A dad can’t find a bakery to make a birthday cake that can accommodate his daughter’s allergy-related needs. Two freelancers realize they need a way to organize all of their client contracts and can’t find software that adequately handles their use case. Necessity is often hailed as the mother of innovation – but not all ideas come from necessity. Unfortunately, in our experience, often media coverage of the ideas that powered amazing businesses and projects often stops at a very superficial level. The founders noticed a need and boom – idea. Often the ideation process has a much longer, more complex story and so we’ve asked some entrepreneurs and creatives we admire to go into detail about their ideation stories.
Lea Satterfield
Even though I had studied estate planning and fully understood the importance of an estate plan, having two small kids wasn’t motivating to dive into creating a well-documented estate plan. It took living through a pandemic, and seeing people we knew of pass from such an unplanned illness, that motivated my spouse and I to really create an estate plan to ensure our daughters were taken care of if the worst were to happen. Read more>>
Katelyn Carpunky
Moonchild Jewelry Co. technically got its start in July of this year. One day I decided that being on my phone so much (I’m also an influencer) was causing me a lot of stress and anxiety so I needed an escape. I walked into Michael’s and bought a few beads to start making bracelets for myself and after a while my family suggested I make a business out of it. 3 months later, I am shipping about 10 packages a day! Right now I am working on Halloween products…Halloween is my favorite holiday so of course I am going ALL out! Read more>>
Sherrika Myers
I started Every 1 Voice Matters because I wanted to help children tackle the barriers that hinder them from becoming the best version of themselves. I know firsthand how it feels to feel like your voice doesn’t matter. I grew up with a speech impediment and I was teased, laughed at, and ignored, and because of that, I developed low self-esteem and lacked self-confidence. I allowed my speech impediment and what other people thought of me to determine my path throughout my life. Read more>>
Nadine Duncan
Diary of a Traveling Black Woman: A Guide to International Travel was first published in April 2015 using CreateSpace by Amazon. It was my first self-published book. I wrote this book as a general guide to traveling internationally as a Black woman. When I repatriated to the United States after three and a half years abroad, I noticed that many of my coworkers and friends had never traveled outside of the United States. Many of these people were impressed at my choice to live and work abroad along with my travels outside of the US. Read more>>
Angelique Swann
Wow, the story of how I came up with the idea of my business takes me all the way back to the summer between sixth and seventh grade! I remember this like it was yesterday…I was spending the summer with my Dad in Kennewick, Washington. We were driving somewhere and as we passed by a cool salon sign, I said to my Dad “my salon is going to have a black swan on my logo”, and all of these decades later (yikes!) my first logo had a black swan on it. Of course, I ended up having a skincare studio instead of a salon, but that’s another story! Read more>>
Jennifer Owens
It all began with Thanksgiving. In 2008, two Bhutanese families sat around my dining room table, sharing our Thanksgiving meal. After fleeing persecution in Bhutan and living in refugee camps in Nepal for sixteen years, the two families had only been in the United States for just two weeks. They were surprised and thrilled to be with us in our home. “I never thought I’d be in an American’s home,” Dhital said. Read more>>
Carrie Hagee
Storyteller Stylist was started on the premise that women want help with styling but do not have time to spend hours and hours in a mall with a personal stylist. Not only is it super expensive, but being able to carve out that time means they don’t do it. I wanted to reach those women who want a style coach but do not want to spend thousands upon thousands of dollars for styling help. Instead, they want to meet virtually and be able to work on their style in their own time. Read more>>
Marjorie Poff
The idea for Enneaplanner was quite the adventure. First of all, I may have a bit of a planner addiction. Over the years I would spend time going up and down the aisles at office supply stores and Target searching for the perfect planner. After picking one (or several) planners to take home, they would end up on a shelf or in the trash after a few weeks. These planners ended up being too simple or too complex and just didn’t hold my attention. It was so frustrating! I discovered that I wasn’t the only one with this frustration. Read more>>
Gus Angelone
Back in 2004 the Cleveland Browns updated the color of their helmet to “pumpkin orange” & that spawned my idea! Loving the Browns & my favorite holiday Halloween, it was an easy match! Read more>>
Dewi Mayasari
Sewing became an interest for me when I was a young girl from watching my mother sew, whom was a tailor. At first I would make dresses for my dolls by using the scraps of fabric my mom had lying around. As I got older and learned more about handling a needle and thread I branched off into making pillows and tote bags. They would be of children cartoons and animals for kids. I began to realize that my passion was growing for fashion design and I wanted to see what I was capable of. Read more>>
Alex Horwell
The idea of starting Pineapple Cast all came from wanting to promote the music that I loved. Everything started on University of Tampa’s radio station WUTT 1080AM in the spring of 2019. This is where I started a radio show called The Pineapple. The actual origin of finding a successful show started in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania on their radio station, WWEC 88.3. In the spring of 2017, I started two different radio shows: Endless Summer (a show all about summer vibe music that I ran with my roommate/best friend to learn more about how to work the equipment) and The Pump (my main show all about fitness and motivation). Read more>>
Jennifer Lingley
2020 was a year of great trials for our family, as it was for many. For us, it was a year filled with many Doctor visits trying to figure out what was causing my Husband’s body to fail him. He began to lose feeling in his hands, his muscles began to atrophy, and his right arm began to shrink from the muscle loss and the right side of his body wasn’t functioning properly. From the outside he looked like a healthy man, but on the inside things were slowly falling apart. It took months of countless tests and process of elimination in search of a diagnosis. Read more>>
Brittney Roseburrow
In 2009 I started pursuing my degree in Graphic Design. I wasn’t sure what to expect of this experience but I did know my inner self was telling me to go for it. As time went on I started to see my creative thoughts come together in the visual/physical form. I was good at this! I was able to take something simplistic and digitally create the unimaginable without hesitation. Shortly after graduating I started working as a print center associate at OfficeMax and that alone lit a fire in me. I would go to work everyday happy that I could help customers with their printing needs but I was also slightly frustrated because I knew I had so much more creativity to offer. Read more>>
Rondelle Martin
I’m the founder and CEO of Single & Saved in the City, a life group and community for Christian single women. The idea really dates back to when I became pregnant with my son, and I was journeying through single motherhood while desiring to find a community of single women I can do life with. I found pockets of community here or there over the years, but the groups either leaned too much into the business networking side, they didn’t have enough events, or it was difficult to find genuine connections. Read more>>
Jonathan Gill
Honestly, I was stuck in Miami during the COVID lockdown back in the spring of 2020, and I decided I was going to pursue my passion. I feel like that was how a lot of life decisions happened, since many people had the time to reflect on the state of their lives. I was in the military, and I still serve, but I decided I needed to find another professional creative outlet on the side! Thus I started my own video production business, which had always been my life passion from as far back as I can remember. Read more>>
Kayla Zhanellé
Back in 2017 I started my entrepreneur journey and I never limited myself to just one business. The multi hustle brand came from me being the 1 face behind so many different hustles. Nails, graphic design, natural skin care, creative directing/styling, and modeling just to name a few. The goal was to have multiple streams of income, and once I noticed that was a common goal of those around me the brand came to life. Read more>>
Alicia Galvin
I have always wanted to work with people, using diet and nutrition as a way to help their symptoms and health struggles. I just didn’t know anything about integrative and functional nutrition (IFN) when I was going through my conventional dietetics trainings and it wasn’t a topic we were exposed to when I was in school. So after working as a dietitian in a conventional setting for 5 yrs, I had the opportunity to open my own practice and decided it was a good time to make the jump to entrepreneurship! Read more>>
Myah Freeman
As a child, I was always very artistically inclined. But the older I got, the more I began to realize that this was my gift. I was in art shows and won awards. So, there was no doubt about the talent I possessed. In 2015, as a high school freshman, I coined the business name, MyahnArt, and created an Instagram where I began sharing my work. The drawing was my foundation, so with that, I began to draw locals and well-known people in Jacksonville. The funny thing is, I did them for free but we all know that didn’t last long. Read more>>
Veronica Eyenga
We are a nonprofit organization and we were having a difficult time getting significant grants or funding. We had an extra space that we weren’t really utilizing and decided to convert the space into a community space that could be used to host private events and parties. Read more>>
Julia Capallo
A Marvelous Spark started as a summer project after college. The company name stemmed from a belief in everyday inspirations as sparks for creativity. It has evolved to encompass creative outlets in various forms over the years. I initially developed my business for the purpose of selling handmade jewelry and accessories. Most of these items were inspired by my love of food, organic patterns, and bright colors. I often used materials reminiscent of my childhood, including polymer clay, shrink film, and puffy paint. I also enjoyed collecting and repurposing materials. Read more>>
LaVonndra Johnson
Historically our grandmothers skincare regimen consisted of Vaseline, that’s it, nothing else; and traditionally that was passed down many generations, but the environment has changed and we need proper education on skincare. Growing up with oily skin, I feel like I tried all the wrong things before discovering the right thing to do as it pertains to my skin. I used harsh products, wore makeup trying to cover and conceal skin issues, and didn’t take proper care of my skin from the inside in order to accomplish the goal of glowing skin outwardly. Read more>>
Angela Marino
Growing up in the hills of Appalachia, traveling became a real passion of mine. I started at a very early age, leaving home at 17. After becoming a business owner at 21, I would travel every moment I saw possible. My goals in life centered around business and adventure. I loved both. Around ten years ago, I was on a Key West adventure around Thanksgiving when I literally tripped and fell into who is now my husband. Read more>>
Reonda Thompson
During the summer of 2020, I was unemployed and looking for new ways to make money. I was at a crossroads, and was very discouraged. The pandemic had many people,, myself included looking for new, unconventional ways to do things. I decided that I would start a poetry writing service. By doing this, I could use my talent, and share my gift with others. I didn’t know if the idea would work, but I wanted to try. Read more>>
John Lee
It all started with my mom, who at the time owned “College Roadhouse” along with another business owner. Tram and I were living in South Korea. We were teaching and traveling all over Asia. One day, my mother called me up and mentioned that whenever Tram and I were ready to come back, she could use our help. At that time, Tram was pregnant and a lot of my contracts for teaching were at their end, so we decided it was time to come back to Austin. When we got to College Roadhouse, Tram and I put our minds together on how we can market the place so that we can make it thrive and make it one of the coolest places to go to in Austin. Read more>>
Quynh Tran
12 years ago I had my very first nails customer. 6 years ago I took my first lash training. 4 years ago I dreamt about my own salon. 2 years ago Summerville Nails and Lash opened its door and continued to grow bigger. I always dream about a beauty salon that customers walk in and feel like home. I dream about a place where my staff happy to work and be inspiring. I dream about being a successful female Asian business owner. Summerville Nails and Lash is my dream come true. Read more>>
Danielle & Matthew White
Our oldest son Mateus (Tay) was diagnosed with a severe peanut allergy when we was a toddler. Candy, chocolates and desserts have always been a significant component in our family celebrations. When he was diagnosed we were suddenly faced with having to read every label and being extremely cautious with desserts he was able to eat. It was exhausting and disheartening back then. So we decided to take matters into our own hands and make chocolates and confections that were safe for him to eat. We even re-created nostalgic candy bars and chocolates that were peanut free so that he didn’t feel left out. Read more>>
Pamela Green
I feel that the path I began traveling towards creating my present business, Ananda Montessori, began many years ago. In 1981, I first entered a Montessori school, as part of a university course I was taking on education. Being in this environment, experiencing a place created for the child with adults offering guidance as needed, answered a longing I held for how I envisioned serving children and families. I had found a place of self-learning and study, and a few years later I was teaching in my first Montessori classroom. Read more>>
Candy Harris
I believe my book was something God always knew I would write, he was just waiting on my obedience. I was told 11 years ago that I would write a book. Not once, but twice, and by two different people. Both people enjoyed my Facebook posts about my daily life as a mom. I would share the good, bad, and ugly but I always had a way of putting a comical spin on it all. I mean, often times a mother laughs to keep from crying. When this book prophecy was given to me, I laughed at the thought because I was a new mom barely surviving. I couldn’t fathom the idea of writing anything! Read more>>
JaMeka Ramnath
Between working my regular full time job and running my travel blog, travel was no longer an option in 2020 and 2021 during the worldwide Covid-19 lockdowns. So I had a lot of free time while staying at home. I spent that time exploring other hobbies I’ve wanted to try but never had time to do prior to the pandemic. Picking up an iPad and experimenting with the Procreate App is what catalyst the idea to register for an LLC and start my own business. Read more>>
Tara Sahi
Well my husband and I had both lost our regular jobs in 2019/2020. I already had started a business making wire wrapped jewelry but when 2020 happened, my events got cancelled and no one seemed to be buying jewelry at that time. I’ve known how to sew since I was 18, so I thought I’d put my skills to good use and start making face masks out of t-shirts since they were hard to come by. I didn’t realize how much work it was going to be for me. Hundreds of orders were coming in every day and it became overwhelming. Read more>>
Shannon Low
We originally conjured the idea for Greener Tactics after a fallout with a local corporate dispensary. We realized how manipulated and uninformed that MO patients were, so we began to first focus on enhancing the culture and perception of cannabis. Later we found it very rewarding to educate clients on the most productive and user friendly methods of legally cultivating top shelf cannabis at bottom dollar rates. Read more>>
Brittney Dias
Ava & Mae have an interesting origin story. During my last year of college, the pandemic hit. The widespread reckoning in the summer of 2020 allowed me to exercise my passions for social justice and Black liberation in a much bigger way. People were finally listening to the things that Black and Brown people had to say. I landed an internship with a start-up DE&I team to research and develop strategies to combat barriers for Black entrepreneurs. As a student of Public Health and a Child Development researcher, Read more>>
Krys Speaks
I often tell people that Linking All Women is the story of my life. Since I can remember, I’ve been unofficially interviewing women while growing up. Rather they were connected to me by family or community, I would often ask or discover through conversation how they’ve navigated their careers, home life, and beyond. It was my curiosity, thirst for knowledge, and desire to excel in life that would prompt me to ask questions. Their stories became my learning pad to use as a point of reference in my decision-making, relationships, and life experiences as I personally evolved in womanhood, So in 2015, Read more>>
Brandon Titus
As a kid growing up my cousin Devin and I would always lay at the top of my bunk bed and day dream of elaborate restaurants that we would open. Some of the concepts that we thought about were wilder than others, but from that age I knew I wanted to become a restaurant owner. Growing up in Baton Rouge, Louisiana it definitely shaped the type of cuisine that I wanted to offer. Later on in life after graduating culinary school and working in the industry for a while I noticed that it wasn’t a lot of Cajun Creole cuisine in Atlanta, Georgia so I wanted to bring a little bit of home to my local community and that’s how Bourbon St was born. Read more>>
Jack Zimmerman
The reason that I decided to start motivational speaking and write a book was really through the curiosity of others. I shared so many conversations with people giving brief glimpses into my life and into my story and people always seemed fascinated, but also left with a sense of inspiration and motivation after our conversations. I realized that my experience and my words could have a huge impact on people and that really gave me the platform to want to share more, write more, inspire more. Read more>>
Manda Kar
The initial idea for my thematic portrait and fashion business came simply from landing as a creative person in Orlando. The city is renowned for its theme parks, but it’s locals drawn here to live, to be entertained, or to also create here were really the inspiration behind my individualized services. I’m a born creative visionary, but my first experiences in Orlando heightened the bar of capability for me. Inspecting the details of theme park design, taking in atmospheres that enable people to express themselves, observing people interact with “magical” effects or music played throughout a village as if the everyperson were a movie character along on some grand adventure… Read more>>
Shreyas Sonwane
I have spent 5 years studying and working in the US. In these past 5 years, I have learned and grown a lot, both personally and professionally. After finishing my studies, I started to expand my network and market my skills and work. During this process, I realized that my clients were really happy with my creative services and really appreciated my skills. This made me believe in myself, more than ever. Through my network, Read more>>
Matthew Nicholson
The idea of Dim Horizon Studio “as a business” came to me from a very early age. I was raised in a household where we always had some form of creative undertaking underway with most of them maturing to some stage of stable business model. I noticed that all of them usually had their own specialty which then lead to all sorts of complications from a business model perspective. As only a child could decide, I wanted something different that would ultimately allow me to grow as an artist, creative, and business without necessarily tieing me down to a particular sector or product. Read more>>
Keyona Holley
All as a young kid, I’ve always been into lashes . I started wearing lashes as a freshman in high school and often received compliments on the certain style lashes I would wear. I then became so addicted to wearing lashes I would rarely take them off. Going through high school I built a small platform on instagram by taking picture daily. As I entered my senior year in high school I really wanted to work for myself. Read more>>
Brandon Alex
Hey, First and foremost I’d like to thank you guys for the recognition and for also reaching out to get the story. The idea came from just wanting to help independent music artists reach their goals. Artist’s spend a lot of money yearly chasing their dream a feeling I’m familiar with being that I’ve been heavily into music at a point in my life. My love for music will never die it’s something that’s kinda embedded in you when you have a passion for a certain thing you’ll never give up. I always vowed to myself to stay close to music anyway possible which sparked the idea to start a platform welcoming artists from all over the world. Read more>>
Trenika Matthews
The idea for my blog was so random. I didn’t really know what blogging was at the time. It had been a little over a year since I graduated from college, I was trying to figure out who I wanted to be. (I still am Lol) I was volunteering and trying to find passion and purpose. I was serving my community and being productive, but I still felt lost. It was a struggle. Nothing I was doing felt right. Then one day, a friend I was working with (she had started a nonprofit) sent me to a blogger workshop. Read more>>
Gili Mor
I am originally from Isreal which is where a lot of diamonds originally come from. My father was actually a diamond cutter so I have diamonds and jewelry in my DNA. I moved to the United States of America to pursue my career as a wholesale diamond dealer. Before we opened Diamond Exchange Houston to the public I traveled to the major cities of the USA including Miami, New York City, San Diego, Denver, Dallas, Boston, San Fransisco and others to buy and sell diamonds to large wholesalers who serviced many of the jewelry stores in their cities. Read more>>
Michael Balko
The idea of a podcast came in April of 2020 when I was setting for Instagram Live Q&A’s on a popular Instagram page that I grew to 34,000 followers. My wife, actually, was the one who straight up told me to make a podcast for people to listen on their own pace- to which I agreed and she helped me set everything up! The rest is history. Read more>>
Alexandria Jeffrey
Empress Locs & Braids LLC grew from love and a previous relationship I was in. I was dating a man who was affiliated with the Rastafarian culture and it was my duty to groom his crown. He taught me how to clean his locs properly, how to twist and braid them. This is where Empress Locs & Braids originated from. While learning these skills, I never knew it would transform me into a loctician and a successful business owner. As time went on, I was working at a call center, but I was so unhappy because I was underpaid and overworked. I had to find something else to do. Read more>>