Starting Small

Alysa Seeland grew up on her grandparents' dairy farm in northern Illinois, chased a Division I volleyball scholarship through high school, and pivoted to speech and debate when she realized the sport wasn't going to be...

Charlie Clifford grew up a self-described "scrappy Jersey guy" in a town of 5,000 people, and won his first entrepreneurial prize in sixth grade: a watch, for out-hustling a classmate whose dad rigged the contest by...

Adam Wexler played fantasy football since seventh grade — and turned that habit into a $4.15 billion exit. He built his first company out of a dorm room at the University of Georgia, launched a music discovery platform...

Nick Stenson cut his first head of hair at 12 years old, in his mother's Chicago salon, with zero training and a customer's grandson in the chair. He was on track to become an orthopedic surgeon before realizing his mom...

One family recipe has grown into one of the fastest-rising brands in ready-to-drink cocktails. Inspired by her mother's gin, lemonade, and mint summer cooler, Meredith Mills-Merritt founded The Original Southside with a...

What started as two college friends chasing side hustles and building an Instagram account called @Sauce has grown into one of the most recognizable premium food brands in America. Today, TRUFF can be found in more than...

Before Yes Way Rosé became one of the best-selling rosé brands in America, it started as an Instagram account. Long before they sold a single bottle, Erica Small and Nikki Huganir were building a community around a...

Angela Caglia spent decades behind the scenes as one of Hollywood’s most trusted estheticians before launching her own skincare brand. Her career started treating celebrity clients in Los Angeles, including Barbra...

Long before SIMPLi hit shelves at Whole Foods, Sprouts, Erewhon, and Wegmans, Sarela and Matt were traveling globally working directly with farmers to source regenerative organic ingredients and rebuild transparency at...

Lauren Corugedo grew up watching Chef Merito operate like a hidden gem in Los Angeles kitchens long before the rest of the country caught on. Founded in 1985 by her Cuban immigrant grandfather, Chef Merito started with...

Dr. Kyle Landry wasn’t trying to build another skincare brand. Before Delavie Sciences, he was doing postdoctoral research at Harvard studying extremophiles — organisms capable of surviving radiation, extreme heat, and...

Working full-time while studying for a professional certification, Peter realized the real problem wasn’t intelligence — it was the format. Most working adults were trying to study late at night, squeezed between jobs...

Shahab Elmi didn’t come from the wellness industry. He came from building and exiting companies — from telecom retail to media — before turning his focus to something much bigger: fixing a broken supplement industry. In...

Sandra Powers Murphy spent decades building a career in finance — running her own firm, working with institutional clients, and raising six kids along the way. She wasn’t planning to start a footwear company. Then one...

Mary Hagen knew early she wanted to build something — launching her first business at 20. Today, she’s the CEO of Colossal, a company that’s quietly reshaped how fundraising works. Since joining, Mary has scaled...