Kai was part of Google’s design incubator—a dream for anyone with a background in product development. But the more he listened to the founders around him, the more uneasy he felt.

“Everyone was talking about engagement, retention, hours spent in the app, it was all about maximizing attention so you could sell more ads. That’s what success looked like.”

It didn’t sit right.

He started thinking more critically about the attention economy—how most modern tech products are designed not to help you complete a task, but to keep you staring at the screen as long as possible.

It was obvious once he saw it. But no one seemed interested in changing it.

So he did.

Kai launched Light, a company that builds intentionally minimalist phones designed to be used less—not more.

Billy was the kind of kid who went from one sport season to the next without a break—lacrosse, soccer, basketball, repeat. But between all the practices and tournaments, one thing stuck with him more than he realized at the time: he loved having control over his time.

When he figured out how to string lacrosse heads better than anyone else on his team, it quietly became a business. “People would pay me 10 or 20 bucks,” he says. “I didn’t have a real business plan, but I liked that I could take on as many people as I wanted and deliver on my own schedule. I had control.”

That same feeling came rushing back years later—only this time, it wasn’t stringing sticks. It was building Bantee, a social golf app that blends Strava and Instagram to bring golfers together on and off the course.

Gene Williams didn’t invent private coaching for youth sports.

He just knew it could be better.

In college, he made extra money offering basketball lessons to local kids. His wife did the same with soccer. They were both former college athletes—Gene played at Johns Hopkins, she played D1—and coaching was a way to stay close to the game while paying the bills.

At first, they used an online platform to manage bookings and payments.

But one thing led to another and they left that platform, kept coaching, and started wondering: what if they just built the thing they actually wanted?

That was the beginning of Athletes Untapped, a platform that connects parents and young athletes with private coaches in 16 different sports—all for in-person, hyper-local training.

Ryan O’Hara didn’t plan on starting a new category in sales. He just couldn’t stop noticing how broken the old ones were.

For the last 15 years, Ryan’s been on the front lines of B2B go-to-market—cold emailing, cold calling, launching creative stunts, and building sales playbooks from scratch. But sometime around 2021, things started to feel… off.

Jeremy Greenberg doesn’t describe himself as a natural entrepreneur. In fact, he kind of bristles at the label.

He wasn’t running lemonade stands or flipping sneakers in high school. And when he tells the story of how he got here—founder of Crowdwave, a fast-growing AI research platform backed by venture capital—it’s clear that this wasn’t some preordained path. It was a series of pivots, partnerships, and well-timed leaps.

She didn’t want to build a medical device. She wanted to build a habit.

And that’s exactly what she did.

Josefa created Palpa, a breast-shaped sponge for the shower with a built-in simulation of a malignant tumor. The idea is as elegant as it is powerful: teach people what to look for in the safest, most natural environment possible—their own daily routine.

“I started asking—who’s paying the teacher’s salary 365 days a year? Who’s making sure these kids eat every day, not just when a charity dinner is held?”

Michael Sheldrick realized what a lot of well-meaning volunteers don’t: charity alone won’t fix poverty. “No amount of lemonade stands or quiz nights were going to raise the billions needed to end extreme poverty,” he says.

So when he met the other founders of what would become Global Citizen, everything clicked.

Aidan Brannigan runs a creative humor agency that makes memes and skits for some of the biggest B2B companies in the world. Their work is simple but wildly effective: viral organic content in markets where everyone else is playing it safe.

He calls it “No Boring Brands” for a reason.

“I always start with this stat,” he says. “90% of people remember ads that are funny, but only 18% of business leaders actually use humor in their content. There’s a huge gap there. We’re closing it.”

Eric Topchik didn’t have a playbook when he launched Galaxy Golf Cars. He had no experience in the golf cart industry, no roadmap, and no promise that it would work. What he did have was a fire that had been building for years—fueled by burnout, bullsh*t, and a deep belief that there had to be something better out there.

“I just got to a point where I thought—if this is what the next 10 years of my life looks like, I’m going to regret not trying to build something of my own,” he says.

Jared’s brand, Hanna Golf, is proof that you don’t need a factory or a team of engineers to make elite gear—you just need a CNC machine, an audience, and a willingness to learn from failure.

Jared is proving there’s room in the golf world for people with fresh eyes, weird ideas, and a little bit of edge.

Mordechai’s company, Blurrd, is injecting bold design and personality into an industry that’s been buttoned-up for too long. He’s building a brand in his vision, his way.

Matt Wampler started out cleaning grease traps, and now he’s helping restaurants move from gut-feel guessing to predictive analytics—think “How many plain bagels do I need today?” answered with data instead of intuition.

Chris Heffernan saw the writing on the wall when food delivery went mainstream, and pivoted to a smarter niche: scheduled catering orders for corporate clients. His platform now spans North America and pays out millions to drivers.

After years of traveling in an Airstream, chasing contracts across the country, and living off-grid to survive the early days of COVID… the mountains pulled them in.

So did the business opportunity.

“You can’t compare us to anyone else. That’s by design.”

Today, Every Mile Creative is a full-service photo and video company serving brands that want to stand out—and they’re doing it by building unforgettable content in unforgettable places.

They don’t just shoot cool footage on glaciers and helicopters. They help brands translate values into visuals—and they’ve curated every piece of the business to attract only the right clients.

Tyler Johnson wasn’t looking to start a company—he was just looking for a golf bag small enough for his toddler.

It didn’t exist. So he built it.

Matt Foster didn’t grow up fixing boats. But after five unanswered service calls, he realized the marine industry was broken—and built Motorboat Mechanics to fix it. What started with a scrappy Facebook ad is now a multi-city mobile repair company scaling through marinas, systems, and word-of-mouth trust.

For Ally, taking Well-Oiled full-time wasn’t an impulsive leap—it was a calculated move.

“I’m not the ‘jump and figure it out’ type. I needed to make sure we had something sustainable,” she says. “But by early 2023, I was working 50 hours a week at my job and another 30 on Well-Oiled. I hit a wall.”

She gave the team an ultimatum: “Either we go all in, or we scale back.” The decision was clear. By March 2023, she left her job and became the first full-time employee at Well-Oiled.

Jared Kugel was living on crackers and jelly when everyone told him to quit. Today, his company Tire Agent has sold over 2 million tires—and he’s just getting started. No tech background. No hype. Just obsession, grit, and a refusal to back down.

Alisha Chranya didn’t wait for the “perfect moment” to start her business. 

Instead, she made the leap when most people would’ve hesitated—leaving behind a steady job in New York with nothing but a big idea and a belief that it could work. “I didn’t have investors or a huge budget. I just had an idea that wouldn’t leave me alone, and I knew I had to try,” she says.

Tiffany Slowinski went from school counselor to running seven media publications across New Jersey—after spotting a Facebook ad on maternity leave. No sales background, no biz degree—just instincts, grit, and a refusal to settle. Now she’s scaling fast, hiring smarter, and building a business her daughters are already learning from.