Starting and growing a business is hard, but often deciding to start the business in the first place is even harder. We asked some successful entrepreneurs from around the community to open up to us about how they thought about starting a business.

Jodie Filogomo | Ageless Style Influencer

I’ve always been a woman that enjoys helping others. You wouldn’t think that of a dentist, but my goal for patients was to give them a wonderful smile and realize how important their mouth health affected their entire health. When I sold my practice, I thought I wanted to be a personal shopper because I love shopping for clothes. In the meantime, I decided to start my blog, Jodie’s Touch of Style, where I could even showcase my mother and stepmom. It began my motto of showing how it’s never too late to look great. As visual animals, the way we dress can be very powerful to how others treat us and how we feel about ourselves. Read more>>

Sabrea Kuderer | Owner/Maker

SIMPLE IN NATURE was originally created in 2015 because of a project for a business class I was taking. We were allowed to create whatever we wanted which was super exciting for me. I had always dreamed of being an entrepreneur but was too nervous to take the leap. I have been a lover of all things natural for over 20 years and knew I wanted to be in the skincare realm. I started experimenting with various products and fell in love with the entire process. After going through the project, Read more>>

Jessica Linstra | Baker and Cookie Artist

My business started from a hobby and was not intentional at first. I left my job at a wedding company in 2020 unsure of what my next step was. As I was looking for a new job, I decided to take up cookie decorating to keep me busy. I quickly grew to love it and my family and friends told me to start sharing my work. As soon as I started posting my cookies on my Instagram, I had people reaching out asking for some. Read more>>

Alex Lopez | Painter

Hello, my name is Alex From nocturnal painting. I started my business quite frankly because I was tired of working for somebody’s else future and not my own. I also wanted to be more financially stable for my family and future family. I felt an underwhelming feeling of dissatisfaction each day until I decided enough was enough. I started working different jobs to see what interested me and when I began to paint it sparked a light bulb. I asked myself questions like what’s one thing people see every single day and how can that impact them? Read more>>

Harold (HB) Branch | Speaker, growth coach, trainer, and event producer

I became an entrepreneur as a teenager, performing poetry for events and schools. That transitioned to speeches, trainings, events, and continued to evolve from there. The thought process that has kept me in the world of self-employment and small business creation is my own search for my authentic self and a feeling of responsibility. I have always sought to understand myself better. Who am I, really? I want to explore my limits and simply see what I can do with the gifts, thoughts, and work ethic that I have. Read more>>

Kathy Mortensen | Master Practitioner of Mental Emotional Release®, Minister, Certified Reiki Master and Sound Bowl Therapy.

In my life I have experienced “difference”. As a young woman, civil rights and women’s rights were front and center, as well as The Vietnam War. Walking the oppositional energies that arise from: a father who served in the military and opposing a war, a mother’s who’s evangelical father as a minister knew the “place” of a woman and desiring more recognition, the emergence of rights for people with disabilities, guided a “coming together” for me that led to the creation of my business so many years later Read more>>

Constance Panton | CEO & Founder

I started Bifties Gifts in 2016 as a gift exchange. During that time, it felt like you couldn’t go a day without seeing news about an unharmed Black man gunned down by police. This is your Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice period. It was deeply affecting me. I wanted to give a hug to our community. But that is unrealistic. It was something that I was actively thinking about, so when my aunt invited me to a gift exchange, I immediately knew I found a solution. Read more>>

Tony Marinella | Photographer

It was always my dream to become a freelance photographer and shoot for National Geographic. But I had to earn my wings so to speak first and therefore worked for various companies over the years. I always had my own side business doing photography but also always had the bread and butter jobs to pay bills and have consistent income with health insurance. Read more>>

Tiffany Liddile | Owner of Liddile Marketing

The thought process was to build on the knowledge that I’ve gained over the years and to pass that along to other small businesses who feel they are not able to afford marketing services. I also wanted to begin working for myself and to build generational wealth. I wanted to leave my mark, my legacy in my own business. Read more>>

Jowhar Karim | Certified Dog Trainer & Breeder

During a period when COVID was affecting all aspects of our lives. The pandemic changed my perspective on life, my goals and my future. I wasn’t happy with the direction my career was heading and I had been considering a change for some time. There was no better time than the present to take action and pursue my passion. Read more>>

Noah Ragone | Photographer & Blogger

I started my business very passively, because I live in Hawaii. In Hawaii I was able to meet countless like-minded people all doing the same thing. Whether they were photographers, bloggers, videographers, etc., I was surrounded by that crowd, so I started doing what I was doing to fit in. I think it’s important to say that when I started my photography business and blogging I was doing it without the intention of making any money. Read more>>

Tyler Freeman | Creative & Entrepreneur

When I was in high school, I saw this really dope “Needles” flannel and I really wanted to get it. When I went to check the price, it was over $300. That day, I knew I wanted to make my own clothes. I continued to play sports through high school and college so I didn’t have time to fully pursue clothing. In 2020, sports were stripped away from me. Covid made really go all in and start pursuing my brand. I didn’t know much about building a clothing brand so I decided to do my research. Read more>>

Aiyana Naomi Javan Gaiter | Aiyana (photographer) & Javan (Videographer)

Aiyana- Well. it’s funny because initially I had no intentions of starting a business let alone a media company. I just knew that I loved capturing people and getting to connect while also sharing pieces of their story whether others knew or not. My art page where I shared my portraiture work was hacked at a time that I felt I was really getting into my groove and breaking out of my own cocoon, so when that happened I was like well “that sucks” lol and just got kinda down honestly. Read more>>

Laura Hafez, MSN, APRN, FNP-c | Family Nurse Practitioner

Opening my own clinic has been a dream of mine since a child. When my husband and I saw an opportunity to make the jump into Private Practice, we decided to go for it! I value my time with each patient and believe that newer models in medicine are taking away the personal relationship between Provider and patient. Having my own practice allows me to take my time with each interaction and create a relationship with each patient. Read more>>

Veronica Rogers | Artist/Entrepreneur

After receiving the news in 2021 about the tragic loss of my oldest daughter, I wanted to figure out a way to survive and keep her legacy alive. I knew I had to figure out a way to move forward and figure out who I was without her. I found I was not able to be as reliable as an employer would need me to be anymore after my horrible loss. My emotions were scattered and my life was derailed. In this case, I was unsure of what steps I needed to take to survive. Read more>>

Samantha Hansen | Entrepreneur & Marketing Professional

I have been self-employed my entire adult life. As a young single mother, I knew I had a lot of work to do to provide the best life for my son and I. I started a professional cleaning service that grew substantially, as well as started and sold an event rental service, another cleaning business and now do marketing. Read more>>

Leibnitz Barragan | Nail technician & business owner

I began doing nails from home at the age of 16. It came easy to me, especially because I loved art. While trying other “regular jobs”, I always get happier when creating my art. Do I began to take more time to focus on perfecting my skill, and with it the idea of helping others came to mind. I wanted to open my own salon where I could teach others perfect their art as well as there business skills needed to succeed and maybe branch off on their own. Read more>>

Katie Schuppler | Wardrobe Stylist

I come from an entrepreneurial family and knew since I was little that I wanted to have my own business. Fashion is something I always had a love and passion for so after working in retail for 7 years, going to college, and getting a degree in Fashion Merchandise Management and Business Adminstration I thought it was time to start my Style Consulting business! Psychology is something I have always been interested in as well and I took many classes involving that during high school and college so it’s really great that I can have fashion and psychology be a part of my business everyday. Read more>>

Lacey Valentine | Happy Valentine Photography, capturing life’s happiest moments for Arizona families: Happy Babies, Happy Mamas, Happily Ever Afters, and everything in between!

I graduated from Purdue University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Management and Marketing with the hopes of one day running my own business. At the time, I had plenty of excuses- mostly financial security- for not venturing out on such a risky adventure just yet. Instead, I continued to pursue my corporate career in Hospitality, managing hotels, devoting every ounce of energy and brain power to making someone else’s dreams come true. It wasn’t until I suffered a medical emergency with my second pregnancy, where we lost our baby’s twin, that I realized life is too short and I was missing out on so much with my family. Read more>>

Ayana Grant | Wife, Mother, Small Business Owner

I’m kind of a serial entrepreneur. I’ve been creating products and starting businesses for a long time. Better Gut Feeling has really become a culmination of everything I’ve ever wanted to do business wise. My thought process was to create a system that would pour into others live’s as it pours into my family’s life. This is why creating a holistic business was super important to me. I wanted to really be able to put my heart into my products so that my clients would feel it and feel better ultimately. Read more>>