Many books on startups and business talk about how there are right and wrong reasons for starting a business. So, we asked a handful of successful founders about their reasons and the thought-process behind starting their business.

Nicole Lovall | Owner & photographer at Nicole Marie Photo

I have always had a passion for photography since I was a teenager. Then the time finally presented itself where I was able to buy a professional camera. And I had the flexibility to start my own photography business. This was finally possible when we moved from Florida to Colorado. The beauty and diversity of Colorado motivated me to start my business. Read more>>

Shannon Ullmann | Herbal Tea Farmer & Founder of Elevation Mountain Grown Herbal Tea

What was your thought process behind starting your own business? Prior to launching my own business, I was working as an engineer. I enjoyed my work a great deal, helping small, local drinking water utilities grow, maintain and incorporate water conservation into their systems. My two daughters were born in 2010 and 2014. I continued to work as an engineer, but realized the precious opportunity that I had to be more present during their young childhood. Read more>>

Lilian

I think it’s love. What you loves will make you success. My boss likes outdoor activities, hiking, climbing mountains, camping and so on. He lives a healthy life. But in winter, it’s cold and hard to do outdoor activities if you wear too much but doesn’t provide you enough warm. So he wants to create some heated products to keep him warm and cozy when he is outside. Read more>>

Paul & Angela Johnston | Enigmatic Explorer

We are not a business we are a research team who go all over the United States seeking answers to the mysteries of the universe. We are into paranormal investigating, ufos, cryptids, portals, etc. We calibrate with teams from all over the world. Read more>>

Jordan Elizabeth Gelber | CEO, Actress, & Content Creator

I realized there was a big disconnect between entertainment and business. I wanted to create opportunities and have more control over business strategies and creativity within the entertainment industry. I also wanted to work with CEO’s and develop their branding working on lucrative entities. I wanted to create my own relationships and I saw that business development was building communities with people to accomplish success. Read more>>

Peter Schilling | Sculptor and jade carver

Although I earned two degrees in studio sculpture I’ve spent most of my adult life working for other people in the arts. I’ve built stretchers for painters, worked for artist jewelers, and installed exhibitions in major art museums. While I was working at the Harvard Art Museums I began carving jade and selling my jade jewelry and sculptures in galleries and at craft shows. Read more>>

Rita Lynne | National Fibers Art Instructor, Author

Starting my own businesses has always been in my DNA. Even as a child, I remember putting on plays in our garage and charging the neighborhood pennies to see a play I wrote. Two primary thoughts/visions drive me to develop a business: 1. Filling a need, 2. providing a quality service. The need can be anything from providing home care services (which I have done for over 20 years) to teaching and creating unique fiber art nationally. Read more>>

Judy Butay Cacal | Butay Art

I’ve always thought about starting my own businesses since I was a child. When my older brother wouldn’t let me ride with him in his powered car toy in the backyard, I would pretendI owned a car wash and would “clean” his car with a paper towel whenever he drove by me. When I was in elementary school I found myself interested in arts and crafts. I was particularly interested in those knotted plastic keychains that were popular in the 90’s. Read more>>

Kenn & Andrew Hanowell | Founders

Well, during Kenn’s senior year of high school, he started taking his passion for photography from photojournalism style shots on concert trips and during the school plays and musicals to offering affordable and free senior photos for his classmates whose families couldn’t afford professional photos. Eventually, after working a couple of weddings and continuing to provide intermittent senior photo shoots, he went to college for his first degree in music education. Read more>>

Lisa Moose” Kral | Owner & Photographer | Dancing In My Head Photography”

From the time that I was given my first camera, I have enjoyed documenting my experiences. With the development of digital cameras and social media, photography became more of a passion and people noticed I had an original style. Comments from many years ago urged me to be a professional photographer and, as I sat at my office job, I joked and replied, “In another life, I would be a photographer.” Read more>>

Justine McKinzie | Boutique Photographer

I felt that I wasn’t serving my clients by taking their images and sending them digitals to live on their computer or print at a random non-professional lab. My boutique photography model is unique in that I serve my clients by creating artwork for their homes. We sit down briefly before the photo session and discuss their needs- what images to capture and where we want to place them up on their walls. Read more>>

Tyrell Osborn | Artist, Muralist, & House Painter

I decided it was finally time to live a life that I get to curate. My true nature doesn’t like being told when to leave for work, when to eat, when I get to go home, what my surroundings will be, etc. and my true nature definitely doesn’t like sitting in front of a computer all day. In running Seeker Creative, I see every day like a blank canvas that I get to fill with things that enrich my life. Read more>>

Liz Arruda | Owner of Apogee Flow Toys, Entertainer, Fitness Instructor

A lot of my decisions have been fueled by my desire to find happiness and follow my heart. Right around the time I graduated high school I started getting into hoop dance after learning a few moves from a friend. It became the hobby I had taken to the quickest in my life and for the first time I felt inspired. I took the $200 I got from my 18th birthday and invested in my first small batch of supplies to start making hoops. My business really started to take off when I began vending at local music events, craft fairs, and community gatherings. Read more>>

Iva Ugrcic | Musician, Educator, Entrepreneur & Activist

The LunART Festival has been a vision of mine for a very long time. As a young musician from the Ex-Yugoslav Republic of Serbia, I experienced many troubling situations that nearly stopped me from pursuing music. While poor political and economic situations were among the issues that ultimately led to my departure of Serbia, one of the most troubling problems I faced was gender inequality, an issue that would follow me through my Master studies in France and Germany. Read more>>

Stephen Berg | Realtor

In my past career, I always felt constrained in the sense that when I wanted to make a change or improvement to the business, there was always “red tape”. There was always some sense that “don’t fix what isn’t broken,” despite sometimes when there was an obvious opportunity for improving the bottom line. Since I left college, I was driven to improve every business I have been a part of, and early on when I worked for someone else, it was really difficult to make changes that I saw as beneficial. Read more>>

Gina DiChiaro Dodd | Founder

Make Someone Happy was inspired by our dad, Carmine, He was a kind, sweet-natured man who found great joy in helping others, and truly lived his motto to ‘make someone happy’. He had a zest for life, a sunny sense of humor and an uplifting spirit. His story embodies our message, and he became, naturally, the identity of Make Someone Happy. We are simply an extension of his spirit: to inspire others to share a simple smile, to help a neighbor in need, and to do the small things every day to make others happy. Read more>>

Monika Jansen | Kick-Ass Copywriter and Content Strategist + Dedicated Snowboarder

I am an Aquarian through and through and very much like to march to the beat of my own drummer. For me, that means flexibility and freedom – to work where I want to, set my own hours, and choose the clients and projects I work on. My kids were both little when I started my agency, and I knew I could not manage the insane logistics of commuting, daycare drop off/pick up, managing a home, and being a wife, mom, and friend. I would have burned out quickly. Read more>>

Nancy Pitu | Cookie Artist

Cookie decorating started as a hobby. I wanted to bring cute and delicious treats to my kids school events. I began gifting cookies to my children’s teachers to show my appreciation for all they do. The word started spreading and before I knew it, I had many people wanting to order my custom decorated cookies for their events and asking if I sold them. That is when I decided to turn my hobby into a business and in the summer of 2015 Mama Pitu’s Cookies was born. Read more>>

Taylor Bailey | Independent Artist Manager

For years since moving to Colorado I wanted to work in the music industry. I quickly learned that this industry can become a popularity contest and that many people that should work in the industry will never get the opportunity to do so. I worked hard to create my space in this field and wanted to offer other people the platform that I wasn’t given when I first started out. Read more>>

Ryan & Emily Long | Co-Owners of The Way We Hunt

We began filming our hunts several years ago just for us so we could always remember the adventures we’ve been on. We learned how to hunt, process, and cook what we took. Ryan then taught himself how to edit videos and began putting them on YouTube. Many of our friends and family were always commenting about how we should start our own TV show or asking how we were able to go on these trips. So Ryan thought we should start our own YouTube show for everyone to enjoy. Emily took a bit of persuading but finally agreed. 🙂 Read more>>

Tanisha Lawrence | CEO, and founder of LAW Beauty Essentials

My thought process behind starting my own business was, creating a career for myself. I was ready to implement all of the skills I learned from previous jobs and test my diligence. I knew consistency would be key and there will be challenges. My thought process was, the harder I work the more opportunities will come my way. I drilled in my mind, I know im not the first nail polish line and it’ll never be the only, but there will be a connection customers will feel with my brand that will make it different. Read more>>

Nicki Smith | Owner/Founder

I think this question is fundamentally flawed, as a ‘thought process’ behind a business implies everything going the way you intended. I would argue most people who are in business after 20 years will tell you that the end of the road of intention is the start of the real story. What I can do is tell you a story. I guess you could say I’ve been interested business my whole life. Read more>>

Jennifer Lewis | GM/Owner

My husband Ahmad and I had been looking at a few places to run our own business for the past couple of years, not solely in Vail or necessarily a restaurant, but we knew it would be something with food and beverage. We had known the previous owners of the restaurant at the Vail Racquet Club, who approached us in December 2021 with the opportunity. Read more>>

Jess K | Owner & Dog Adventure Guide

One of the first things I noticed upon moving to Colorado was, almost every car had a dog hanging out the window. I felt like I was in heaven. I have loved dogs since I was a small child but did not have the have my own until I was a young adult. I picked the Corgi, not really understanding what they were built for. They are smart and active, they are built for a job. Herding cows. Read more>>

Lezli Harvey | Owner of Willow Tree housekeeping & Vacation Rental Consultant

The process that went behind me starting my own business was solely on the ability to be a mom as well as a provider when needed as I was playing both rolls of mom and dad. Owning my own business allowed me to set my own hours, my own pay and be available to my family as needed Read more>>

John Witchel | Entrepreneur

I had worked in solar for a few years and left the industry for another opportunity, but I found I really missed it working in renewables. I missed being on the right side of history. I missed working toward a meaningful impactful larger goal. So when I went looking for my next start up, I knew I wanted to get back into renewables. Read more>>