Starting a business is hard because it’s a fight with yourself, an internal battle – gaining the courage to get started, etc. Scaling a business is different – the challenges you face are mostly external to yourself. Each challenge has a million mini-challenges. We wanted to create a space for conversations and stories around growth and scaling. Below, you’ll find stories and insights from successful entrepreneurs across a variety of industries and markets.

Josiah & Meg Mothershed

While our team size may have grown by just one since our founding in 2016, Mothershed Design Co. has grown exponentially in revenue, capabilities, and meaningful clients. Mothershed Design Co. started off as a one-man band with Josiah Mothershed working away on his laptop in a tiny Denver apartment. He quickly built connections with local marketing agencies and found greater success in his newfound business than he had in his previous career. Read more>>

Kristyn Echterling-Savage

Beyond the Dog has grown significantly since our humble 2005 beginnings! We started, and continued for nearly 10 years, with Sean and I operating every aspect of the business. We didn’t have a single employee and were terrified to give up control. Our lives revolved around building our business and being intimately involved in every aspect. Read more>>

Mansour Gorji

By concentrating on quality over quantity, scaling up could be achieved with actually downsizing! It all depends on what one expects in life, more money or achieving meaningful goals. Over the years, we took risks and controversial stands to further our strategy by staying true to our vision of cooking and hospitality, not trying to be all things to everyone! We purposefully decided to go smaller, reduce tables, eliminate the patio, not accommodate children and do away with tipping and pay a livable wage in pursuit of those goals. Read more>>

Dean Dalvit

The EVstudio story started as a sole proprietorship operating out of my basement that has grown to over 100 professionals in multiple offices across the Rocky Mountain region. From the beginning, the vision was always to grow the company for several reasons. Growth allows for diversity in market opportunity, project type, variety of service, and inherently provides stability and resilience for the entire team. Growth also affords a tremendous opportunity for team member career growth that I never had when working at other firms, including ownership opportunity. Read more>>

Holly Morphew, AFC®

When I was working my business part time, my revenue goal was $3000/month. An extra $1000-$3000 a month can really change someone’s life. That’s why I set my sighs there. One of the first things I did to scale was get very clear about my audience. Who are they and what do they do? Credibility in my industry is huge, so I focused first on building my brand and writing great content. Eventually I started getting published in publications like Forbes and Business Insider. Read more>>

Christine Barney

o The first step in scaling up was making the choice to grow. It doesn’t happen just by wishing or working harder, you need a strategy. We had plateaued at about $3 million in billings in year four and realized that if the agency didn’t grow, neither would our up and comers and we would lose them. So, we crafted our first strategic plan and decided to put discipline in our growth. o One of the most meaningful moments was when we decided who we wanted as clients. Read more>>

Sandy Nissou

Passion, Attitude, Discipline, Motivation, Determination, Inspiration & Charisma are the 7 most important factors behind my success and how I scaled up from the start of my business. My success is the result of years of hard work laying the foundation down for success and how I made the journey to building my business significantly larger today than when I first started since 1998. Read more>>

MacKenzee McDonald

How I scaled up in my business is TikTok. TikTok has been one of the best and easiest marketing tools for me having a successful business. I started consistently posting content 5 times a week; ranging from BTS, how I would style my pieces and being transparent with my #GoldenBabes. This allowed people to not only shop but relate to the brand. Overall, you want your target audience to feel a personal attachment to the brand. This creates longevity in the business and creates loyal customers. Read more>>

Setara Monzon

I’ve learned the best way to scale up is consistency. The more consistent you are with sharing and expanding your knowledge brings collaboration with like minds that help you grow your areas of interest and in some cases help you grow more as a person. Read more>>

Haidar Hachem

It was honestly a lot easier than I thought it would be. While I still have struggles/moments of anxiety on what to do next/money/etc. I have to say that I’ve been blessed surrounded by the people that I have in my life and in this amazing service industry community. So basically it all started as an idea. Me talking to my wife about wanting to open a brewery and then actually registering our business name on Sunbiz. That is really the first biggest step in getting the ball rolling. Then we sat down and discussed our business plan; we didn’t want to open a brewery straight away because we first wanted to get our name out there and second wanted to make some money. Read more>>

Lisa Lowrie Lacey Kala’i

Lace and Lilies have been in business for over 10 years now. We created it, out of a love for flowers, creativity, and pushing the limits past everyone’s expectations. We wish we could say that we envisioned it to be as big as it is now, 10 years later, however, this has even exceeded our initial dream. We are absolutely convinced that it all began not only in the right place at the right time when there was a need for something new and fresh in our industry, but it also came at the perfect time in our life. Read more>>

Ernesto Rojas

I opened D’Lites Cakes almost 10 years ago, mainly as a hobby to make cakes for friends and family and a few customers here and there. Never in my dreams would I have imagined that 10 plus years later, I would be running a super successful business which grow’s every year more and more. I think it has a lot to do with your drive, and your passion. Although I run my business from Home, I love coming home to work on orders no matter what day it is, or how long of a day I’ve had. Read more>>

Jen Grubb

I said yes to this business in 2014. In fact, I said no for 2 years before that. It is true. I had a dear friend who believed in the product and business for me WAY before I could even believe in it for myself. And to be honest I was scared to start or even how to start. But then one day I jumped in and guess what? It was scary. I had a lot of people tell me no. I even had my own family member question what I was doing. He even went so far to say that it probably won’t work out. I remember exactly where we were: he had picked me up from the airport after I had attended an amazing conference with my company, Read more>>

Kristin Boyer

My business was an accident. I never intended to start a photography studio and certainly not one that employs people and handles hundreds of thousands of photos for huge schools around the metro Atlanta area and hoards of family around North Georgia and North Carolina. I started with a camera that was given to me as a gift. Read more>>

Brittany Stovall

What helped my company scale the most was creating a strategic growth plan. Our team and I made a five-year strategic plan that included key elements to obtain growth initiatives. We placed metrics around our goals to ensure we were hitting our targets each quarter. However, with change comes obstacles. I believe for everyone; the pandemic was an unforeseen time. We to be strategic and tactical in a time of crisis. Read more>>

Krysta Jones

When I first started the THC GIRLS dI was really performing all the duties myself as any entrepreneur typically does when they first stat unless you have a huge budget for a team right out of the gate. I utilized my network of resources to connect people and basically took a percentage of the work I was doing. This worked very well when I was able to be present and manage the performance of those being booked. Read more>>

James Combs

We started as the world’s smallest solar powered coffee roaster in 2013 and now we’re the world’s largest solar powered coffee roaster. We grew organically from our garage to sharing a space with a local bakery. We then moved to a back alley garage suite in Corinth. We leaseed the space for 5 years before moving to our dream location in Gainesville, which is 60,000 sqft on 5 acres. We just purchased land off of the highway in Corinth for our latest coffee shop and retailer center. Read more>>

Nikita Hemani

I launched Simba’s BARKery in 2017 as a home-based business. It was truly family-run where everyone from parents to my nephews helped me prepare for each weekend at the Dallas Farmer’s Market. The farmer’s market was a great step for the business; we were able to spread awareness about the business, understand our customers and the market and test out our products and improve based on feedback. Through this experience, we quickly learned that the dog treat market is saturated with thousands of options out there. We decided to pivot to celebrations – dog cakes, beer, party kits and more! Read more>>

Ludivine Ryon

Le Parfait Paris started about 8 years ago. My husband had the idea one day after coming back from work. He then started studying the market in San Diego. It was definitely a little niche that none so far had really done in town; An authentic French Bakery and Pastry Company. Read more>>

Lisa Benoit

It’s a amazing year to start a new business! I am so excited to announce the Grand Opening of our new real estate brokerage Lucky Money Real Estate on February 5,2022. It is a very unique brokerage that focuses on growing real estate agents into successful Entrepreneurs and leaders in their field. We work with everyone from brand new agents to top producers in the industry. Each agent must go through a cycle of interviews and questionnaires before they’re able to sign on with our company. Read more>>

Lauren Merrill

When I first opened Alpine Arts Center I didn’t start off small like some studios do, possibly in a basement or a garage, just teaching a few classes a week. I knew that our community needed an arts center and that I wanted to go all in. I rented a large 2800 square foot studio, formulated a business plan, contracted art teachers to assist in the teaching and immediately hit the ground running. With no support staff, I did my best to juggle our programming, marketing, and financials while teaching many of our weekly classes. It was an exciting and a challenging time! Read more>>

Rodriel “Roe” Jordan

Many people desire Entrepreneurship because of the perceived lifestyle and freedom that is associated with “Being your own boss”. While many of those perceptions are true, they often times come at a risk and sacrifice. Before becoming a full time entrepreneur, I worked in Corporate America. Let me tell you, I hated Corporate America. I often felt like I was mouse in the Pacific Ocean trying to be seen for my ambition and talents by a Helicopter (Management). I always felt uncomfortable and like I wanted and needed more. I’ve always been a leader and growing up I used to tell my family that I was going to be somebody important in life and a lot of people will know me. (lol) Read more>>

Brian Wood

The importance of scaling up cannot be understated and is critical for sustained impact and business success. From day one, I initiated the ideal strategy, executed a flawless game plan and followed the ultimate blue print to expand my business – MARS Coaching – overnight. Okay – not exactly! In retrospect, the initial “strategy” was more of a belief that I could outwork everyone – resulting in good things. Read more>>

Sarah Lowitzer

For years, I was working multiple jobs while trying to grow Scratch. That old saying that the 9-5 pays the bills, the 5-9 builds the empire was my reality. I was working 60+ hours a week between all my jobs. It was intense, and the struggle seemed like it was never going to end. I finally took a huge leap in the fall of 2021, and quit all of my outside jobs. I solely focused on growing Scratch, full time. Many people thought I was crazy for taking such a risky jump in the middle of a pandemic, sliding economy, historic price increases and unprecedented supply chain challenges. Read more>>

Armand Hindrichs

The path of scaling was only natural with the way business went. Some businesses focus on increasing what they set out to do initially while I swayed my business towards a different objective than I started out with. In 2013 I was still working in oil field as an engineer so I spent my nights and weekends doing light mechanical work and detailing. In 2014 I got enough demand from people outside of the normal friend circle that I decided to form an LLC. I was just offering detailing until I had customers ask me to perform light mechanic work in addition to my automotive detailing offerings. Read more>>

Nikita Mhatre

Consistent and Patience is the Key for our survival in the industry. We still remember our initial days when only one or two customers use to show for whole day. we tried most of advertising strategies but it was not helping much but I believe the consistency in our service and commitment for value for money the customers spend has paid off. I believe in tortoise and hare story …. slow but steady concept and I think today we are proud to say that tortoise will wins if he keeps going. Read more>>

Octavio Orozco

Chilesquiles turned 5 in October 2021, and as of today we have exceeded a 300% sales growth since 2017. It started as an educational family project selling at local farmers markets in the suburbs of Houston. Now our products are in over 60 stores across the country, we have a growing e-commerce presence with our online sales including a subscription program for our most loyal followers. Read more>>