Thinking through whether to start a business – whether to take the risk, whether to go out on your own – isn’t easy. So we asked some entrepreneurs we admire to tell us about how they thought through the process of starting a business.

Dexter Ashford | Farmer and entrepreneur

Honestly, my thought process was survival. I looked at where I was and I didn’t like where I was going. I had to do something different to get something different. And working for myself seemed to pay more than working for someone else. So I began working for myself. And I could give myself more agreeable hours for me. Read more>>

Dan Malley | Cycling Entrepeneur

In 2019, following a 25-year career in banking, I wanted to explore the possibility of turning my passion for cycling into a business. We (myself and my then 15 year old daughter) used a broker to analyze several opportunities to acquire existing businesses, and ultimately decided our business plan was better starting our own. Since I also love the beach, it was a natural fit to concentrate our efforts on Delaware’s beach towns where we loved spending time. Read more>> 

Cindi Boiter | Founder and Executive Director, The Jasper Project

Not all excellent artists can be rich or famous, but the fact that they may not be in the right place at the right time to acquire wealth and fame should not negate the value of their contributions to local culture. Unfortunately, our capitalist society places too much value on wealth and fame and erroneously uses these criteria as the sole measurements of success. I wanted to create an organization that validated local artists for their efforts and talents, and I wanted to this organization to focus on the quality of the artists’ work. Read more>>

Emily Jeffords | Artist and Mentor

I’m an artist (primarily a painter), and my career around my art developed very organically. One month, I was selling paintings to a distant Facebook friend (this was back in 2008); then I was growing a collector base at shows, then through my blog and online platforms. Things really began to take off when I started taking my sales goals seriously and marketing constantly online. Now, I have collectors around the globe, have sold over 10,000 pieces of artwork from my studio alone (not counting licensing or collaborations), and have the massive honor of helping other artists run their businesses through my community for artists called The Collective. Read more>>

Elizabeth Logan McDaniel | owner LaRue Fine Chocolate and LaRue at The Commons

I am a Certified Specialist of Wine and I was a wine rep for over a decade in the Upstate. I started making chocolates as a hobby with my niece. After a few years experimenting with flavor profiles I began gifting my chocolates to a few of my chefs and restauranteurs. The response was always, “you should be doing something with this”. So I took a few classes, quit my job, became a Maitre Chocolatier, and launched LaRue Fine Chocolate in 2015. I opened a brick and mortar at Poe West in The Village of West Greenville in 2020, which is a long story including that no one writes “global pandemic” into their business plan. Read more>>

Amy Sarant | Entrepreneur and Business Manager

I always say it’s our COVID baby! My husband and I were both laid off during COVID (I’m in the dental field and he was working as a car salesman at the time) and the long story short of it is that we had a burger from a major chain restaurant when everyone was doing the curbside/eat in your car thing at the beginning of the shut down and my husband got a terrible burger- the meat was cold and the lettuce was hot! He jokingly said that he could sell a better burger off the back of a truck so I said…”let’s do it”! (He is a classically trained chef by the way, so has a lot of restaurant experience and knowledge so it wasn’t TOTALLY crazy!) Read more>>