It takes a lot more than an idea to build a business, but there can’t be a business without the idea. So we asked folks who’ve built wonderful businesses to tell us about how they came up with the idea in the first place.

Chenoa Bottinelli | Stationery Addict

I’ve always loved stationery. My grandmother used to buy me tape and paper for gifts when I was a young child. I came home one day mad at the office supply store and I joked to my husband that I should just start my own. He agreed but I wasn’t serious at all about it. I thought about it for a few days and decided to do it. It’s been the best decision I’ve made. Read more>>

Dylan Penick | Content Creator, boater, small business owner

The thought was I going boating all the time but, I didn’t have any gear off the water that showed that. I found people like to talk about what you are wearing and what better way to get the conversation started than with cool clothes. Boom! That is how RCO came about. Just trying to get people to talk about the river more and hopefully making clothes that people would feel comfortable wearing in lots of different situations Read more>>

Ali Hey | Mom & Entrepreneur

I was a mom of two small children with one on the way and my husband was deployed. I was desperate to find a way to help keep my family healthy in a natural and affordable way. A friend introduced me to Elderberry Syrup, and I quickly learned that the store brands were very expensive and my children didn’t like it. I then started seeing it sold by other Moms but was never fast enough to get a jar before it was sold out. After a bit of research, I took a leap and decided to make it myself and give any extras I had to friends, and it took off from there. Read more>>

Lucas Evans | Gem Cutter @ Tenacious Faceting

I had sent away a tourmaline that I found in Pala, CA to be cut in Sri Lanka. I received back two poorly cut gemstones. I looked around at jewelry stores and realized that the market is very heavily saturated with poorly cut colored gemstones (ie: windowing, bad polish, no meet points…). Being rather good with spatial visualization, I knew that I could do a better job than that. So, I started researching. Turns out that the up front investment for gem cutting is rather substantial. Read more>>

Chelsea Bell | Pediatric Speech Language Pathologist

I have worked for a number of different employers in the healthcare industry, including hospitals, schools, home health agencies, and private practices. There were pros and cons to each setting of course, but I always felt my strength in each setting was the actual therapy I was doing with kids. It didn’t really occur to me to ever branch out on my own and start my own practice. But as I continued to refine my practice and skillset, I realized more than anything in this field, I loved working with kids who had feeding and swallowing disorders. Read more>>

Dr. John Mrazek | Part-Time Executive Pastor & Church Leadership Coach

I stumbled across the need for a part-time Executive Pastor (XP) service during a conversation with a Pastor who thought he needed a full-time staff member. When he asked when he could hire an Executive Pastor I answered that he needed to add 1,000 more people to his church of 500 for three reasons. The three reasons were: #1: The salary is much like his salary and you needed around 1,500 people to cover the salary. Read more>>