When successful people talk about how they got to be in the position they’re in, a good number of them credit luck or circumstances. These folks typically mention a series of fortuitous events that conspired to push them in one direction or another.

Then there are the other, more rare, stories. The ones where a person has a definite vision of what they want to accomplish. And the determination to make it happen. Some of the more notable among these laser-focused legends are the empires of Walt Disney, Henry Ford, and Sam Walton.

Although they haven’t reached the same world-domination-status, yet, these kinds of dream-driven business biographies are also the stories of two local entrepreneurs.

Amina Dearman had a successful career in sales. She was Chief Sales and Marketing Officer at jewelry design company, Mignon Faget. It was a great position and she’d spent a work-life building toward it.

But in 2019 Amina walked away from security and success, to do what she really wanted. She started a company called Perspectives, a boutique travel consultancy. Evidently, it was a good move. A year later, in 2020, Amina was named by prestigious Travel + Leisure magazine as a member of “The A List of the World’s Top Travel Advisors.”

When Beth Nettles had her first child, she quickly discovered that getting a ride with Uber or Lyft wasn’t quite as simple as it used to be. Not because she had a baby and a diaper bag to juggle – well, that too - but mainly because the Uber and Lyft cars didn’t have a baby seat. To solve this problem, Beth did something pretty radical. She started her own rideshare company.

Krewe Car is the only ride-sharing car service that offers car seats for their customers. 

There are a number of other differences between Uber, Lyft, and Krewe Car too. Krewe Car has fixed prices only – there’s no surge pricing. Krewe Car pays its drivers more than Uber and Lyft. Krewe Car has a membership model for customers. But perhaps the biggest difference, in a business sense, is this: in their startup years Uber and Lyft both lost billions of dollars. Krewe Car is already profitable.

Sometimes you have to just go for it. You have to believe in yourself and do what you really want, no matter how crazy it might seem. If at any time you need to be reminded of the benefits that can come from following your dreams or, proverbially, jumping off a cliff, you don’t need to look any further than Amina Dearmon and Beth Nettles. Amina's and Beth's stories are inspirational. But they’re also grounded in smart business practices, and a lot of hard work.

Out to Lunch is recorded live over Lunch at NOLA Pizza in the NOLA Brewing Taproom. You can find photos from this show by Jill Lafleur at our website. And here's more lunchtime conversation with local New Orleanians with world-beating ideas.

 

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