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.

Lisa Stein

Absolutely!!! I’ve been practicing and focusing on self development for eight years consistently. It was at a retreat with my mentor Danelle Delgado. There were 60 of us that was invited and paid for this opportunity to work with her. Read more>>

Suzy Marrero

I first started this business with an objective to bring something new & fresh to the wedding & creative community. I always had a niche for design& creating. Even as a little girl at the age of 12 I was rearranging furniture in my mom‘s house. Read more>>

Tacana Henry

I started Tacana’s Kitchen in January of 2015. Here’s how and why,… After being diagnosed with Lupus Rheumatoid Arthritis and Raynauds Syndrome in 2001 and being told I’d never see the age of 30 I truly felt motivated me to prove all of my physicians wrong! That’s exactly what has happened! Read more>>

Elmira Lilic

I started to do my own healing work about 9 years ago when I found myself in depression very unsatisfied with my life. I was working in tech finance, accomplished so much in the year that I lived in Los Angeles but was completely unfulfilled with everything about myself and my life. Read more>>

Cherie Kephart

I’ve always wanted to be a writer, ever since I was a young girl roller skating up and down Venice beach listening to the soundtrack of Xanadu on my bright-yellow Walkman. Read more>>

Kerry & April Maunus & George

We came up with the idea for Turkey on the Table during walks after preschool drop off.. We both love Thanksgiving and the idea of getting together with family and friends with no expectations besides food and quality time together. Read more>>

Laurie Necco

A longtime good friend of mine, Toni, reached out to me around the Christmas season of 2017, asking if I knew where she could buy a Die Hard Christmas card. Read more>>

Terri Otuechere

My vision for Sacred Blue Rose LLC unfolded as if by fate’s design ,a long-awaited dream realized .With innate gifts refined through expert tutelage ,the fruits of my labor have now emerged. Read more>>

Dr Troy Hall

Back in 2018, I began thinking about what did I want to do during the “second half” of my career. There wasn’t an issue or a problem, just long-range thinking. I was in a chief strategy officer position, had finished both my MBA and PhD, and considered, “What’s next?” Read more>>

Blue June

When I first began to learn about tarot I wasn’t a true believer. My interest in witchcraft and divination courses was purely academic, or so I thought. But my first teacher saw promise and encouraged me to develop my intuition and I was changed pretty much overnight. Read more>>

Jasmine Frazier

The original name of Shades of Diane came along when I began my journey for the love of houseplants in 2020. During that time there was a world-wide pandemic. People were ordered to stay inside and traveling was limited. Read more>>

Xochitl Lopez

The idea for Las Chingonas Market began during my time as a small business owner navigating the world of pop-up markets. While I was no stranger to these events, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something crucial was missing—a well-thought-out marketing plan and reliable guidance from the organizers. Read more>>

Tayla Chenelle

It’s funny, really, how the idea of being a blogger came about. I had just started my first “big girl job” straight out of college, and a coworker of mine introduced me to her fashion blog. Read more>>

Brandon-Iszaiah J. Gatewood

My life as a creative started when I was about five or six years old in a hospital bed. I was born with a couple of birth defects that resulted in the need of a liver transplant which I received at the age of two with my mother as my donor. Read more>>

James Woodert

The mission of the Global Music Exchange Nonprofit is to foster cultural understanding and collaboration through the universal language of music. Read more>>

Renee Cash

If I am being honest, I didn’t come with the idea, the idea has been who I am for as long as I can remember. I was the youngest child of a chef, my mother. Raied in Texas she choice me to go with her when she did parties or events. Read more>>

Kara Vendel

MM Lidl Co. was born in 2020, the same year my son was born. He was actually born on January 1st – what I thought was going to be the best year ever quickly took a turn with the pandemic, a racial reckoning, a massive political divide and the country quite literally was on fire. Read more>>

Sarah Simpson

Woodland Wanderland (with an “a” like Wanderlust) was created in 2022 and was inspired by the work I had previously done as an Anasazi Trail Walker. Read more>>

Margaret Kerr-Jarrett

I always had this vague idea that I wanted to combine my love and talent for creative writing, specifically poetry, with work in the commercial world. Because there was no conventional model I could follow, building a career took years of trial and error. Read more>>

Briana Means

The idea for Yard Culture Co. was born out of observation of the inequality in the availability of products catering to the diverse needs of each of the divine nine organizations. Read more>>

Baily Cowart

My elementary school sent home a letter asking for donations for our nurses office to support students that may have accidents and did not have access to a change of clothes. I asked my parents why the school would ask for things like this. Read more>>

Brandon Thomas

After 4 years of professional basketball and 5 years of training at big box gyms, I decided that I wanted to merge the 2. A gym that caters to adult fitness but also caters to youth athletes. Read more>>

Gabriela Rodrigues

I always wanted to have a business, but I didn’t know exactly what to do. At the time, I was an air traffic controller at a major Brazilian airport. I was very stressed by the routine in the control tower and experienced a big loss in my family. Read more>>

Taryn Jerdon

The Making of MMU (Memphis Made University) MMU didn’t start off as a media company. After I had my son at 19 I was constantly thinking of ways to make money without going to “work”. Read more>>

Eboni Jones

I am a licensed cosmetologist that specializes in braid services. Not just any braid services – healthy hair braid services. What inspired this idea for me is being a second generation cosmetologist, I grew up around hair and learning how to provide healthy hair care. Read more>>

Sarah Hopkins

I was in the darkest point of my life when I started One Pink Cookie. Everything about my life, except for my kids and my core values had changed. Read more>>

Lindsey Smith

Introducing Austin Glitter Bar | The Ultimate Mobile Glitter Experience It all started with my love for glitter. As a child, I was always mesmerized by the way glitter sparkled in the light. Read more>>

Jigisha Darbha

Ever since I started my journey with textiles, I have dreamt of creating a space that would offer a calm environment to discover thoughtfully-made, artisanal work that would bring awareness around generational craftsmanship and craft heritage. Read more>>

Katera Bridges

I graduated from college when I was 8 months pregnant with my son back in 2022. I actually pushed and graduated a year early, so that I could be sure that I would finish. Read more>>

Aani Nagaiah + Gage Samaddar

Aani: After playing my flute as a musical volunteer at a memory care hospice facility, I felt as though something was missing— that there was creativity within these seniors that could not be shown through the dull facility that they were in. Read more>>

Kammika Lewis

My mother has 6 children, and we are a very close nit family. We celebrate everything together. During the Global Pandemic, we were socially distant and could not gather together to celebrate. Read more>>

Daryl Smith Sr

Our story In 2011, Daryl Smith started his first business, Wing Xpress, a mobile Foodtruck based in Houston Texas. Graduating from Texas Southern University with a Bachelor’s degree in Business Marketing. Read more>>

Alya Dabas, Yara Akhrass

Inspired by our Syrian heritage and reflecting our personal experiences and childhood memories, AWTANI embodies our shared vision to fuse culture and style. Read more>>

Monica Rojas

BoxFit Queens was founded in January of 2022. It was inspired by my background as a competitive boxer back in 2011 where I stepped in the ring for the first time to compete in a Goldens Gloves boxing tournament and I received my first championship. Read more>>

Cory Cunningham

My extended family and I needed lawn care for various properties that we own. We proceeded to hire a lawn care provider and the bill was a little more than I wanted to pay. Read more>>