When businesses are covered in the media, often there is a lot of focus on the initial idea, the genesis moment. Then they almost brush over the middle part – the scaling up part – and arrive at how big and awesome the business is today. It makes for a fun read or in the case of a movie or show an entertaining watch, but it’s also a missed opportunity. The middle part – the scaling up part is where so many small business owners get stuck. It’s the part so many of us need more guidance with and so we wanted to get conversations going on the topic of scaling up.

Jasmine Kelly

Starting a business is the hardest part, continuing to be a business owner requires discipline and sacrifices. Starting my business has been one of the best decisions I have made. It has brought me so many fulfilling opportunities from working with brides to meeting new people and networking myself across social media and at my HBCU. Being a business owner requires you to wear many different hats, you are your own marketing team, scheduling team, CEO, and customer service and many more. Read more>>

Shane Kohler

One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned and continued to learn in growing my business is that there is no substitute for putting your heart and soul into your work. Whatever strategy you use, that needs to be at the core of it. Otherwise, you’ll exhaust your energy and resources without making it far. Customers connect with people, not companies. Read more>>

Jameel Reid

I’ve been a content creator since i was 12 funny enough. So I’ve had years of experience of growing my social media. I would post all kings if different videos when i was younger those would do well. But they didn’t start doing better until I started to target specific audiences. Then i would start to get 100s of thousands of views once I fully understood how i could go about blowing up. Read more>>

Melissa Harrington

The hustle … no one really sees the beginning and it’s more than overwhelming. But staying in your own lane, filed by your dreams and desires for what you want your business to look lik.e. I worked out of a room at at gym for 10 years. And hired one other therapist to open Nirvana with me. Knowing where I wanted to take the business…. Read more>>

Tyrell Taylor

One of the major key points to scaling any business is building your team. Each team member comes with a batch of skills in areas that you’d lack or just don’t have the capacity to conduct such activity yourself. I quicker identified areas that I could use help and went out and found someone. Starting with my VA (Virtual Assistant); Pauline. Read more>>

Dana Goodemote

I started my business full time at age 22, it took off right away. My main focus was photographing weddings. Being a woman and marring age I had a ton of relatable clientele that wanted to hire me. This is back in 2007 when the industry was more male dominated than female ran. Read more>>

Greta Schmid

I remember the day I decided to start a PR Agency. I always knew I wanted to do something meaningful and work with brands, I just needed to figure out how to implement my dreams and make them a reality. I had worked at several PR agencies already and was the Media Director at a larger agency for a couple of years when I had one small beauty brand I had been in contact with since the beginning of my career reach out to me. Read more>>

Andi Lipton

When I started out 15 years ago, I would literally say yes to every client who called and wanted a custom proposal. Typically in my business, planners offer day-of, month-of, partial coordination and full production. I did it all for 12 years and if someone wanted the proposal tailored, I did it. Read more>>