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.

Elina Tarkazikis

I’m a New Jersey native and moved to South Florida about two and a half years ago. I’ve always had friends and family around me, and after my move I found myself yearning for a sense of community. Read more>>

Elizabeth Cornfeld

The idea to start Scapes by Elizabeth came from realizing the need for thoughtfully designed products that showcase people’s favorite places. With a love for art, architecture, and fashion, I wanted to merge these passions into a high-quality, luxury item that held unique meaning. Read more>>

Karen Casey

Durham has always had a vibrant community of artists. As a founding member of The Durham Craft Market, which will celebrate it’s 20th year soon, it seemed that both artists and the public needed more outlets to showcase and sell the works of our local talent on a regular basis. Read more>>

Sam Rodriguez

Our journey began in 2020 amidst nationwide protests, where we initially painted messages of social justice on plywood boards covering storefront windows. Read more>>

Marisa Burke

My name is Marisa and I am 8 years old. When I was 6 years old I wanted to run a business like my Mom and Dad. They have always owned their own business, I wanted to find a way to spread kindness to the whole world. Read more>>

Tanya Rogers

For the past 10 years, I’ve worked at NASA. My day-to-day involves developing environmental technology to help sustain human life in space. A few years ago, I wanted to apply that skill set to Earth applications – specifically climate change. Read more>>

Matthew Cossolotto

I think it’s fair to say that my path to my current focus on personal empowerment books and related programs was rather circuitous. Read more>>

Tamisha Guy

As a professional dancer, tape has always played a vital role in supporting and enhancing my performance. However, a few years ago, I encountered a frustrating obstacle in my search for a tape brand that truly understood and catered to the diverse needs of melanated skin tones. Read more>>

Nikenya McCrary

Anchored In Christ, INC. was born out of trials involving grief, depression, and anxiety. At one point, I felt like I was drowning. One day, while praying, I called out, “God, you’re my lifesaver,” and at that moment, God revealed an anchor in the sea. Read more>>

Jodie Villemaire

When I decided to start Principal Leadership Solutions, it stemmed from a personal understanding of the immense challenges and unique pressures that school principals face daily. Read more>>

Jalisa Whitley

My journey as a small business owner began not with a business plan, but with a yearning for connection. The short story of my idea for BOOKED Trips was after reading Deesha Phillyaw’s short story collection “The Secret Lives of Church Ladies.” Read more>>

Jazmine Escoto

Before diving into the ice cream biz, I spent a fabulous 12 years in the beauty industry, painting faces and sharing beauty tips as a makeup artist and educator for a big-name beauty company. Read more>>

Meg Jones Wall

My business, 3am.tarot, grew very slowly — practically by accident. I was working as a freelance photographer and writer, and purchased my first tarot deck in 2016 out of deep curiosity. Read more>>

Rachelle Stewart

Growing up on the farm, I was surrounded by natural foods coming from planted fruits and vegetables grown on the huge farmland. Everything was vibrant and full of color. Read more>>

Sam Madani

We had the idea for BOMANI very organically. At the time, we were working high-intensity finance jobs. Like many of our friends, we wanted a pick-me-up before enjoying our nights out. Read more>>

Jennifer Rice

This is a long winding origin story, but I feel every detail counts! For years living in NYC, whenever I walked through East Williamsburg, Brooklyn, I would pass an apartment window featuring a collection of New York related artifacts and collections from every day New Yorkers. Read more>>

Jana Lee

I began my career in the education industry as a founding member of a high-needs school in the South Bronx, New York City. Read more>>

Jaime Wright

My business origin story is a little unconventional, and it took me awhile to come to grips with how it began. My business wasn’t a long-standing dream that came to fruition nor was it an evolution of a side hustle to a full-time job, like some of the more common origin stories we hear about small businesses. Read more>>

AA PRESTIGE CHAMPAGNE

The idea of ​​creating my brand of champagne came from the fact that I lived for a long time in a French region called champagne ardenne and more precisely in EPERNAY which is the capital of champagne being very gifted in the field of bussnes and luxury I decided to embark on this adventure Read more>>

Iris Lai

Letters of Gold was founded during the peak of the pandemic in April 2020 after a text I sent to the other co-founder, Vedha Vaddaraju, at 1 AM. We noticed how hard the frontline workers were working, and we wanted to contribute to their fight. Read more>>

Alex Soska

Over the course of a 15–20-year sales & marketing career, I’ve encountered businesses and individual entrepreneurs of all types. The vast majority of them, regardless of their industry, have shared a similar pain point: digital marketing is complicated. Read more>>

Mason Fessenden

This business started as a high school project as I was getting quite tired of relying on others to read menus. It hasn’t been very emotional but I’ve been turned down twice where one restaurant thought she was heavily ADA compliant, but yet the owner didn’t have a braille menu and was very dismissive toward it!!! Read more>>

Srisindhu Medukonduru

Many children coming from underserved backgrounds normally do not lead careers pertaining to STEM and essentially, they become a minority group in these fields due to their lack of proper resources and lesser quality education facilities. Read more>>

Ana Izquierdo

The idea for CannaCatwalk stemmed from a pressing need within the cannabis industry – the challenge of marketing and advertising cannabis products in a heavily regulated environment. Read more>>

Vania Soto

The idea for Monarca Art Space was born out of a personal journey as an artist in Kansas City. As I searched for a space to create my own work, I encountered a significant barrier: Read more>>

Eric Formico

I’ve been a real estate photographer and drone operator since around 2017. After moving from Minnesota to Florida in 2018 and opening my own photography business, I began to collect real estate clients. Read more>>

Sri Nihal Tammana

I came up with the idea for Recycle My Battery when I was just 10 years old. It all started after I saw a news report about a fire at a waste disposal plant in California caused by improperly discarded lithium-ion batteries. Read more>>

ROB OWENS

The inspiration for Dope Dads emerged from three fundamental experiences: 1. My personal journey as a son. 2. My role and responsibilities as a father to my daughter. Read more>>

Anita Friedrich

The idea of being an artist/business owner came along the way. It started out as a hobby and this passion grew into this amazing career. Talent is definitly number one on the list to even think of executing this profession. Read more>>