How did you decide to start a business?

George Ellzey Jr

I didn’t set out to start a production company. It really came from following the momentum of a film that kept opening doors. Read More>>

Neela Jazayeri

I’m a first-generation American, raised by my incredible parents who came to the U.S. after the Iranian revolution and rebuilt their lives from the ground up. I was raised with grit, practicality, resilience, and a deep appreciation for thoughtful gestures—especially flowers. My mom and grandma used flowers for everything: from small, everyday gestures of love to expressing what they didn’t have the words for. Read More>>

Weeda Aman

I started Weeda’s Afghan Catering out of a deep desire to share the authentic flavors and cultural richness of Afghan cuisine with people in Southern California and beyond. Growing up, Afghan food was always at the center of celebrations, family gatherings, and meaningful moments. Read More>>

Loren Castle

Sweet Loren’s started out of a very personal place. After my own cancer journey surviving Hodgkin’s Lymphoma in my early twenties, I realized how important it was to have better-made, simple ingredients in the foods we love. I wanted to nourish my body with great tasting food made of ingredients that I trusted. Read More>>

Renee Phillips

After being married for over 30 years, I found myself newly divorced and in a season of major transition. My sons had moved to Los Angeles in 2020, and when I came out to visit them in 2021, I unexpectedly fell in love with the city, and especially with Franklin Village. There’s something rare about it. Read More>>

Jill Narciso

It’s always better to have your own business because not only can you control your own hours, you control your income. I also believe in having multiple sources of income so that when one fails, there’s still another source to rely on to stay afloat. Read More>>

David Braun

David Braun: Our biggest influences have always been independent creators who manage to continually work on what inspires them–everyone from Dr. Seuss and Shel Silverstein to Trey Parker and Matt Stone. Read More>>

Glo Brown

My thought process behind starting my own business came from wanting real ownership, creatively and long-term, for myself and my family. I’m building with legacy in mind and wanted to create something that lives beyond me, not just for now but for the future. As a filmmaker, I wanted control over my stories. Read More>>

Victor Zuniga

I wanted to help local businesses, especially mom and pop shops, sell their services better. It was really selfish, I wanted them to succeed so I could have more local shops in my community. I also kept seeing ugly ads around the area. The branding and logos ‘spoke’ with the wrong voice. It bothered me how designers in the area were not helping these businesses. Read More>>

Rhonda Hall

Starting my own business wasn’t a lifelong dream or part of some perfectly curated plan. It started with frustration—and a long pause. After being denied a promotion, I had to ask myself a very real question: Is this really how I want to spend the rest of my career? Unappreciated, undervalued, and glued to a desk. That moment didn’t break me…it woke me up! Read More>>

Matthew Xiao

My thought process behind starting Grow a Leaf Shop came from a simple, genuine love for plants. Even before thinking about starting a business, I found joy in caring for living things. The way a tiny leaf unfurls, a flower blooms, or a fruit emerges feels like witnessing a little miracle. Read More>>

Samantha Fishkin

The idea for Shae & Palmer really came after the birth of my second daughter, Maddie Palmer, and not being able to find what I was looking for. I struggled to find pajamas that were both soft enough for her, but also classy enough to wear beyond bedtime. Everything felt either too basic or overly playful. Read More>>

Allen Saxon, MD

I’m a doctor–a retired general surgeon–and I created a medical device years ago that I was able to sell to a large company. But now my focus is Training in Charity, the book I just partnered with Christmas Lake Press to publish. Read More>>

Dion Johnson

I built Indie Me because I did not want the future of entertainment to happen without talent in the room. Tech is moving fast, and the industry is changing fast with it. If we do not build real solutions at the same pace, performers become an afterthought instead of the heartbeat. Read More>>

Naomi Lutz

Once I decided I wanted to become a therapist, I knew early on that I wanted to eventually run my own private practice. Of course, becoming a therapist takes time—you spend four years in undergrad, two to three years in your master’s program, around three years completing your required 3,000 clinical hours, and then you take your licensing exam. Read more>>

Alidad Ghiassi

I spent many years in academic medicine, which gave me a strong foundation but also showed me how bureaucratic and slow real change can be. At the same time, healthcare innovation—especially in AI and digital tools—was exploding outside traditional institutions. I kept seeing practical problems at the bedside that could be solved faster and better, but the system wasn’t built for speed or iteration. Read More>>

Chris Taylor

I’ve always been an entrepreneur. In high school I was promoting parties and through university I played in bands where I ran the group with my guitar player. After law school, I played in a group full time for 5 years. Read More>>

Nicholas Petrie

Hahahaha, it was by purely by accident really, I had become certified in mig welding at 17 as a back-up option as I was running out of academic options at the time due to poor choices and the ongoing family dynamics at that moment in my life. Read More>>

Aparna Balasubramanian

I’ve always wanted to create objects that invite people to slow down and build more intentional relationships with the things they use every day. When I started experimenting with porcelain stemware, I realized I’d found something that had the potential to be so much more. Read More>>

Christine de Wendel

Prior to launching sunday, my thought process wasn’t “I want to start a company,” it was “this system shouldn’t still be broken.” I’d spent years scaling large tech companies (Zalando and ManoMano in Europe) and saw how technology could dramatically improve everyday experiences when it was applied thoughtfully. Read More>>

Piotr Niemczewski

The idea for our business emerged very organically from the intersection of my life partner Wiktoria’s background and my own. Early on, we realized that our skills didn’t just complement each other – they naturally pointed toward a shared purpose: using visual storytelling to support global conservation efforts. Read More>> 

Alisa Bertram

BEAM Design & Consulting began with a desire to design homes for how people actually live—not just how spaces photograph. I’ve always had a natural instinct for design; my parents trusted my creative eye from a young age, especially when it came to color and spatial decisions. Read More>>

Sara Alessandrini

It was a very impulsive decision for me. At that point in my life, I was not planning to make a movie, and even less planning to finance any venture by myself. Read More>>

Matt Hoverman

As a young actor and playwright living in NYC in 2001, the last thing I on my mind was starting my own business. I wanted to be a star. Read More>>

Kerline Ordeus

Honestly, it didn’t begin with a business plan. During the Covid pandemic, I was navigating student loan debt, a heartbreak, and that in-between phase where you’re asking yourself what’s next. I was cooking and hosting constantly. For friends. For coworkers. They would always say I should open a restaurant. Cooking was therapy for me during a hard time. Read More>>