Starting and growing a business is hard, but often deciding to start the business in the first place is even harder. We asked some successful entrepreneurs from around the community to open up to us about how they thought about starting a business.

Saskya Caicedo

It was less of a big, calculated decision and more of a gradual realization that I wanted to do this work differently. After years in community mental health, I saw the gaps—especially for new moms and young women navigating trauma. I wanted to create a space where people felt truly understood, where therapy wasn’t just about checking boxes but about real, meaningful support. Read More>>

Scott Levin

Starting my own divorce mediation practice was driven by a deep desire to change the way couples experience divorce. As a family law attorney and Certified Divorce Financial Analyst (CDFA®), I witnessed firsthand how the traditional litigation system often escalates conflict, drains finances, and causes unnecessary emotional harm—especially to children. Read More>>

Tim Butler

I had been a touring musician for years; the only other thing I knew how to do was run letterpresses While there are letterpress shops in San Diego, I decided to focus the business on small, custom work for artists and designers. Having my own business also allows me the opportunity to set my own hours and still travel for music gigs as I want. Read More>>

Christopher Montano

I wanted to create a brand that truly reflected me—something that felt authentic yet was also a sustainable business. From the start, I was conscious of balancing demand and quality while figuring out what would set me apart in the industry. With a background in fashion and advertising, I’ve studied what makes brands and clothing sell, and I’ve found that photography shares a lot of those same principles. Read More>>

Helen Ban

There were many thought processes behind starting my own business. In honest transparency, while I knew I had a great product to share with the world, at the moment, one of biggest drive was to make money. After being laid off from a career I had vested 1o+. years to, I took on some odd jobs, but working full-time just to make enough money to send the kids to daycare just didn’t make sense. Read More>>

Kat Quiroz

The decision to start my own business, Kat Angelica Art & Healing and now HeARTsong Wellness, was deeply rooted in my personal healing journey and my passion for helping others find peace, creativity, and connection. As an art medicine healer and Reiki master, I’ve experienced firsthand the powerful transformation that comes from combining spirituality, creativity, and holistic healing practices. I wanted to create a space where others could experience that same sense of empowerment and inner peace. Read More>>

Jason Salazar

Starting my own business, Dough Boii, has been a dream of mine for years. I’ve always wanted to create something that was uniquely mine, especially around food, because baking has always been a passion of mine. I’m someone who loves baked goods, especially late at night sweets treats and I wanted to build a business that brought those sweet, comforting treats to others, so they could experience the same joy I get from them. Read More>>

Anni

I have always been creative and in the arts so it was a slow progression from being an artist to realizing I had this idea for a company that I wanted to bring to life. They did go hand in hand which was helpful in starting ‘Saturdays at Seven’. As a songwriter, I wanted a place to perform without the ‘pay to play’ rules. I felt there wasn’t a space for artists to just come together and network and share music. So I created ‘Saturdays at Seven’ in my backyard. Read More>>

Vivvi The Force

I started my business to bring a unique, year-round costume store to San Diego, offering items that were hard to find locally. While living in San Francisco, I worked at a costume shop and fell in love with the energy and creativity of the industry. As a drag queen and a former healthcare worker, I wanted a career where I could make my own rules and create a space that celebrates self-expression. My goal was to build a shop that serves the community with costumes, makeup, wigs, and vintage fashion, all in an inclusive and welcoming environment Read More>>

Sandman

When we started the Gauntlet Beat Battle it was just for fun to hear beats and have some friendly competition between some producers we knew. It quickly became something more when those producers shared our platform with their friends. When it started to grow, and we saw that the producers appreciated our critiques and the space to battle we started to take it more seriously Read More>>

Rebecka Jones

I was raised by hippies, so I was always really spiritual, and creative. I also have ADHD. But in the early 90’s when I was diagnosed, there wasn’t much support. So, I taught myself how to use my interests to cope with my ADHD. When I was in my early 30’s I became a Psychotherapist and an Art Therapist. When I started working, in order to get my hours, I had to work for a few different places. One job was for grief and abuse with neuro-typical populations, but another was working with Neuro-divergent and developmentally delayed who had also experienced some sort of trauma. A lot of these people were non-verbal. Read More>>

Mystiika Jae Carter

My thought process behind starting my own business was rooted in one word: freedom.

I started working for others at 13, navigating systems that were never designed to nurture me. As a systems-dependent youth, I watched my peers—those with backgrounds like mine—face oppression without even realizing it. There was no language for it, just a heavy, quiet sadness that made hopelessness feel inevitable. Read More>>

Sarah Blessinger

You’ll hear many wedding planners say they started their business after having a great time planning their own wedding. My story is quite the opposite.

We didn’t know what we didn’t know going into wedding planning, but we truly thought we could do things on our own. This meant relying on friends and family to fill the gaps when we didn’t hire a professional wedding vendor. This only put a strain on our relationships and the decision-making process (as a recovering people pleaser this was especially difficult for me). Read More>>

 Karen & Chris Sanchez

Our thought process was to create the best of a product that people use on a daily basis and sell it by educating. This line of all natural products is called Early Girl Creations. We apply the garden to shower approach creating products such as soaps, lotions, body oils and cosmetics using garden grown ingredients grown by Early Girl Gardens at The Soap Factory in Logan Heights, San Diego. My husband Chris, the other half of Early Girl Creations also specializes in designing spaces and turning them into edible Art pieces. He grows many of the herbs that I use for distillation and for creation of our products. Read More>>

Patricia Lutz

I started my business by accident. I had sewn for myself for a while and done some costume design for theater and people started coming to me for custom pieces and alterations. Lust Designs and Performance was born from there. Read More>>

J.j. Grayson

I tried everything as a blooming creative – painting, writing, acting, video game design, and costume making – but I knew I couldn’t juggle all of them. My first business was an Etsy shop for my art prints, needless to say, it was a flop. I wrote a novel that never got published and when I tried to create my first video game, I couldn’t get past the start screen. Sewing was the one thing I kept coming back to. This hesitation kept me from mastering this craft. Now, 10 years later I am ready to launch my brand, and although I haven’t dressed a celebrity for a red carpet yet, I still feel proud and established. Read More>>