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&nbs ..read more

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 ..read more

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 ..read more

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 re ..read more

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 ..read more

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 ..read more

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 o ..read more

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 industr ..read more

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 s ..read more

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 thing ..read more