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.

Sheila Vasquez

I have written two children’s books; “Play Outside, Let’s Go!” and most recently, “Travel to Grow”, which will be released at the end of this year. The inspiration for my books is my daughter and co-author, Jazara Jones. To explain how this love of writing and becoming an author started, first, I will share that I went to culinary school for my undergraduate studies at Johnson & Wales University. Cooking was always my first passion. For years people have asked me to write a cookbook and it’s something that I said I would do in this lifetime, become an author. But it was not until I had my daughter and I saw the excitement in her eyes and the smile on her face every time she picked up a book, that made me say to myself, ok, I need to do this. Read more>>

Benjamin Long

After moving back from Warrensburg and finishing school, I found myself in the middle of switching directions career wise. At that point, I didn’t know what to do with my life; wasn’t finding any jobs in my field of study, didn’t have a passion for it anymore as well. Shortly after moving back home, I started a warehouse job as a union laborer. It’s a great job, pays well and good benefits; but I knew I didn’t want to be working here for 30 more years of my life. Nothing wrong with the job, I just knew I needed to find something that I was passionate about, challenge me, and motivate me to grow as a person. Read more>>

Melissa Mor

I knew I wanted to start a business, specifically an online store. Fashion & jewelry has always been my passion. I was a buyer for many years in designer women’s ready to wear & knew this was my next step. I started working on a mommy & me line of clothing and realized it was way too complicated & costly with all the different size ranges I would need to produce. I spent a good 5 months debating over what business to start. Ideas would pop in my head constantly but they weren’t the “one.” Fast forward to May of 2021 I was about 7 months pregnant with my daughter. We were on vacation in Hilton Head & I asked my husband what I was getting for a push present. Read more>>

Kelly Perkins

I came up with the idea of starting the KMP nail salon because I have seen the missing piece of nail care. It all started when I was in Cosmetology school, we were working on nail theory. We were discussing how we’ve entered into certain salons that were not doing the correct infection control or sanitation for all clients. As a young girl, I’ve never seen them do full sanitation or use new and clean implements on each client. Once I realized that was a concern for all my family and friends, I knew need something had to change. I came up with the idea to focus on nail care meaning once you enter the salon, you will feel the culture “It’s time to relax” meaning you will be greeted by your name and must sign your name. Read more>>

Kathryn Beamon

I am a licensed teacher and worked in public education for 13 years. I never dreamed I would own my own business – I thought I would always work in public education. The Science Guys of San Diego is a franchise of the parent company, the Science Guys of Nashville. I first met the Science Guys of Nashville in 2014 and began working part-time for them in 2016. I loved their styled of making science fun, and I enjoyed working for them every summer for six years. In 2022, my husband and I moved to California and started the Science Guys of San Diego franchise! Teaching is my passion, and I now I get to teach my favorite subject, Science, every day! Read more>>

Ali Hartwig

ALI: It all started in the summer of 2021. At the time, I was working as a Partnerships and Content Manager for a protein bar company, and after the craziness of 2020, I needed a change of direction, so I quit my job and went back to freelancing. I instantly called Caroline to tell her the good news, and it turned out that she quit her full time job the same day! Within the week, Caroline flew out to meet me in San Diego and we packed the car, grabbed all the snacks, downloaded all the playlists and hit the road for the month. Read more>>

Caroline Turner

In April 2022, I was working as a social worker in the Developmental Behavioral Pediatric Clinic (DBP) in Austin, Texas. I was hosting yet another failed support group attempt because only two parents had shown up. Towards the end of our brief, “group” one of the parents said to me, “I only attended this group in the hopes to find another family nearby who also has a child with autism.” I nodded and felt frustrated that I could not offer a solution. I had heard this request repeatedly for years. I always thought a matching system would be easy and crucial for families and autistic adults to connect. As I jumped off the call, I thought, “You know what, I’ll just do it.” And so, Quirky Buds was born. Read more>>

Jacqueline Nova (Jablonski)

People ask me this question a lot, how did you become a psychotherapist or did you always know you wanted to be a “shrink”…? lol. The reality is it is never one thing, right? My entire life I have been following my gut. There were times I knew exactly what me next step was going to be and other times I took a leap of faith. Some experiences that I felt might’ve been mistakes later turned out to be the best decision I ever made. I tended bar for many years in my youth and that profession taught me a lot about human nature and got me comfortable with learning about peoples stories. After that, I became a school teacher. Read more>>

Alexis Ward

The Cat Pharm was born out of the idea to merge my passions with my experience. It has truly been a work in progress and has evolved many times, which I think is amazing, because we want our love of cats and cannabis to meet the people’s likes and interests. My background is finance and accounting, I spent the last 13 years as an accountant for a few different organizations and learned that I had a knack for operations. This afforded me the opportunity to not only strengthen my skills in accounting but also to experience how the whole of operations is connected. I truly believe in a whole of systems approach and being able to bridge gaps in the corporate world between departments, interests, and change management has become an invaluable skill. Read more>>

Patrick Gremillion

The idea behind, The Patty-G Show, was born out of a need to promote my own city. While I attended LSU, a majority of my classmates kept telling me they wanted to leave Baton Rouge and go to another big city in order to, “make it”. While I knew there was tremendous opportunity within our own city, they felt otherwise. While reflecting on this idea that Louisiana has so much to offer, I noticed there was a gap in the content created around this idea. I knew of business owners doing great things in the community, but not everyone else did. Read more>>

Sava Ramirez

I was 24 years old and had barely had my second child. At that moment since I had a newborn baby I was obsessed with YouTube . I would watch allot of “What’s in my diaper bag video. So I was also obsessed with having a few different diaper bags. So one day I decided to start filming videos of my own. So i started with “ What’s in my diaper video and I did video as my daughter grew and show essentials things as needed by age. Then the time of me not needing a diaper bag came . So I thought to myself what should I film about ? So I came across a makeup tutorial video. And that made me realize the love I had for makeup. Read more>>

Ane Gyllstrøm

I have a number of acquaintances in various active environments. Some in snowboard, some skate or surf. I’ve always loved gathering people and organizing hangouts, but I got tired of sending different messages to all these people every time I wanted to do hang out – so, I created a group message on Facebook. Read more>>

Carmella Alvaro

I grew up in a traditional Italian-American family in Syracuse, NY. I was the first in my family to be born in the United States and after I moved to North Carolina, I longed for a connection to the country every other member of my family was from. After years of watching my mother, Giuseppa, make homemade Italian food from what my father, Giuseppe, grew in his garden, I wanted to share the Italian tradition of food made from scratch with care and served with love to family and friends. At the time there weren’t many people making fresh pasta in the area – a lot of restaurants do now though we are the only company focused solely on making fresh pasta and nothing else – so I saw I as an opportunity to share Italian food and culture with my new southern neighbors. I travelled to Bologna, Italy to supplement the Southern Italian cooking lessons of my mother and learn the Northern Italian tradition of fresh pasta making. Read more>>

Takenya Varner

I came up with the idea of my Creative Business from an unexpected Set-up that took place that was a negative experience for me , Especially living my everyday life . Not only was is hard for me to live a everyday normal life after that Situation, it was hard for me to trust others , as far as Social media, I now feel as if others are putting me in harms way just off of that one situation. It put me in the state of fear. Read more>>

Kala Williams

I chose the path of digital entrepreneurship because I was exposed to a space where people were making millions of dollars from their phone from trading and network marketing. I fell in love with trading and dedicated years to studying and learning the skill. However my passion lies in mental health advocating and helping people. I knew that by mentoring people in trading I could relieve some of their mental stress and expose them to a new way of life and general wealth building. I also decided to create journals, digital content, and affirmation decks for combating mental health issues. Read more>>

Maria Salazar

This journey began about five years ago when I came across one of my life passions: empowering and representing our Colombian women artisans of the Wayuu tribe. About a year ago, I started nurturing my passion for entrepreneurship through these artisans by understanding their traditions. I decided to advocate for these women because of their lack of resources to do so, but even then, they still do more for their community than people can see or know. Read more>>

Nia Johnson-Jones

I am a board-certified emergency medicine physician. I practiced in Houston, TX and the surrounding areas for 13 years. While I loved so many things about the field, it was not good for my quality of life. I had two small children and a husband with an equally demanding job. The nights, holidays, weekends, and shift work were brutal on a growing family. After I had my second child in 2011, I lost. a considerable amount of weight. Losing fat in my face contributed to premature signs of aging. As a result, I went to see my Dermatologist who suggested fillers to restore facial volume. I walked out of the office confident, but I thought, “I would love to do that!” Read more>>

Unoma Nwankwor

I’m a first generation Nigerian-American and I incorporate a lot of my culture into my writing. One top that remains prevalent in many African cultures is the pressure parents sometimes put on their kids to get married. A little before New Year’s Eve in 2021, I was talking to a friend of mine who was under such pressure, and she had no potential spouse in sight. After we laughed about how awkward the holidays were, I happened to wonder about how such pressure would play out for a man. The next day I was on X formerly Twitter and the first Tweet I saw was from a guy asking someone to be their pretend date for Christmas. Read more>>

Aston & Sierra Anglin-Stone

Aston’s POV: Growing up I ate everything and was an athlete almost all of my life. I ended my athletic career in Track and Field at A&T University and even though I was no longer working out, I still had the same eating habits. Those eating habits quickly turned into minor health issues; pre diabetes, elevated cholesterol, weight gain, cavities. I needed to change my life ! Healing starts from the inside out so the first step was changing my mindset which lead to me changing the things I ate. I went on a 30 day juice cleanse. It was the hardest thing I have ever put my body through but I was determined to break habits and start over. Read more>>

Laura Franchini

In 2008 after I graduated high school I got a job at Costco. I would walk by the electronic section all the time and just check out the cameras, eventually I bought my first camera and I didn’t really have any knowledge on how to use it or why I even wanted it I was just fascinated and wanted a camera. I would always take my camera with me and just take random photos. I started college and was taking photography classes so I was learning the basics of film, digital, and studio photography. My cousin was pregnant at the time and I asked if I could take her maternity photos to see if that was a direction I wanted to go in. I bought a white backdrop and stand off amazon and set it up in my living room and did my cousins photos and they turned out pretty good for it being my first time. Read more>>