There is so much to learn from investments that went really well as well as those that went really poorly and so we asked some of the wisest creatives and entrepreneurs in the community to tell us the stories of their best and worst investments.

Jeremy Vera

This is such a great question! A lot of times people tend to think of an investment in financial terms only, but we, as humans, are the best investment we can make. Sure, I have a “day” job, and it’s one that does bring me joy, and very importantly it gets the bills paid! But my work with Mile High Freedom Band brings me infinitely more joy and happiness than anything else that I do. I started my music journey as a saxophone player, and later discovered what a French Horn is. In my culture, my family is from the Caribbean, so Salsa music is huge – that is where my love for the Saxophone came from. Read more>>

Joseph Mendoza

My best investment was purchasing my camera. My journey began in March 2020 during the COVID lockdown when my job shut down for a couple of months, keeping us home indefinitely. With no social interactions or productive activities, boredom started to take a toll on me. To pass the time, I played video games and spent hours browsing YouTube. Read more>>

Michael Harris

The best investment I made for my business as a musician and artistic director was to invest in a high quality edited video of a pivotal concert I did at Creative Alliance in 2014. I decided to take a big risk for me at the time which was to gamble all of my money on myself and my ability to not only perform very difficult music that I had composed but also to do so with top musicians I hired in front of two cameras. I was not even sure if there would be an audience when I made plans to record this live concert. Fortunately tickets started selling and it was sold out by the time we hit the stage because of about 40 walk ins that night. Read more>>

Peter Anthony

Best investment was my first company. Always invest in the ONE THING you control. If you can build something by working longer and harder that is a strong investment. In my Case it was our first salon, based on the size of my personal clientel the numbers worked for me to open and still profit … We broke a million in our first 18 months in business. We did not do this because we were smart we did it because we wroked 2x as much as all our competitors so we were able to do 2x plus a bit of the business. Read more>>

Carlee Robinson

Looking back, one of the worst decisions we made was going all in on party and event rentals. We thought we were being smart offering everything from a full movie night setup with an inflatable TV and popcorn machine to a 10×30 tent, a cash grab machine, and even an audio guestbook phone. Read more>>

Jess Buckland

Best Investment: Our affiliation with The Jiu-Jitsu Company in Philly costs a little money but in truth it is priceless. Angela and Josh Vogel have been invaluable by giving us advice, support, and resources. They are kind, curious and always have time to talk about jiu-jitsu or merchandise sales hiccups or class structure or anything else a gym owner may need to explore. Jeremy, the other owner, has known Josh for a long time and when we moved to State College we decided we needed to freshen up and network outside our local scene. Read more>>