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.
Grace Sorrells
When I bought my first camera back in 2016 never in my wildest dreams did, I see myself where I am today. I often ask myself, how it grew so fast? This fun hobby I did just “because” now is a business that people all over the country know of. That “middle phase”, that many seem to overlook in my journey, I feel is the key to all the success I have had. How did I do it? During my final semester as a senior in high school, I had the decision to make on if being behind the camera was what I wanted to do. Read more>>
Teresa Mercsak
Unifier Entertainment was created as a hobby project back in 2005 with my bestie, Katya, and we only started to get serious about the business a few years later once the clients became a little bigger. At one point, I had to decide whether or not Unifier would become a full-time business for me, which would require me to quit my career as a college English instructor. I loved teaching, but I loved creating more. In 2016; I fully acquired the business from my business partner, decided to “go big or go home,” and leapt off the career cliff. Read more>>
Sarah Brehant
Answering this question is really embarrassing, but hoping that it helps someone else, I’m happy to share. I started my wedding planning business with absolutely no experience (do not try this at home!) After finding a deep love for planning and design while planning my own wedding, the planner I had hired asked me to team up with her. I joined her for a short season then said my goodbyes when I realized this person was not trustworthy. Read more>>
Keara Hunter
It seems crazy looking back because I would have never dreamed of my Real Estate Career growing the way it has. March 2018, my friend Holiday called me to tell me about her new real estate journey with Keller Williams plus my husband, dad and brother in law always encouraged me to do it. July 9th, 2018 we officially moved to Alabama into our temporary housing while our house was being built. Read more>>
Tiffany Combs
Wow, where do I start? It definitely has not been a smooth road and I have encountered MULTIPLE struggles along the way. The bumpy road began at the start of my journey when I was faced with the option of leaving my corporate full-time job in order to my follow my dreams – something a lot of people would never do because of the unknowns of life. However, after much thought and prayer, I made the hardest decision of my life (which later became the best decision of my life) and quit my job to follow my heart and passion. Read more>>
Griselda Ortega
It started as a hobby of mine, I love planning and decorating my planner with stickers and journaling cards. I then realized, there was a whole planner community on instagram! So that’s just what i did, I created a instagram for my planner. I know it sounds silly. That was my dirty little secret for a while, nobody knew but my husband. Overtime my page started to grow. Read more>>
Lola and Yolanda
We began Pawlicious Cookies back in September 2021, and it all began with an idea. Since we noticed that there were not any healthy and non-preservative treats out there on the shelf at local pet stores, we decided to do research and began baking our own with handcrafted ingredients made from scratch. From the launch of our small business, we scaled up quickly by spreading our mission on social media and in person- “inspire all dog lovers to provide their fur babies the best non-preservative treat.” Read more>>
Maritza Luna
When I first started my business I ran with what everyone wanted me to do. I didn’t listen to my gut and ideas that I had coming forward. Read more>>
Lori Sartain
When I originally started doing nails, I was working for a salon in Midvale, a small city on the outskirts of Salt Lake City, Utah. From the beginning I was booth rent and self employed but I still showed up open to close 6 days a week and waited for walk-ins. I would spend my free time watching other nail techs work. There was around 15+ girls working at any given time. Read more>>
Ellie McKinney
Although I had a history of experimental photography and videography throughout my childhood, I truly began photographing others in 2011. Once my work was posted to Facebook more regularly, I started to get friends asking if I could photograph them and their major events. After taking on sessions and weddings over the following years, I decided that balancing photography and my full-time job had just become too much. Read more>>
Eric Johnson
When we formed our business plan, starting small and growing organically were always our goal. We have been producing beer for just over 4 years. Here is what our first year looked like. In August 2018 we began producing beer for the first time. We had a very small (3 barrel / ~125 gal) brewing system with 4 inexpensive plastic fermentation tanks. Read more>>
Krysta Jones
In 2020 when the pandemic hit I had recently relocated to Texas for a bit as I have been pivoting towards new markets to help navigate the Cannabis Indsutry. When the pandemic hit the Cannabis Space was deemed essential which was great however marketing and the clients I had just spent so much time working to build with had to put alot of the services I did on hold to be able to with stand the current situation at hand. Read more>>