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.

Alyssa Ege

When I was just starting out, I was still working a full-time job to make ends meet. I had extensive experience in performance marketing and website development, but little to none in sales or running a business. I focused on delivering the few clients that I had outstanding results, and in turn, referrals came in organically. Unfortunately, that wasn’t enough to scale or even to reach the $10K/month mark. Read more>>

Tanya Gagnon

I first started my design business at the same time my husband went back to school to get his law degree. He had moved out of state to allow him to do this, so I knew I needed a predictable income—which is how I ended up building my business while working full time as a bartender. Read more>>

Maryland Evangelista

My weddings & events planning business didn’t grow overnight. I started as an event helper to this successful woman in this business that does big scale events. One day she told me that I can be an event planner because I possess the skills of an organizer. I was hesitant at first because I was very young at the age of 22 and I do not have a professional experience by that time but I guess one day I woke up and I said to myself that maybe I can do it. Read more>>

Lisa Botts

I had been in the industry for about seven years when I began to become disillusioned with the way the big firms that I had worked for treated their customers and their employees. I don’t know if it’s something about being huge, or about being publicly traded…but the founder’s vision for these companies was no where near what was still being provided and as a middle manager who really was not in a position to effect meaningful change in such large companies, I began to envision myself running my own company and treating the customers, and my employees with respect. Read more>>

Donovan Hollis

I started selling barbeque in 2019 however I’ve been working a grill for as long as i can remember. I didn’t start wanting to be a caterer. I just really like feeding people. As more people wanted me to cook for them; i realized the potential to make this a living. I signed on to the Semper Fi fund mentorship program to help me figure out a direction. They helped me to figure out that i need goals. Read more>>

Erick Oluoch

Being your own boss and or having to make your own business decisions is tricky and scary but at the same time in order to improve and scale up changes had to be made , I was always thinking if I wanted to do this (DJ) full time but with no accomplishments under my belt as a Dj I had to prove myself to many club promoters, event organizers and many more, so I started making mixtapes and trying to push them through radio and other music platforms which helped to get noticed by some of the People mentioned above. Read more>>

Lisa Hladish

I love this question because quite honestly, I never wanted to have a business, let alone scale one up. I accidentally started Paper Daisies when I got married and could not find an invitation suite that fit the vision I had in my head. My mom, Glory, and I decided to design and make our own wedding stationery. Read more>>

Moira Vetter

Scaling up is a big deal and, when I contributed to Forbes, I realized how difficult it is for women. Most national sources of data lag a few years, but the numbers I remember are 90% of women-owned businesses employ only the founder. That says to me, that women know how to start businesses, but 90 percent of them need inspiration and support along the road to scaling. Read more>>

Cristal Malek

I started freelancing as a natural light outdoor photographer. When I decided I wanted to take this further and turn it into a career I had to research what it would take to make that happen. It was a lot of information to gather and more of a shock understanding the actual costs that goes into being a full time photographer. Read more>>

Fletcher Roberts

Scaling up as an entrepreneur can be very difficult. Most people think of scaling up from the position of an employee, taking part in their company’s mission to reach more clients through cold calling and advertisements in attempts to sell more of their products or services. Doing this on your own as a small business owner or independent contractor can be very time consuming and extremely challenging. Read more>>