Having to overcome unexpected problems is a hallmark of entrepreneurship. Almost every business owner, artist, maker, and creative we know has had to deal with countless unexpected problems that arise in the journey and so we asked some brilliant folks from the community to share their stories of the unexpected problems they’ve faced along the way.

Shasa Thomas

I started my journey with handmade jewelry and ceramics about 9 years ago and each year the urge to create continues to grow. Over the past year, my love for making art with clay has taken on a life of its own. Almost 2 years ago my family moved from Oklahoma to Fort Worth, Texas and I experienced even more growth in my creative abilities with ceramics. Due to a desire to make ceramics using a range of techniques through the low firing process, I decided to move on from the ceramic studio where I was creating. It is with that decision that I have found a lack of resources in my city of Southwest Fort Worth. Read more>>

Brandon Henshaw

As a producer I have learned what it truly means to be professional from top to bottom. Not just with the music side of the business but with the relationship side as well. Since I started producing I’ve always thought building chemistry with clients was a priority for the best outcome musically. Watching producers who have inspired me all my life have chemistry with so many artist such as Swizz Beats & DMX/Ruff Ryders, Timbaland & Missy Elliot/Aaliyah, Mannie Fresh & Cash Money, Rick Rubin & Run DMC, Quincy Jones & Michael Jackson. I can name for days. Read more>>

Kristen Chazaud

When the pandemic hit, we were hit with a series of obstacles. Caregiver shortages, elders in fear of dying alone in nursing homes, adult children out of work, issues with the supply chain and getting protective masks, isolated seniors needing toilet paper/masks/groceries/visitors etc. The world changed and our elders got the short end of the stick. At Keepsake Companions, we closed down our physical office and decided to partner with Honor, a company that recruits caregivers nationally. More and more elders were wanting to age in place but less and less were able to afford the agency fees which went up considerably post pandemic. Read more>>

Kelly Angelovic

The obstacles that get in our way as creatives (I’ve seen this time and again) are often the same opportunities for healing and growth that we face in our day-to-day lives. For example (though I have done a lot of healing around this), I still wrestle with feelings of being not quite good enough. This was affecting every area of my life: as a mother, a wife, as a friend, in how I felt about my body, and of course, in my work as an artist. Recognizing with crystal clarity how this was holding me back in my business, was when I finally decided to face and work with this limiting belief. Read more>>

Shahara Wright

I am sure every business owner has been through technological problems and delays when it comes to websites. In launching a new product, we opted to go with a well known hosting site, but one that, internally we were unfamiliar with. The launch was supposed to happen nearly two years ago, but has been significantly delayed. The first issue is obvious and that is the Pandemic that no one new would change the world we live in. The second, was that we could not find the right web programmers and designers. We are on our third set, and while this group is significantly better, there are still delays and problems. Read more>>

Bishop Ivy

When I was a freshman in college, I was determined to continue to pursue a music career while keeping up with school, studying electrical engineering and computer science. The two goals seemed completely at odds with each other, and I struggled to keep up with both simultaneously. I hated that I spent most of my waking hours studying things that seemed to have nothing to do with music. I was desperate to find some creative use for my technical skills, so I started applying them to my own art. I created a custom-made electronic glove that I use to control instruments while performing. I designed my own Instagram filters. Read more>>

Veronica Tristan

I have been a solo aesthetics practitioner for five years and have recently run into a wonderful problem. I was totally overbooked! There was a 2 to 4 week wait for an appointment on most days. I decided it was time to expand. I hired my first employee, Karla, she was a newly licensed aesthetician who was both naturally skilled and eager to learn. I was excited and nervous to step into this new role. Read more>>

Brianne Buishas

The biggest major issue I’ve faced that affected absolutely everything in my life, including my career and dreams, was the health issues I dealt with. I had an undiagnosed chronic illness for 5 years and during that time I partially felt like my life and my goals were put on hold. It was the most frustrating and trapping feeling. Not having the privilege and advantage to navigate life while being healthy took such a huge toll on my creativity and my work. I felt constantly drained and discouraged and hopeless as I had to deal with finding a doctor who could get my life back on track. Thankfully, I have found my diagnoses and treatment options, so I’m grateful to be doing so much better overall. Read more>>

Bria Hammock

Overall, the most unexpected problem I continue to face in my creative journey is grappling with imposter syndrome. Creativity in both my fine art and graphic design life is such a subjective thing and so much of the basis of outward and commercial creative work is rooted in feedback and validation from others. It is a constant internal conversation to remind myself that I, indeed, have so much room for growth in all my creative endeavors, but also have dedicated a lot of time to hone my crafts and should allow myself some grace to create with in that safe internal space a bit more often. Read more>>

Justin Whitfield

I bought The Wildcatter in February of 2017. It took us three months to set a sales record. This place had been a bar or Ice House for over three decades prior. By the seventh month…we were hit by Hurricane Harvey. The hurricane spawned multiple tornadoes and a tornado took out my antique wood panel truck that was used for advertisement. After the hurricane and tornado hit us, the flood waters would submerge The Wildcatter under 3-4 feet of water. Year 3 would find us battling a severe ice storm that would cause over 30 breaks in my plumbing. Year 4…well, that’s when covid hit. Being closed for the pandemic was hard but we made it and the first 5 months that we reopened would be record months! During this time, the bar grew into a live music venue capable of holding up to 2500 people. Read more>>

Mahlia Lindquist

To give you a little bit of background, I am the Executive Director of LEAP, a non-profit that for 13 years has remained the sole provider of comprehensive programming geared exclusively toward women transitioning from prison to community in Florida. Our programming empowers women who have experienced incarceration by teaching entrepreneurship, employability skills, and trauma-informed substance abuse classes. We currently have two transitional homes and have grand plans to serve women coming out of jail and federal prisons also. Our social enterprise, the Dragonfly Thrift Boutique, provides the women with a paid retail internship. Read more>>

Danielle Tucker

2020 was projected to be a record-breaking year for the Mighty Untouchables band. As of March 9, 2020, our business completely shut down. We lost nearly a half-million dollars in business due to Covid shutdowns. All of our band members’ primary income was dependent upon the band’s business. It was a huge disappointment and hit us brutally hard financially. However, we knew collectively that this was not the end for us. We hunkered down and stuck together throughout the whole ordeal. We held band meetings via Zoom as often as possible to catch up and find ways to support one another. We all played a role in researching relief loans and grants to sustain ourselves. Read more>>

Taylor Gutierrez

Weddings can be full of unexpected problems in general, so we always have to be prepared for last minute changes and learn to be flexible and adaptable. One of biggest unexpected problems for us over the past two years was losing our physical salon at the height of the pandemic, due to no fault of our own. Losing that part of us caused us to think outside of the box and focus our energy into becoming a solely on location business. This gives us the most flexibility and allows us to provide a unique and personable service to our clients. Read more>>

Radhika Vydianathan

Well, there are many problems and issues I could talk about. But today I am going to touch upon migration to online furniture shopping. People don’t pay attention to how a product is made, it’s quality, etc. They get attracted to the price and return/ exchange policy offered by the vendor. This approach leads to frustration as most of the times the products come damaged or defective, not comfortable, color is not truly represented and eventually leading to delay in project completion; with a space which isn’t fully curated to express their personality and lifestyle. Read more>>

Kimberly Jones

When you are dealing with the movement and handling of high value art pieces, there are a lot of moving parts involved with each project. Everything has to be perfectly coordinated, supervised and smooth. There is one project that I will never forget! I had arranged for the movement of a high value Tamayo painting from Miami to Northern California via air. There were many people involved at each end, along with a very tight window for delivery to the client. Plus, the crate was large so we were limited on flights to carry it. I had everything arranged and booked on a flight, with a vendor at the receiving end lined up. The flight was scheduled to take off the morning of 9/11/2001. Obviously, the world was changed that morning. Read more>>

Jaime Derringer

Getting blocked creatively is one of the toughest challenges that an artist faces. If you sit around and wait for inspiration to come to you, it might never happen. I face these creative blocks often, and there are a few ways I work through them to get going again: 1) Just make something, anything. It can be bad. Then make another. And another. You might be uninspired or frustrated, but if you work those feelings out on paper or using whatever medium with which you work, I assure you, if you do this often enough, something will come out of it that points you in the right direction. Read more>>

Still Electric

After releasing our debut album in 2019, we were so excited to take advantage of the momentum we’d created. It was like everything leading up to our album worked out so beautifully, and then, right after it was released, we were just hit with an onslaught of issues. First, we lost our primary stream of income. Then, Rachel’s chronic illness started acting up after several years of remission. Then, we lost Maurice’s mom unexpectedly. It was just one thing right after another. We were tired, broke, and so sad, but we were still working on writing our second album because we had plans to return to the studio in the summer of 2020. To be honest, it was the only thing keeping us going. Read more>>

Tiara Moore

Covid-19 had officially changed the way that our programs could be ran. We could no longer teach our after school programs in person but still knew that there were young girls out there that needed the information/skills we taught. We were not financially prepared for the shift and our content wasn’t readily available for a virtual space so we decided to take the last two years to rebuild and rebrand. We are currently working on a series of free Ebooks that will be readily available for our students that cover topics that we would normally cover in our after school programs and we are currently working with other local organizations and business to provide a virtual 6 weeks mentorship program in which we will provide our young ladies with free laptops in order to complete the course. Read more>>

Regina Disilvestro

I never thought I’d experience the kind of issues that I have working in this field. While the majority of the time you don’t run into problems, there are some that occasionally pop up and when they do it’s usually completely out of left field or unwarranted and largely based on misunderstandings. A few years ago when we had our retail store in Little Italy, I had a customer enter into the shop prepared with a jar of water, syringe and serum container she had purchased and used from us previously. She asked to speak with the manager, then mentioned that she was a pharmacist and understood gram and milliliter quantities and she was upset because she thought we were mislabeling our serums saying they contain 15gm of material whereas she came to prove to me that they only held 5gm of product. She proceeded to pull out the syringe. Read more>>

Tammy Scholz

February 2020 looked so wonderful. We had a full calendar filled with family entertainment gigs lined up. Our business had just come out of a prosperous 2019. My husband had 2 fully booked trackless trains and I had my calendar as a face painter and balloon twister was filled to the max. Then the world came to a screeching halt we were told we would have a 2 week break and let this virus die down. We rescheduled our upcoming weekends and rested. Everyone needs a rest. The house got extra clean, the pets received extra attention and I enjoyed baking and cooking. My husband got on his motorcycle and rode. Read more>>