We reached out to some of our favorite entrepreneurs and asked them to think back and tell us about how they decided to start a business. Check out their responses below.

Kate Swisher | Lead Florist, Farmer & Owner, Charlie’s Bouquet Bar

The thought process behind starting Charlie’s Bouquet Bar wasn’t about crafting the perfect plan—it was about taking a leap of faith for something I believed in deeply. I left corporate America not because it was easy, but because I wanted something more—a life that aligned with my values, gave me the flexibility to be present for my daughter, Charlie, and allowed me to pour my heart into something meaningful. Read more>>

Jordan Honea | Charcuterie and Grazing Board Designer

I’ve always enjoyed cooking, hosting and preparing for events. I fell into creating large-scale grazing boards while putting together meals for my large, extended family. It became a great pairing of passions between food preparation and childhood art lessons. When I started receiving requests from family friends, friends of friends and extensive referrals it seemed like the right time to make this an actual business. Read more>>

Jessica Perry | Lifestyle Photographer

I started my photography business in the hopes of capturing and freezing special moments in our lives that we will never be able to get back. I watch my kids growing and I always think, “I never want to forget this” but I found that without photographs, I forget so much! I wanted to capture families and individuals being their authentic selves so that they do not see just a pretty photograph, but they see that moment frozen in time. I want to capture those toothless grins, that new love adoration, and the beautiful chaos that we call life. Read more>>

Asia Washington | CEO/Cake Artist

I have had many corporate jobs and after awhile, I was SO FED UP with “them” making me feel “replaceable” instead of a valued employee, telling me how much they were going to pay me, when I needed to be there, and when I could and couldn’t take vacations, sick days, etc. Read more>>

Laura Exner | Small Business Owner & Artist

Well, there wasn’t much thought behind it – at first! My business is my second job, and I started it because I was becoming deeply invested in my art, and wanted to be able to sell some of it to continue funding the hobby. Since then, I’ve started setting small goals for myself in the hopes of expanding my business, mainly because I’ve come to love the community connections I’ve made. Read more>>

Taylor Blacklock | Artist

Art has always been a passion of mine, but for years, it was something I pursued just for myself. When COVID hit and I lost my teaching job, I turned to digital art as a creative outlet, and to my surprise, the response on social media was overwhelmingly positive. This encouragement inspired me to take the leap—starting with an Etsy shop and eventually launching my own online store featuring my art prints. From there I did local art shows, displays, etc. and was able to network in person. It’s been an incredible journey turning my passion into a business! Read more>>

Sage Burnham | Entrepreneur

We decided to start Heirloom Foods because we wanted to have some autonomy and independence in our work. We have always loved food and being able to create and share that with people is something that is really exciting. After spending our whole respective careers in food service, it was a very natural transition into being able to work for ourselves and build a long term career. We’ve played around with pickling, jams and other canned foods for years and found we really loved the creativity in making our own recipes and paying homage to traditional food storage methods. Sharing food is a love language and having people love what we make is an incredible feeling so we decided to try and see how far we could take it. Read more>>

Maggie Miller | Cookie Artist & Digital Creator

The thought process behind starting my own business was to have the freedom and flexibility to create my own schedule and prioritize where I wanted my time to be spent. My husband and I have three boys, a three-year-old and two-year-old twins. After our first was born, my priorities really shifted from career-centered to being a present mom. I tried a variety of careers that allowed that freedom, but they were still taking me out of the home and requiring more of me than I could give at that time in my life. My twins were born three months premature and spent their first few months of life in the NICU. Read more>>

Sierra Mcclellan | Bowtie Bettie – Pinup Coordinator and Volunteer Specialist

Originally when I thought about starting The Rockabilly Vixens it was a way to find like minded woman who want to see positive impact in their communities. I did not realize there where so many that were like me that hid their love for vintage, rockabilly and unique styles because they didn’t want to draw attention to themselves. After starting we learned very early on that we stood out in our style in turn causing more interactions with people wanting to know what we are about. Read more>>

Joshua Pharris | Artist & Entrepreneur

The Art of Darts was driven by a desire to create something new and unique. My love of colorful dart frogs, creating terrariums and design spawned this company, an amalgam of all of my passions.
While we are in a niche industry I wanted to create something special for the hobby and provide quality education, products and contribute to the overall community. Read more>>

Saraswati J Miller | Embodied Dharma Coach

I didn’t feel like I had a choice. I was at a crossroads in life where nothing else was working. This often happens on the dharmic path. Everything else you’ve been doing ceases to work and you have to find a new way forward. I had to get creative. If no one would hire me, then I’d have to share my gifts and wisdom with others! I started sharing Vedic Astrology sessions and it took off. My fascination with Jyotish began when I was seven years old, but I didn’t have much confidence in myself or my unique understanding of this ancient tool. Read more>>

Kal Chak Jr | Artist

YellowDaze has always been about Love and Community. I wanted to create a space for myself and those around me to feel safe and inspired to do whatever your heart desires no matter what challenges life has to offer. Creating this business was the first step in reclaiming and finding my voice and self back from this world. Read more>>

Katelyn Singh | Outdoorsy Content Creator

I haven’t started my own business. I work full time as a software engineer and making content is a hobby of mine that I rarely profit off of. Read more>>

Natalie Devine

We started our account to spread awareness about Jubilee’s autoimmune disease. When she got diagnosed, she was the first in-person case our optometrist had seen of uveodermatologic syndrome. It was a very challenging time for us as there wasn’t a lot of support from those who have gone through the same journey as us, and I wanted to provide that to others. Another reason we started our account is to show how blind dogs, and by extension, any special needs animal, can live a fulfilling life. Read more>>

Amber Breedlove

Myself , my daughter Leila , my daughter Isis, and my husband Robert moved from Louisiana to Colorado in 2018 and I worked as a server and Robert began working a landscaping job . In May of 2019, Robert was awarded full custody of his daughter , Clare , and she came to live with us from Louisiana at that time . In 2019, with the addition of Clare, we found it was impossible to be present with the children , work full-time jobs to pay the ever-growing bills , and have the ability to shuffle everyone around to their destinations. I was able to find a new company to work for that allowed a little more freedom as a property manager to make the school drop-offs and pick-ups, which was great. However, we were not as present with our family as we wanted to be. Read more>>

Sarah Massara

I’ve always wanted to own and operate my own business. I come from a long line of entrepreneurial women in my family so its been engrained in me since a young age that I CAN be a business owner as I had really good examples to follow. For me, owning a business is also about claiming my power as a woman and having the means to directly control and influence my own future. I find so much power, fulfillment, and agency in being a business owner. So for me – it wasn’t about whether I would or wouldn’t start a business, but it was more so about finding the RIGHT business to start. Read more>>

Mary Ann Hilt

I am originally from Louisville, Kentucky, but moved to Colorado at 19. I began my career in Vail, Colorado when I was 21 as a retail merchandiser and manger at a ski shop. This inspired me to go back to school and study business and finance at the University of Colorado. After I graduated, I began a career in investment banking, trading and a stock broker. I began a family and focused on raising my three boys and decided to invest in real estate while I stayed home with the boys. I did a few fix and flips, rental properties and scraped a home in Sloan’s Lake and built three condos. Read more>>

Jen Henderson

Like many first-time founders before me, the drive to start my own business came out of a frustrating personal experience where I thought to myself, “How many people is this happening to? How many people has this happened to already and no one has done anything about it? What can I do so that my children don’t have the same experience I do?” Read more>>

Allison Howie

I have always been an entrepreneur at heart, so starting a business felt natural to me. My thought process behind photography came down to understanding what families and large groups have to offer the lens, and it just blossomed from there! Read more>>

Suzanne Dani’L Simone

Being a female entrepreneur holds a high priority in my life as I utilize my experience & skills to not only create art, but also provide joy through my work as a Professional Photographer & Videographer. Read more>>

Karen Davis

I didn’t make the decision myself. I contacted my daughter’s high school to ask if they knew of any groups in our town that accepted donations of formal attire and gave them to students. The Assistant Principal, Ryan Hollingshead, responded, saying, “This is great! Thanks for doing it!” From that moment, we put together our first Prom Shop in just three weeks from scratch. The Outlets of Castle Rock donated a space for us to set up in and the rest is history. Our community is truly amazing and has always been supportive of Clover’s Closet. I think the astonishing fact is I never once thought of saying no. I think that says something about me. Read more>>

Kelly Van Dehy

My husband and I started this company together shortly after our own wedding. During our planning process, we explored several large companies and found ourselves unimpressed with their websites, policies, and the overall experience. We felt the industry had room for a business that truly prioritizes the client experience with thoughtfully curated products and personalized service. Read more>>

Sarah Garcia

When starting She Loves Hair Salon, I focused on a few key principles that I believe are crucial for long-term success. First and foremost, staying consistent is essential. Consistency in the quality of service, atmosphere, and customer experience helps build trust and loyalty with clients. Staying true to the brand is also important—maintaining a clear vision of what She Loves Hair Salon stands for creates a unique identity that resonates with customers and sets us apart in a competitive market. Read more>>

Roxanne Mount

I’ve always dreamed of running my own business, an unconscious desire that’s been simmering for over two decades. My corporate marketing career, though rewarding, often felt constrained by bureaucracy and the need to justify every idea. When I moved to Colorado from NY, I struggled to find a beauty salon that offered the personalized, luxurious experience I craved. Frustrated by the impersonal, rushed, rude service I encountered in NY and now in Colorado, I realized there was a giant gap in the market for a salon and spa that prioritized hospitality above all else. Read more>>

Julia Deaton

The idea of building something from the ground up with sheer will and determination is something that no one can take away from you. There are also no rules in a sense. The results that you get are directly correlated with how much work you put in. There is no cap to how much you can succeed with being self-employed and that fact really excites me. It’s easy to romanticize being your own boss and being in charge of your own future. That is what really drove me to start my own business and it continues to drive me to keep being better and better. Read more>>

Miksyla Oko

I have been on quite the journey which lead to starting UnmaskEd. I have worked and volunteered in the disability space since I was a child. This field is really where my heart lives. I regularly reflect on how lucky I am that my passion is something that transfers into a career. I won’t ever have to work a job that is just a job to me. I started my career as a special education teacher in elementary schools where I worked with students identified as intellectually and/or developmentally disabled. I knew going into my career that education is an increasingly difficult field. I believed that my passion would get me through it, though. I really underestimated how broken the public education system is. Read more>>

Brandon Tribett

Our thought process behind starting our own business came from a desire to change the traditional barbershop experience. We wanted to innovate by introducing a new way to get a haircut that brings more value and flexibility for customers. The idea of an unlimited cuts membership was born from that drive—giving clients the freedom to come in as often as they want without worrying about the cost each time. It’s all about creating an experience that’s convenient, accessible, and tailored to fit their lifestyle. Read more>>

Krista Gregg

When we, my husband Matt and I, first considered starting our own business, the idea felt more like a joke than a serious possibility. We both had stable careers—myself in healthcare and Matt in the automotive industry—but something about the concept of Bio-One intrigued us. After all, it wasn’t just another business idea; it was an opportunity to help people in a very real and meaningful way, during some of the darkest moments in their lives. Read more>>