Starting a business or creative project is scary for many reasons, but one that is often overlooked is the anxiety related to whether this is really “the one.” To some, this isn’t a valid consideration while to others this is the only consideration. Some argue that what you work on, along with who you work with are the two most pivotal decisions you’ll make and so we’ve asked folks to tell us about how they came up with their ideas and how they knew this idea was the one.

Kayla Lamb

I had spent my late teens and early 20s moving around the midwest, and had a deep desire to get to know my neighbors in each community. I quickly realized that when I was out cleaning my own yard and garden, the neighbors would pop out and strike up a conversation. So I found myself offering to help them with their yard-work, and they’d hire me each week to continue to help. One neighbor would talk to another, and before I knew it, I was helping the whole block. Read more>>

Scott Colosimo

Scott has had a fascination with bikes, cars and speed since an early age. He also grew up with a family that loved cooking, baking and art. Combine these early influences with a BMX bike and the freedom that suburban life affords a middle class, pre-teen in the 1990’s, and you have a uniquely American story in the making. Read more>>

Emily Hopkins

As a single mom with two boys and an entrepreneurial mindset, I decided to start a business using my ’71 VW bus because its nostalgic charm and timeless design align perfectly with my vision of creating a distinctive and unforgettable experience. This endeavor allows me to embrace the freedom of being an entrepreneur while sharing memorable adventures with my boys, creating lasting memories as we embark on this exciting journey together. Read more>>

 James Berglie

For years I had been a professional photographer, and while I loved what I did, I also had a passion for the beach life. I longed to really be at the beach, mixing my passion for photography with everything beachy. Initially I started picking up business in Florida as a photographer and I also decided to become a travel agent as well as a way to offer another service to my local wedding couples who also needed to do a honeymoon! Then I decided to combine the photography and travel, and I started offering my photography services to destination weddings! Read more>>

Erin Trease

I was in the fitness industry for years before as a gym owner and competitive crossfitter. I used cryotherapy and many other recovery modalities to keep my body healthy and manage injuries. Cold therapy was my go to for recovery, injury prevention and sleep. It was the one modality that always worked best for me, and became my WHY for opening Icebox in Westerville. Read more>>

Laura Tidrick

Believe it or not, there was a time when owning a family farm was part of wishful thinking, and not necessarily something we thought we’d jump into fully. So why did we start? The reasons are plentiful and our answers range from “fond memories made us do it!” to “something had to change so we didn’t feel awful anymore.” Read more>>

Jessica Freitag

I had been working as a pastry chef for quite a few years in the Twin Cities and Mankato MN. I loved what I was doing but I had been with the same company for over 10 years and was urge to do something else. I wanted to make more wedding and custom cakes. I had read about the cottage law in other states and found out that it was finally passed in Minnesota! I instantly knew that was my path. I did my research, got licensed and started! Read more>>

Christina Stawiasz

Thyme and Timber came to life just over three years ago. It started as an idea of merging my love for the great outdoors and my passion for cooking. As an avid camper with the love for cooking, creating and elevating camp meals was a welcomed and exciting challenge. My fulltime job had been working as an independent hairstylist and small business owner. Just like the majority, the Covid-19 Pandemic turned my life upside down and my business had to mandatory close for 3 months. Read more>>

Laura Lecy

RoundWreath was started in 2020 because I was highly disappointed with the selection and low quality of wreaths at big box stores and could not bring myself to spend hundreds of dollars for custom wreaths online. As a teacher on leave during Covid, I had time to invest in my creative outlets. I become mesmerized by wreaths and their versatility as decor and gifting. Like many, I love to decorate the spaces around me and truly believe in the power of #floraldecor. A beautiful environment can be inviting, relaxing, personalized, and memorable! Read more>>

Mariane Batista-McCulloch

I grew up in the outskirts of São Paulo, Brazil, where low income people lives, specially Black and Brown community. In these communities the asterisks of style and colors exhale off of the most populated city in the world. I have always been an artist person, I was a curious child. I was constantly looking for activities for me to do where colors and texture would be placed. Read more>>

Chris Till

Four years ago, we went on a family hike through a bog in central Ohio: my wife, our two little kids, and I. I love walking on boardwalks through wetlands! It was a hot summer afternoon. We came to a tiny spring where we could see a tiny stream of water burbling into the shallow marsh. I bent down to listen to its miniature sound. I got my ear right down next to it and listened. I heard a little melody that turned into “Yellow Night,” the first song from what became our three-part fairy tale opera, “Twin Spheres.” Read more>>

Denetra Smiley

Smiley Connections, LLC came from my group on Facebook called Parents That Have Lost Children Support Group, which came from the lost of my 28 year old son to cancer in 2018. I wanted an escape from the grief and wanted to find other angel parents that have experienced this pain, and wanted to know how they got through this. So I created the group thinking there’s so many other grieving groups out there, and no one would join, but I was wrong. I have 261 members from all over the United States, men and women, and we are a family. Read more>>

Katie Madison

While visiting family in France, I was extremely inspired by the flower and art culture. Flower shops in every town, gardens full of beautiful roses in the parks and pedestrians walking home with their weekly bouquet of flowers. From my summer in France, I had the idea of bringing a bit of French floral culture to the islands of Hawai’i and that is where the idea of Belle de Jour Floral flourished. Read more>>

 Ila Cartwright

In 2018, I started working full time as a School Counselor at Bensley Elementary School. There was a 5th grade teacher, Mary Jaco, who I would always purchase custom items from, mostly t-shirts. I’d wear them to events and even themed days at the school. I was constantly finding things for her to make for me. One day, Jaco asked if I wanted to learn how to make customized t-shirts and I said yes. Read more>>

 Pia & Gitzy

Inspired Results Consulting was created from our desire to empower people to connect with abundant possibilities by thinking, feeling and behaving as their highest self. We believe that it is possible to realize your own power and potential, even if you currently feel stuck and have dealt with self-doubt in the past. Read more>>

Terrence Gallman

Discretionary discrimination is the bluntest form of economic exclusion and often the accomplice in most crime and poverty plaque communities across the US and abroad. Less than .01 out of 6000 U.S. public companies are black owned. As of late 2022 only .02 of private equity capital is managed by minority fund managers. Recent legislation proposed by NASDAQ and accepted by the Securities Exchange Commission to de-list companies not in compliance with at least one diverse board member is the latest effort to help reduce racial inequalities. Read more>>

Josh Springer

Sometimes I think it just takes the right person you meet along the way. I owe nearly all of my creative motivation to my Senior internship in college, working for a man named Jason in Northeast Ohio. Still wandering a bit, he helped to narrow my focus. I learned of the importance of working with people, when NOT to pose or set up a shot, and simple things like color correction and post-work. Read more>>

Sylvia Ibrahim

Growing up, I was incredibly fortunate to have a clear vision of my desired career path. I always expressed my passion for either interior design or event planning, as I held an equal love for both fields. To pursue my aspirations, I enrolled in the Interior Decorating program at Sheridan College. Additionally, I took on the role of President of the Student Union, granting me extensive involvement in the planning process for on-campus events. Read more>>

Edward Gaughan

I have owned and operated several business in and around Ohio State University for almost 30 year. Over that time frame we have become very integrated with the university community. The opportunity to open a restaurant/bar entertainment venue across the street from a Ohio State Stadium and the Schottenstein Center was something we couldn’t pass up. It took several years from the planning stage to get to where we are now. Read more>>

Paige Miller

Ever since I was a young girl, I knew that I would one day become a business owner. Throughout my youth and into adulthood, it was evident that I found my true calling in implementing various activities that could improve one’s quality of life. When you think about what could be considered the most central point of someone’s life, the first thing that came to my mind was home. A person’s home is the most intimate part of their life. Read more>>

Victoria Peterson

In 2013, I was a human massage therapist and a veterinary assistant to Dr. Jessica Levy, a local holistic vet. She called me one day to to ask if I could help out on a tough case of hers. It was a lab mix who had CCL repair surgery (ACL in humans) and had done 3 rounds of physical therapy, with no success. Dr. Levy knew that I specialized in chronic pain and injuries in humans and wanted to see if I could lend some advice. Read more>>

John Hart

Well it all started when I was out to the gun range and I kept looking at this old guy who was also shooting and he kept looking back at me and finally he goes what’s wrong and I said I think I know you but I’m not sure, and he turned around and he had a Red Angel hat on and I said Red is that you and he said yeah he took his hat off he said I used to have really long red hair now it’s all gone I go well this is funny I said why don’t you bring a pizza shop back to Hicksville Read more>>

Lizzie DiMaria

Quite a few years ago, my husband and I got talking about how our city has a lot of pride but we couldn’t find any products showing that. We sat on the idea for a long time, always talking about how one day we wanted to make some products to sell that showcased the city. We thought about designs for t-shirts, hats, stickers, etc. and were always bringing up new ideas for our future store. Once Dearborn’s downtown area started bringing new businesses to the area, we were hearing a lot of comments about wanting retail, small shops, and locally made goods but each new thing that came, was….. Read more>>

Marie Destinvil

The Prop Cartel is owned by Marie Destinvil, Tania Destin and Candra Reid. January 2022 – My entire family had tested positive for COVID were riding the recovery wave. I was having a tough time – It had been a year since I loss both my mother and grandmother to the virus. After day three in isolation, I realized contracting the virus and fighting it was a negative trigger in my grieving journey. Read more>>

Maxine Siddiqi

Back in 2010 my dad used to watch this show on Discovery channel called oddities. Seeing exploded skulls come up on the show lit up my interest in the oddity world but I didn’t know how to express it. Later on, when I became a teenager, my friend and I found a raccoon as skeleton and we attempted to “bleach” it but ruined the bones. I felt pretty defeated and never really tried to do anything like that again. Coincidentally many years later, I found a dead squirrel in my yard and I decided to take another shot at cleaning this guy for bones. Read more>>

Amy Bratz

I discovered decorated sugar cookies while planning my wedding, and immediately became obsessed. Sadly they just weren’t in the budget. I watched decorating video after decorating video, all while wishing these types of cookies were attainable for my big day. Then a local cookier offered a decorating class and I thought this was my chance – I’m creative and crafty, I can totally do this! Read more>>

Clare Richards

Let’s rewind eight years ago. It’s 2015, pre-pandemic, and my husband, Brandon, and I are both working fairly conventional full-time careers. It was right around this time that a mentor of mine introduced me to an international organization called Rotary, and specifically a subset organization under the Rotary umbrella called Rotaract. Rotaract is a young leaders service organization designed to engage 18-30 year olds in community service and professional development. Read more>>

Joseph Duncan

My girlfriend was looking for someone to take birthday pics for her one year and no one was available to take the pics and I got aggravated with her struggling to find someone to take pics for her so I decided to purchase my own equipment so she or anyone I know wouldn’t have to go through that again in the future. Read more>>

Tonya Rintye

My husband, Nick, and I own The Hipster Hound. The way we started this business is by making dog treats and selling at our local markets. By doing this, we really got to know several local artisans. In January of 2020, we were walking down Broughton Street commenting what a shame that most of the stores are chain stores and not a lot of local stores or locally made items for our tourists visiting our beautiful series. Read more>>

William Allen

Graduating from an HBCU, Southern University, in Baton Rouge Louisiana, I’ve learned with applying for jobs for the band director positions, I didn’t realize that what I’ve learned from my university is not taught in all schools. So I came up with an idea to be able to exposer and experience for the youth with my non profit to know that the other styles of music, culturally base, to help create student experience and awareness of the urban performing arts spectrum. Read more>>

Dewey Rice Jr.

I started my podcast at the beginning of 2020 to create a space for people to feel heard and to know that they were not alone. “The things your friends won’t say and your main gon to lie about” was the slogan I created because I wanted to be a voice for the voiceless and provide a space where people could feel comfortable, coming as they are and speaking up for themselves. Once I found my voice, I realized that there was therapy through conversation. Read more>>

Helen Bolanos

Like many small businesses today, it all started during the pandemic. My job sent us all to work from home which was new to me. Existing during a pandemic was new to me. I didn’t know what to do with all this time on my hands. The news was only getting worse and with every passing day, it felt like I was melting right into the couch. I then realized I needed to start being active, I needed to cope with this new world differently. Read more>>

Beth Kines

My son was in his last year of college and his car broke down and he was looking at all the options. He had been looking for cars for about 2 weeks and everything was overpriced during the pandemic. He went to go look at a car with the intention of bringing it home and they sold it shortly before he arrived. He was frustrated to say the least. Fortunately, my father had an extra car that allowed him to get from point A to B, which is all he needed. Read more>>

Monique Phifer

I never had the idea to be an entrepreneur. I was very comfortable working for someone else. But as life has it, when your passion meets your purpose everything changes. It literally started with me seeing a post on social media stating that people who were pastors had either committed suicide or left theIR ministry. This shook me to my core. As a person of faith, I have always held men and women who serve in leadership roles in the church dear to my hurt. I was devasted to hear the news and I knew I had to do something about it. Read more>>

Mariana Seno

I created my blog in 2011 for to promote my mother’s store. She has a fashion woman store in Brazil. My idea was to share looks and tips of fashion for more people discovered our business and to purchase our clothes. At the beginning I created compositions of looks and shared with my female readers, explaining on which occasions they could to use. Read more>>

Ryan Matthews

At one point in my pet dog training career I was taking on about ten clients a day. The money was amazing, I was helping a lot of people but I didn’t realize it at the time but I was literally killing myself. After a couple years of that pace one day my life and business came to a drastic halt. At 30 years old, after having stomach pain for five months, I went to the ER and discovered it was stage three colon cancer and a month after that I had a heart attack from the chemotherapy. Read more>>

Kyle’-Simone Armstrong

As a little girl I was always into everything beauty related. The hair, make up, lashes, facials, honestly anything self care related was just everything to me. I knew I didn’t want to go into the hair or make up industry because people are so particular when it comes to those certain things and I didn’t have the patience so I decided to go down a different career path. Read more>>