Sarah Neal, founder of Instacake Cards, transformed her expertise in food technology and cake decorating into a thriving business that creates greeting cards with ingredients for 60-second celebration cakes. Despite launching just before the pandemic, her innovative idea gained traction as lockdowns drove demand for unique, shippable celebrations. Sarah shares insights on sourcing, manufacturing, trade show experiences, and her appearance on Dragon’s Den, offering advice for entrepreneurs and plans for future growth.

 Julia Hankinson, founder of Crown Leatherworks, shares her story of starting her business while still in high school, her initial challenges, and her journey of growth using social media and platforms like Etsy and FAIRE. 

Doc Harmony, Founder of Healthy Energy Amazing Life (H.E.A.L) share insights on the demand and market for natural holistic wellness products and how different people find health and wellness with different healing modalities. Doc Harmony also shares her story of how she has grown her business over the last 30 years into B2C and B2B segments and lessons learned including building a team culture that empowers people to learn and make a difference to the bottom line as well as to their own lives. 

Dawn LaFontaine, founder of Cat in the Box, shares her story of starting a Cat Wool Toys and Playhouses products business out of love for cats and also to be more in control of her working life. Dawn shares some of the challenges she faced in creating her products and also the successes in getting traction from the market and a community of cat lovers that buy from her as well as how she is scaling her business.

Maria Lee Magaña, Founder of Bully Wags, shares the story of how she got inspiration for her dog leash and harness business from a challenge that she encountered while walking her own Bully. Maria shares her journey of developing and bringing the product to market, what has worked in terms of customer acquisition and her plans for being more breed-inclusive and expanding to new markets. 

Jocelyn Sheppard, founder of Appalachian Botanical shares the story of how she is utilizing reclaimed coal mining land in West Virginia to grow Lavender and build a natural personal grooming brand while creating jobs for marginalized people in the local community. Jocelyn shares her lessons in scaling business through B2B channels, importance of branding, and making a difference in her community through her business.

 Louise Rice, founder of Strapsicle, shares her story of creating a Kindle Strap while on her maternity leave to enable easy reading experience and to prevent the device from accidently falling. Louise shares her lessons in gaining traction early on, success with selling in the US on Amazon, her efforts to scale the business globally, as well as a strong focus on building a brand. 

Adam Baker of SodaPup shares his experiences in applying business principles learned from successful career in the footwear and apparel industry (Nike, Crocs etc.) to the pet industry. Adam shares his lessons in growing the business through strategic partnerships and contracts to pay for expensive moulds for his products as well as getting distribution and brand building. 

Kristy Bickmeyer of Twinkle Toes Nanny Agency, shares how her entrepreneurial mindset enabled her to start a Nanny Agency and disrupt the traditional contracting and payment model. Kristy has been able to scale her business with a franchise model and is utilizing a custom software solution to streamline the booking and payment process.

Young and Josh Kim of Ellison + Young share the story of successfully transitioning from running a 10 store retail fashion and jewellery chain to an online wholesale Fashion and Lifestyle brand after COVID pandemic closures. They share how they have applied the lessons from their retail experience to create a strong supply chain, utilize multiple sales channels, as well as provide strong customer support to wholesale customers as a way to differentiate and grow.