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. 

Thomas Gio

I started by noticing something simple: most SMBs were overwhelmed by marketing complexity and wasting time on repetitive tasks that could be automated. At first, I didn’t build a huge agency or raise money. I focused on understanding where AI could create immediate ROI for businesses — lead generation, follow-up, customer support, appointment booking, and internal automations. The first step was validating demand.  Read More>>

John Andy

The process started with me realizing that my ideas could not just stay in my head forever. I have always had big creative worlds in my imagination, but the real turning point was when I decided to treat them like actual businesses and productions instead of just dreams I would talk about someday. Read More>>

Nish Murdock

So the year was 2017 and I was crocheting just to pass the time while traveling with my mom one weekend. I’ve been crocheting since I was six and I always brought a bag of yarn with me around just as a hobby to past time. Read More>>

Christa Spear

When people ask how Iris started, the honest answer is that in some ways, it started years before the business even began to take shape. I studied entrepreneurship in college, and although my career initially led me into sales, leadership, talent acquisition, and operations roles, I always thought I would build a business of my own one day. Read More>>

Randi Dorsey

I’ve enjoyed catering and providing hospitality since 2006. In 2017, I sat down and decided I wanted to do more, to come up with something unique that I could share with my client base. That year, my food truck concept, EFF-N ROLLZ was born. I initially wanted to make food cones, like savory ice cream style cones of food. Read More>>

Louis Buralda

Since a child, I have always felt a star presence; I just needed a stage. I did not grow up having everything mapped out with music. Always living in a world of creativity but the control part came years later. I felt myself putting in long hours at the studio but not reaping any benefits. Read More>>

Keisha Tessa

I started BOHATY from a very personal place. I always loved beauty and skincare, but I wanted to create something that felt intentional, elevated, and aligned with who I am. I noticed that a lot of products in the industry focused heavily on trends or quick marketing, and I wanted BOHATY to feel timeless, luxurious, and meaningful while still being mindful about ingredients and formulation. Read More>>

Leana Shayefar

since the age of 20 I have been in the Fashion industry launched 2 other brands in my early 20’s and landed my first big purchase order with fashion retailer Charlotte Russe at 20 years old when I started the floral headband craze that swept the nation. Read More>>

Nicole Schroeder

I didn’t exactly wake up one day and decide to become an entrepreneur. In a lot of ways, Idea Queen Marketing had been building itself quietly in the background for years. I built my first website when I was 12 years old for my dad’s band, just because I thought it sounded fun. Looking back, that probably should have been everyone’s first clue. Read More>>

Morgan Kelly

My love for dentistry actually started back in middle school. I’ve always known oral health was my calling, which led me to work as a dental assistant, and my ultimate goal is to become a dental hygienist. But working hands-on in the dental field, I started noticing a major disconnect in how people view oral care. Read More>>

Rashida Henry

BT2U (Being True 2 U) Sisters Rising really started from a much smaller idea rooted in community, healing, and honest conversation. Before it became a six-month wellness workshop series for teen girls, it began as a six-week virtual support group for millennial women through Knows No Face our therapy private practice. Read More>>

Brandon Holland

It started with a simple idea—Molding Heartz was born from the desire to touch every heart through art, whether film, reality TV, or storytelling in any form. I didn’t wait for perfect conditions; I started building immediately by putting structure around the vision and reaching out to collaborators who shared the same passion. Read More>>

Jason Misurka

Already having a background in art through College studies in Art Fundamentals and Animation, I fully immersed myself in painting during Covid and began building a strong body of work. Now, six years into the journey, my work is gaining momentum and attracting growing attention. Read More>>

Jeremiah Hearne

The idea didn’t show up as an idea. It showed up as a need to keep moving. For twelve years I’d run ARDEZEN — custom fabrication, design-build, remodel. By late 2025 the phone wasn’t ringing the way it used to, and the people I’d been building alongside were each fighting their own version of the same fight. Read More>>

Sergio Pelayo

I moved to the United States before I was even old enough to legally be considered an adult. Like many immigrants, I started from the bottom. I worked in factories for years, drove Uber, took whatever jobs I could find and simply focused on surviving and building a future. My entry into the janitorial industry happened during one of the lowest moments of my life. Read More>>

Nanditha Vedula

Our Green World started from a pretty simple realization: a lot of people care about environmental issues, but many students feel like sustainability is either too overwhelming or too disconnected from their daily lives. I kept seeing conversations around climate change that focused only on massive global problems, and I wanted to create something that made environmental action feel more approachable and community-driven. Read More>>

Keith Madsen

Where do ideas come from? As a person who has been in Christian ministry all of my adult life, I could say they come from God, and there would be some truth in that. But that is a little too simplistic. More practically, they come from silence. People today almost seem to be afraid of silence. Read More>>

Alex Lathery

So I actually have always wanted to start a local service business. I run a digital marketing agency, Blue Collar Builds, and we exclusively work with local service based businesses. It made perfect sense to build my own on top of that leveraging our skillset. Read More>>

Lida Xu

Petting Lover started less like a business plan and more like a question I couldn’t stop thinking about: what would it look like to make a romance game that centered women’s desires, softness, curiosity, and emotional autonomy without treating them as an afterthought? My background is in visual storytelling and animation, so my first instinct was to design characters and scenes. Read More>>

Lotoya Jean

My journey from idea to execution really started long before I understood what entrepreneurship truly meant. I was only 13 years old, sitting under a mango tree in Jamaica, selling and building my very first business. At that age, I didn’t have a business plan, mentors, or a deep understanding of structure. Read More>>

Paolo Mugnaini

I do not have a successful business; I am a starving artist. I grew up in Rome around cinema, studied film, and eventually found myself producing, directing, shooting, editing, managing crews, dealing with impossible deadlines, nervous interview subjects, and technical disasters — all of it. Read More>>

Gerell Webb

Honestly, The G Series started from frustration. I was seeing too many people bounce from workout to workout, chasing motivation instead of structure. Social media made fitness look good, but most people still had no real system. I knew there had to be a better way to help people train with purpose, build confidence, and stay consistent without overcomplicating everything. Read More>>

Stephanie Franklin

When the idea for Franklin Vines first came to me, it didn’t arrive as a polished business plan. It started as a feeling, a pull toward legacy, land, and purpose. Read More>>

Johnathan Pitts

Starting a business is difficult and draining and stressful lol but very rewarding and life changing…it started with an idea to do catering at a higher level and quality, researched companies and areas needing the service, found a safe and clean place to conduct business, and before I knew it I was ready to go Read More>>

Bobbi Walker

After receiving my MBA I began a 12 year career in tech sales. While I enjoyed interfacing with the clients and traveling nationally to visit my accounts, I knew there had to be a way to carve a career out of something I was more passionate about, ART. Read More>>

Janay Sanders

When I first started Tag Your Neighbor, it was really just an idea built from conversations and community. I realized that so many talented Black creatives, entrepreneurs, artists, and cultural leaders were doing amazing work, but their stories were not always being highlighted in authentic ways. Read More>>

Katie Walz

We started a Pest Control business in 2009, so by the time we got the idea for Discover Campervans, we already knew what it was like to build a business from scratch. We were young when we started our first company, which honestly worked in our favor because we were flexible. Read More>>

Christina Barrueta

Going from a hobby to career wasn’t planned in the traditional sense, though I had always said being a writer would be my ‘dream job.’ For over 25 years I worked in the medical field and writing about food and restaurants was something I did for fun. Read More>>

Jamah Dacus

I started my original tea company, BlendBee, where you can custom design your own unique tea blends as well as purchase blends that I designed. Early on I designed a blend that knocks you out, it really helps with sleep, so I aptly named it Go The Fuck To Sleep and put it on my BlendBee line-up. Read More>>