Coming up with an idea for a business or creative project can feel exhilarating. Inspiration for a new idea can come from so many places and we’ve asked some great folks from the community to share their stories of how they came up with their ideas.

Lindy Sherer

My husband, Joseph, entered into the real estate game while attending UT-Knoxville by buying a house and renting out the rooms to his friends. He got hooked and soon after bought another house down the street to rent to other college students. We got married while he was in medical school and ended up purchasing another one in foreclosure for a wapping 24,000 (to be clear- we offered 20k, lost it, came back on the market and we paid full asking at 24K). We took it down to the studs, renovated it, and lived in it for a few years. This trend has continued throughout the years, giving us an early taste of both the hardships and rewards of being in the real estate market. Read more>>

Cristen Williams

I wanted to create something that was more than just taking a photo, I wanted to create moments that our clients could remember forever. I wanted to create an atmosphere of a moment, creating a frozen memory in time that families and loved ones can hold on to. When my (now) husband joined in on the business it has made it even more special to us. We always want to focus on staying true to the couple, whether that be inside jokes, particular hobbies, songs for the couple that bring back memories, anything that creates true connection, reactions, and real moments. Read more>>

Shelby Tucker

I never really loved fashion until I got into college. When I started college I declared my major as accounting with a minor in marketing. My love for business started there as well. I became a fashion blogger in college, which was a time where that was not a big thing. No one really knew what it was back then. I loved putting the pieces together and loved to talk high fashion, but it wasn’t really fueling the fire at the time for me. Read more>>

Chasity Wright

In 2006, I served in Iraq as an USAF engineer. A HACKER TAKE DOWN left aircrews, ships, and troops walking the grounds of Iraq communities totally unable to communicate with command. The adversary used quantum entanglement to pull off the hack, which is a discrete way to launch different attacks all at once. We were sitting ducks and millions of lives were at stake not just in Iraq but in the US. Two things hit me that day if they could take down the US Govt, they could take down their businesses in the same manner as well. Read more>>

Christine Gosch

The signature service of Lightbulb League is the subscription brand photo shoot offering. We work with subscription clients (all small businesses), on a recurring basis to provide fresh, on-brand photos for their marketing purposes so they have new content to share year-round. This is a need that all small businesses could utilize in some way, shape, or form. Read more>>

Nesha Pai

After five years of working at a local public accounting firm (as a single mother), I was ready to work more hours, contribute more to the company, and ask for a raise. I had become used to my new normal and was able to give more of myself. The founding couple was retiring, and they had just named my immediate boss as managing partner of the firm. I went to his office one afternoon with a list of everything I had accomplished in the past five years, ready to make a strong case for why I deserved a raise. My boss denied my request. Read more>>

Nedra Ali

After 15 years of working as a data analyst for a large insurance company, I decided to start my own business. I loved the challenge of building reporting and systems, so I decided to put my skills to use and help entrepreneurs build their digital presence. At first, I just created websites for them, but soon realized that they also needed a social media presence. So I began researching the best ways to use social media for businesses. And that’s when the magic happened. I really enjoyed learning about all the different social media platforms and seeing how they could help businesses grow. Read more>>

Bill Johnson

Problem-Purpose-Passion-Prosperity These words represent the origin story of the idea of Paradise Smoothie Juice Bar. Ron Bolden, Co-Founder | COO, and I (Bill Johnson, Co-Founder | CEO) happen to be next door neighbors. Each of us have had an extensive career of business ownership, operations, and development. Over the course of our weekend conversations sitting on my front porch, an opportunity presented itself that checked the boxes of things we were both passionate about which is health, wellness, and economic empowerment. Read more>>

Sonia Emore

My love for music and helping children gave me the idea to start A Time to Create. When I was a little girl, I was shy, quiet, and struggled with anxiety. I kept to myself and rarely expressed my emotions. Music helped me to express all the emotions that were trapped inside of me. It helped me put words to what I was feeling. I eventually started writing songs to get my feelings out and it was such a freeing experience. Read more>>

Chef Q Buggs

Ice Spices. I never thought about being a private chef until Covid-19 hit us when most of us really had no choice. We had to figure out ways to generate the income we were missing. Restaurants were closing. Our favorite restaurants were closing. Personal Chefs were the new restaurants, I was a mobile restaurant. I was the new favorite restaurant. I am the new favorite chef After struggling to hold onto my job, I was finally laid off. I bought a car the next day. I needed a bigger vehicle…to transport my restaurant lol. My biggest issue was space and time for loading. Read more>>

Michelle Marks

The business I have now is in no way the original idea for the business. I studied catering in college and love doing events. That was a hard life for when I became a mom for the first time. So I had the brilliant idea to buy a stationery store that mainly focused on wedding invitations. I was good with brides and knew how to deal with him. I purchased a small business named Inviting Affairs. Was not crazy about the name but it made sense and had a good reputation. I decided to expand the business further by opening a retail location with a special area in the back for brides to relax and enjoy ordering their invitations. Read more>>

Shardae Scott

Dae Dreamers started out as an idea about two years ago. I had several names in my notes in my phone that I had been playing around with. I have always loved fashion, and finding ways to make people feel good. I have always been just a little shy at times too, which has held me back in the past. I started purchasing things like my sewing machine, a mannequin, needles, thread, etc., and started looking up sewing classes but was unsuccessful in my search due to COVID-19. Read more>>

Boss Britt

I have been an aspiring entrepreneur since the age of 15. I started off doing team parties in Cincinnati Ohio. When I realize I can make money outside of work in a 9 to 5, Immediately fell in love with the idea of entrepreneurship. After high school I decided not to go to college. I started a record label which I did for three years. I didn’t got back into event coordinating at the age of 21. At the age of 21 I also had a purpose which was to fulfill providing a safe place for the LGBTQ I a plus community to come together and be entertained by various different artists with whom I booked and brought to my city in Cincinnati Ohio. Read more>>

Latoya Turner

Brown Hands LLC is committed to empowering children to travel the world and learn about HBCUs through children’s books featuring African American characters. We celebrate diversity and encourage kids to build a love for literacy. We teach Black and Brown children that with their little Brown Hands, they can impact the world in positive ways. I am the author of 2 children’s books titled Brown Hands, White Sand and Brown Hands, Black Schools: HBCUS. In 2009, Read more>>

Margaret O’Hara

I was sitting with my daughter one day, discussing creative ideas to fill a gap for the lack of luxury comfortable towel head wraps, rather than a bulky towel to wrap up your wet hair when out of the shower or pool. Most of us experience cold dripping wet hair after a shower, and just need to wrap it up, while we go for a coffee or put our daily skin care and/or make up on, before drying our hair. So after tossing situations around, we came up with the idea of a…. {1}multifunctional Head wrap. One that is lightweight, comfortable, super absorbent and glamorous, that make you feel fabulous whilst it part drys your hair while you are relaxing, doing your makeup etc all before getting dressed for the day or night. Read more>>

LaToya Perry

When I was a little girl I have always wanted to be a fashion designer. I wanted to make my own clothes and clothes for my friends. As I got older things shifted. I never pursued being a fashion designer but I began to design earrings. I realized that I was still in the fashion industry I just make earrings instead of clothes. I am able to make custom earrings to match my customers outfits and that some brings me so much joy! Read more>>

Bianca Delmar

Whenever I am asked the typical “What do you do for work?” question, I always catch people off-guard when I tell them I’m a professional automotive photographer. First, typically no one has ever heard of this profession and has many questions about what I do and how I got here. I fell in love with cars since I can ever remember. I went to car meets, car shows, drag racing events, street races, dyno days, and anything car related, I was there. Read more>>

Dion Chavis

I created my company The Glad Dad, LLC based out of what I saw as a disconnection between adults and children. The business was initially designed as a way to speak with fathers about the importance of responsible parenting and engaging with their kids. I would travel around the country speaking at conferences and working with dads to provide them with the tools that they needed to play an active roles in the lives of their kids. Through my journey of being a dad, I made it my mission to help dads as much as I could. Read more>>

Musa Ellison

Like many others, I chose to use my time during the pandemic to really take a step back and assess my options of supplementary income. I’ve already followed plenty of content creators on YouTube as well as Instagram, so I decided to try my hand at it. I have a lot of interests, so giving myself a platform and outlet to express myself was a no-brainer. Read more>>

Jay Gardner

The story behind Tornpages.org started in a Georgia Prison cell some 22 years ago. ,Jay Gardner – the founder served 20 years in prison. About three years into a sentence Jay noticed a fellow inmate wearing a colorful beaded necklace with a cross on it. He was mesmerized that it was made out of paper, he had to have it and bought it. There are no gifts in prison and there are no colors in prison. Now he had a gift! Read more>>

Dr. Najifa Choudhury

I have high-functioning anxiety and was struggling to find something to help calm my racing thoughts on days when it was hard and I didn’t feel like myself. I tried 5 different prescription medications but experienced more unwanted side effects than benefits to continue on. I also didn’t like the fact that the majority of medications to help your anxiety were habit forming, had to be taken every day, and had side effects. Read more>>

Tineeca Hughes

BareNine Holistics found me at a time where I was purposeless. It took almost two years to actually move forward in faith to start this business. The year was 2017. I had just graduated from college and was sure I knew what I wanted to do with my life. That was until March 10, 2017 when I was fired without warning from my hospital job. I spent the next four months unemployed, depressed and hopeless. Read more>>

Chontell Lucas

The important factor behind the success of my brand is simply compassion. Being compassionate about your “why” can elevate you to places you’ve dreamed of. My “why” came from the passing of my mother. Losing something that’s so precious can definitely motivate you to quit or succumb to depression. What I did was take my pain and turned it into purpose. So my entire business is based on the awareness of Sarcoidosis the silent disease that took my mother’s life. Read more>>

Carmen Tellez

When I was undergrad as a Biology student at​​ Texas A&M International University I became very consumed with the idea of plant based alternatives and creating my own personal skin care products. Perfecting my formulas over time, I decided to start selling them at my local artisan and farmers markets. I felt an immense amount of joy to be able to use my biology and chemistry studies as well as to express my creative side by making the packaging as aesthetically pleasing as possible. Read more>>

Anthony Fizer

Back in 2015 after a game of pickup basketball at Rhodes College, Jack (Co-Founder) approached me with the idea of developing a website for his physics classroom at Soulsville Charter School. At this time, I was employed as a software engineer for USPS so I was able to conceptualize some of the resources and efforts that would be needed for such an endeavor. We discussed the details and later that week, we had the first prototype of Positive Physics up and running. Read more>>

Jessica Heddings

I was fortunate enough to grow up in a family business. My grandparents purchased our waterfront property in 1968 and served the community with a small but popular bar, marina, and picnic grove. My parents stepped into operation in 1983, and grew the business exponentially in 2000 when they moved the roadside bar to the waterfront turning the family business into a thriving waterfront restaurant. As a youngster, myself and brother could be found helping at “the bar” and when old enough, worked beside Grandmom Laing and my dad to learn all aspects of the business and together launch the family biz to even bigger success. Read more>>

Niesha Davis

I came up with my business idea because of a need for myself. I can only wear clip-on earrings only, and it’s really hard to find any cute, colorful, and bold styles. I’ve always had to convert regular earrings to adjust for my clip-on. So I took it a little more seriously when I found a material that I had never thought about using before, polymer clay. I did so much research on it and fell in love with how versatile the material was and lightweight also. So I dove deep into learning how to work with material and started creating for myself. People kept requesting for me to also make earrings for them. So that’s how my journey begins. Read more>>

J Danny

There are many fashion houses/brands that have positioned themselves as the epitome of luxury and symbols of success when worn by an individual. Owning many of these brands myself was an experience and provided a sense of social class. But what if I created a brand with a message that not only spoke to an individual’s lifestyle, but specifically how they view themselves currently and/or what they are striving to become. Read more>>

Janice/Alison Voth/Columbus

We’ve worked at the same vet clinic together for the past 10 years an we had seen so many dogs come in that were attacked. We wanted to come up with a product that would keep these little dogs safer from getting hurt or killed.
Research was key in figuring out where a predator first grabs onto a small dog. Coyotes, for example, will crush the ribcage or grab the dog’s neck and run away with their prey. We wanted to create something that would prevent this from even occurring, giving the owner a split second to react. If a coyote or a bigger, aggressive dog tries to grab onto a dog wearing our harness, Read more>>

Shane Sick

Before starting The Restored Board Design Co., I worked marinas for almost 15 years. You put boats in the water, you take boats out of the water – there’s no finished product at the end of the day and something was just missing for me. I’ve always been handy and started tinkering around in my shop, then on the way home from a friend’s wedding my wife and I played around with the idea of starting a woodworking business to help pay for our own wedding – rather, we bickered about how to afford the wedding we wanted. Read more>>

Anthony Richardson

What a lot of people don’t know is, I’d that Eugene started from Kloset Kleanerz, which is my non profit that donates quality clothing back to people who are less fortunate, a major emphasis on quality, because we know how much of impact your clothes have on daily living for kids to adults. As I was working through Kloset Kleanerz. I wanted it to be a movement, I wanted people who supported to see what we were doing and hear about the organization and clothing was the only way I knew how to do that. It was the only way that felt right. Read more>>

Hanna Fahmy

Growing up I loved fashion. I loved to dress up dress and dress up my sister as well. My mom used to say do what you love so I said if I love fashion and to dress people up then I should open a business for custom dresses and alterations. Read more>>

Brandon Anderson

I started in this industry at a young age. I had a summer job with my uncle Naji at his print shop, All-Star Screen Printing, east of Atlanta, in the East Lake community. It was great watching my uncle, whom employed family members run multiple storefronts and street locations throughout the City of Atlanta. I learned the details of running a business, managing people, and most importantly controlling finances. Read more>>

Marissa Fuline Casey Lemieux

Casey and Marissa met in college and remained close friends for years after. They both made their way into the social media and marketing fields in their first jobs after college. Throughout the years, both ladies learned from the corporate world and small businesses and enhanced their skills, and they were always glad to have each other to bounce ideas off of since they were in the same field. Marissa had been collecting side clients for social media management, and Casey knew she was meant to help people understand social media, create a brand, and show up confident and excited. Read more>>

Krystyna Cibelli-Pettus

I would say this all started with my path to culinary school. It was a bit of an atypical journey from college to culinary school, where I quickly learned that I was not the type of aspiring cook that would do well with “coloring in the lines”, which is really just my nice way of saying I like to make my own rules. Although I learned so much in culinary school when it came to cooking, skills, and techniques; I think what I took away more than anything from that experience was knowing what I wanted for myself and my culinary career. Read more>>

Nicole Kincaid

I have been in the rescue world for over 13 years. Ask my mom, and she will tell you I was rescuing animals as a child! About 7 years ago I was asked to take in a German Shepherd pup, she came from a breeder with a broken leg which happened at the breeding facility and nothing was done about it. Fast forward, when she was 8 weeks old, the facility couldn’t sell her so they dumped her at a rural shelter. Unfortunately, the break was considered old and the leg would need to be amputated. Read more>>

Shelby Blondell

On night while eating Crabs I mistakingly picked up the mallet and knife at the same time and my mind went a mile a minute . I thought, this would be cool together.. and a bottle opener. I went home to look for something similar to what I was envisioning and by the morning a prototype drawling was on the counter for what is now know as THE SHELLER. The PATENTED, stainless steel, Seafood multi tool- FLAT Crab, mallet, picker & Bottle opener. Read more>>

Monica Wallingford

I’ve always had a passion to make money and be financially stable. My interest started as a child when I wanted to be able to buy Christmas presents on my own for my family. My full-time responsibility as a child was to be a successful student, so when I received my parents’ blessing to launch my first side gig at 8 years old, cleaning and shining my father’s work shoes, I was ecstatic! My father taught me how to perform the service, set my pricing, manage my business budget, find customers and provide customer service. This became the foundation for me as a young entrepreneur and sparked my interest in learning and doing more. Running my little, big business and earning $10 every week was exciting to me! Read more>>

Shayna Wells

Although I can cook, I’ve never really been a fan of it – I’ve always been a snacker. While studying for my Wine & Spirits Education Trust certifications, I was tasting A LOT of wine. I would sometimes have my friends over to help me with my homework (aka drink the bottles I’ve opened). I would try to find snacks that would pair with the wines we were tasting so it wouldn’t change our palate and to help avoid inebriation. Read more>>

Rachel Renee

It’s the age of the entrepreneur and I wanted to create a unique platform that would cater to them. Today people sell online courses, consultations, in-person services and products. For an entrepreneur to sell all of their services they would need to sign up on at least 3-4 different platforms. Amazon to sell their products, Fiverr to sell digital services and Yelp or a Google listing to display their physical location. Read more>>

Nicole Hardy

I was working in a spa where I had worked my way up from reception desk to eventually running the daily spa operations, ordering products and working in the room with clients. I got to see the things I loved about skincare and also some things that I did not really like, but because it was not my business I had to do what I was taught and told.
I had a pretty rigid schedule at the spa which sometimes was hard with being a single mom at the time and juggling my kids schedule and the spa schedule with little flexibility. Read more>>