Going from idea to execution isn’t easy. Part of the difficulty is that often there is no playbook to follow and while we can’t offer a playbook either, we wanted to create a space where aspiring entrepreneurs could read the stories of how some very smart, very thoughtful entrepreneurs form the community got started.
Emily Zupan
For 13 years, I was a stay-at-home mom, and as my children grew older and started school, I felt the need to pursue something for myself. I had always dreamt of becoming a doctor, drawn to the fascinating world of skin, gore, and all things “gross.” However, the thought of spending another 10 to 15 years in school felt daunting, and I wanted to enjoy my life sooner. It was my husband who suggested that I consider becoming an aesthetician, so we explored different schools, and I decided to enroll. I quickly discovered my passion for skin care, enjoying everything from product knowledge to witnessing the transformative results that professional treatments can bring. Read more>>
Jimmie Berguin
I never saw myself officianting for anyone! As a Recovering Catholic, my ideas of what a wedding ceremony were very askew. Then one day, I was asked by two friends of mine to officiate their ceremony. The bride gave me a boost of confidence when she informed me (her being a wedding photographer) had seen countless ceremonies and told me I was, “perfect for the job”. So taking what I knew about weddings, my insatiable urge to people please, and passion for writing; I crafted my version of a wedding ceremony. Read more>>
Roxanne Gochinski
Roxanne Elizabeth Photography was birthed exponentially from a deep desire to create. From a passion that laid deep within my soul to connect with others creatively. I felt a need to be able to tell my story as well as other’s stories through my lens. I had spent a number of years (matter of factly twelve years), studying my craft of photography along with off camera flash. I was all consumed with drawing out my ideas, along with graphing out how to light each scene to tell a story that I could portray easily to the viewer. I didn’t want to solely produce images to sell, but to also pay homage to my love for art. Read more>>
Dr. Charles Atkins
My career status changed on Monday, March 15, when New Jersey started the temporary shutdown of governmental agencies and the confinement of citizens in their homes in reaction to the global Covid19 pandemic. As a supervisor of prison chaplaincy I saw my 20+ years of work in personal development and spiritual enrichment come to a sudden halt. Since there was no vaccine available at the time, and since prisons were not built for social distancing I decided to retire early from the New Jersey Department of Corrections. Read more>>
Andrei Rychkov
The idea for Aesty came to my wife and co-founder, Nadia, while traveling. She often struggled with packing outfits efficiently for different occasions. She quickly realized this was a common frustration shared by many others.
The first step towards building a solution was to confirm if we were solving a real problem. We interviewed more than 300 people from various countries and backgrounds and talked with professional stylists. This helped us clearly understand the issue and develop a simple solution we could test quickly. Read more>>
JULIA ROSE BARNETT
My story is different from most because I didn’t expect to start a business! If anything: it was an accident that I’m abundantly grateful for.
I was an assistant working in a TV writer’s room for an ABC series and needed extra income. I was already working as a freelance psychic advisor on Keen.com, but the peak hours for making money on that website didn’t work for my full time schedule in the writer’s room. So I decided to start giving tarot readings to friends, family members, and anyone they’d recommend and charge them via Venmo (back then, you could do that!). Read more>>
Linda Livernois
I had always wanted to build a makeup/artistry business focused mainly on bridal due to Charlottesville being a wedding destination. I started by doing weddings on the weekends while working a 9-5. After six months I was let go from my job and decided in that moment I was self employed. The connections I made early on with planners and photographers really helped keep clients reaching out and kept me booked. Building a reputation of being good at what I do but also fun and easy to work with has been the greatest contributor to being successful in the wedding business. Read more>>
LeShundia Porter – Session
It all started in December 2023. I was working my 10 hour a day warehouse job, drained—physically and mentally. The 9-to-5 grind had me exhausted, and worst of all, I was missing out on moments with my family. I knew I wanted more: more freedom, more financial security, and more time to actually live my life. Read more>>
Alexa Ferraro
It was 2020, shortly after the covid lockdown went into place and I lost my job as a corporate event planner in NYC. At the time I was mostly focusing on organizing their fashion showcase. I had a lot of fun with it but felt that there were so many missed opportunities for creativity or technology innovation. I have never been one to do well sitting still, so the lockdown left me with so many creative ideas but no where to release them. Read more>>
Andrea Jones
It started the way a lot of big ideas do—somewhere between burnout and a Google Doc.
I started my business back in 2014, offering done-for-you social media services. I was deep in the client work trenches—writing captions, scheduling posts, answering DMs like my life depended on it. And while I loved helping people, I also felt like I was stuck on a hamster wheel. Always busy, rarely building anything sustainable. Read more>>
Ida
Music has always been a part of me. Growing up, it was the heartbeat of my family, and my mother, my biggest supporter, always reminded me, “Music heals.” When I first started Artist Legit in my hometown of San Antonio, Texas, my goal was simple: to share good music and help artists gain visibility. I didn’t have a deeper purpose beyond that at the time, I just knew I wanted to be in the industry, supporting creatives. Read more>>
Eduardo Robles
Coming from a typical Spanish household. My family fostered my hobbies and interests relating to plants, animals & nature. I was introduced to growing plants fairly early on in my childhood & from then on it blossomed into what I call my lifetime hyper fixation. Growing up, my grandmother always kept various plants around her house. From pothos, to flamboyant trees growing in her yard, she really set the tone for what I was aspiring to achieve as I grew older. Plants have always provided me with a sense of purpose & really helped alleviate some of my struggles pertaining to anxiety. I never really expected my interests to unfold into a social media page. Let alone, creating videos to help other plant lovers increase their knowledge about plant care, propagation & using them to scale up their interior design. Read more>>
Molly Hake
Going from the idea to the execution generally ends up being even more challenging and involved than one anticipated. On the other hand, some things can end up being even easier and simpler than we anticipate. In my journey to write and publish my first novel, I had many moments on either end of the spectrum. It was certainly a very involved and time consuming task to take a general concept of a plot to a fully written, edited, and published book, but it was also perfectly achievable. I believe that many people never start a project like that just because they think it’s a far bigger deal than it is. Read more>>
Taylor Martin
I was a burnt-out National Account Manager in Fin-tech, a mom of three, including twin baby boys, and a wife. Despite my professional success, I found myself craving something more fulfilling. Content creation was my passion, and I knew deep down it was the path God had planned for me. I spent hours researching, figuring out the technical side of things, and learning about the industry. Read more>>
Bel Di Lorenzo
I developed my vaginal gymnastics program completely out of necessity—my sex life wasn’t where I wanted it to be, and I was desperate to bring the spark back.
I started researching ways to deepen pleasure and stumbled upon something that felt like myth: Pompoir—an ancient practice where women used their vaginal muscles with such precision and control that they could completely enamor their lovers. I was obsessed. But I quickly realized that beyond a few vague blog posts and rumors, there were no tutorials, no structured training—just whispers. Read more>>
Erica Smith
I had been workng as a sex educator for a non profit hospital system for seventeen years. I really loved my job- I was doing HIV prevention and sex education work with young people in juvenile detention in Philadelphia. I helped create the program. But after so long, there was no way to move up the way my department was structured, and I kept thinking “I want to leave this job before I turn 40.” Read more>>
Amanda Batts
For as long as I can remember, I’ve been a theme park fan. As a young adult I dreamed of getting to work at Disney getting to experience the inner workings to be able to impact the Guest experience. I had the blessing of not only getting to intern on Disney’s Executive Communications team, but I also got to stay on full time working special event communications being a part of the Magic Band roll out communications team. After I was able to experience so many amazing things at Disney, I wanted to expand my PR and corporate relationship building skillset and I moved into the healthcare field. It was so rewarding getting to partner with healthcare professionals to get their patients the help that they need to live full lives. Read more>>
Ashley Millen
I spent a long time (years) knowing that I wanted to figure out a way to be my own boss and run my own business. I knew that I wanted to peruse something that would make me truly happy on a daily basis, and I knew that meant something in the art world. I would get stuck on how long it would take to build something entirely from scratch, and worried constantly that I didn’t have the time or resources to build from the ground up. I was already a mother of three young children and was responsible for them. Read more>>
Kortney Peterson
My entire life, my brain always worked in more of a creative and artistic way. Art classes, styling hair and doing makeup for friends at a young age for dances, taking photos, etc.
Something I would do often in middle school and high school (around the years of 2008-2014) would go do a group of peoples hair and makeup, then go photograph them. I did this often. Instagram wasn’t a thing, and so Facebook it was for sharing. It truly was just a hobby. I loved being creative, and putting different themes to each shoot that I did. I would post them on Facebook for fun, and not think much of it. Until one day I had someone message me asking to photograph their wedding…as a high schooler…I was so pumped to be considered. Read more>>
Denise Kunkelmann
I’ve always had a love for candles, so when I thought about starting a candle business, I figured it couldn’t be that difficult. But as with most things in life, it turned out to be much more challenging than I initially expected. It requires a lot of time, research, and financial investment. There were many aspects of starting a business that I hadn’t anticipated. Read more>>