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.

Jennifer Harkins

As an avid runner, I realized after running my fifth marathon that I needed to add strength training to my training regime. As a busy mom of five, I struggled with finding the time to get my runs in let alone adding in strength training. I wished there was a place that I could go to get both. I began to develop the idea of a fitness business that combined from community members. Treadfit Beverly opened in August of 2015 and quickly became a success. Offering fifty minute classes from certified instructors that combined interval training on the treadmill and strength training in an upbeat environment, Treadfit filled a need within the community. Read more>>

Emma Macdonald

The Tartan Blanket Co. is a sustainable lifestyle brand focusing on design-led, natural woven scarves, blankets and accessories. Based online and in our hometown of Edinburgh, Scotland, we are a Positive Impact company dedicated to sharing warmth. On the surface, our brand has grown year after year scaling to a team of nearly 50 people, being stocked in hundreds of stores and sharing thousands of moments of warmth around the world. However, the journey has been far from smooth and there have been a number of twists, turns and significant challenges which we have faced to get us to where we are today. Read more>>

Maria & Lane Koch

Our investing journey began in 2015. When Maria graduated from nursing school and bought her first home. She decided to rent out the spare rooms to her friends and began a strategy called “house hacking”. House hacking is when you buy a property and rent out parts of it so you essentially have no out of pocket mortgage costs per month. Lane (her friend at the time) also decided to do this in early 2016. Read more>>

Amber Brown

As business owners, we are subject to error because we are human, however GOD’s word declares in Hosea 4:6 “My people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge”. For a few years as a new business owner, I spent hundreds of dollars on storing up on products for my business, that I had no knowledge on how to market. I spent month after month and year after year, wondering why my business was at a standstill. After days and even hours of praying consulting GOD on what I was doing wrong, Read more>>

Sara Parkent

Trying to find a job in the field after school is not easy especially when everyone wants to hire someone with experience. I had a few dead end interviews and a few trainings to see if I was a good fit that never progressed more than that. I was able to finally get myself a reception job at a small local spa which felt like my ticket in to hopefully be able to start offering esthetic services. They had carried a skin care line that I was passionate to use so I was really excited and grateful to be there. Read more>>

Tee The Superior Shop

You know like with every business it starts out with challenges especially in the fashion industry. The Superior Shop has been around many years because of relationships that I’ve built with local celebrities that have now grown to be some of the biggest stars worldwide. I’ve styled big names like T.I. to our Memphis native MoneyBagg before the fame. I can humbly say that I waited my turn. Read more>>

Devin Nunez

Starting Bella Vi Beauty was never scary for me, I had the ambition and the passion to be a business owner and I went for it. Bella Vi Beauty is named after my daughter, Viviana. She puts the ‘Vi’ in Bella Vi. I also knew I wanted ‘beauty’ in the name as well to give myself a broad scope of services, and not just limiting myself to my own specialty which is brows. Read more>>

Dawn Huston

I made a huge leap of faith to make a long time dream possible in the summer of 2019. I was a boutique salon owner in Bucktown, Chicago for close to 20 years to make the radical transition to a Restaurant Owner in the Indiana Dunes National Park?! I survived our first season and we were spending the winter planning for a less chaotic 2020 when as you already can predict—Covid took out plans and basically tossed them out of the door. Read more>>

Frank Tovar

When I first started with the company we were a very ambitious firm small in stature with a lot of heart. The vision was always to grow into a larger organization that would have multiple divisions that were very profitable and lucrative. One of the biggest challenges is not having the blueprint to scale the business due to the very niche segment that we are within real estate investing. Where does one start without a Read more>>

Taylor Bento

Like many crocheters, I started my small business on Etsy. I sold bags and custom items. Everything was made to order. Sales were great some weeks. I would crochet like crazy to get everything finished. Then other other weeks I would have ZERO sales. The inconsistency was frustrating. Read more>>

Ericka Scott

I started doing makeup at the young age of sixteen. At the time, I was one of the youngest entrepreneurs in my city. Maybe the only teenage makeup artist on the Kansas City, MO side. So, as most could imagine it was hard for me at first to build clientele and prove to people that I was capable of doing great work. Yet, I had supportive parents who pushed me no matter what. My mother taught me to be a leader and to simply be kind from an early age. Read more>>

Heather Taft

When I think of scaling up in anything, I ponder on what it would take to achieve what it is I’m trying to do and how to get there. I let my mind wander as much as it needs through brainstorming, writing down any notes and ideas I come up with even if I don’t know where to start or make sense of it at the moment. Then I make a map of what I came up with and put it together into real-life goals both big and small. Technology has become such a valid resource. I use Facebook groups and Instagram hashtags to research content and networking opportunities. Read more>>

Nick Davis

I’ve been djing for over 10 years now and when I first started it was very much so small scale, pipe dream. I felt like being successful at DJing was the same as going to the NBA or NFL, it was a cool idea but no way it’d actually happen. Fast forward in my career as I became older and started to grow, I figured out this could be a serious future for me, so I began taking it more seriously. I literally stopped all my extra activities, no more high school sports, clubs, etc. all I did was practice. Read more>>