50+ Summer Business Opportunities You Can Start Today

Our history is a little complicated because True Leaf Market as a business is the culmination of several businesses that all came together. There are various threads that weave together. I’ll start with my thread first.

In 2000, my sister Kaitlin had graduated from High School and was preparing for college. At the time I ran a small business repairing laser printers and selling printer supplies. I had started that business in 1990 serving my local area but soon discovered the Internet as a way to reach a wider market. I listed a refurbished NeXT Laser Printer on the UseNet in 1995 and ended up selling it to someone in Portugal. In 1995, that was just completely crazy to me. I was hooked and got obsessed with marketing online and by 2000 was doing much more revenue online than I was doing with the original local business. Bottom line is, I spent years in front of a computer learning how to market online by simple trial and error.

Kaitlin approached me about helping her start an online business in order to pay her way through college. We brainstormed and decided to focus on something she was passionate about. Kaitlin is a vegan and was getting into growing and juicing wheatgrass. We decided to partner up and sell wheatgrass growing kits and juicers online. We started in my garage. She would run the business day-to-day, and I would handle the online presence and marketing. We founded Living Whole Foods, Inc., and launched our first website.

I knew in college that I wanted to do something within the fitness space, but never had any interest in being an entrepreneur.

I started my career in the personal training space, only to recognize that the number of hours I put into training was a direct correlation of how much money I could make.

I started my career in the personal training space, only to recognize that the number of hours I put into training was a direct correlation of how much money I could make. This meant to make money I had to continue working at 6:00 am and 9:00 pm until...Did I switch careers? This was a no-go for me, so I started to brainstorm ways around it.

The story of Glo starts in 2015 - my senior year of college. I wasn’t the best student or the brightest, but I found my niche and studied electrical engineering. I thought I had it all figured out - I had some great internships lined up and were the first student from the state of Mississippi to intern at Tesla in Palo Alto, California. My passion was automotive engineering and we had a great program here at Mississippi State University, called EcoCAR, that gave me some excellent hands-on engineering experience. The goal was to make it to Tesla, get offered a job, and take off to California.

That didn’t happen.

I was offered a position at Tesla as a body controls engineer, working on the falcon wing doors for Model X, but fate had different plans. I turned that position down to return to Mississippi and take a chance with something a bit different - making light-up drink cubes. You see, right before I left for my summer internship at Tesla, a friend of mine asked for my help with a classroom project. Kaylie Mitchell was studying graphic design and her professor tasked her with coming up with a conceptual company and product that naturally drew one’s eye to the product. Kaylie thought, if a drink lit up, people would inherently look at it. She wanted to go above and beyond on this assignment and reached out to me to create a prototype for her class assignment.

Even in high school I was very interested in the idea of starting my own business and someday being my own boss. My dad was the Vice President and co-owner of a construction company while I was growing up and so having a role model like him most certainly contributed to my desire to follow in his footsteps (albeit in a different industry). My grandfather originally started a construction business back in the 1970s which is how my dad was introduced to the industry. I am the third generation of business owners in my family.

I never thought I would be working in the pool industry. In 2016, I graduated at the University of Waterloo with an Honors B.A in Recreation and Sport Business. I have always enjoyed sports, recreation, and the outdoors. My thought coming out of high school was to start an outdoor recreation/adventure sports magazine. Although that hasn’t happened, it’s interesting to think about how I am still working in Recreation and Sport. I guess you could say I’m the “behind the scenes” guy-- at Dundas Valley Pools, we make sure homeowners pools are up to speed and that families can enjoy as much leisure time in their backyard as possible with little to no hassles.

While I was in university, my desire to start my own business continued to grow. One thing I have realized now is that I was more romanticized by the idea of starting a business than I was interested in the actual act of doing so. I think this is an important point to make because it is so easy to get obsessed with an idea or aspiration more than the actual act or result. In my opinion, it is one of the worst mistakes a person can make prior to taking action. Perhaps I can speak more towards this point later on in the interview.

As far as my professional background, I went to Cornell University and studied Fiber Science Apparel Design - a degree based mostly in actual fashion design and construction.

I have three older sisters, and from the age of 12, I always helped plan their weddings. My one sister became engaged while I was at university and asked me to make her wedding dress. That was far too much pressure for me, but I offered to help shop with her.

When I saw the poor quality and construction of the gowns, I was horrified. All women deserve to wear quality products on their wedding day. Charging thousands of dollars for such poor construction was terrible!

I’ve always had quite the entrepreneurial spirit, always thinking of the next best idea which is how my first business was created - a non-profit focused on helping young women, followed by an employee concierge, I started with my father Jeluxxe Lifestyle Solutions. I was always intrigued to hear about others’ journeys and how they became full-time entrepreneurs but never thought I’d get there but here I am, thanks to Balloon Haus INC. As well as, reading and learning have always been an interest of mine, which is why I was able to start this “little balloon company.”

Balloon Haus was a random idea that turned a successful business. A client from one of my other companies was looking for balloon decor and my assistant agreed to help with finding a vendor. This was much harder than we thought it would be and with no luck, we turned to youtube and figured out how to create the requested installation ourselves and the rest was history. I registered the business the same day, contacted my father and he told me, “this was the best decision you have ever made.” This was the only validation that I needed to know, this was going to be a successful business.

DO NOT TAKE ON A DIFFICULT CUSTOMER. If you notice communicating with the customer from the beginning is not easy - do not continue as you will regret it and most likely end up with an unhappy customer by the end of the transaction.

I quit my job in 2017 as a product manager and started travelling to new countries and building products along the way. I had been working on my second micro start-up, ACrypto, back then. It was successful and was generating basic income for me. It was during one of my travel plans to the Philippines, I realised how difficult the whole visa process is. Two months before my trip, I searched on Google and found that it’s visa-free, so I booked my flights and hotel accommodation. I don't know why but I searched for the same thing a week before my travel date and found that what I saw was a Google snippet and it was for Singapore citizens and in fact visa is required for Indian. So I had to rush to the embassy which was not in my city. I ended up talking to multiple visa agencies where every promised different time frames and prices. At the end, there was a holiday in the Philippines and the embassy was closed and I couldn't get my visa and I ended up cancelling the trip.

Soon I realized that you need a visa to get into most of the countries and that, while a few have Visa on Arrival (VOA), most require that you go through their embassy in your home country. I wanted to find the countries I could go to without having to wait three weeks to get a visa, so I did some research. I had to wade through a few blogs and websites, but I eventually found a list with the information I need, and off I went! After a few months, I wanted to travel to another country, but I’d lost the original list I’d found so I had to start my research all over again. Luckily, I found a new site that listed even more countries offering VOA.

A friend of mine told me that when he was researching visa information for Vietnam, he found almost 10 websites with a .gov address, which was really confusing. In my own research, I found that many blogs don’t have links to official embassy websites, which is ultimately unhelpful.

I’ve always wanted to run my own business. I think I have a general problem with authority.

The first job I ever had was teaching windsurfing in the summer for a summer camp, then in the winter I would teach snowboarding for a small hill in Ontario. This was my first exposure to the tourism industry.

We had a lineup out the door for ages and introduced hundreds of people to our venue. We even ran out of waivers because we couldn’t anticipate how busy we were going to be.

In 1991, I had the life-changing opportunity to become a part of Gene’s Nursery, one of the oldest nurseries in Savannah Georgia.

When I had the opportunity to leave my office job and get my hands into soil, I was happy and I was hooked.

Gene’s Nursery has its roots firmly planted in our quaint historic coastal city and it’s passion was the Camellia. Camellias are ornamental shrubs that produce brilliant blossoms during the fall and winter. They are the most unique flowering shrub species found today and are considered the Queen of Ornamental shrubs.

I live right on the boardwalk on the beach in San Diego. I get a good sense of up and coming trends in beach lifestyle while just kicking back on my patio with a Margarita and watching the world go by. In the last three or four years, there has been an explosion in electric powered things buzzing down the boardwalk. They've always been there, but it used to be one dude cruising the boardwalk with some kind of homemade electric skateboard or something once a week. Then the trend started growing exponentially in the last few years and you could just see the future.

My main form of transportation down the boardwalk has always been a beach cruiser. While bikes are also recreation around the beach, unlike many places they're a central form of transportation for anyone who lives at the beach. Why sit in aggravating coastal traffic and then search for scarce parking when you can just cruise down the boardwalk with the wind in your hair and an ocean view. A rusty beach cruiser literally offers you a better quality of life than a car which might set you back $50K. Not to mention the rent for a garage to park said car might be $500/mo.

The thing about electric bikes that most people don't get is that they're basically the perfect form of transportation. This is NOT just a "different kind of bike". Aside from kids, beach dwellers like myself, and what my son refers to as "butt darts" (those odd and colorfully dressed Tour de France type road cyclists), normal people just don't use bikes as transportation in the US. Bikes are a recreation with a side of exercise. Electric bikes can be better described as a replacement for a car. It's like a scooter that doesn't require a helmet and you can ride on paths, boardwalks, sidewalks, across the lawn, wherever. The first time you ride one, the light bulb goes off in your head... wait, this is fun, requires no effort even up hills, let's me avoid traffic, doesn't require a parking spot, has a range of 30-60 miles, and if the battery does die I can just pedal the rest of the way home.

The two of us met while working at Deloitte. I (Kelli) was an operations manager with an extensive background in event and entertainment production including creating live experiences at Universal Studios Hollywood. Vanessa was a year one CPA fresh out of the University of Washington who realized within just a few months in at the fall tax deadline that this was not her jam. She decided to jump ship and start a DJ & Karaoke Service. Barely a year later, I left the firm, as well as my then part-time event production company, began to take off & I was finally able to commit to it 100% when I got a contract with Boeing.

In just months after both launching our businesses respectively, our client rosters began to grow. Vanessa’s company and namesake moniker, Baby Van Beezly, dove into the private and corporate event vendor realm, spinning party tunes and wedding marches. My clients with my company, Shindig Events, began to move away from private individuals to corporate entities such as PopCap Games, Adobe, Boston Consulting Group, Oculus, and Facebook. I was able to hire Vanessa for all sorts of gigs over the course of the next 6 years.

While Vanessa’s Baby Van Beezly biz began to really take off, my Shindig Events were coming to a close. After 7 years I was ready for a change, a stress break and launched back into day-job land, where I currently reside. But there’s always that itch to do something creative and event-related so a side hustle was inevitable.

As a part of our nomadic lifestyle, we built out a campervan simply to facilitate our own travels, whether it be a summer spent on the coast of Baja or chasing snow from mountain to mountain in the Canadian Rockies.

We really never had the intention of starting a business… In fact, we said no for a couple of years to those asking us to either buy our campervan or for us to build one for them. We loved the process and loved the idea of helping others to get out and enjoy more nature/adventure the way we had, but the idea of giving up some of our own freedom to go back to working in the shop simply wasn’t attractive.

Eventually, friends came to us and convinced us to start the business. To simply show them how to do what we had learned and for us to simply continue “marketing” the business as we already had been (by camping and attending events and simply talking to others who saw the van when we opened the doors). Those friends were also looking to make a transition in life as they wanted out of their 9-5s, and we saw it as an opportunity we couldn’t refuse- both to help them and to help others we had talked to about van builds over the years.

Way back before we started the business, I was travelling around Europe in 2006, while the Soccer World Cup was on. My friends and I had been dying to go to one of the beer halls in Germany only to suffer from “the dreaded thong blow-out” (when the plug snaps off the strap) within metres from the front entrance where I wasn’t allowed in because wearing only one thong (or flip flop, as they are also known) wasn’t considered appropriate footwear!

My friend and I sat out the front for a while trying some MacGyver-like solutions to my problem including trying to put the strap back together with a paperclip, we borrowed a cigarette lighter and tried melting the rubber together… all to no avail… My friend ended up going in and borrowed one of our other friend’s thongs to smuggle out so I could wear them in!

A year or so later, I met my soon-to-be business partner who was telling me of a similar experience he had wherein the space of two steps, BOTH of his thongs had blown out, making him trip over and leaving him stranded barefoot and needing to buy a new pair.

It all started at Heathrow Airport. I was and currently still work at the airport as a security officer in Terminal 5.

When I first started the role I had learned how to develop software, code and also web design. However, I didn’t know what direction of business to pursue with these skills. In the role of a security officer, you interact with the masses of passengers passing through every working day.

It all started at Heathrow Airport. I was and currently still work at the airport as a security officer in Terminal 5.

Travel had always been a passion of mine. Growing up in a popular tourist destination in the United Kingdom - I was immersed in the travel culture. Granted, Blackpool Beach can’t be compared to the beaches found in the south of Thailand. However, one thing remains the same- beach destinations attract tourism. So with a flow of adventure-seeking travelers passing through, paired with awesome and high-quality service to offer. A winning recipe is brought to life.

I’d spend every summer of my early twenties, grafting my way through countless European cities. A new tourist destination every few months. Picking up low-paid promotional work for events, clubs, and bars across the continent. In return for a bed, a meal and a beer or two. Barely scraping by, earning just enough to fund my travel habit. But I loved it, every moment of it. I loved helping other travelers find what they needed in a new location.

My passion for travel, saw me relocate, moving in with extended family in Thailand, at a young age of just twenty-something. I didn’t know what the plan was. And I certainly didn't plan on founding a boat tour business. I knew that my love for helping travelers, staying open-minded, and being in the right place at the right time had, (usually), worked out in the past.

When I was ending my freshman year of college, I was sitting in my dorm room one day when I got a call from my cousin. Both of us had been flipping items on eBay since we were 14 and always loved to find ways to make some extra money. He told me about a book called Effortless Entrepreneur, written by the founders of College Hunks Hauling Junk which is currently the world’s second-largest junk removal franchise.

I ordered the book on eBay for $4 and as soon as it came to my dorm, I immediately started reading. About 20 pages into it, I called my Dad who is a used car salesman. I told him that I was going to start a junk removal company and that I needed his help finding a truck. After nearly a week of calling him telling him every reason I could come up with as to why I needed to start this company, he was finally in. He helped me find a $1,000 truck on Craigslist, a 1991 Ford F-150.

I bought the truck, printed out some flyers at my school’s library, ordered a few hundred horrible business cards, and was officially in business.

I am a software engineer, graduated from McMaster University then began a career in Oil & Gas, where I was fortunate enough to have been granted a leave of absence. I used this opportunity to explore the world and travel to South America, Asia, and Africa!

BagsAway was born as an answer to a recurring problem my co-founder Irina and I experienced on travels, and I observed back home when renting my place on Airbnb. We are first and foremost world enthusiasts at heart - travel is a passion and a life goal for us and luggage, of course, is an inseparable part of the travel experience.

We often found our bags to be time wasters, having to make special trips to drop off or retrieve them on arrival and departure days. Or just having to drag them along, which of course limited what we could do, and we were not the only ones. We noticed others dragging their bags on Hollywood Blvd or sitting on a beach with backpacks in Asia before boarding their boats.

Validation of our business came when my Airbnb guests were repeatedly asking for a place to leave their bags before their late afternoon checkin’ and after their checkout before their evening flights, we realized there was a bigger problem and with it an opportunity. Time is the most precious currency we have so we figured there had to be a better way, and when we couldn’t find a solution we decided to create it ourselves. We were also accepted into the DMZ (Ryerson Digital Media Zone), which is the top business incubator in Canada!

We are two adventurous souls who met on the Oregon Coast in February 2010. In the beginning, it was all about traveling to find surf and deep snow without the crowds. We originally traveled around in a 1998 Toyota Tacoma with a canopy. It was a great vehicle for accessing all sorts of amazing places but when it turned cold and wet, it became quite uncomfortable, especially with our 2 dogs.

You have to play the long game, and during that game you will most likely be close to broke, SO YOU MUST LOVE WHAT YOU ARE DOING TO CARRY YOU THROUGH THOSE HARD TIMES. The ones who press on and don’t quit, are the ones who reap the rewards.

We always dreamt of having a vehicle that could keep us dry throughout the Northwest winters and allow us to access snowy mountains and desolate sandy beaches. In 2013, we upgraded our vehicle to a 2006 4x4 Ford Econoline cargo van. We threw a cooler, futon mattress and a couple seats inside, we had our perfect set up. 6 years later, we have a toddler and baby #2 due in May so we’ve upgraded the layout of a newer Ford Econoline to include a sofa bed that has seat belts for the car seats, a portable fridge/freezer and plenty of storage and room for the 2 pups and all our gear. As our life changes so does the layout of our van. See a little more about our family on our Instagram Highlight Reel.

On a starlit evening in 2013, Museum Hack’s founder, Nick Gray, went on a date to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. That night Nick fell in love... with the museum. Over the next few weeks, Nick hosted renegade tours for his friends while working his day job at the family business--a company that sold electrical equipment for small airplanes.

Everything changed when a blog wrote about Nick’s tours. The next day more than 1,300 people emailed Nick wanting to join one of his tours.

The first real-time he started to charge was when he’d let people skip the waiting list. He’d say, “I’ve got like 1,500 people on the waiting list. If you want to skip it, you can pay and you can sign up for a couple of spots this weekend.”

However, on his first paid tour, he ended up giving everyone their money back. He said it felt wrong to have so much fun AND get paid.

The Idea of Slyde Handboards started back on the beaches of Cape Town South Africa where I grew up. My Mother would take me and my brother down to the beach a lot to get us out the house. We spent most of the time bodyboarding or bodysurfing. We used to find all sorts of objects that we would use as a planning device to get us a little more speed and lift on the wave from frisbees to flip flops, some worked well others not so much. It wasn't until my teens that I decided to break open an old surfboard and re-use the foam to shape into a mini handheld board that would later become the very first prototypes for Slyde.

I figured we were the only ones doing this, but It wasn't until I went travel surfing around the world and met other surfers and water men and women and heard their stories of growing up using all sorts of found objects like lunch trays or even making boards themselves. It was then I realized there was a possible opportunity to create a brand around this awesome growing watersport movement, as no other company was doing this.

There is definitely a defined problem that we solve, in that a handboard is easy to learn, hassle free and fun to take to the beach. The idea was really born from simple enjoyment that I was having using one. It felt almost selfish to not share it with the world. It turns out I wasn't wrong, because almost immediately we started to form a community and movement as more and more people started to find out about us either online or through friends.

BruMate is my 3rd company but the first where I was actually doing any real product development or design. My first company I started in high-school was a part supply company for repair shops / tech centers (batteries, LCD screens, flex cables, etc).

I went on to sell that company to a franchise customer of ours in 2014 after I dropped out of engineering school and decided to pursue entrepreneurship full time.

I thought the idea of creating a product people actually needed and being able to walk around and see people using my creation was the absolute coolest concept.

Before Cape Whoopies was conceived, I was enjoying being the mom of two kids in high school, the wife to an airline pilot, and an aerobics teacher at my local gym.

When my kids had gone off to college and my husband was in the air, I had much time on my hands. There was only so much time you could spend at the gym, so with the newfound extra time I splurged in one of the things I always loved doing: making delicious baked things for friends.

My husband and I spend time a local restaurant as a hangout when he was home, so we would go to DiMillos and take our server friends whoopie pies. Why whoopie pies? I had tasted the Maine creation and thought, "good idea, not great execution".

Before jumping head-first into vegan ice cream, I spent quite a bit of time in the finance world. I previously was an investment banking analyst and associate at Houlihan Lokey in their TMT and Consumer Retail divisions.

While there, I was able to grasp an understanding of how businesses were built, capitalized and operated. I decided to leverage this skill-set to pursue my dream of building my own business.

In 2009 I packed up and went travelling on a one way ticket overseas. I had no idea how long I was going to be away for or really where I would end up, all I knew is I had to go. I ended up being away from home for 3 years!

From hanging out with elephants on safari in South Africa, to snowboarding mountain peaks in Canada and cruising South America in an old Volkswagen, I eventually ended up on a tiny little island in the Caribbean, The Cayman Islands.

Start NOW! Follow your passion and not a trend, because when times get tough you will want to give up if your not living and working your truth!

Born in 1982 in Barcelona, I studied in a liberal and secular school where art and music were an important role in education.

My personal goals were focused on my music band, I love playing the guitar, but although it may sound weird, I ended up studying for a degree in Economics. But as you can imagine, I was not the typical economics student, it took awhile for me to finish my degree. I liked it, but it was just too soon for me to sit and decide what I would be.

A few years later, in 2010, I was working as a financial controller. Everything seemed to be fine, good salary, good position, and a whole career ahead to professionally grow. But I felt empty. I quit my music band and my job and I moved to London, where it all started.

My name is Gary Fox, and I run HostButlers, an Airbnb concierge service in Dublin, Ireland.

Since we started nearly four years ago, we have hosted over 200,000 people and have been profitable from month 5.

Personally, I always knew I would have my own business. I watched my dad run his own recruitment agency from a young age and I loved the freedom that came with being your own boss. Even though I studied Business Management at Leeds University in England, I didn’t start my own business straight away as I needed to find something I was passionate about first.

Don’t be put off by the big picture, doing all the small steps first allows you to get started. Things like deciding on a company name, registering your company, purchasing your domain, designing a logo... All of these small steps can get you inspired and help you move forward with your goals.

Ben and I came up with the idea after we had been traveling a few years ago. We hated using soggy, bulky towels that took up your suitcase space and had a weird odour after a few washes. We wanted to create a towel that didn’t hold you back from exploring, and all of the other quick dry towels we found were small or had dull colours. We didn’t have any expertise in this space and we both worked in finance at the time, so we took a huge risk, packed in our jobs and started researching manufacturers to make our dream towel.

We started the food truck business in 2012.

We kept finding it very difficult to find locations to operate. We had a booker that we used to find our locations but fell short and we let her go. I took over our booking and found that most people did not want to book just one truck, not only that they were upset that most of the time the trucks didn’t show up or were late.

We learned the real need was not only helping the trucks but providing a turnkey service for the corporations. This was a game-changer for us, we were really struggling financially.

I graduated from Quinnipiac University in Connecticut with a film degree in 2014. Growing up in a small farm town in Woodstock, CT, my dream was always to make it big and become a famous horror movie director. I had such a strong passion for directing and cinematography, but after one cold morning in Chinatown at 4 am on the set of the HBO show GIRLS, I knew that I wasn’t cracked up for that life.

I then took my first sales job in 2015 at a software company in New York City called Contently to pay off my student loans. It ended up being one of the most important things I ever did as I learned invaluable sales and outreach skills that would help me later land deals for CROSSNET with retailers such as DICK’S, Target, Academy, Walmart, and Scheels.

After a lovely layoff in the spring of 2017, I got offered a gig as Uber’s first-ever external Account Executive in their NY HQ helping launching UberEats in Boston and Providence. Through Uber’s relaxed start-up culture and demanding sales quotas, I learned the value of providing autonomy and trust to my future employees and freelancers. Who cares if you take a 20-minute coffee break and take an extra day off if you are hitting 150% of your quota. I have that same mentality for all of my employees, as long as we are hitting our deadlines, putting out high-quality work, there’s no need to add extra stress in anybody's life.

I loved playing baseball, but felt that the hard athletic cup I was required to wear was, well, a pain in the crotch. I tried almost every youth athletic cup on the market and nothing felt comfortable.

Starting a business seems like a really hard thing to do, but it is really just lots and lots of tiny steps in the direction you need to go.

Honestly, I threw a fit about wearing it before every practice and game, but I had to wear it. During one of my pre-game frustrations, my mom said, "If you don't like something. Quit whining about it and come up with a solution!"

Hi! I am Nan and I am the founder of No Code Map App - a no code builder for creating custom interactive maps with dynamic filters. It is designed for businesses to build an agency-quality interactive map without coding.

We launched 3 months ago and started monetizing at the end of March. April was our first full month of taking payments and we made >$400.

My background is in marketing and communications, which has helped me immensely as I grow my business. I was working a standard 9-5 job and feeling pretty unsatisfied when my then boyfriend (now husband) and I got the idea to quit and travel for a year.

On that trip around the world, I started to question why I was working in a career that was making me unhappy and resolved to start really listening to what my passions were.

We planned and saved over the course of two years (and got married in the meantime). Right after the wedding, we sold everything we owned, quit our jobs and went backpacking through 25 countries on a year-long trip around the world.

We are Taylor Hood and Gretchen Bayless, founders of ROAMERICA. A company that specializes in adventure vehicles, including 4wd campervans.

Hi, I’m Bill Spohn, President, CEO, and majority owner of TruTech Tools, LTD. Eric Preston is my trusted business partner. Our business continues to grow as we complement each other's personalities so well. TruTech is one of the largest online stores in the niche market of tools and test instruments for Heating, Ventilation, Air Conditioning, and Refrigeration (HVAC/R) Technicians. We are also the major supplier to a smaller market of technicians that do energy audits and assess building performance, including indoor air quality. We serve customers in the US and Canada.

I founded the company with Jim Bergmann, Jr, and his dad, Jim Sr. (who passed in 2016). The business was intended as a retirement “hobby” for Jim Sr. as both his son and I had full-time jobs. After I bought them out (with Eric noted above) in 2014, we have continued to have a great relationship with Jim Jr. and have continued to build each others’ businesses. The interesting thing is, I have always worked remotely (100 miles away) from the majority of the staff at the offices/warehouse.

Hello, I am Akshay Patel from Albuquerque, NM the land of enchantment. I started an event rental and decor company that led me to an event venue. The View Event Center is a lavish space that is an indoor and outdoor event venue with panoramic city views. Our high-end venue with experienced staff will assist from venue decor to the smallest details entailed in making memories of a lifetime. Simply Decor, Tents, and Events ensures exclusive decor and thrives to bring your event to life through customized, elegant decor for all of their clients.

The full-service company will individually work with every client to design their event that will intrigue every eye in the room. Our company is broad that we get many different types of customers and we make many great connections with them as well. The company was making upwards of $380,000 a year.

I'm Bryan Clayton CEO of GreenPal which is best described as Uber for Lawn Care.

Good thing early investors told us no because with their capital they would have owned and controlled 30% of our business.e are self-funded and my cofounders and I own it all.

Hi Starter Story! My name is Joey Sanchez and I'm the founder of Wolf's Auto Detailing in Phoenix, Arizona. We are a mobile auto detailing service that focuses on quality work and convenience. We specialize in interior detailing, Paint polishing, and ceramic coating just to name a few.

While our client list consists of many different types of vehicles and personalities, they all share one thing in common: they all understand the value of quality work. We hold our standards very high and measure our success not only in dollar amounts but in the satisfaction of our clients. However, making $3K a month only working 3 days a week isn't a bad deal!

Hi, my name is Monika Kalinowska and I’m the founder of Plant Circle, an online plant store for rare and tropical plants with headquarters in Berlin. I have started Plant Circle in 2017 after going through a burnout caused by my previous job in journalism.

Since the first year, Plant Circle has been almost quadrupling revenue each year, now arriving at +/-100k a month in 2021.