Starting a business is a commitment and requires dedication, resources and sacrifice. We asked some of the rising stars in our community how they thought through the idea of starting their own businesses.

Michael Friedrich

Here in San Diego we are home to such an amazing fishery. San Diego also offers a very booming sport fishing industry and people come from all over the world to experience it. There is just something about enjoying YOUR catch in the art of sushi. So, I started to offer a service utilizing the fisherman’s catch. Mostly, Bluefin Tuna, Yellowfin Tuna, Yellowtail, and Mahi. Hook and line caught seafood caught by yourself just speaks volume to those around the dinner table with you. I take tremendous pride in my catch, and I feel so do most people.  Read More>>

Lynda Agee

I used to drink all of my water from plastic bottles. All day, every day. For years. I thought that I was using plastic responsibly because I put all of the empty bottles into the recycling bin. One day, somebody told me that very little of that plastic was actually being recycled. In fact, in the U.S. the majority of plastic bottles end up in land fills or being incinerated. Neither is environmentally friendly. We recycle almost none of our plastic. Read More>>

Teresa Vine

Opening my Floral Studio was more about the desperation of getting out of my work life at the time. I was working a really mentally taxing job that didn’t serve me. I had been in the floral industry for 15 years and the job I was working at the time was not in the floral industry. I never had the intention to open my own shop but I had priced myself out as a designer and didn’t like any of the floristry coming out of flower shops at the time. I didn’t want to go back to freelancing for event florists so I came down to the decision of opening my own studio. Read More>>

Lauren Brooke

I started my floristry business as a creative outlet, fueled by my love for design and the simple joy of creating something with my hands. I initially began my admiration for flowers by participating in flower bouquet pop-ups at local storefronts. From there, friends and family began asking me to create their wedding florals. Over time, flowers became my preferred design medium. I’ve always been drawn to the way flowers can transform a space, and I wanted to channel my passion into something meaningful. I started offering thoughtfully curated floral designs at a reasonable price to engaged couples. I fell in love with the fact that my work became part of so many special moments and celebrations. Read More>>

Yves Fournier

I used to work in hotel and restaurant corporation. Realized I was just a number. Got laid off from a hotel and went on to work as a Pastry chef instructor at the San Diego Culinary Institute. Always told myself to open up my own bakery if things would go south.
worked there 15 years and had the opportunity to start a little pop up bakery form my house in my neighborhood. Read More>>

Ariel Nelson

I found conservation and habitat restoration accidentally through a community college general education course that I was told had the most field trips. From there, I fell in love with ecology and saw the deep need for restoration across the planet.

I have decided to commit myself to the mission of ecological restoration everywhere in big and small ways. However, when I graduated undergrad and started working with non-profits and environmental consulting companies, what I found was a far cry from anything I had envisioned. I would get in trouble for cleaning up trash or picking weeds when it was “outside of the scope of work”. I found myself too passionate for the industry of habitat restoration and missing the public facing aspects of my work at coffee shops and LUSH Cosmetics. I didn’t just want to restore habitat, I wanted to show people why that mattered. Read More>>

Carmen Smith

Starting Little Roots Occupational Therapy was a deeply personal decision for me. As an OT, I kept seeing gaps in early intervention, especially when it came to infant feeding and development. I wanted to create a space where families felt truly supported—where therapy wasn’t just about checking boxes but about taking a whole-body, nervous-system-focused approach that actually made a lasting difference. I knew I needed to step outside the traditional model—no waitlist or rushed appointments, no unnecessary barriers to care, just real, meaningful support that extended beyond therapy sessions. Read More>>

Jill Anderson

A few years ago, I got engaged to my wonderful husband, and we started our wedding planning journey! I looked for wedding planners & designers that would tailor to what we wanted – a wedding that would encompass all of the stories and fandoms that we loved that brought us together – but couldn’t find someone servicing that niche.  Read More>>

Sophie Rodriguez

I always tell the story that as a child, I never got into things like toys, dolls, imaginative play, video games — it was always art for me. And it still is.

As I grew older, it got harder to prioritize it, especially as a Latina woman navigating being a college student at a PWI. We’re taught that education and earning the most money is the only way to do better for our community, even though those values are rooted in capitalism, which is what hurts our community. Regardless, I ended up studying accounting and political science, which makes me laugh looking back because of how retrospectively clear it is that that wasn’t for me. Read More>>

Ryan Kelley

By far it is having a positive mental attitude. Starting a business can be challenging and you’ll experience rejection and setbacks but you can’t let that effect your drive and enthusiasm. How you hanlde rejection speaks volumes. Show the world that you believe in your product and are excited and you’ll soon attract opportunities. You never know when the next client is watching and listening. Always do your very best. Read More>>

Juan Rodriguez

Creating AKA Musique seemed so easy to do. It has its difficult times, however, the goal never seemed to degrade. Out vision was always to aid the small local scene in Orange County. Knowing multiple small artists, myself identifying as one as well, it was difficult to find comfort or courage to proceed in the scene without any sort of help. Starting out, you are shoved with play-to-play gigs, and many artists don’t know better and think a gig is a gig, however, finding the tragedy of the abuse behind losing so much money, to never seeing most of those tickets sold come back to you, its a hard thing to be apart of. We want to help reverse that and solely dedicate our time to help the community. Read More>>

Olga Patlyuk

Honestly, at first, it was just a hobby. I had just given birth to my son and spent a lot of time with my family, but at the same time, I wanted to do something for myself. That’s how I became interested in beadwork, started researching information, and began creating my first pieces. They were far from perfect—clumsy and made from cheap beads—but that’s how it all began. Read More>>

Maribel Angulo Bender

When my first daughter was born, I was determined to make reading an intricate part of our daily routine. What began as simple storytime quickly evolved into our favorite bonding experience – her eyes lighting up as we turned each page together. Despite this joy, I wished she could share similar moments with her distant grandparents. Living far from family made it difficult to build strong connections, especially during those formative early years.  Read More>>