Ideas aren’t everything, execution matters greatly, but starting often requires an idea and so we asked folks to think back and tell us the story of how they came up with the idea for their businesses. We’ve highlighted some of our favorite stories below.

Cortlyn Raymond | Co-owner of Hercules Dog Gaiters.

We are a small family owned business and were inspired by our love for our French Bulldogs to start this business together. If you know anything about frenchies you know they tend to overheat! The summer time can be a very brutal time for all dogs and especially flat faced dogs who have a hard time regulating their body temperatures. We noticed many athletes and folks who do physical activities in the summer use cooling towels and gaiters! Read more>>

Galz Media | Digital Creating Agency

Women in business are f******* iconic and we wanted to showcase that through creative content. We came up with the idea of Galz Media to be an agency that embraces femininity & captures the female gaze. We felt motivated to produce content that made women feel powerful & confident. Read more>>

Allyssa Jones | Music Creator, Educator & Placemaker

The seeds of what would become Rising Tide Music Press came to me while I was working with an organization that has created enormous databases of works by composers , living and historical, from groups underrepresented in classical music. Toward the end of my time with the organization, I began to think about emerging composers. While the databases are a great resource for discovering repertoire, the focus is on established composers with significant commissions, performance history, publication, etc.

Anziz Az | Music Producer & Founder of We Rising LA

I came up with this idea of business to help indies artists! As a music producer, I was working with a lot of artists that was explaining to me how hard is it to find a opportunity to perform or even how everyone wanna charge them to perform! So I decided to create a platform, that will get them to perform without paying and actually get paid! As the business keep growing we then decide to make it more interesting by adding comedy stand up & choreography Read more>>