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.

Anshawna Charles

I’ve started my business in 2010 and I feel like I really started scaling up 2020. Yes, 10 years after my start. There are 2 parts that helped me succeed. I worked on my craft. I was originally self taught via YouTube. To grow I studied other photographers, took classes, and researched more and more. I am still a work in progress, but I am definitely not where I was in 2010. Another major part of my growth is marketing. I have a business coach who gives me goals and tell me ways I can grow my business. She had me upgrade my online presence including my website and Google. These things helped me grow. Read more>>

Greg Orfe

Scaling Driftline has certainly been no easy task, but we’re really proud of our progress and all the lessons we’ve learned along the way. Our business legitimately started as an “a-ha!” moment on the beach between my business partner Wes & I, and initially picked up pace organically and through word-of-mouth. As we went through many iterations to improve the quality of Drifties™ – our patent-pending wetsuit lined boardshorts – we realized how many watermen were searching for boardshort and full wetsuit alternatives, and were so happy to find us as a watersports apparel innovation. Read more>>

Schawana Johnson

Running a business I not as easy as many makes it seem and to this day I still have a lot of learning and growing to do. When I first started Tressed And Blessed it would take weeks to get a sale I have put my business on pause many times and each time I came back it was better than the last. I put my business on pause to rethink, gather information and come up with creative marketing. Doing this always help me come back better than the last. It’s not a goal to keep pause and restarting but if your someone like me who has a million in one things going on it could be hard o stay focus on one. Today my business is has sold out multiple times and Yhis is just the beginning. Read more>>

Kimmy Leighton

What began as a side business, turned into our full time jobs within 3 years. I was a teacher for a short time before getting pregnant with our first child and wanting to be at home with him at least part of the time. I was pregnant and working a few part time jobs while my husband, Matt, was a marketing director at a financial firm when we decided to give a side hustle a go with a new, creative photo booth type activation. While taking walks at night discussing our business plan and making frequent visits to Barnes and Noble for branding ideas, we created a business that we believed would consume a few hours a week of our time. Read more>>

Ariel Gonzalez

We recently underwent a comprehensive rebranding for Karla Cuban Bakery to revitalize and differentiate ourselves in the crowded Miami Cuban Bakery market. We wanted to dial into the unique and meaningful differences of our family heritage, recipes, and brand personality to showcase our unique offering to Miami and the surrounding areas. The evolution of Karla Cuban Bakery allows us to honor our rich Cuban heritage while bringing a fresh and modern approach to our bakeries. Read more>>

Monette Mejia

I started online sales 7 years ago with POSHMARK. What a blessing this company is you upload photos of products for people to purchase. After a couple of years my POshmark grew to over half a million followers. I started doing social media like IG , TIKTOK and Fb. I couldn’t believe the response- i now do LIVE SALES 3 times a week that support my whole family. My husband retired from labor work and now we work together working our online business. Read more>>

Eduardo Arreola

Starting off was really difficult because I didn’t know very many people here in Texas. I started by sharing my baked goods with friends and they slowly started sharing my work on social media. Every so often I do giveaways on my social media pages where customers share my work by “tagging” friends for a chance to win treats of their own. Read more>>

Glenn Murray

One of the things I learned early in my days working for GE was that diversification is survival when it comes to growing a business. The business i started many years ago look nothing like the one I have today. We started as an events company focusing on the arts (music, visual arts, books). I knew books were a popular business so I created 220 Publishing at first it was just being able to give authors a platform to tell their stories but it morphed into a business that helps them maximize their reach leveraging their writing. Read more>>

Michelle Robertson

Grow Toward Your Strengths: How I Scaled Up by Specializing in What I Love Photography is one of those things that can consume you 24/7/365 if you let it. Once you fall in love with magic of capturing those hidden moments that not everyone immediately notices—and once you learn you can turn those moments into works of art that will stand the test of time—it’s pretty easy to fall in love with photography. In fact, it’s why I turned it into my full-time career! Read more>>