Have you ever had a friend look at a business and randomly throw out numbers that made it seem like that business owner must be making serious bank? We’ve experienced that many times, and know from conversations with operators and owners in those industries that their real profitability is often far, far less. The reason is often that there are unique challenges to profitability in almost every industry and so we wanted to create a space for entrepreneurs from across industries and markets to discuss the challenges to profitability in their industries.

Chris Bredesen

Profitability in the restaurant industry has taken a hit in the past few years due to the following factors: Increased labor costs, increased food costs, increased rent and an overall increase in general other expenses. As a small business owner we are constantly trying to walk that fine line of profitability for the business vs charging the customer a fair price for the services we provide them. Read more>>

Kristen Vaganos

It’s funny you ask this. I just read an incredible article published in Filmmaker Magazine on the topic of challenges facing the revenue stream in the current film industry. Naomi McDougall Jones and Liz Manashil, two amazing female filmmakers and proponents of independent film, ran a major investigation into the factors prohibiting truly independent film from making money in today’s streamer driven age. Read more>>

Morgan Balavage

The biggest challenge to profitability in the yoga teaching and spiritual entrepreneurship industry is often the money mindset of individuals. Many yoga teachers and spiritual entrepreneurs struggle with developing a healthy relationship with money and embracing their own worth. Read more>>

Austin Bergman

It’s frustrating to witness the common misconception that the real estate industry is automatically lucrative. As an insider, I can attest to the numerous obstacles that real estate agents face when it comes to profitability. Despite selling high-end homes and targeting affluent clientele, it’s still an uphill battle to maintain profitability. Read more>>

Jeff Lam

I think being in Hollywood the biggest misconception of what everyone sees is the glamour, fame and money. When in reality we’re working just as hard as everyone else. From a person working as a waiter or waitress, to an accountant. We are all working to feed our families and survive. Read more>>

Samantha Carroll

Profitability within my field is always a hard one to over come. It usually takes awhile to get big enough in the community, so that you can get more commission work. the cost of materials in this day in age has also tripled, resulting in not only in financial issues gathering necessary supplies but customers may not be able to afford hand made items. Read more>>

Gabrielle Merite

The data visualization field currently sits between three fields: design, journalism and data science. This impacts all aspects of our field: the positions offered internally (rare and hard to define), the education available (very little dedicated university path), and the budgets that are dedicated to data visualization. Read more>>

Elizabeth Spruill

One of the biggest challenges to profitability in the photography industry is digital photography. I absolutely love digital cameras. I also love film. With the change to digital though came some challenges. Everyone now has access to instant photos, whether it’s with a camera they just bought, or their cell phone. Read more>>

Katell Schmitz

The creative business industry is unique in the sense that it requires both its core elements to be equally mastered for real impact and profit. On the one end as the service provider we must be both at our creative peak while being business savvy. On the other, anyone contemplating investing in a creative service or product must overcome the usual spending resistance along with minding the level of creative alignment with the service provider. Read more>>

Karen Landon

Profitability is difficult in the artisan jewelry world because it is hard to compete with goods that come to this country from areas where workers are so underpaid that the price of these goods are not comparable to goods made here in America. Read more>>

Megan Lynn Pierre

Content creation has been my passion work for the past few years although it comes with its ups and downs in terms of profitability. I speak for many other black content creators when I say that regardless of the amount of black creators we’ve seen entering this space and the increase in inclusivity we’re starting to see, not only is it still white dominated but white privilege is prevalent in the content creation world. Read more>>

Alana Huffman

I think one of the biggest challenges with probability in the balloon industry is people not being able to look past the fact that our medium for our art is balloons. So I feel like a lot of the time we are faced with people wanting grand balloon designs and not realizing all the aspects and elements that go into creating them and are taken aback by the pricing. Read more>>

Porshe Taylor

My job is to offer rehabilitation to people who are incarcerated and to extend those resources to the people in community who are impacted by the criminal justice system. This is don’t through my nonprofit organization Prisonftio.org This work, although much needed, is underfunded and most nonimpacted community members lack empathy for this population. Therefore we see several passionate advocacy organizations doing the work struggling to achieve grants and also failing to garnish community donations on an ongoing basis Read more>>