Thinking through the whether to start something new

Starting a business can be terrifying. Weighing the pros and cons, the risks, and other considerations can be so overwhelming that often promising entrepreneurs stop before they even start. We asked some phenomenal entrepreneurs about their thought process behind starting their own businesses. Our hope is that by making the thought-process less intimidating we can help more folks think through whether they should take an entrepreneurial leap.

Anna Jacobi | Entrepreneur & Performing Artist

I started Pixie Dusted Parties back in the fall of 2015 because I wanted to provide my own hometown with the same magical experiences you can find at world class theme parks. We focus on the minute details so that when children meet Cinderella at one of our events and then take a vacation to meet Cinderella in her castle at Walt Disney World, the magic stays alive. We hold ourselves to the highest standards in order to create the highest quality character interactions right here in our backyard! We use the term “Character Integrity” to ensure that the magic stays consistent for our clients! From the very beginning I wanted Pixie Dusted Parties to stand out in the way of children’s entertainment- and we’ve done just that! Something we hear a lot from our wonderful clients is that our performers are right up there with the wonderful women portraying these characters for Disney! Read more>>

Kasie Ricart | Insurance Agent & President

Initially, I was prompted to start my own business so that I could be in charge of my own destiny. I knew I could “Do anything I put my mind to,” as my parents used to say, but I was quickly finding out that corporate America had a different timeline and salary scale. I was tired of being an overachiever, and my contributions heavily outweighed my compensation. Fed up, I was commiserating with my parents one day – when my dad nearly knocked me down with one statement. “I’ll buy you an insurance agency, you’re an excellent manager and with your top sales skills, you could be awesome!” Two thoughts instantly surfaced. “Insurance? Who wants to do that?” Of course, my response was a little better polished, “Wow Dad, that’s a really generous offer. I’ll think about it.” It wasn’t a few days later when it hit me. Read more>>

Barbara Hill | Owner

Location, location, location. Back in 2013 when the idea of Willow Creek came about there were very few venues of our kind, and there none south of Dallas. We were helping a friend’s daughter look for venues and saw the need for something in our neck of the woods. Read more>>

Alexandra Geczi | Divorce Lawyer

Like most entrepreneurs, I want freedom and control over my time. Time is our most precious asset, and how we spend it is important. I can spend my time working for other people to further their vision, or I can create my own vision and spend my time working towards achieving that. I chose the latter. As it relates to my business, I have a family law firm that helps women achieve freedom by helping them let go of the relationships holding them back from a better life. Our clients are women who also realize that time is precious. They can spend their lives stuck in a relationship that is sucking their time and doing what others tell them to do, or they can let go of that relationship and live a life they love. I love that I’m creating a business that helps other women on their journey to freedom. Read more>>

Harold B. Green

My Dad started making his Worcestershire based barbecue sauce in 1954. He taught me how to make it when Gale and I graduated from college and got married 46 years ago. Our kids have been after us to sell his sauce for years but we had always managed to find a good reason why we were too busy. In the summer of 2013 our son Robert was over with his wife Elizabeth and our daughter Allison, with her then boyfriend, now husband Kevin were over eating smoked ribs in our backyard. Kevin started pushing us to bottle and sell our sauces and the others joined in. Gale had retired as a school teacher and I was moving toward retiring from my Public Affairs consulting firm. So to get them to stop bugging us I said we would look into it and if it looked promising we would start the process of making it for sale. Read more>>

Frederick Flores | Captain Jack Sparrow Impersonator

Like all destinations, our business began as an evolving journey. Our first experience in “Pirating” began with our own Halloween parties beginning in 2005. From there, our costumes evolved from off-the-rack Pirates of the Caribbean licensed one-piece nylon costumes to screen accurate versions of Captain Jack Sparrow and Elizabeth Swann. We visited some local festivals where people would stop us and ask for photos. Some of these same people would inquire about party entertainment. Since there seemed to be some demand for this sort of thing, we came up with a script to entertain at parties as pirates. What young kid doesn’t love pirates, young and old alike? And so we became Pair of Pirates, Pirate Entertainment. We feature an interactive show with kids mostly geared toward the 4 to 6 aged crowd. Complete with sword fighting, it has been a lot of fun for us and the kids. Read more>>

Corta Ishman | CEO & Founder

The thought process behind starting my business was trying to figure out two things: What I am great at doing and What will the people enjoy doing long term vs. short term. Being a creative person I was able to put together different ideas that all wrapped under one thing, ENTERTAINMENT. Such ideas like, Paint Parties, Stage Plays, Talk Shows, Films, and more, which is how we got I Am Corta Entertainment. Read more>>

Linda and Istvan Takacs | Newborn Photographers, Mentors & Influencers

When we started our photography business we wanted to offer great quality and affordable prices. We started 4 years ago and even though we have won international awards for our newborn images, have taught newborn photography to others all over the world, we still stayed true to why we started! We still try to keep it so that most families can get the best quality memories at an affordable rate! Read more>>

Neetu Rishi | Passionpreneur, Author, Image Consultant & Motivational Speaker

4 years ago when I moved to the United States from India with a 2 decade of experience, I knew that I have started from Ground Zero again. When people start planning for early retirement, I was planning a whole new career. But that did not stop me. I wrote down four questions with their answers 1. What’s my passion? 2. What are my skills and strengths? 3.What can I be paid for? 4. What does the world need? The timeline which will take me on the cover page of Forbes looked a journey of almost 10 years. And a thought took birth, ” I wish I started early” And then I decided to nurture this thought and made a purpose which can help the world and leave me with a contented life. And was born this PASSIONPRENEUR, I love to call myself this because I made my passion my profession. The journey was crooked, but my determination of being the driver of my own life kept me going. Read more>>

Janae Samuel | Aesthetician, Laser Tech & Pro Makeup

I am very passionate about overall wellness and what we put on our bodies. I couldn’t find any spa that genuinely focused on actually clean skincare, and that would put the emphasis on the whole person, inside and out. I knew the quality of service I wanted to provide and the type of atmosphere, and I couldn’t find it. So I created it. Read more>>

Shunte’ Cakley | Serial Entrepreneur

I’ve always had a love and spirit for entrepreneurship. Even after graduating college, working for various corporate jobs and after obtaining my MBA, I always knew that I would be an entrepreneur.. My thought process came from not wanting to work a traditional 9 to 5 job, being able to live life on my own terms and being unsatisfied with a life that relegated me to the sidelines or the background at times while working in Corporate America. I find much joy in waking up when I want to, although I sleep a-lot less now that I am an entrepreneur than I did when I worked a 9 to 5 but that’s just part of the excitement that comes with it. Even when I worked in corporate America, I always kept something going on on the side as a side hustle. My aspirations were always to do something greater than corporate America. Read more>>

Terrill Binion | Owner & Operator

My thought process when starting my business was to create a business that could be a consistent need in everyday life. Also, I wanted to offer a service within the community I serve because of my background in social services. that would provide my clients an outlet to be able to relax in a calm environment. Read more>>

Judy Griffin | PhD. in Nutrition, Author, Speaker, Master Herbalist & Aromatherapist Creator

I prayed for help with my health and my twins, who were not suppose to live. I promised to share my knowledge and experience with others, as well as my passion for flowers and Nature’s pharmacy. I would guide those who came to me in non offensive ways to live a quality life and to never give up on themselves. There’s many types of pain, physical, emotional and mental. I would learn ways to help with all these categories. I began organically growing and distilling plants for these purposes. I learned from teachers of many cultures and modalities. I also have dreams where I learn the best ways to develop a balanced landscape for wild life and nurture the land where I grow. I dream of plants that can help different challenges and ailments; how to best create and use them. For example, the skin is the best immune organ. Read more>>

Tracy Hazelton | CEO & Owner

So Naturally as with most musicians that are passionate about what they do, we have taken the next step. We created AFTRLIFE Entertainment ahead of schedule due to the pandemic and the need to fill a void in live entertainment in the dance music culture. Yes there is Facebook, and twitch but those platforms were not entirely ready for the community and flagging, muting, disconnecting portions of their streams for copyright infringement. So we have decided what’s a better way for viewers to get the club feeling while being at home. VR. Virtual Reality is our way of filling that gap. There are tons of ways to do it but we decided to make it as easy and cheap as possible for everyone to view our events without spending 300+ on new VR headsets and expensive computers. Read more>>

JerLisa Nicole | Fashion Stylist & Creative Director

I’ve always been there to help friends plan looks for every day, as well as big events like concerts, birthdays and weddings. Once more people began to ask more often, I knew I needed to take fashion and styling more serious. I wanted to broaden everyone’s views of clothing and how to create looks that fit their style with a flair of something new in each way. Thus Lil Girl Blue was born. Read more>>

David Clarke | Coffee House & Roasterie Owner

I had been a coffee geek for over 35 years after falling in love with espresso on a visit to Italy and I was also very motivated by the lack of real community as experienced in my home continent of Europe. Having the vision for a combination of coffee motivated community and being at the end of wanting to be working in a corporate environment, I set out to create a business plan and pursue my dream of creating this business to fulfill the above vision. Read more>>

Aubrey Jimenez | Photographer

There wasn’t much thought. I came from a family of entrepreneurs and I always imagined being my own boss. I held a job after college in a call center where I used my time to plan out my business. Working in a job like that makes you move yourself forward really quick. I always knew my direction was owning a business. Read more>>

Kimberly Haley-Coleman | Founder & CEO

When stuck abroad on business over weekends, I sought meaningful, organized short-term volunteer experiences, and just couldn’t’ find any. When I started pulling together my own, I found so many others wanted to do these alongside me, that there was clearly a demand for these programs. Doing good is quite naturally one of the best ways to feel good. Read more>>

Brittany Smith | Functional Movement Coach & Personal Trainer

Starting my own business has been a lifelong desire and pursuit of mine. I have two college degrees in exercise physiology and athletic training and have spent my career learning new approaches and techniques through continuing education, articles, and collaboration with my peers. Ultimately, I have evolved my technique as a holistic approach to mind, body and spirit and wanted an opportunity to be able to apply that with my clients (sometimes not as possible in corporate environments). Therefore, when we decided to move to Dallas, I jumped at the opportunity to take this next step in my career. Read more>>

Kevin Gilliland | Business Owner, Psychologist & Author

It was really basic, the healthcare system for mental health issues simply doesn’t offer us the services that many people need. I’ve been fortunate to work for and with some great people and organizations in various roles of healthcare, from UT Southwestern to Blue Cross Blue Shield Texas and seen some of the good things about our system and some of the tremendous needs. There were really only two options for people, go to a hospital or a residential program for up to 30 days or seeing a counselor one time a week. While that addresses some of the needs, it also leaves out a lot of people that don’t need that much or need a little more. We help people that are stuck and either need a little more than talking once a week or a lot less than leaving a job or family for 30 days. Read more>>