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.

Teela Caldwell

Although my business may be a success today, it was not an overnight glow up! I started Bossy Marketing in 2017, but it was just an idea, I’d only be offering logos and helping new owners decide on branding styles. I did this for about a year until I became a full time brand manager for a medical office. I was still designing logos and taking online brush up courses, but I thought $50 logos were a thing of my past. Unfortunately, the medical office no longer needed a brand manager and I was left trying to figure out what my next path was. Read more>>

Nicole & Billy Dinkins

As a Vintage Furniture business that literally started in our living room, learning to invest in ourselves in order to scale up was the biggest challenge. Originally Envy Vintage began by thrifting most of our furniture finds, storing and staging in our home, and moving/delivering with our Toyota Tacoma. This went on for a couple years before becoming unsustainable—we would “sell out” via our online audience in minutes! We realized (albeit slowly) that we needed to scale to grow. Read more>>

Brittany Johnson

I think it’s a common misconception that there’s one specific tactic that helps a business scale up. I knew that I didn’t want to spend all of my energy on just one thing because I wanted my business structure to be a funnel. All of my marketing efforts would pull in leads, which would be narrowed down to ideal clients, which I would then be able to serve to the best of my ability. Read more>>

Natalie Sudberry

An amazing opportunity to open a women’s clothing boutique presented itself in 2017. I had been working for a prior boutique that was in our current space. The owner made a quick decision to move her business to another state and the likely next step was to reinvent the space into a new store.. The early days were a lesson in blood, sweat and a few tears. My partner and I did all the physical build-out for the space……painting, decorating, building dressing rooms etc. We literally had 2 weeks from when the former store closed until the grand opening of Style Niche. In the beginning our staff was just myself and one other. Read more>>

Stephanie Barro

BOA began in my garage in 1996. It was a one-man show. I met with clients at. my dining room table, and designed the all of the wedding designs in my garage. During those first few years, I was the everything- building and creating systems, knowing that I would build a team in the near future. In 2009, I took a leap of faith and rented the current space where we are currently located. One of the first new team members was an office/admin assistant. It was the turning point in our business. Once I was not attending to all of the nitty-gritty details, I could focus solely on designing and creating amazing weddings. Today, we have 8 core team members and a part-time/freelance team to assist us on the weekends. Read more>>

Jason Cherubini

“Home runs may be exciting, but singles win baseball games.” Over the last five years, we have been able to consistently grow our firm by focusing on regular small successes instead of trying for big wins. These small successes not only allow for consistent and compounding growth but make the big wins easier. In the film business, people want to aim for big-budget artistic stories with top talent and can look down on the content-driven needs of countless channels and streaming services. Read more>>

Rachael Hanible

The first thing I did was change my own personal finances. I wanted to be my own client. I went from poor to financially free. Became debt free, Saved a years’ worth of my income in cash and reached an 800 credit score. I needed to know it was possible. From there I started helping others for free. I would meet people at their homes, sit down at their dinner table and document their issues, feelings and struggles with money. Read more>>

Veronica Ayala

My success definitely did not happen over night. It started 10 years ago actually. I started out working for Ulta the Salon. It wasn’t my favorite place to work. I was definitely discouraged in my career there. So I took a different route and left the beauty industry. I took about a year off and I learned that I definitely wanted to work in the beauty industry but this time I wanted to work for myself. So I did just that! I got a salon suite with Sola Salons with zero clients. Lol I know. I’m a risk taker. It was sooo hard. I struggled so much. Hardly made enough money to pay rent but I was doing it. Read more>>

Shamira Jones

I would say that with my real estate, insurance, and fitness businesses I was able to scale and I’m still growing because it’s no longer just me. I’m not doing it by myself any longer. I’m part of a real estate team. I’m part of a fitness team. I’m part of an insurance team. As a society we have to have a paradigm shift and stop thinking that I’m going to do it myself and I’m going to outgrow everyone. There’s growth in humility. Read more>>

Michelle Rochester

MNR Catering is a team of 10. We did not start off that way. MNR Catering was a one person job. When Covid happened everything changed. The world was on lockdown and no events were happening which meant no work. Once the city started to re-open, pop-up shops became popular. Every weekend I was a vendor selling food. This got my business more attraction and I couldn’t do it alone. My mom and my grandmother would come to the pop ups with me until they couldn’t manage it. My best friend was pregnant at the time and I was complaining to her, letting her know that I need more help and my mom and grandma can no longer manage. Read more>>

Kei Ross

Back in April 2020 I launched my Professional Cleaning Service called Keitiqued Care. After being in business for over 2 years I have encountered so much along the way. From starting off doing pretty much anything because the hustler in me wanted to get a name out there for myself. Til now, I’m cleaning janitorial commercial buildings full time. I clean things like colleges, clinics, and churches to name a few. Not only has business grown by the clients I have. But I also launched a mobile application where I provide daily motivations too many people all over. Read more>>

Poiette Noel

When it comes to scaling your business, you not only have to have a set plan/strategy in place, but you also need to practice discipline and consistency. I learned early on that you cannot scale your business by trying to do everything yourself and being inconsistent. You have to not only learn how to delegate, but you also have to learn to trust others with completing some of the work required for your business to grow. Building your own business from the ground up creates a certain emotional attachment to the business that can sometimes make it difficult to trust others. Read more>>

Kay Randle Thompson

Looking at how much my business has grown since starting, I can honestly say that I do appreciated the highs and lows. When I first launched Kay’s Hair Extensions, I was only thinking about how I could profit from the bundle deals I could put together. I did not think about my ideal audiences, how to track success and how to expand my reach — I was only focused on how to create a profit. This resulted in little to no growth and I realized that I wasn’t tracking what was coming in and going out nor did I know who my target audience was. Read more>>

James Hooper

One of the things that heard the most in regards to my music is that “I must have always been able to sing/had the natural talent.” When I first got involved with any form of the entertainment industry, it was through dance. I watched a YouTube video of a song by Jacob Latimore (one of my favorite artists/inspirations to this day), and from that moment, I was inspired to pursue a career in music. Singing was not something I had realistically ever thought of pursuing, but I slowly developed a deep passion for the creative process. From recording, to performing, I fell in love with the experience and gained a lot confidence throughout the journey. Read more>>

Morgan Easley

Simply put, True To You Consulting, LLC. scaled up by scaling down. When we first started, we jumped at the opportunity for every client and every job. While every gig provided us insight and experience, the volume of clients we tried to manage became overwhelming. To this point, each job began to feel like “work”. This is when I knew we would have to pivot or fall into the “regular” category, which is not a part of the vision or mission of this agency. Read more>>

Danittza Zimic.

I became a Fashion Designer after the 2007/2008 crisis and market drop. I was in real estate for 20 years before I took a leap of faith and started believing in myself. For a month after I decided that I couldn’t continue to work on real estate I was speechless and mourning the life I’ve had, my career. This forced me to look into myself and get in touch with my inner little girl with big dreams. In 2007 I did not know even where to start, so I registered in the Arts Institute and decided to listen to my inner voice. Read more>>

Charlette Savoie

The one thing I kept consistent was faith. I knew what my “someday” goal was. I never let go of that image and where I wanted to get to. There were some highs and some lows. With the pandemic and being a small business, it has been pretty shaky and unsure from day to day. Every day I start by imagining my future goal. Knowing that even if just for today I made a social media post or sent one email it was working towards that goal. There are times I was pretty sure things had reached their limit and I may have to give in. Those moments I stepped back, took a few breaths and reminded myself that no matter what, and even if I did not know how I was going to get there, I had a dream. I was not ready to give up in my heart. Read more>>

Nichole Elmore

2One Life Studio has gone from being a boutique fitness studio specializing in virtual fitness experience to opening it’s first store front public boutique fitness studio. Thanks to our time of doing virtual fitness before and during the pandemic, we were able to expand into a brick and mortar space within our own community of Douglasville, GA. It might look simple but there really is a lot of sweat and work we put into everything we do. 2One Life went from being established mid 2019 about 60% in person and 40% virtual to being 100% virtual by May of 2020. With consistency, hard work and dedication the clients came and classes flourished. Read more>>

Sheila Burkett

I started my career at Edward Jones in the Information Systems area while I was going to college at University of MO-St. Louis. I worked my way through school — going to school full-time and working part-time at Edward Jones. I spent 20 years at Edward Jones in the Information Systems area and worked my way up to being a partner in 1999. In 2006, I decided to leave my career at Edward Jones to become an entrepreneur. Read more>>

Robin Young

After two and a half years of vending various weekend markets and seasonal shows in the San Antonio / Austin area, I took a step back to evaluate the status of my rock and crystal shop, True Identity, LLC. Where did my business stand now? Have my sales increased over time? How could I expand my brand to new audiences? Since then, my business has grown and I’d be happy to share a few strategies, tactics, meaningful moments, and obstacles I’ve learned along the way to get to where I’m at now. Read more>>

Zack Humphreys

I started training dogs five years ago. When I began training dogs, I thought it was going to be a stepping stone to make enough money to build my own gym, as this was my passion and goal in life. Unexpectedly, I had a real knack with dog training and as I continued to learn from my mentors in the training business I began to really enjoy it. After two years of studying and learning from my mentors, I started my business, Perfected Canine Obedience. It became an official LLC three years ago. Read more>>

Se’Quan Tutt

Tutt launched his first company, King’s Touch Image Consulting, as a fashion stylist in 2019. He dove right in and took on every responsibility for his company. This provided Tutt with the chance to investigate every requirement for running a successful business. He could now start mentoring other business owners and entrepreneurs on how to start their brand or firm from scratch thanks to this window. Tutt also started making websites and graphics for customers. Read more>>