple of months learning everything I thought I needed to know. Read more>>

Darya Pribytkovsky

I’d probably start with the fact that I am an aesthete by nature. I admire beautiful spaces, music and art. The idea came when I was searching for some light and airy places to take my kids to. Most of the children’s playgrounds had primary colors and were louder than I would have enjoyed with my young children. I started dreaming of a space that would look very light an airy. Something that would not only be educational and fascinating for children to play in, but also be a place where parents would enjoy spending time. Read more>>

Rivera Sanchez

I was working at Amazon as a delivery driver and one day I said to myself, no, this is not for me. and I started to think what could be done differently here in Miami than separating me from all the food trucks that already existed so I started searching on the internet until I found Bubble Waffles, it took me around 6 months to get the correct recipe, then I had a food truck built and here we are still doing events and growing every day. Read more>>

Sabiti Rita

“You should sell your hot sauces, they are too delicious” The idea of creating magnolia flavors came during a family meal. My older brother ate and suddenly said: “you should sell your chili sauces, they are too good”. The idea germinated in my mind and the next day I started researching the world of chilli, hot sauces in Canada and around the world. Read more>>

Bijan Taherkhan

When I was a very young teenager, all I wanted to do was be able to travel the world while still having all the comforts of a home. At that time nothing like this existed. I was not interested in RVs, they are nothing like a normal home, and when you step inside of one, you don’t really feel the expense of what I came to know as a “Tiny Home on wheels”. Read more>>

Peta-Gay Watson

I got the idea of starting Calm Decor Co in June 2021. At that time, I was really interested in home decor in general, however I was intrigued with the process of making unique scented candles, especially the ones that came in the ceramic jars. Read more>>

Nimai Larson

I had just sworn off being self-employed for good. My entire adult life has been feast or famine through a decade of being in an internationally touring band and living in Brooklyn, NY, starting a food business teaching children to make healthy food, and launching an online nation-wide vegan cookie business during Covid which got too successful for one person to manage who was already going into debt to pay for dark chocolate chips and outrageous amounts of Earth Balance vegan butter. Read more>>

Ricky Crumbley

I got my first Camera when I was a junior in high school way back in 1984. I wanted to take photos for the school newspaper. I really enjoyed getting to be around everything that was happening in the school. I also enjoyed being able to work in the darkroom and see the photos appear out of nowhere on the paper in the chemicals. Read more>>

Yanni Hufnagel

My last year coaching college basketball, I was at the University of Nevada, Reno. While on a recruiting trip to Santa Rosa Junior College, I stopped at a Starbucks in Petaluma to get an iced coffee. In that strip mall, out of the corner of my eye I saw a sports supplement store called Max Muscle Nutrition. Read more>

Dominique Howard

irst off thank you for this opportunity! Like most, I’ve watched some of the original YouTube girls from their beginning and thought that as an introverted person maybe this creative outlet would help my people to connect with. I also felt like my life was boring so I kept putting off starting my channel until I had my daughter; then I felt like I couldn’t tell her to go after her dreams if I kept putting off mine, so I created my first video. Read more>>

Archie Swanson

I have always loved to cook for family and friends. We have three adult Children and I prepared the food for all of their Confirmation, Graduation parties and even one of their weddings in our back yard. Six years ago the kids bought me a Kitchen Aid mixer for my Birthday. Read more>>

Zack Harmon

My entrepreneurship story began way back over two decades ago when I was just learning to read. Since a young age I grew a passion for the arts. Comic books, movies, video games, and other storytelling media piqued my interest with their vibrant larger-than-life tales. It was my dream to not just be another consumer. Read more>>

Jess Kiel-Wornson

I think I tend to build in fits and starts. I move from path to path a lot–which is to say, it would be hard for me to share an A to B story of how I made my life as an artist. In college I consumed the idea that in order to be an artist I needed to be a blue-chip artist that winds up in history books, and I lived with this duality that I both couldn’t see myself in that role, and the true belief that it was the only way to be legitimate. Read more>>