The Journey

Emily Vaca, Founder & CEO of LA VACA Designhouse, talks about having a one-in-a-million idea, designing the iconic MINNIDIP pool, and what it's like to take a huge bet on yourself.Tune in to learn:What it's like to balance creativity and art (4:30)Why 4 am can be a game-changer (4:00)How to gain the courage to take a bet on yourself (29:00)This season of the Journey is produced by Mission.org and brought to you by UPS. To learn how UPS can help your small business, go to https://UPS.com/pivot.Mission.org is a media studio producing content for world-class clients. Learn more at https://mission.org.

Steve Denton didn't grow up knowing how to be accountable, he had to learn that skill throughout his life. Along the way, accountability turned into dependability and, more importantly, resiliency, which has helped him see his way through a journey filled with highs and lows. Tune in to learn:What does it take to learn accountability? (4:00)Why you don't necessarily have to be better, you just have to be different. (5:55)How Steve decided to leave the corporate world and dive into entrepreneurship. (7:10)When his company was facing hard times, what kept Steve working to save it? (10:50)What lessons do you learn when you enter into a leadership role? (14:00)Why joining Ware2Go was such an enticing opportunity for Steve. (15:45)How to bring unity to an organization. (18:47)This season of the Journey is produced by Mission.org and brought to you by UPS. To learn how UPS can help your small business, go to https://UPS.com/pivot.Mission.org is a media studio producing content for world-class clients. Learn more at https://mission.org 

Jackie Burke wasn't interested in being an entrepreneur. As an engineer, she was very risk-averse. But when her own skin allergy had her searching for a hypoallergenic earring and coming up empty, she felt called to solve a problem - and in the process, started a business, Tini Lux, that has since become a solution for folks with sensitive ears everywhere. Tune in to learn:What it's like to be a risk-averse entrepreneur (3:00) How to create an idea from a problem (4:45) How Emily balanced a day job and side hustle (6:00) The challenges of being a first-time founder (8:00) The importance of “radical transparency” (9:00) The struggle of keeping personal touches while scaling (10:40) What is Tini Lux Looking to Next? (14:00) This season of the Journey is produced by Mission.org and brought to you by UPS. To learn how UPS can help your small business, go to UPS.com/pivot.Mission.org is a media studio producing content for world-class clients. Learn more at mission.org

To be an entrepreneur is to be constantly adapting. In a world where the market is ever-changing, it's important to be able to shift, to refocus and rebrand… to be ready for whatever is coming next. Iva Pawling, the Founder & CEO of Richer Poorer, a California-based inner wear company with a cult following, knows a thing or two about having to think on the fly. “It was completely the opposite of what we expected, and they ended up filing for bankruptcy within thirteen months of acquiring us,” Pawling said of Richer Poorer's ill-fated acquisition. “It was just insane. It really taught me to always have a Plan B. Like… if things don't go how you plan, how are you handling it?” So how did she handle it? How did Richer Poorer survive huge obstacles like a failed acquisition, over-complicated marketing tactics, and a major supply-chain stallout? Find out on this episode of The Journey.  Main Takeaways:Sometimes, it's okay to not run on pure passion: The old saying goes something like this: “Motivation is for amateurs, discipline is for professionals.” There might come a time when a brilliant opportunity presents itself, but it's not something that completely lights your fire. It's not your dream. There are times when you might need to look at the bigger picture and think long-term. It might not be the most exciting thing, but maybe it's the right next step. Successful careers take both passion and smart moves done at the right time.  Pay if forward: When Iva was just starting out, she reached out to a lot of her contacts, all of whom were eager to point her in the right direction. That's because, she explained, that all entrepreneurs have had someone do the same for them when they were just starting out. The business world can be very cutthroat, but it can also be full of camaraderie. Keep an eye out for those moments when you can help someone… it will come back to you, eventually. Vulnerability can be a strength: Every business will face curveballs and moments of uncertainty. Good leaders will turn to their team and ask for help with blind spots instead of pretending to have all the answers. By being vulnerable, you invite your team to find the best solution. ---This season of the Journey is produced by Mission.org and brought to you by UPS. To learn how UPS can help your small business, go to UPS.com/pivot.

Any entrepreneur is going to face competition – it's the nature of the game. All you can do is make your product the best it can be and hope that your consumers feel the same. But sometimes, your timing is unique, making that competition even fiercer than normal. Amy Weisman had her work cut out for her. After she had her first baby, she knew two things: she wanted to use her entrepreneurial prowess to carve out an idea of her own, and she hated the smell and feel of the hand sanitizer she was constantly pouring all over her hands. She had an idea for a sustainably-packaged, germ-killing line of hand care products that people liked using. The only catch? She was launching this business in the middle of a global pandemic “I was confident enough at the time… I knew that if people just tried the product, they'd come back for more. I knew I had a special formula that was different and that stood out.” She was right. Amy is the Founder & CEO of Paume, a global hand care brand that is taking the world by storm.Main Takeaways:Learn as much as you can: The idea of starting your own business can be exciting and terrifying – but nothing will compare to actually getting out there and actually doing it. It is important to try, as much as you can, to understand the world you're jumping into before you do it. In Amy's case, she worked with a start-up for four years before she decided she wanted to try it for herself, so she knew what she was getting into when things got tough. Keep your eye out for the good idea right in front of you: Always be looking for that next great idea… it might show up where you don't necessarily expect. Some of the best businesses have come from small, everyday moments where someone was paying attention to how they could make the world a little better. Prepare to stand out: If you're going to join a crowded market, know what it is about your product that will make it stand apart from the crowd. You've got to know what it is your offering that your competitors aren't, and be ready to talk about it.---This season of the Journey is produced by Mission.org and brought to you by UPS. To learn how UPS can help your small business, go to UPS.com/pivot.

The road to entrepreneurial success is long. It's tedious. And there are points where it might make more sense to cut losses than it would be to keep forging onward. But sometimes, an idea gets bigger than just you – it becomes a movement… something that changes lives. “I was like, what happened, why do you not have water bottles,” Travis Rosbach said. “Because I did rock climbing in college, and I knew plastic water bottles were the way to go – the non-single use kind. And he said they didn't have any because of this stuff called BPA. He said ‘We're not really familiar with what it is or how serious it's going to be, but we pulled all the bottles just as a precautionary measure.' And so it just came out my mouth: ‘I will do that.'”Travis isn't your typical entrepreneur – he's far more comfortable in a scuba suit and a business suit, but he knows firsthand what it's like to have a business take on a life of its own. He's the co-founder of Hydro Flask, the most-used water bottle in the world, which he built by taking an $11,000 investment and turning it into a $210 million dollar household name. And he did it while facing seemingly insurmountable odds. Hear his story on this episode!Main Takeaways:Teach yourself: The best way to learn isn't always in an expensive MBA program or ivy-league college. Some of the best knowledge you'll ever encounter can be found in the pages of books. Read, study, and absorb the lessons of those who have made a living doing what you want to do.Find the Answers Yourself: If you stop at the first challenge, you'll never hit paydirt. If people tell you that what you want to do isn't possible – find a way. Travis was told that there wasn't a company in the world that could make his innovative new water bottle – so he went to Shanghai and found one himself.Find a Reason to Push Through the Hard Stuff: Running a business isn't easy, but keep your eyes on why you started: why you began this journey in the first place. That reason will help you keep going when there are thousands of reasons to quit.---This season of the Journey is produced by Mission.org and brought to you by UPS. To learn how UPS can help your small business, go to UPS.com/pivot.

The world often wants to put people into boxes, to sift everyone into categories. It just seems easier sometimes: rich or poor. Successful or not. Worth listening to or worth tuning out. Right or wrong. Male or female. But there are people who are pushing back on those categories – people who believe that life can be richer without harshly-drawn lines. Matthew Herman of Boy Smells — a rapidly-expanding queer-owned personal fragrance and product brand — is trying to change that. “For us, it's just about showing up… whatever way you want to show up, it's right,” Herman said. “And you can show up differently every single day, because you are whoever you want to be. And that's great.” Herman cut their teeth in the fashion world, working for innovative brands like NastyGal. When they talked about the issue of binary luxury with friend and business partner David Kien, they discovered a hole in the industry: a place where comfort was non-binary. “We had been talking as individuals — or even men — who weren't shopping at Levi's or these kinds of  more rugged, stereotypically-masculine stores,” Herman said. “We thought, ‘It'd be great to have this store with home stuff, but fashion and all sort of other things.'  And then we were [said], ‘Well, let's start with one thing. Let's just think about like candles.'”The result was Boy Smells, a brand focused on identity, specifically its concept of genderfulness. This idea implores a new kind of consumer — namely the 18-25 set — to harness their power across the gender spectrum and oppose traditional marketing nomenclature like “genderless” or “gender-neutral.” On this episode, Matthe explains what it all means, how he worked to create this concept from his own kitchen, and what it took to ship and scale during a pandemic. Main Takeaways:Follow the Curiosity: Sometimes, the path to success isn't as linear as we'd like. It has winding detours and setbacks. But if you find something you're passionate about – something that makes you excited and curious — you can find yourself at the threshold of opportunities you never would have seen had you played it safe.Roll Up Your Sleeves: As we all know very well by now… the world can change in an instant. You might not think you'll be in charge of certain aspects of a business, but be ready to jump in when you're needed. Helming an endeavor means being ready to handle things that you never thought you'd be handling, and mastering skills you never thought you'd have to learn.Don't be the smartest person in the room: Great leadership is the leadership that has wise counsel and takes into consideration the thoughts of others. Bring people in. Ask questions. Take advice – your business will be better for it.---This season of the Journey is produced by Mission.org and brought to you by UPS. To learn how UPS can help your small business, go to UPS.com/pivot.

When Raili Clasen's interior designer left just a week into the job, Clasen was left looking at a massive project that seemed daunting. But when she listened to her gut and decided to take a swing at designing the space herself, it opened up a world of possibilities that launched an incredibly successful business.“So I bought some business cards,” Clasen said. “I didn't have a website. I obviously had nothing, but I put some business cards out on the table and at that point was like, ‘Well, if these things are gone at the end of the day, then maybe I'm doing something cool. Maybe someone will hire me.' That's how it started.” Clasen would be the first to tell you that she didn't expect to wind up as one of the most successful interior designers in California. She just knew two things: she loved design, and she needed to make a living. She followed that inclination and founded Raili CA Design. What happened next and how did Raili learn to go from being not just a designer but an entrepreneur, a business owner, and a leader? Find out on this episode.  Main Takeaways:Be your own advocate: Sometimes, growth will only happen when you speak up for your talent and put your work in front of others. Leave your business cards on the table. Make the calls to see if someone wants to collaborate. Connections don't just happen, and clients don't just drop into your inbox. Use the network you have to seek out any and all opportunities.Be ready to wear multiple hats: Launching and growing a business means that you'll be doing more before you can do less. Find ways to be comfortable learning about payroll and customer service – it might be a while before you can delegate those to others.Don't be afraid to go against the flow: Following your path might look different than the process everyone around you is going through. It's easy to compare other careers against your own journey, but resisting that urge will help you keep your eyes ahead at what's coming down the pike for you.---This season of the Journey is produced by Mission.org and brought to you by UPS. To learn how UPS can help your small business, go to UPS.com/pivot.

When Kelley Higney moved to Florida, she knew she'd face some challenges: She was a young mother in a new state. She was in a new house in a new town. But there was one problem she didn't expect: her daughter's severe reactions to mosquito bites. Higney would watch helplessly as her six-month-old daughter's limbs would swell just minutes after being bitten. After trying everything she could – every ointment, every gimmick – Higney knew she was going to have to find an answer on her own. She did some research, and found an answer in a strange little tube: a suction tool that could pull the venom and saliva out of the bite, stopping the allergic reaction before it even had the chance to start. “I started testing with just this one little sample I had purchased on friends and family,” Higney said. “Everybody was getting similar reactions and that's when I'm like, okay, maybe I'm onto something. So I was able to get in touch with the factory. I pitched them my idea. I told them that every mom and everybody that was suffering here needed to know about this product because it's, it was life-changing for me and my family.”So how did Kelley take a quest to help her daughter and turn it into a powerhouse company with products in 25,000 retailers and 25 different countries? Find out on this week's episode of The Journey.Main Takeaways:Don't Be Afraid to Start Small: Good ideas rarely explode overnight, and good entrepreneurs know the value of a slower start. Most businesses need to grow and evolve slowly, and it's an entrepreneur's job to find customers whoever and wherever possible, even if it means pitching and selling at a local market or your child's school functions.Surround Yourself with People Who Can Help You Grow: Regardless of when or if your business takes off, you need to have a network of people to lean on and learn from. Find people you admire — even within your own family — and tap into them for advice, feedback, or support to take your business to the next level.Protect Your Product: Good ideas and successful products will always be met with copycats. To ensure that those imitators don't steal your market share, do your homework and take the steps necessary to protect yourself.---This season of the Journey is produced by Mission.org and brought to you by UPS. To learn how UPS can help your small business, go to UPS.com/pivot.

If you'd asked Francois Kress what he thought he was going to be when he grew up, he probably would have told you that he was going to be a mathematician. It seemed like a very obvious answer, given his background. But life had other plans, and now Kress has arrived at the top of an industry he never expected, running a company he never could have foreseen. But it turns out that his different path gave him the ability to see things in a way others might not. And merging his love of science and entrepreneurial spirit with more than twenty years of experience running luxury brands resulted in something powerful but opposite of everything Francois has ever known: a start-up called Feelmore Labs. “Five years ago I was invited to join [the] first board of the company, Feelmore Labs,” Kress said. “Very quickly, we decided that I should run it, as well, because it was a great combination of science, tech, and complicated consumer branding.” And Kress is uniquely positioned to be the perfect person to bring all three of those things together. Since taking the helm, Feelmore Labs has been at the forefront of some very exciting scientific breakthroughs. One of its products, Cove, is a device that can positively change the trajectory of your mental health simply by activating the receptors in your skin.  But how did Kress – a giant in the luxury brand world – wind up taking the helm of a groundbreaking lab? What qualities gave him the unique qualifications to walk Feelmore Labs through the complicated and rigorous process of creating, vetting, and marketing an entirely innovative product? Find out on this week's episode of The Journey. And, just for Journey listeners, you can use the promo code Mission20 to receive 20% off your order with Feelmore Labs!Main Takeaways:Follow the Passion: Even if you have found success in an industry or throughout your career, it is possible to be unsatisfied. Don't settle just because you have reached the top of your field and still feel like there is a void. Follow your passion, take risks, and don't be afraid to try something new, because you may find something that will fulfill you more than you thought possible.Francois never thought that he would wind up heading entire regions of business for the world's most recognizable luxury brands. He thought he would pursue a career in academia, just like his parents. But when he found that he had talent in an industry that was, at first, foreign to him, he pursued it, and his work ethic and natural talent took him all the way to the top. However, when he found himself experiencing “luxury fatigue”, he found the strength to change his trajectory and return to his first love: science.Zoom in and Zoom Out: Francois's different background is not a weakness – it is a strength. His time working in the luxury world allowed him to assess products on a national and even global scale. On the flip side, his love of science allows him to zoom in on small problems and find solutions. These contrasting views, when combined in a leader, is incredibly powerful. Use all of your experience and tools in your toolbox to zoom in and out on your own challenges, and never stay too focused on one thing that you forsake everything else.Be Patient: Francois knows that success doesn't come overnight. When Feelmore Labs'their innovative product, Cove, was met with skepticism, Kress and his team didn't give up on it. Instead, they focused on putting the product through even more stringent testing and studies so that he can bring the strongest product to market when it is time.---This season of the Journey is produced by Mission.org and brought to you by UPS. To learn how UPS can help your small business, go to UPS.com/pivot.

Plot twits might be fun to read about in a story, but when it's your life that's getting upended or dramatically changed, you might not like it as much. Dashed dreams are among the hardest to pivot away from, because where do you go? Nadine Fonseca, co-founder and CEO of Mighty Kind, knows all too well the mental struggles that come with finding out that you have to leave a precious dream behind. “After injuries and rehabilitating physically and kind of mentally from that, it was a real struggle to figure out who I was and who I wanted to be,” Fonseca says. “I spent a lot of time just working jobs to work jobs and I think just trying to figure out, was I an entertainer? Was I an academic? What was I meant to do with the rest of my life?” This wasn't the last time that Nadine came face-to-face with a seemingly impossible question that forced her to change course. At this point, Nadine has changed and pivoted so many times throughout her life and her career that she barely even bats an eye when the world throws a wrench in her plans. But how did she get to that place? And how did her path ultimately lead to Mighty Kind, a kids magazine that puts tough topics front and center? Find out right here on The Journey. Main Takeaways:Pivoting At The Least Convenient Time: Changing your business plan at any point is inconvenient at best, but sometimes re-doing work is worth a herculean effort. Being objective about what's going to work for your business long-term and being honest about what you can handle will go a long way in helping you see hard changes to make. Just Because You Can ‘Do it on Your Own' Doesn't Mean You Should: Maybe you thought about your business one way, but now, as you get closer to launch, you're realizing you don't have the bandwidth, or maybe even the right skill set to do it all on your own. The solution is simple, you need to get help, and there's no shame in that. The smartest and most successful leaders can identify their blindspots and bring in the talent to fill them, which benefits the entire company.Pivoting and Thriving: Those who are the most pliable are the least breakable. At every point, being able to shift the business toward what you can see is going to work better is a good investment. When an opportunity arose out of a crisis, Nadine found that being nimble and shifting the business to digital turned out to be the best move. ---This season of the Journey is produced by Mission.org and brought to you by UPS. To learn how UPS can help your small business, go to UPS.com/pivot.

When we're growing up, we're always told that we can be what we want, we can do what we love, and we can have anything as long as we work for it. The harsh reality, though, is that for many people, the options are limited. When it comes to things like jobs, homes, or other huge aspects of life, there's no Cheesecake Factory menu of choices for most people to select from. This is especially true in healthcare, where major industries, governments, and regulators have made it nearly impossible to choose the healthcare you want — or to choose anything at all. “I had a boss who was doing a really important speech, and I knew that he was typically a little bit nervous about speaking in public and he had Propranololl, which is a beta beta blocker and took it and crushed the speech and it was no big deal,” Hilary Coles says. “And it made me think about how many people would never say yes. So few people are given the opportunity to speak, right. And then how many people wouldn't even be able to say yes to that? I think a light bulb really went off then, it was a very impressionable moment for me to think through how you design your life and what capacity, or, or limits you set for yourself based on what you think is possible. What do you choose for yourself when you think that you're not gonna be a good lover in a relationship because you're not in control of your sexual function, what kind of an employee are you gonna be when you have untreated depression and no one to talk to you about and don't feel comfortable sharing that. Like, what are the limits that you set for yourself?”Coles is the co-founder & SVP Brand & Innovation at hims & hers, a company that is bringing the power of choice back into the world of healthcare. But it's not just in business that options matter. Throughout Coles's life, she has found that having options, being given opportunities, and opening up doors is necessary to find success. And when those options aren't there for you, maybe you just have to create them yourself. This is The Journey.Key Takeaways:The Same, But Different: Every person is unique, but their basic needs are all the same. Businesses are similar. Each company has differentiating factors, but at the end of the day, the goal is to meet the needs of and solve problems for customers. When you recognize what those needs are, you will be able to serve them better.Freedom To Choose: Too often, businesses or entire industries put a cap on consumers by limiting the options available to them. Instead, when you open the door to consumers and provide them choices, they feel more empowered and have a better experience, thus making them more loyal.Keep Knocking: Your ideas might be bold, and they might push boundaries, and when they do, you'll likely get shut down again and again. It's important to have conviction and keep pressing forward, even if it means creating a path for yourself.---This season of the Journey is produced by Mission.org and brought to you by UPS. To learn how UPS can help your small business, go to UPS.com/pivot.

The world of innovation is full of many unique challenges and conundrums, but perhaps none so painfully true as this: those who have access to the money don't always have the ideas… and those who have the ideas often find themselves struggling to find the money. This problem is uniquely pronounced in one particular industry: beauty. “The brands can't come up with true innovation and a lot of brands don't take the consumer's feedback early enough for it to really make a difference in the end product,” Patricia Santos says. “They would see consumer research reports that say like 90, 95% of women say this helped reduce fine lines and wrinkles and things like that. But by the time they're doing those studies, that formula is done. They never asked anybody before that. That thing is on the manufacturing line and getting boxed up and sent. Millions of them are already millions of them and made so I thought, well, a real way to make a difference is to bring the customer in way before that. You wanna ask her what she thinks of a product before you actually make it, and if she hates it, hey, that's a great way to prevent returns. And that's a great way to prevent failed products and not invest so much money launching a product that people are actually going to not like.”Santos is the Co-Founder of Volition Beauty. She saw this problem first-hand when she was a newly-minted business school graduate navigating the cut-throat world of venture capital – and it bothered her, because the more she encountered the problem, the more she realized that she might have an answer. “Okay, this is definitely a problem that should be solved,” Santos says. “And I want to solve it in some way, shape, or form.”  Volition Beauty is on a mission to democratize beauty by putting the power back in the hands of those who use it. Seems simple, right? Santos will tell you that it was much harder than it sounds, but what she's found in return has been greater than anything she could have expected. This is The Journey. Main Takeaways:If You See Something, Change Something: From where you sit in your office job, in your home, in your own business, or anywhere else, you may ome across a problem or a situation that you think needs to be changed. Don't assume someone else is working on changing things, put the onus on yourself to formulate a solution and then bring it to light, because that's the only thing that actually makes change happen.Ask The Audience: Your consumers are almost always your best resource. They can be a source of feedback, ideas, and even solutions to problems you have been struggling with — or didn't even know exist. Tap into the customer base regularly and noot only will your business do better, your customers will feel more empowered and connected to you as well.   Stay Open, Stay Ready: Whether it's adapting your initial business plan or adjusting on the fly to nail a big pitch, you have to keep your eyes and ears open to opportunities and be ready too jump on them when they arise. ---This season of the Journey is produced by Mission.org and brought to you by UPS. To learn how UPS can help your small business, go to UPS.com/pivot.

In finance, there's a term commonly used when analyzing different investment options called “opportunity cost.”Opportunity cost is what businesses use to analyze the potential benefits — and potential costs — of choosing one option over another. But for today's guest, the discussion of opportunity cost doesn't start and end in boardroom finance meetings. “You should always think about the opportunity cost of not making a decision,” Julian Reis says. “Let's say, for example, you're working at a bank and you're earning a decent salary. If you quit and try to make it on your own, what's the worst thing that could happen? My view [is that] the worst thing that could happen is you go back to the banking industry and get another job... Once you understand that dynamic, [I think] everyone should be going off and starting their own company and taking that risk [and] it gives you some comfort knowing that there is a protection underneath you.”For Reis, the CEO and Founder of SuperOrdinary, weighing opportunity costs is a way of life. Understanding the true implications of seizing or passing on an opportunity is how he's been able to spot macro trends, understand when to make career leaps, as well as when to make business investments.SuperOrdinary is a worldwide team of experts working with best-in-class beauty and personal care brands to establish their influence globally. From the shops of Spain to LiveStreaming events in the heart of China, SuperOrdinary's global reach is, well, super. But getting to that point was no easy feat, it took testing and iterating, and, of course, educated leaps of faith. Learn exactly how Julian built SuperOrdinary into the global standout it is today on this episode of The Journey.Main Takeaways:Opportunity Costs Matter: Everything has an opportunity cost. Without understanding these costs, you can't live your life or lead your business with intent. When considering a decision, always entertain what you could be losing by not making that choice.Expanding Globally, Means Acting Locally: Developing relationships in countries around the world requires having local teams on the ground. These teams build trust with local communities and businesses, and they help you understand cultural nuances you may otherwise miss.When to Go International: Not every brand is designed to go international — in fact, most aren't. According to Julian, there are several criteria you need to consider before expanding. For example, is your product a good fit for that culture? Do you have the infrastructure to support international distro? Can you afford to burn money before you find your foothold in that new market?---This season of the Journey is produced by Mission.org and brought to you by UPS. To learn how UPS can help your small business, go to UPS.com/pivot.

The 10,000 hour rule, popularized by author Malcom Gladwell, states that it takes about that many hours of dedication in order to achieve mastery in a given task. Thinking innovatively about creating new business opportunities is helped by understanding as much as you can about that industry, the players, the way they interact, who has the power and what people want. With that kind of foundational knowledge, it's much easier to see where and how you can completely flip an industry on its head. For Jeremy Cai, the founder of Italic, disrupting the traditional, set-in-stone manufacturing industry took some guts, creativity, and a deep knowledge gleaned through generational experience. Because of his mastery of the industry, he zeroed in on one key element of the supply chain that he was eager to eliminate.“What if we could actually remove the biggest middleman by far in the supply chain (which is the brand)?” Cai states. “Brand offers a lot. I don't think there's going to be a world where we live without brands, but I do think there's a lot that they add that [is] just fluff and you're actually paying for a story versus the actual product.”Italic says goodbye to the biggest middleman, the brand name. But that's easier said than done. To achieve his goal of bringing high-quality goods directly to consumers, Jeremy had to tap into his insider's knowledge about the way that the manufacturing business is structured in China and then get those traditional companies to take a leap of faith with him. They say you have to jump and grow wings on the way down when you take that leap. Jeremy's wings are still growing, and each new lesson is just another feather helping him soar a little higher. Hear how he's earning those feathers right here on The Journey.Main Takeaways:No Pain No Gain: When you hear successful founders talk about their struggles, it is often with a smile that they recall these difficult times. Why is that? There seems to be something about the need to work hard and experience some level of suffering in order to fully reap the benefits of success. The passionate entrepreneur enjoys a bit of the blood, sweat, and tears involved in building their business. Finding Your Natural Habitat: The sign of someone with an entrepreneurial spirt could be their difficulty falling in line working for someone else. Some people are more naturally bent toward being entrepreneurs. This said, even if you're not a natural, it is possible to cultivate entrepreneurial traits and empower yourself to make great business decisions. What Excited You?: Maybe you can technically run a company without passion but you won't do as well as someone who has that fire. Being passionate about the work that you do is a prerequisite for the most meaningful kind of success. It's okay to bow out of something that's not feeding your soul anymore in order to pursue something that really matters to you. ---This season of the Journey is produced by Mission.org and brought to you by UPS. To learn how UPS can help your small business, go to UPS.com/pivot. 

Have you ever been sitting around a campfire with friends, or riffing with your partner about some great business idea you had when you were walking the dog, or driving to the grocery store? We all get ideas that pop into our head when we see a need, have an unfilled want, or notice the way something we're interested in could be done better. Sometimes it's easy to spit-ball with a close friend about big, potentially life-changing ideas like, “Hey, we should start a band!' But we all know the unspoken truth when we say those things out loud — we're probably never going to start that band and someday end up on a stadium tour. It's those ideas that we really believe in, the ones that could actually be something real, that, ironically, we hold a little closer to our chest. They are harder to talk about. Andrew Suzuka, the founder and creator of Otamot Foods, was no stranger to having good ideas and turning them into entrepreneurial successes. In fact, when the idea for Otamot Foods first popped into his head, Andrew was already running his own company. But success in one area didn't make Andrew any more willing to share the new ideas he had brewing. ”You have to have a lot of self-confidence, but you also have to have enough self-awareness to know that you don't know everything and you have to pull in people and you have to share your ideas with people,” Suzuka said. “And it's probably, I would say the number one challenge of being an entrepreneur is sharing your idea before it becomes something. And if you can get over that, you're on your way.”Andrew had to walk a long path to get over that fear. Today, he knows collaboration is the only way forward, but what did it take to get to that realization? Who did he finally lean on, and how did all of this ultimately lead to Otamot landing on the shelves of Whole Foods? Let's jump into this week's episode of The Journey. Main Takeaways:Sharing is Caring: No matter how great of an idea you have for a business, nothing significant will come from it without extreme dedication and investment of time, money and energy. You don't need to worry about someone “stealing” your idea; the chances that they'll take it to the finish line are almost nil. The power of sharing a good idea is getting early feedback on what could make it better and what could make it really work well. Be Nimble: Everyone talks about pivoting, but especially in the Consumer Packaged Goods space, being nimble and being able to negotiate with all of the different parties involved in getting your product to market is a useful skill. Your Support Network Should be Multi-Tiered: It's important too have all sorts of people in your network, including outside mentors, industry advisors, and company board members, all of whom can help you make important decisions about your business. Make sure that you're still tapping into your original support network as your business scales. Your close friends and family can offer support and perspectives that really help and uplift you.---This season of the Journey is produced by Mission.org and brought to you by UPS. To learn how UPS can help your small business, go to UPS.com/pivot.

Here are three words that might ring a bell: The scientific method.In its most basic form, the scientific method follows these steps:First, you identify the problem or question. Then you hypothesize a solution or outcome. From there, you design and run an experiment to test this prediction. And finally, you analyze the results from your test to see if your hypothesis was correct.The scientific method is the basis of all scientific thinking, but, even when we don't recognize it, this process is also the basis of human thinking. Everyday we hypothesize, test our hypotheses, and draw conclusions. It's easy to see how this same process can be — and should be — applied to a growing business. And it's a methodology that today's guest has leveraged time and time again.“[In math], you start with a problem and a solution -- it's up to you to figure out the stuff in between in the most efficient way possible. And that is entrepreneurship to the T... and leveraging the scientific method, which is just a hypothesis-based single variant test, is critically important, particularly in the world of software and technology.”That's Adam Callinan, the co-founder and President of BottleKeeper, a company producing an innovative insulated bottle designed to keep glass bottles and aluminum cans cold. Since its founding, BottleKeeper has skyrocketed; today it is a multi-million dollar company consistently growing dramatically year over year. But it didn't start that way. Early growth was slow, and it took careful testing and iterating again and again to achieve the success the company has seen. So what tools and mindsets did Adam and his cofounder lean into in those first couple of years that set them on the road to success? And what have they changed since launching that's continued to allow them to grow far more than they could have imagined? Find out on this week's episode of The Journey.Main Takeaways:Test, Iterate, Test Again: Throughout his entrepreneurial journey, Adam turned to the scientific method as a way to test and verify his business assumptions. But don't forget to retest those assumptions as the business grows and changes. For example, for years, Adam had built the business with the philosophy that he would never hire anyone else, but he was forced to revisit and retest that assumption as the company grew and new opportunities presented themselves.Leverage Video: For many consumers, seeing is believing. Find the best way to communicate how your product works and why the consumer needs it. For Adam, this meant focusing on video. (Bonus Lesson: Don't wait until you have big marketing dollars to spend on making the perfect materials. Instead, take a page from Adam's book and write, shoot, and edit those first ads yourself.)Get a Patent… and Be Prepared to Enforce It: Copycats will inevitably come to market after they see your success. Be prepared by filing for a provisional patent as soon as possible, and then filing for the actual patent once you can afford it. More in the episode about what this process looks like and why your patent is only as good as your enforcement of it.---This season of the Journey is produced by Mission.org and brought to you by UPS. To learn how UPS can help your small business, go to UPS.com/pivot.

You might have heard someone tell you to “protect your yes.” Meaning, you should not feel obligated to agree to do things, participate, or take something on that you truly don't want to do. If it doesn't fulfill you in one way or another, why do it? In business, sometimes you can't protect your yes, though. Sometimes, if you don't say yes, you don't have customers. But you can't say yes to everything… Or can you…?“We did just about anything,” Paul Rathnam says. “I said no to nothing. Like my dad taught me growing up, just say yes to everything and figure it out later. So, I often quoted things like plumbing and stuff. I had no clue how to do it. And then I'd go to the plumbing store and ask them how to do it. And they kind of have somewhat of an idea anyway, the story of my life. Rantham is the owner of ModPools, a multi-million dollar company that builds swimming pools out of shipping containers. And, as you can tell, he took saying yes to a whole new level. But while Paul was busy saying yes, throughout his life, he heard a lot of nos. And even though his just-say-yes strategy eventually paid off, saying yes to everything had its pitfalls. We'll get into all of that on this episode of The Journey.Main Takeaways:Exceeds Expectations: Throughout your life, people will place expectations or limits on you. But you should never let what other people think dictate where you wind up. Even if you lack certain skills in one area does not mean you can't be brilliant somewhere else. Find your passion and let that guide you beyond what anyone else thinks is possible.Yes To All: Saying yes to every request is a strategy that many entrepreneurs have tried. When you say yes, you gain business and accounts. But if you say yes, you have to be willing to do all the work necessary to do the job properly, otherwise you'll be left with not just dissatisfied customers, but a bad reputation as well.All It Takes is One: Whether it's an idea, a design, or a word of encouragement, sometimes all it takes to keep going is one small thing. When you are on the brink or struggling, that one small thing could be right around the corner. Persevere and be open to wherever that one spark could turn into a wildfire.---This season of the Journey is produced by Mission.org and brought to you by UPS. To learn how UPS can help your small business, go to UPS.com/pivot.

We've seen it time and time again — entrepreneurs build a business driven by an existing passion for a product or service. They then leverage that knowledge of an industry's pain points to find new and exciting ways to innovate within it. But we've also heard stories of the exact opposite. The entrepreneurs with absolutely no industry experience that fight tooth and nail to break into a market they know nothing about.The cofounders of Blk & Bold fall into that latter camp, building an online coffee company with zero knowledge of coffee roasting, no experience making a D2C website, and a nearly nonexistent interest in specialty coffee.They dove into their industry blind, but they saw a market gap ripe with opportunity - an opportunity that could not only drive business value but create meaningful social impact. “We knew we wanted to do good,” Rod Johnson says. “We didn't want to just build a business to line our pockets and go sit on a beach and drinking drinks with umbrellas. We want to do something else. We want to make sure that we can have profound impact. We just didn't know profound would manifest into working with Ben and Jerry's and Congresswoman and Corey Bush. That was definitely not on my vision board. And I just want to continue to avail myself to be a servant making black and bold a servant to those opportunities.” Johnson is the Co-founder of BLK & Bold. Before founding the company, he admits to preferring tea over coffee, but when his friend — and now co-founder — came to him with an idea for a new kind of coffee company, Rod knew it was a vision he couldn't ignore. So how did Rod and his co-founder break into the 102 billion dollar US coffee market with no knowledge of the industry? How did they make Blk & Bold stand out among competitors? And how have they turned their own experiences growing up into a social good mission that's impacting the nation? Find out all that and more on today's episode of The Journey.Main Takeaways:Create Synergy with other Do-Good Brands: Serving the community and giving back through your business can result in unforeseen benefits, including the opportunity to work with other great brands that care. There is a lot of synergy behind building a community around doing good, and when you partner with others, your reach is expanded exponentially. Natural Curiosity Can Compensate for Know-How: Even if you're not an expert in a field that you're interested in starting a business in, you can still do it! Interest and curiosity will take you down all of the right rabbit holes to fill in your knowledge and become a subject matter expert in your industry. Plus, experimentation will allow you to learn by doing, and maybe even find a way of doing something that no one else in the industry has thought of because they have blinders on.Unseen Value of Long-standing Co-founder Relationships: The depth that comes from having a long-standing relationship with your co-founder can really come into play and shine when times are tough. A deeper personal understanding as to how the other person deals with unforeseen circumstances or hiccups can lead to better advice, powerful encouragement, and quicker solutions.---This season of the Journey is produced by Mission.org and brought to you by UPS. To learn how UPS can help your small business, go to UPS.com/pivot.

In a book there are chapters that, together, create not just a story, but an entire world or reality that you can transport yourself into. Each of our own lives is made up of similar chapters that form the whole story of who you are and what you have become. Entrepreneurs often take elements of their own story and inject them into the businesses they start and the work they do. Few have done that as well as Michael Chernow, the founder of multiple businesses, including The Meatball Shop, Seamore's, and now, Kreatures of Habit.“Authenticity is not duplicable right?” Chernow says. “No one can take your authenticity away from you and you can't create it. You can't just fabricate it. It either is, or it's not… The business of businesses is storytelling, and also the business of businesses is relationships, two things that I believe wholeheartedly in. If you're not able to tell a story with your business, it's not good. Human beings for hundreds of thousands of years have always sat around a fireplace and told stories and listen to stories and some of the best times in my life, right? Like those moments where you're engaged and, you know, someone's telling a great story and people are laughing and crying and those are the moments in life that really make memories. And so how do you do that with a business?” To understand who Michael is, you have to peel back his layers. And with each layer you uncover, you realize that Michael's unique life experience, his likes, interests, hobbies, and routines, they not only make up who he is, they reveal the throughline that runs across all of Michael's business ventures. He has woven together not just one story, but many in a way that is authentically Michael. And we're getting into all the layers right here on The Journey.Main Takeaways:Finding Lasting Inspiration to Start a Business: If you have a deep connection with the purpose behind the business that you're creating, you may have an advantage as you hit the market and launch. When you have personally felt the need for what you're solving, you can bring a solution to life authentically. The mission or purpose behind your company will shine through the products and marketing tactics and carry you through tough times. Authenticity Matters as a Founder: Founding a business will take everything from you — all your time, energy, and abilities. Approaching all of it with an authentic reason for “why” will give you a strong foundation to build from. When you and your resources are stretched thin — as they often are in a start-up — you can't fake it or mask your feelings about what you're doing. IF you are personally connected to the why of the business, you can share that enthusiasm through your work and your team will be more likely to buy in and work through cchallenges. Serial Entrepreneurship vs Founding and Staying: What it takes to found a new business isn't always what it takes to keep running it. Some people are more drawn to going through the process of getting a new company built, staffed and launched than to sticking with a passion project for your whole life. There's no right or wrong way to found a company, but know where your skills and passions lie and if you're hankering for the next start-up project, maybe serial entrepreneurship is for you! ---This season of the Journey is produced by Mission.org and brought to you by UPS. To learn how UPS can help your small business, go to UPS.com/pivot.

As Ernest Hemmingway wisely said, “The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them." But trusting blindly doesn't come without risk and if someone ultimately proves they didn't deserve your trust to begin with, it may already be too late.. That is the devastating lesson that Mitchell Hayes, founder and CEO of Los Sundays Tequila had to learn the hard way. “We had some people involved with the business in the early days where a lot of money went missing,” Hayes said. “There was no way for us to get it back. And it nearly sunk us. We were working out of my lounge room at home, around the dining room table. I stopped paying myself cause the money disappeared out of the account to keep paying the three employees that we had. The bank account literally hit zero twice.This was a sink or swim situation for Mitchell and Los Sundays. But, frankly, Mitchell was made to swim. He had been finding his way through all kinds of choppy and unfamiliar waters his whole life. Where did that grit and determination come from, and where did it ultimately lead? Let's find out. Welcome back to The Journey.Main Takeaways:Compensate for your Weaknesses: Everyone has strengths and weaknesses and so does every business. Learn first what the demands of the industry are, learn your competition. Then take stock of your own store of goods; what are you especially talented at, what are your strongest skills?  Then think about where you might be able to utilize your skill in an area that your competitors are weak in. This tactic can be enough to toe the line with your competitors. Any Means Necessary: Every business owner comes across trying times and difficult challenges, but sometimes overcoming those things takes superhuman effort. Owning your own business will likely involve a good bit of personal sacrifice and struggle at some, if not many, points. Go into entrepreneurship with the mentality of getting it done by any means possible.It's Okay if Dreams Change: What we start out wanting to do as kids is rarely what we end up having a career in. When you dedicate your entire childhood and younger adult years toward achieving that same goal, the transition to something else can be difficult. Know that changing your dream doesn't mean that you failed at the first one, you just re-negotiated the terms of your dream. ---This season of the Journey is produced by Mission.org and brought to you by UPS. To learn how UPS can help your small business, go to UPS.com/pivot.

What makes for a good story? Is it the world building? The hero? The big plot twist?How can we be left feeling unsatisfied at the end of a 2-hour-long movie, yet be left in tears by a 30-second commercial? What separates the story that resonates and the one that falls flat? And what does any of this have to do with business?“I love brands — I love the stories that they tell,” Johannes Quodt says. “When I was watching TV, I got more excited about the commercials than the rec program.,Particularly what I do remember is how I love these micro stories they told. And I think the storytelling aspect of, of commercials and brands is really an essence. What fascinates meJohannes is the co-founder and co-CEO of luxury Italian shoe brand Koio. Johannes recognized from a young age that stories have the power to connect with people in a profound way -- a vital skill for still-blooming brands and established goliaths alike. It's not enough to have a great product, that product - and every component that goes into it - needs a story that connects with the consumer in a way that your competitors' can't.Johannes has found this perfect blend of story and product, and today he shares what that discovery process has been like, how Koio is creating a new category of sustainable luxury, and how he and his cofounder scaled Koio from one “perfect shoe” to an ever expanding collection that is attracting interest from the likes of GQ, Vogue, and even celebrities like Joe Jonas. All that and more on The Journey.Main Takeaways:Curate the Marketing Story you Tell: When you can tell your consumer a story about the product that you are selling to them, they will be more excited by it and more likely to engage. By authentically curating stories around your brand, you can also build a reputation and earn trust with other great storytellers, opening doors for collaboration. Quality Should be Synonymous with Social and Environmental Sustainability: Industry and factory production revolutionized commerce a long time ago, but many brands are still using unsustainable, irresponsible farming and sourcing practices. Bringing about social and ecological change in business adds a layer of complexity to the work your team does, but building that respect and loyalty as a brand is irreplaceable. Capitalize on your close network: Even if you just have the email addresses of your fellow students in MBA school, you can still start your business by talking to them or leaning on them as a resource, both financially and for support. Being inspired from those you see around you doing new and creative things can lead to great inventions of your own. Surround yourself with greatness and then get going. ---This season of the Journey is produced by Mission.org and brought to you by UPS. To learn how UPS can help your small business, go to UPS.com/pivot.

‘I do.' Those two words conjure up visions of wedding fayre, flowers, cake, brides, grooms. Marriage is a serious decision, complete with signed government documents and promises related to health and finances. If you break down a co-founder relationship, what you'll find is a lot of those same critical components. Hours of time spent together on a daily basis for an undetermined but nevertheless significant amount of time; finances tied to each other; and a never-ending stream of contracts and other legal documents you both are signed and tied to. And don't forget the countless conversations, squabbles, laughs and tears that woven together create the fabric of a relationship that can, hopefully, stand the test of time. Dominika Minarovic, one of the co-founders of BYBI Beauty, knows that choosing the right business partner is like choosing the right life partner: it all starts with a foundation of respect and admiration.“I was always like equal parts fearful slash pure admiration of Elsie. And I think that's a great combo, obviously not fearful of her anymore, but Elsie has a presence when she walks into a room. Everyone will stop and listen. And I think that's really powerful. I saw someone that I really admire. Elsie and I have really, really been through the wars. Like we've done some hard graft and I don't think at any point, have I ever heard a complaint come out of her mouth? We have carried boxes up like 10 flights of stairs. We've started offices in broom closets.This kind of partnership is like any relationship: it has to go both ways. That mutual respect for each other is what you'll need to remember  and fall back on when crises pop up. But as Dominka's co-founder, Elsie Rutterford will say, there's also got to be an equal level of commitment to the work. “The word hustle. If you look it up in the dictionary, you will see Dominika Minarovic's name sat underneath that. So she was a hustler through and through. And I really liked that about her. And I think like the hard working ethic. Yeah. And the way that she applied herself, I was like, definitely somebody that I would want to work with.” Respect, trust, and common dreams. These are some of the elements that are sprinkled through the story of how Elsie and Dominika found each other and developed their business together. But what else goes into a good co-founder relationship? And how did Elsie and Dominika find the answer throughout their journey to bring their beauty brand, BYBI, to the world? Find out this week on The Journey.Main Takeaways:A Match Made in Heaven: When you have the right co-founder by your side, there are limitless benefits. You can be there to support each other. You can share the burden of the responsibilities and daily tasks of running the business — especially valuable in the early stages. You can also share more empathy for each other, going through life changes and unexpected circumstances. You can share the financial responsibilities and take on less personal risk. But most importantly, by having a co-founder, you share a passion and drive toward a common goal and that can make your business strong enough to last. Disruption Takes Passion and Authenticity: Being passionate about the product or market you're working in is a huge advantage because it makes you naturally think about what you want to get as a consumer. Having a deep-rooted passion about something that you want to change or dispel in that industry will make you more creative and effective in your work there. A Launching Pad: Your business might not evolve in the way you expect. There are many different ways for a brand to launch, whether that's through a blog, a social media account, a book deal, or anything in between. No matter how people begging to know you or your brand, the most important thing you can do is recognize the opportunity in front of you and find a way to capitalize on it in a meaningful way.---This season of the Journey is produced by Mission.org and brought to you by UPS. To learn how UPS can help your small business, go to UPS.com/pivot.

There are some beloved characters in pop culture. Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz. Atticus Finch from To Kill a Mockingbird. Yoda from Star Wars. And then, of course, Dora The Explorer…Okay, maybe that last one is a bit of a stretch. But for Ellen Bennett, the founder of multi-million dollar apron company Hedley and Bennett, that children's character's can-do adventurous spirit resonates with and lives within her. And she has tapped into those qualities to approach entrepreneurship in a somewhat unique way. I definitely feel like I was a bit of a Dora the Explorer. With enough kind of humble enthusiasm, you open a lot of doors. That's what I did. And it worked. And, you know, I don't always land all of my wild adventures, but in this case, it really was the beginning of a whole new journey. And it's so simple as just showing up sometimes up to the place where you're going to meet the people, or have a chance to talk to somebody who will get you into the next door. And then you keep asking and you keep asking and you're just, you gotta be relentless.The places Ellen was showing up? They were Michelin star restaurants in Los Angeles and she was going around to the back doors to put her product in front of some of the best chefs in the world. Ellen was not well-known. Her product was an apron — something that every restaurant in town already had in bulk. And she was a one-woman operation trying to leapfrog all of the traditional lanes to go straight to the top and find success. She didn't have Dora's map or her partners in crime to guide her. She was Ellen the explorer and she was out on her own.Welcome back to The Journey.Main Takeaways:Walk Through the Door and Ask: You don't always need to go through regular channels to get things done. If you have enough confidence and gumption to be aggressive, get in front of the decision-makers, and simply ask for what you want, you just might get it. There is risk and rejection involved in this strategy, but the opportunity is there for the taking if you're willing to try.Don't Listen to the Haters: Those who don't see your vision may try to dissuade you at the beginning of your entrepreneurial journey. Push through, turn those voices off, and do the work that is in your heart. Along the way, you will have to inspire others through your own passion, and you will need to get creative at times to help your vision come to life.Let It Go: Utilize your strengths and minimize your weaknesses. Learn when you need to turn off the hustle of doing everything yourself and let someone else whose skill set is more suited take over tasks that you are less apt for. Lean into the assets you have that brought the business to life and delegate those smaller, albeit necessary, tasks.---This season of the Journey is produced by Mission.org and brought to you by UPS. To learn how UPS can help your small business, go to UPS.com/pivot.

Have you ever had an idea for a business or a product? If you are listening to this podcast, then the answer is most likely a resounding “yes!” But here's a harder question… What did you do next? Maybe you jotted some things down in a notebook, or even went as far as making a business plan. But again I ask, what did you do next? Did a few weeks roll by and you forgot all about it? Or maybe, like Ju Rhyu, you took a couple steps forward before realizing what a difficult and risky journey it would be. “I was doing it by myself. It was very intimidating. I got intimidated by the amount of money that I realized I had to put in for the first PO. So then I stopped, I stopped and I took a job.”Ju had a vision for a company she called Hero Cosmetics, but there were years between the birth of that idea and actually getting a business off the ground. Ideas are plentiful. I've had them, and I'm sure you have, too. But what is that missing piece that keeps us and those like us from executing on these ideas and dreams? What was stopping Ju? There is so much risk and so much to fear when you're about to jump off that proverbial ledge into entrepreneurship. Ju felt that fear deep in her bones and it stopped her in her tracks. That's not unique.Main Takeaways:Reasons to Have a Co-founder: Creating a business can be easier with support from co-founders. Sharing the many responsibilities of running a business — including financial obligations and time investment — can help you get more done quicker and on the road to success faster. Know what you need as a founder to get the project launched. Do you need someone there with you, sharing the burden? What part of the business is the most difficult that could be aided with another person coming on board? When you answer these questions and then act on your decision, you can start to bring your idea to life in real ways.  When to Expand: Knowing when to focus your company on a limited number of products and when to expand your offerings is key. You have more limited resources in the beginning stages, so every effort needs to be poured into a select few (or singular) products so that you can make it succeed. At some point you will need to expand if you want to grow, so being strategic when and how you do so is key.   Journeys Don't Have to be Linear: It doesn't matter what path you start out on, you can still find your way to becoming that successful entrepreneur. Even if you get handed a set of unfortunate circumstances, those can become learning opportunities and blessings in disguise. Learning how to reframe perceived difficulties and how to take the next step when you're ready are two ways to help navigate an indirect journey. ---This season of the Journey is produced by Mission.org and brought to you by UPS. To learn how UPS can help your small business, go to UPS.com/pivot.

Oculus - a VR company acquired by Facebook for 2 billion dollars in 2014. Popsockets - the little pop out button that attaches to the back of your phone, a simple idea that is now making more than 100 million dollars in profit every year. And Tile -  the bluetooth device that lets you find misplaced items, has partnered with Amazon and sold more than 35 million devices.  What do these three companies have in common?They all got their start, their first dollar earned, on the crowdfunding platform, Kickstarter. But even with recognizable products and massive success stories like theirs, crowd-funding is still far from the normal way to secure funding, and it is certainly not the ordinary way to secure ALL of your funding year over year for more than a decade. Yet for Peter Dering, the founder of Peak Design, crowdfunding was the only business plan he bet on. And it was that bet that would propel him from here:“I had already run out of money and taken a job at a restaurant to make ends meet. I was a food runner, which is the lowest man on the totem pole.” To here:“I had a profitable business after two days of selling… The Kickstarter community just flocked to this idea. And so that success was pretty immediate and it felt incredible.”How did launching a Kickstarter get Peter out of odd jobs and place him at the head of a business skyrocketing to success? And how is he carrying on Peak's crowdfunded origins every year to continue to fund new projects while building unwavering customer loyalty? Find out that and more on today's episode of The Journey.Main Takeaways:Building Customer Loyalty: Crowdfunding built a fiercely loyal customer base early in the company's life. From there, Peak continued to nurture that relationship by investing in thoughtful, reliable products and honestly addressing complaints if a customer ever ran into any issues. Employee-first Approach: Their company has near-zero turnover and focuses a lot on creating a space where their team can feel fulfilled by their work. Peter hires slowly and intentionally and in so doing has built a time that he trusts to set their own goals, timelines, and budgets.A Formula for Success: To this day, Peak is still 100% crowdfunded. Every year, Peter and his team launch a new Kickstarter. They've created a winning formula that can be repeated again and again.---This season of the Journey is produced by Mission.org and brought to you by UPS. To learn how UPS can help your small business, go to UPS.com/pivot.

What were you doing when you were 11 years old? Whatever it was, do you think it was shaping the person you are today? Not philosophically, I mean directly. Was the 11-year-old you learning the skills you'd need to succeed in the job you're doing now?Very few people would answer yes to that question. Russell Aldridge is one of them. Russell has been a tinkerer and a builder his whole life, and eventually, that passion led him, like many entrepreneurs, to take a leap of faith.“I said, ‘I'm thinking about quitting my job and starting a company in the garage,” Russell said when recalling the conversation with his wife. “‘What do you think?' And she said, ‘Well, what's the worst that could happen?' And I said, ‘Well, we could lose everything and have to move back to Utah.' And she said, ‘Well, we don't have anything. And I'd love to move back to Utah. So go ahead.'”There's no doubt that the company Russell was starting was a gamble. He called it SISU Cinema Robotics and wanted to build robots that could do … well, pretty much anything. He'd had some practical experience, and yes, as an 11-year-old, Russell was learning the skills he'd apply to this company, but now Russell was a father and a husband. He'd already uprooted his family once to walk into the unknown, and now he was asking them to trust him again. What led Russell here? And how has SISU evolved from that roll of the dice idea into a company that is revolutionizing the film and television industry?Find out on this episode of The Journey.Main Takeaways:Connections Matter: Who you work for and with is important. When you choose a business partner or to take on a company as a client, understand exactly the commitment you are getting into, what is expected, and how you can make each other better along the way. Additionally, try never to burn bridges. A company you once worked for and left might become a customer later on, and you'll want to be able to fall back on the good impression you left.Solve What Needs Solving: There is an endless number of problems in the world, and no matter how good your product is, it won't be able to solve issues for every person. Narrow down who your customers are and what one big challenge they face that you can solve, then do that exceptionally well. Take The Chance: You hear all the time that you should follow your passion and it's true. When you do the things you love, the hard times you face become more manageable because you have a “why” behind what you do.---This season of the Journey is produced by Mission.org and brought to you by UPS. To learn how UPS can help your small business, go to UPS.com/pivot.

Hey, Journey fans! It's been a while, and I've been eagerly waiting to tell you something exciting… we're back! Starting this Wednesday, we'll be releasing weekly episodes highlighting the stories of some of the world's most incredible small business leaders. They've risked it all, made big bets, and ridden the rollercoaster that is entrepreneurship, and today they are running successful, fast-growing businesses. The path is never easy, and on The Journey, we bring you the authentic, unfiltered story of how each of these entrepreneurs really achieved success.Every entrepreneur has a story to tell, and there are lessons for all of us within their journeys. So I hope you'll tune in, get inspired and take some knowledge with you on your own journey in business and life.  ---This season of the Journey is produced by Mission.org and brought to you by UPS. To learn how UPS can help your small business, go to UPS.com/pivot.

The founding story for any company is comparable to that of a great sports story: It typically features inspiring mentors, classic fumbles and recoveries, and of course, a team that has your back through it all.That's why today's episode of The Journey is a little bit different. Rather than showcase the success of one small business entrepreneur... you'll hear from three:Kate Perez, Merivis Co-Founder & Executive DirectorHector Perez, Merivis Founder & Past Board ChairAnd Joe Castro, Merivis Co-Founder & Current Board ChairKate, Hector, and Joe are the founding team of Merivis, a nonprofit veteran service organization that trains veterans and military spouses for competitive careers in tech.The trio has always been determined to build something that makes an impact, but there's one thing they could have never predicted: That Merivis would be the catalyst for building a community almost as close as family.--Learn more about The Journey at mission.org/thejourney.The Journey is sponsored by our friends at Salesforce Essentials. We use Salesforce Essentials every day and it's part of our own business journey. Essentials combines sales and service tools in a single app to help small businesses win customers and keep them happy. See how Salesforce Essentials can help you be your best business at salesforce.com/thejourney.

Imagine this. You've been working your way up inside an organization for 20 years. Your kids go to school on the company campus. Your spouse works on campus. You go shopping, get gas, grab coffee, walk your dog, and essentially live, work, and play all on campus.And then, imagine, 2 decades in, leaving behind that “campus,” your career, and the entire community you are familiar with. That's the shocking reality thousands of military families face every year. And while transitioning back into the civilian world can be an exciting time, the stress of finding a new career path is almost unavoidable.“Traditional sourcing tools were fundamentally not designed for non-traditional talent. They make non-traditional talent invisible. They make people with non-traditional backgrounds confusing to understand because you have to piece together their story.”That's Mike Slagh, a Navy veteran and founder and CEO of Shfit.org.Mike's all too familiar with the hardships that come with transitioning from military to civilian life... he's both done it himself and helped hundreds of others find their footing through the process. And it's because he's seen it first hand so many times that he knows that that process is long past due for an upgrade.--Learn more about The Journey at mission.org/thejourney.The Journey is sponsored by our friends at Salesforce Essentials. We use Salesforce Essentials every day and it's part of our own business journey. Essentials combines sales and service tools in a single app to help small businesses win customers and keep them happy. See how Salesforce Essentials can help you be your best business at salesforce.com/thejourney.

What if business can, at its core, be philanthropic? What if everything a business does is entirely derived from the motivation to do good?"We separate this idea of business and doing good in the world as two things that cannot be compatible with each other, but I think ... they can both exist. They should both exist together. You don't have to separate them. You shouldn't separate them. You can think about them as one. "That's Jesse Grothaus, an Army Veteran and the founder and CEO of Cloud Pathfinder Consulting.Jesse has spent the last three years building a company that brings to life the idea that doing business and doing good do not — and should not — exist apart from one another. As he's built his business, he has found that his philanthropic mission has helped guide him through many of the problems entrepreneurs typically face — from hiring, to retention, to securing the next contract.--Learn more about The Journey at mission.org/thejourney.The Journey is sponsored by our friends at Salesforce Essentials. We use Salesforce Essentials every day and it's part of our own business journey. Essentials combines sales and service tools in a single app to help small businesses win customers and keep them happy. See how Salesforce Essentials can help you be your best business at salesforce.com/thejourney.

You have a great idea for a product. It's revolutionary, and it's a project you need to bring to life. So, how do you build it?Unless you plan to handcraft every product, your next step is to perfect the design and then find a manufacturer to mass-produce it for you.But even when you find that “perfect” manufacturing partner, you still might want to hold your breath. All it takes is one bad shipment for you to be out of cash, out of product, and back at the drawing board.“We went to reorder more product.. and I don't know why they even sent what they sent, but the products were mangled. On the outside, it looked fine, but if you looked inside, the pouches were sideways and upside down [and] completely ridiculously unsellable.”That's Robert Patton, an Army veteran and the founder of SHEATH Underwear. He has faced one manufacturing misstep after another. And while each stumble was tough to swallow — financially and personally — he's persevered through the hard times, learned from failure, perfected his processes, and built a business that is growing every day.--Learn more about The Journey at mission.org/thejourney.The Journey is sponsored by our friends at Salesforce Essentials. We use Salesforce Essentials every day and it's part of our own business journey. Essentials combines sales and service tools in a single app to help small businesses win customers and keep them happy. See how Salesforce Essentials can help you be your best business at salesforce.com/thejourney.

It's no hidden truth that the lifestyle of an entrepreneur is in most ways a gamble. You're risking finances, personal relationships, and often your own mental well-being. Yet it's this BIG bet that so many smart, driven people are willing to make -- and it's a gamble that today's guest was willing to make more than once.“There was doubt of being like, can I handle two products? And if I look back at my life, that was probably one of the best decisions… Listen to the market. What is the market telling you? Because I assure you, whatever you assume is not going to be right in some way, shape, or form.”That's Marissa Limsiaco, first the President and Co-Founder of Tenavox, and second the President and Co-Founder of Otso. She's a West Point graduate and an Army veteran. And now, as an entrepreneur, Marissa has spent years in the weeds of product development, finding market fit, growing sales, and planning for expansion. She's no novice to business and no stranger to hard work. But she will be the first to tell you that there's absolutely no fighting the market. No amount of work will turn passion into dollars if the business model isn't there. But on the flip side, when the market is telling you there is a need, your potential success can be limitless.--Learn more about The Journey at mission.org/thejourney.The Journey is sponsored by our friends at Salesforce Essentials. We use Salesforce Essentials every day and it's part of our own business journey. Essentials combines sales and service tools in a single app to help small businesses win customers and keep them happy. See how Salesforce Essentials can help you be your best business at salesforce.com/thejourney.

When building a business, it is easy to be blinded by the big, flashy measures of success. And when your heart and mind are set on acquiring more customers, getting more investors, hiring more people, and scaling the business as fast as possible… you can quickly lose sight of the daily wins that lead to lasting growth with higher impact."Defining successes is fairly simple for us. The first step of that is number one, we have to operate safely. If we're not operating safely, we will not have customers. ... The next thing we have to do is make sure that people are happy. How do we make sure that people are happy? Listen to them, understand their needs, be compassionate, and empathetic to what's going on in their world, and make sure to be there."That's Glenn Gonzales, an Air Force Academy graduate, a Lt Colonel in the U.S. Air Force Reserves, and the founder and CEO of Jet It, a hybrid ownership program that provides customers with access to round-the-clock private travel.In Glenn's 40 years of aviation experience, he's learned that finding long-term success isn't about scaling and scaling fast, it's about staying true to your core values and focusing on delivering an amazing customer experience, one plane ride at a time.

The Journey is back for another season!Season 8 focuses on the stories of veterans-turned-entrepreneurs. We'll dive into the backgrounds of men and women who chose to dedicate themselves to service to their country, and then took on another difficult role when they re-entered civilian life and became entrepreneurs, business owners, and CEOs. Episode 1 of Season 8 drops on Veteran's Day, November 11, with a new episode releasing every Wednesday thereafter. Subscribe and enjoy!

We live in a diverse world full of different cultures, new ideas, fresh perspectives, and uniquely-themselves people. But oftentimes those who are seated around boardroom tables or walking up and down corporate halls don't reflect this same level of diversity.  In Kobie Fuller's experience, this disconnect between what we see in our day-to-day lives versus what we witness in the antiquated world of business isn't necessarily due to a lack of desire to bridge the gap – it's more about the need for a more educated effort. “There is this prominent corporate VC that I met with who had the aspirations to fund more black founders. And he then would say, ‘I have no idea where to find them.' … Then I started rattling off names of people … that frankly, given someone whose mission [was to fund more black founders], he should've known. And he was like, ‘I have no idea who those people are.' Well, the problem is that you're not spending time interacting with the black community and the networks by which you actually tap into these people.” Kobie is the co-founder of Valence and a General Partner at Upfront Ventures. He's been involved in venture capital since college, and he regularly comes face-to-face with this problem of “I want to hire black talent, but I don't know where to look.” It's a multi-pronged issue that requires a multi-pronged solution, which is what Kobie is working toward at Valence, a network that he is helping build which connects, showcases, and empowers the global black professional community. Building this community is not a typical nine-to-five job, though. It's a massive undertaking that he's putting on his shoulders while still working as a full-time VC. So how does Kobie do it all –  balance all the work needed to achieve this big vision with his daily responsibilities all the while also prioritizing being a great husband and father?  As Kobie shares today, it's all about mindset and focus. ---  Learn more about The Journey at mission.org/thejourney. The Journey is sponsored by our friends at Salesforce Essentials. We use Salesforce Essentials every day and it's part of our own business journey. Essentials combines sales and service tools in a single app to help small businesses win customers and keep them happy. See how Salesforce Essentials can help you be your best business at salesforce.com/thejourney.

Embracing a certain amount of delusional optimism is the hallmark of every entrepreneur. But what separates the dreamers from the doers? What differentiates those who would like to reach their goals and those who do reach their goals? “At that point I had three children, and staying the course was really me dedicating myself to not going back to work for anyone. … There's nothing about it that makes logical sense, [but] as an entrepreneur, you are always operating with this level of delusion.” That's Shelly Bell, the Founder and CEO of Black Girl Ventures. Over the course of her nontraditional career, Shelly has listened to one playlist on repeat: test, iterate, pivot. And while each pivot seemed like an impulsive decision to her peers, at the heart of every choice was a system. And as Shelly shares today, it's that system which draws the line between those who say and those who do. ---  Learn more about The Journey at mission.org/thejourney. The Journey is sponsored by our friends at Salesforce Essentials. We use Salesforce Essentials every day and it's part of our own business journey. Essentials combines sales and service tools in a single app to help small businesses win customers and keep them happy. See how Salesforce Essentials can help you be your best business at salesforce.com/thejourney.

Many of the institutions that we rely on every day have been built on decades-old infrastructure and outdated business philosophies. There are countless industries with roots in the past that have yet to face disruption or embrace innovation. One such institution is our legal and justice system. Great legal representation, education on the laws and your rights, ease of access to legal advice… all of these things have historically been trapped in the marbled hallways of expensive lawyers' offices. Charley Moore is on a mission to change that. “If you look at the core of how justice is rendered around the world, it's a very in-person, physical process,” says Charley. “It's just completely antiquated. [But our world is] all digital and … everything that can be digitized will be digitized. Most legal services can be digital, so they will be.” Charley is the founder and CEO of Rocket Lawyer, an online legal tech company making access to legal services easy and affordable. The legal system has long been due for disruption, and using the power of great customer experience, Charley's building the momentum needed to push that disruption forward.  ---  Learn more about The Journey at mission.org/thejourney. The Journey is sponsored by our friends at Salesforce Essentials. We use Salesforce Essentials every day and it's part of our own business journey. Essentials combines sales and service tools in a single app to help small businesses win customers and keep them happy. See how Salesforce Essentials can help you be your best business at salesforce.com/thejourney.

How much of our destinies do we control? How much is predetermined? And how much do the environments around us play a role in who we can be or what we can do? As entrepreneurs, we like to think that we own our destinies, that we are 100% in charge. But the real world has a habit of reminding us that dreams are just that – dreams – and not everyone will see the same vision that we do. “I walked in [to SMBA] and I was ready to apply for a loan and made my pitch to score, and the woman said to me, ‘Yeah, I don't think this is going to work. You have three strikes against you: You're a woman, you're in debt, and I don't know any successful black women in financial services, so I think you should do something else.” That's Melissa Bradley, the cofounder at Ureeka, a company on a mission to democratize economic opportunity for underrepresented entrepreneurs.  She has always dreamed big. But it wasn't until her dreams started to expand beyond what traditional society could offer her that she realized in order to create her personal destiny, she'd have to change reality for everyone else in the process. ---  Learn more about The Journey at mission.org/thejourney. The Journey is sponsored by our friends at Salesforce Essentials. We use Salesforce Essentials every day and it's part of our own business journey. Essentials combines sales and service tools in a single app to help small businesses win customers and keep them happy. See how Salesforce Essentials can help you be your best business at salesforce.com/thejourney.

We do weird things to fit in… buy the new Nikes, cave to the Kombucha, even try goat yoga. Fads come and go all the time, but what happens when these “passing fads” don't pass, and they bleed into our cultural definitions, instead? When they become destructive or harmful – all in the name of an arbitrary beauty standard that exists only in our heads? “My hair ended up falling [out] because I wasn't really taking care of it. My mom was like, ‘No, you're not going to [perm] you're hair because you nine. You need to wait.' And for me, it was an accomplishment if I were to perm my hair because only then I'd feel like I was pretty enough.” That's Widline Pyrame, the founder of Fusion Dolls, a company creating diverse and ethnically correct toy dolls. Since she was a child, Widline has given in to fads and lost sight of who she is. Today, she is changing that – not just for herself, but for girls, boys, women, and men everywhere. Building a business requires connection, but before we can connect with those around us, we first have to connect with and accept ourselves. ---  Learn more about The Journey at mission.org/thejourney. The Journey is sponsored by our friends at Salesforce Essentials. We use Salesforce Essentials every day and it's part of our own business journey. Essentials combines sales and service tools in a single app to help small businesses win customers and keep them happy. See how Salesforce Essentials can help you be your best business at salesforce.com/thejourney.

Being too young, or being too old. Having an accent. Overcoming a disability. Being female or a person of color.  These so-called ‘boxes' that we fall into shouldn't play a role in how others see us or how we see ourselves, yet so often we find ourselves trapped by the burden of our labels. Dionna McPhatter has a different perspective. In her opinion, standing out doesn't have to be a bad thing. In fact, with the right mindset, it may just be a superpower. “Everyone has the boxes that they check, but seeing those as a superpower that can allow you to connect dots for people is how I would encourage people to see themselves,” says Dionna. “Maybe I can connect the dots between two disparate rooms and use those things that people see as a difference or a reason to classify me as a point of connection.” Dionna is the co-founder and CEO of Nacci, a company on a mission to use data to help us all unlock more of our humanity. Over the course of her impressive career, Dionna has learned one thing for sure: that connections matter.  Sometimes what gets us in the room isn't always what we want to get us in the room… but that doesn't have to be a bad thing if you learn to leverage those points of connection for good. ---  Learn more about The Journey at mission.org/thejourney. The Journey is sponsored by our friends at Salesforce Essentials. We use Salesforce Essentials every day and it's part of our own business journey. Essentials combines sales and service tools in a single app to help small businesses win customers and keep them happy. See how Salesforce Essentials can help you be your best business at salesforce.com/thejourney.

A huge part of growing a business is understanding what can scale and what can't. What will HR, sales, marketing, customer experience, employee experience, or even the foundational business model all look like as the company grows? The truth is that none of these systems will look exactly how they did when you started. It could be like comparing apples to oranges when you put Iteration 10 up against Iteration 1. Scale requires doing things that don't scale and then pivoting. “Our journey is full of these experiences where we legitimately have survived off major pivots and doing things differently at every point of scale,” shares Ryan Smith. Ryan is the co-founder and CEO of Qualtrics, a company that he started in his basement with his dad nearly 18 years ago. During those years, Ryan has faced a number of what he calls ‘success disasters' – moments when something so great happens that it breaks your current system. And that's the problem with scale – if you aren't thoughtful, it's the very things that are supposed to grow your business that may very well destroy it. ---  Learn more about The Journey at mission.org/thejourney. The Journey is sponsored by our friends at Salesforce Essentials. We use Salesforce Essentials every day and it's part of our own business journey. Essentials combines sales and service tools in a single app to help small businesses win customers and keep them happy. See how Salesforce Essentials can help you be your best business at salesforce.com/thejourney.

Every decision we make brings with it a certain amount of risk. Sometimes the risk is so small it's negligible. Other times the risk is so daunting it scares you into submission. Going all-in on a new and novel business idea, saying no to the steady paycheck and yes to financial instability, investing your life savings with a co-founder you know well but maybe not well enough… these are common high-risk, high-reward scenarios that entrepreneurs often find themselves in. To the outsider looking in, these situations are far too risky to be taken seriously – to engage in them is not only irresponsible, but foolish. Tiffanie Stanard has a different opinion… She believes that risks - big risks - are absolutely necessary for success.  “You have to put yourself out there. … If you're not happy with what you're doing – if people don't know about what you're doing – then what's the point of doing it?” Tiffanie is the founder and CEO of Stimulus, a relationship intelligence software suite that helps companies build better relationships. But before she was leading Stimulus, Tiffanie had to make the leap from having a stable income to being her own boss – a decision that taught her if you aren't ready to go big… then get ready to go home. ---  Learn more about The Journey at mission.org/thejourney. The Journey is sponsored by our friends at Salesforce Essentials. We use Salesforce Essentials every day and it's part of our own business journey. Essentials combines sales and service tools in a single app to help small businesses win customers and keep them happy. See how Salesforce Essentials can help you be your best business at salesforce.com/thejourney.

We've all heard some variant of the phrase “Good business is just about building good relationships.”  But, as true as this statement is, it's also true that building and maintaining good relationships is hard - it takes time, thought, passion, and connection. And perhaps one of the most challenging business relationships to nurture and keep healthy is the relationship between co-founders. “Starting a company, no matter how much experience you've had, is always a challenge. And it starts with the founding team... You have to have the same vision. You have to be aligned with what you want to create.” Kraig Swensrud is the Founder of Qualified.com, and partner to an all-star team of co-founders.  The commitment of time, money, and mental bandwidth that “going all in” requires is all-consuming to say the least. But doing it with a co-founder - or co-founders - who you trust is the secret ingredient to making it all a bit more manageable, and also making it a lot more fun. ---  Learn more about The Journey at mission.org/thejourney. The Journey is sponsored by our friends at Salesforce Essentials. We use Salesforce Essentials every day and it's part of our own business journey. Essentials combines sales and service tools in a single app to help small businesses win customers and keep them happy. See how Salesforce Essentials can help you be your best business at salesforce.com/thejourney.

If you are a fan of this podcast, then you are likely a business owner, an aspiring entrepreneur, or at the forefront of innovation within a growing company. Today, you are the one creating jobs, but think back to when you were the one applying for them. How much did you get paid? Were you paid fairly? Were you paid what you were truly worth? These are difficult questions, but questions that Cynthia Medina Carson faces head-on every day. “There was a woman who literally found out her colleague was making 30 K more than her, and she was there longer. [But] she had that information and she sat on it for like two months, just not knowing what to do with it. When we talk about wage transparency and salary transparency, the data is a piece of it, but then what are we doing to transition people to a better space?” Cynthia is the founder and CEO of WAGER, a company helping create the space for individuals and businesses to have a more open dialogue about pay.  As an employee, the benefits of salary transparency are pretty straight forward – more transparency equals more fair pay.  But as an employer, the conversation around pay is an often-avoided one. Cynthia is here to tell you that it shouldn't be and that for a competitive, growing business, salary and promotion transparency are the way of the future. ---  Learn more about The Journey at mission.org/thejourney. The Journey is sponsored by our friends at Salesforce Essentials. We use Salesforce Essentials every day and it's part of our own business journey. Essentials combines sales and service tools in a single app to help small businesses win customers and keep them happy. See how Salesforce Essentials can help you be your best business at salesforce.com/thejourney.

When you live in a world of curated feeds, it can sometimes feel impossible to know what's real. Finding the companies and people who are making genuinely great products while maintaining the values that you support is like finding a needle in an ever-expanding haystack.  And when you are the company trying to stand out in that haystack, how do you gain the trust of customers to show that you are the real deal?  “We connect brands to their fans, but also we connect fans to each other. And the way that we do that is not based on any basic metrics. It's not based on how many followers somebody has. It's not about how much they bought from you as a brand… How we have attracted so many fantastic brands is that we bring back this layer of true fans that has possibly been lost in the world of influences and views.” Amber Atherton is the Founder and CEO of Zyper, a company dedicated to connecting the real users of real products to create a real community. It's a process that leverages the oldest marketing tactic in the book – honest word-of-month – and is based entirely on two key values that can define an organization inside and out: transparency and trust. ---  Learn more about The Journey at mission.org/thejourney. The Journey is sponsored by our friends at Salesforce Essentials. We use Salesforce Essentials every day and it's part of our own business journey. Essentials combines sales and service tools in a single app to help small businesses win customers and keep them happy. See how Salesforce Essentials can help you be your best business at salesforce.com/thejourney.

There's an old saying that goes “Man plans, God laughs.”  Things very rarely go according to plan. No matter how meticulously we think ahead, the path toward our goals is always subject to roadblocks and detours. But while the journey might rival Pan's labyrinth, the BIG dream – your ultimate goal and your vision – lives unmoving at the end. “When I was 18, I was reading about Y Combinator in Silicon Valley from my house in Barcelona. I would always see it as something that's so out of reach… I would have never imagined that I'd be where I am at today. [I realize now that] you really need to be careful about the dreams you choose because maybe they will come true.” That's Anna Piñol, the CMO and co-founder of grocery-delivery service Jupiter. Anna's dreams have required her to leave her home, travel around the world, settle into a new country, learn to fight off self-doubt, AND dive deep into entrepreneurship. It was – and still is – a challenging journey. But in Anna's opinion, it's actually the initial process of defining your dreams that might just be scarier than the path it takes to reach them. ---  Learn more about The Journey at mission.org/thejourney. The Journey is sponsored by our friends at Salesforce Essentials. We use Salesforce Essentials every day and it's part of our own business journey. Essentials combines sales and service tools in a single app to help small businesses win customers and keep them happy. See how Salesforce Essentials can help you be your best business at salesforce.com/thejourney.

The Journey is on break this week, but don't let that get you down! We will be back next week with an all-new season focused on community-building inside and outside your organization. Don't miss it! ---  Learn more about The Journey at mission.org/thejourney. The Journey is sponsored by our friends at Salesforce Essentials. We use Salesforce Essentials every day and it's part of our own business journey. Essentials combines sales and service tools in a single app to help small businesses win customers and keep them happy. See how Salesforce Essentials can help you be your best business at salesforce.com/thejourney. --- Interested in commerce? Check out our newest podcast, Up Next in Commerce, at mission.org/upnextincommerce.

As we grow up, moments of stark realization are inevitable. Our parents don't actually know everything. Dinosaurs don't still exist. A whole dollar isn't really that much money. For Warren Schaeffer, one of those moments meant coming face to face with the darker side of entrepreneurship at a young age. “When I was 12 years old, my father's business totally failed. He went bankrupt and I ended up living with another family when I was 13.” In Warren's opinion, there are two ways that businesses die. Number one, they run out of money – like what he witnessed up close and personal as a preteen.  Or, number two, the founder quits.  Ensuring your company is making money – and not losing it – is the most basic operation of a business, one every founder, investor, and startup employee is constantly taking a pulse on. But quitting, giving up, moving on from the project you began... That's a less discussed, yet very real, founder struggle.  And the key that helps not only prevent these negative outcomes, but gives a company the traction to find massive success… is having the light of a North Star to guide them. ---  Learn more about The Journey at mission.org/thejourney. The Journey is sponsored by our friends at Salesforce Essentials. We use Salesforce Essentials every day and it's part of our own business journey. Essentials combines sales and service tools in a single app to help small businesses win customers and keep them happy. See how Salesforce Essentials can help you be your best business at salesforce.com/thejourney.

Leading a team onto the battlefield of business – or quite literally a battlefield – isn't for the faint of heart. Being a leader is about setting the route for others to follow; it's a huge responsibility that often results in having to make extremely difficult decisions. “A month or two into my role as a platoon leader, I'm brand new leading a tank platoon with 15 soldiers and I had to fire my platoon sergeant. And the platoon sergeant is the key guy who is driving the organization. As a 22-year-old kid, that's probably the hardest decision I ever made.” Chris Hsu is an Army vet, business vet, and current entrepreneur. Cultivating strong teams and successful leadership models has been Chris's MO since his first job in the military. The list of reasons a start-up can fail is endless, but leadership is at the heart of many of the issues young businesses face. And no matter how brilliant your product or business is, with poor leadership, success will be hard to come by… and even more difficult to hold on to. ---  Learn more about The Journey at mission.org/thejourney. The Journey is sponsored by our friends at Salesforce Essentials. We use Salesforce Essentials every day and it's part of our own business journey. Essentials combines sales and service tools in a single app to help small businesses win customers and keep them happy. See how Salesforce Essentials can help you be your best business at salesforce.com/thejourney.

Technology is revolutionizing how we live, work, play, and do business. But apps can't (yet) clothe, feed, or shelter us; we still live in the physical world, and as a result, need tangible products and real-world supply chains to meet our needs. But tapping into those supply chains and actually getting your idea from prototype to production line to store shelves is hardly an easy feat. “My dad always says, ‘It's easy to sell [a product]. It's hard to buy it and produce it. That's where you make a business successful.'” Bill Gamber is the founder of Big Agnes, a company that designs cutting-edge outdoor gear for even the most seasoned backcountry explorers. Coming up with an innovative tent or sleeping bag design is one thing, but actually finding someone who can produce them? That is a totally different beast… ---  Learn more about The Journey at mission.org/thejourney. The Journey is sponsored by our friends at Salesforce Essentials. We use Salesforce Essentials every day and it's part of our own business journey. Essentials combines sales and service tools in a single app to help small businesses win customers and keep them happy. See how Salesforce Essentials can help you be your best business at salesforce.com/thejourney.