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.

Simona Ciraolo | Picturebook Maker

It wasn’t so much say that I had an idea for a business and subsequently decided to pursue it: I would rather say that I found myself in the business of making picturebooks as a contingent result of becoming a picturebook maker. Read more>>

Christian Leo | Local Coffee Bar Owner

Hi my name is Christian Leo, owner of Local Coffee Bar in Chino hills, CA. Local Coffee is a love child of many things that I am passionate about. Growing up in Indonesia, I had always been around coffee, but never really appreciated specialty coffee until I moved to the US for my studies. Coffee shops here then became a second home and I fell in love with the cafe culture and the coffee community as a whole. I find coffee to be a playful art and yet such a serious craft. Fast forward to a couple years ago, me and my wife were looking for a creative outlet and a side project to support our growing family. (I was and still currently am a full time pastor in Chino Hills, CA who loves getting to know the people in my neighborhood and creating a sense of community). We wanted to have a creative space that people could rally around. Read more>>

Alejandra Armas DeLuca | Senior Meditation Teacher & Healer- Meditation Studio Owner

Since I was very young I connected with my idea, i was only 22 years old and, at that time, my idea was ahead of it’s time. I thought of a place where people would disconnect from technology (at that time cell phones were barely starting to exist!) and would come to retreat from Regular life in order to find healing and restoration. Through time my idea became a dream, but it grew to the point of being too big to manifest. Then through meditation, and specifically through a plant medicine journey (ayahuasca) 4 years ago, i was able to see with clarity how to start the business and received guidance from my own inner self on how to proceed, what name to use, how it would look like… then after that it was a process of trusting my intuition and the visions I’d get from my meditation practice. The dream had to be compacted and broken down into basic tasks to be able to achieve its first steps. I had to fully believe in it and in myself, and not look around, instead be one-pointed in focus. Read more>>

Erika Hirugami | Founder & CEO

I attended Sothebys Institute of Art before diving in the Doctoral work I do now at UCLA. When I was in Sotheby’s, I wanted to find an interconnected way for galleries and museums to work cohesively, to utilize the benefits of both models, and generate transcendental praxis within the existing art world. That is how CuratorLove was born, out of one of my classes when I was trying to find ways to converge both the non-profit with the for-profit sides of business. Upon graduating and beginning to work in the real world (as opposed to creating a concept from within the comfort of academia), I realized that if I wanted to generate something transformative to push the art world forward, it would have to be artists centered. What we understand today as the common art business models (museums, galleries, etc) easily take advantage of the artist community, and I wanted what I did to begin to service them in a different way, to make the future of the art world revolve around their needs, as opposed to making them serve the needs of a museum or gallery. Read more>>

Tom Bercu | Creative Director & Entrepreneur

Our world has been on a remote work path for the past decade. Additionally the arrival of the novel Covid-19 virus has accelerated the shift drastically. Companies are struggling to find ways to keep their workforce safe, healthy and productive at home. The challenge is to ensure that employees have the right tools at their fingertips to produce professional and productive work. Home+Work provides the perfect home office for their employees. Data from just about every major media points in the direction that working from home is the new normal. Facebook, Twitter, and many other companies are adapting their business models to gear them towards a home work space. The opportunity and timing are perfect to help companies rise to the new business model with Home+Work. Not only that, Home+Work is unlike any other product available today. This budding market is prime space for a great solution, and we have it. Read more>>