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.

Krystina Bailey Brawer

I came up with the idea for my book, “Actors! What You Need to Know Before Moving to LA,” because as an actor, I didn’t have a blueprint to follow for my creative process.. The more I immersed myself in the knowledge of what it took to be an actor in Los Angeles, the more I found people reaching out to me about my success. Somehow I became that “expert” that I wished I had once had for myself. Read more>>

Phoenix Gonzalez

They say every great product is born out of a necessity and that is how The Silked Pillwo Sleeve™ was born. Through the mother of invention, I solved a problem for myself that became a thing in 2018. In my early 40’s my hair started greying and breaking and I kept complaining that I needed to do something. So I started researching hair care ideas and I kept being led back to Silk Pillowcases. The biggest thing I kept reading and hearing was that sleeping on silk is slippery and a lot of women complained that it slides off in the night so they weren’t getting the real benefits. So I decided to tie one of my large vintage silk scarf around my pillow to see how I liked sleeping on silk. Well, every morning for about a week I would wake up and the scarf would be bunched up instead of sliding off. Finally, my husband looked at me and said why don’t you make yourself something. Read more>>

Damon Taylor

We came up with the idea for Octobod during the pandemic lockdown. One day, I ran out of shave cream and couldn’t wait for one to arrive in the mail, so my wife Kim made one for me using just a few natural ingredients. Turned out to be such an amazing shave, I really questioned why I previously used a terrible product that came in the form of a blue gel that made my face feel tight and dry. Or why I used shampoo that contained hormone disrupting chemicals. Or why I used any old deodorant from the drug store with equally nasty ingredients. Women tend to be much better educated when it comes to steering clear of parabens, phthalates, SLS and so on. Read more>>

Mariel Siverio

Getting into photography was a big part of me of capturing special moments. Started with landscaping, random strangers, and after I had children they were the main reason why I wanted to capture every moment. Read more>>

Judy Stakee

First let me start off by saying that I believe songwriters are a national treasure; they write songs! I mean can you imagine a world without being able to play your favorite song when you are feeling low, to comfort you? I refuse to and believe my purpose is to protect and nurture songwriters so they can do what they do so beautifully. I came up with the idea of my company out of necessity in 2005 when I saw the music business starting to crumble around me and the effect it was having on my songwriters. Read more>>

Melinda Markulis

I had no intention on starting this business. In fact if you were to ask me if I would ever be a business owner I would have responded with intimidation. Ive always been an ambitious person with a natural skill and want to lead, but something in my subconscious would always give me some kind of restriction when it came to those kind of goals. Goals that included owning my own money and having control of it. How my dance company became a business was totally unexpected. I had spent almost of my entire 20s in Los Angeles California working in entertainment as a dancer, model, host and production assistant. At the end of 2021 I decided to move to where my family is located, Buffalo New York. I grew up in that small city and this is where I developed my love for entertainment. Read more>>

Israel Deutsch

My full-time career is in law enforcement. A widow of an officer who died in the line of duty asked if I could build her a flag out of a used fire hose that she had. After building that fire hose flag, a local fire department saw the flag and wanted one. This is where Crafty American was born. We evolved our products based on customer needs or requests. Since starting our company in 2018, we have over 10 products and now we even have a whole candle line. Read more>>

Fawn Young

In the spring of 2021, I decided to quit a toxic job and focus on my personal life which was suffering at the time. I’m not saying that my life was hurting, but I was hurting from being stressed out day in and day out. This was taking a toll on me. So, needless to say, I wasn’t much fun for my loved ones to be around me at that time; especially my husband. I would come home every day complaining. He finally asked me to quit. So, I did. I looked for a job for awhile but positions were scarce in the small town where I live. That’s when my husband came up with an idea that would change my course of professionalism. Read more>>

Snehee Chaplot

After a personal health scare, I developed severe gluten allergies and several food sensitivities. It became very difficult for me to find affordable, delicious food that did not make me sick. I ultimately took matters into my own hands. In August 2019, I launched Gallivant Mawa Ice, using MaahVaah branded milk solids. Our ice creams are made using Ayurvedic principles of dairy farming and processing. We cook milk and mawa (Indian Milk Solids) together at 175°F for more than 3 hours, compared to the traditional process that ran for 30 minutes at 165°F. This cooking process helps reduce the harmful properties of milk that elevate lactose intolerance. Read more>>

John Barnes

Since I was younger, I’ve always been fascinated by money. I used to count my money almost every night with my coin wrapping machine. However, I also grew up hearing about everyone else’s money troubles, which prompted me to become financially adept at a young age. That said, because I naturally had money to loan out I would lend money to friends and family. It wasn’t until about 2019 when I read “Rich Dad Poor Dad” by Robert Kiyosaki that I realized I had been doing it all wrong. Robert tells us that if we loan money out then we should get a return on it (period). Reading that got my wheels turning, because, well, why not? If I’m providing a service then I should have a return on this as well. Read more>>