Our community is comprised of some absolutely brilliant entrepreneurs and so we asked a few of them to tell us the story of how they came up with the ideas for their business.

Ram Finnegan | Special Education Teacher & Landscaping Business Owner

I am a full time special education teacher and I absolutely love working in education, but I have always had an entrepreneurial mindset. Having summers off provides a great opportunity to focus on building a business. After doing a lot of research and teaching myself how to edit videos, I came up with the idea “The Six Figure Summer” – a challenge to earn $100,000 in 100 days. I decided on creating a landscaping business and documenting my experiences through daily videos on Instagram. I passed out a few door hangers last spring and as soon as the school year ended, I began cleaning up customers’ yards. With little to no experience in landscaping, I learned something new everyday and I would share my lessons with my online community. Read more>>

Lucy Williams | Illustrator/Designer

I started Boundary & Thorn in 2016 after completing several different custom cocktail illustrations with recipes for friends’ and family’s weddings. The idea snowballed into a business kind-of by accident and I have been creating artwork for my small business ever sense. Read more>>

Megan Carver | Content Creator

Growing up I would always create funny short films with my friends using an old camcorder. When it was time for friend’s birthdays, I was gifting them video compilations. I was always interested in creating content, but when I went to college I was so set on being a science major that I didn’t think to follow my true passions. After college and switching my major four times, I ended up working a government job and felt unfulfilled, so I looked to social media to fulfill that creative itch. Read more>>

Deanna J. Speaks! | Consultant, Author and Trainer

The idea for my business came from seeing a need for survivors’ voices and perspectives to be heard. As a former foster child, I have had to live out decisions made for my life where I wasn’t consulted. I had to live out the impact of someone else’s decision. After graduating college, I went into child welfare to be the help I wished I had but doing that work made me realize just how much children’s and families’ voices were missing. I then needed to do something more pointed, so I began speaking to youth groups, youth allies, and agencies, advocating for youth and family voices. I have widened my audiences through motivational speaking, but advocacy remains paramount. Read more>>

Nadeen | Founder & photographer of F4stcustoms

Last August me and my friend went to a car show and fell in love with it, so we continued to go to more. I then had the idea to start taking pictures of the cars and share them with everyone I knew via Instagram. What started out as a fun activity turned into our own small business that we just continued to grow more and more. Read more>>