When Marianne Fink arrived in Dayton in the early 1990s, Dayton looked a lot different than it does today.
“I fell in love pretty immediately, but it was just a strange time to be here because people were just trying to get out,” she recalled. “They weren’t really trying to stay, they weren’t trying to do much with what we had here.”
But that didn’t stop Marianne from getting involved in the community where she would eventually launch her business, The Wellness Studio.
“I just really had a sense that a lot of impact could be made, and that if I just continued to put one foot in front of the other, eventually things would anchor in a way that I could grow,” she said. “Most of us that are on an entrepreneurial journey, we’re visionaries just by our nature.”
And sometimes that vision can take years to truly manifest, she said.
Marianne first launched The Wellness Studio with a business partner in Tipp City in 2015, but “the drive to want to anchor something or root something in the Dayton community was always there,” she said.
That dream came true in April 2019 when she opened her doors at 114 N. Saint Clair St.
Marianne grew up in a family of DIY-ers. Her first business foray was in high school, when she made chocolates on the down low and delivered them to classmates in homeroom.
She never expected to weave entrepreneurship into her career. But as a single mother, she found herself asking how her family could thrive, not just survive.
“If you go to New York City or Chicago, you’ve got to really have things amped up to be able to create in a town like that. I had to get really honest with myself that that’s not the life that I wanted to live,” Marianne said. “I wanted to have balance in my life, and I needed an economy that would afford me the ability to live well and grow steadily.”
She learned early on that she wasn’t cut out for a corporate job. She needed to be moving, not sitting at a desk.
A stint in hospitality taught her how to read people, a skill she ultimately carried into her work at The Wellness Studio.
“I just was always trying to be as perceptive as I could possibly be in the environment that I was in,” she recalled. “When I look at my journey to become an entrepreneur, since I don’t have a classic business education, I learned from observing other industries.”
Marianne got curious about her environment — and her community of Daytonians.
“That’s the other thing about Dayton, we have so many resources!” she said. “I don’t know that I can say enough of how how much I appreciate it. Not that you can ever really know the ins and outs of what it is to run a small business until you’re living and breathing it, but it does help light you up. And there isn’t this pervasive sense of competition. It’s only, isn’t this great, we’re doing it, and this is happening. And it may be in your market, but that is not a bad thing, that’s an amazing thing. We are actually creating this very rich environment in our community where other small businesses are flourishing.”
At The Wellness Studio, Marianne and her staff work with bodies. Services include massage, energy work, facials, life coaching, astrological readings and more — modalities that are becoming more mainstream, Marianne observed.
Because if there’s one thing you can count on in business, it’s that things will shift and change, she said.
“There’s this whole idea that you reach this place of enlightenment, and then you just got all of the information, and that’s just never the reality of business,” she said. “You’re always learning and growing.”
“Things are always changing, and there are things that are happening right now in current events that I’m paying attention to going, okay, this is going to create a big ripple, and what is that going to look like,” she said. “But you can’t live in fear and operate from that place. You have to still live in making bold choices.”
Owning a business is a calling.
“To do a business well, you almost have to be devotional to it. It holds a frequency of you, for you, of love, that keeps pulling you back in. This is why you came, this is what you’re here to do,” Marianne said. “It has to break you in some ways, too. You have to have your heart broken over it a couple of times, and come back from that stronger, and recommit yourself to to the journey that you’re on”
I am Marianne Fink, and I am an entrepreneur.
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There’s no one way to be an entrepreneur.
You don’t have to look a certain way, operate in a particular industry, or pursue specific education. You don’t have to grow up in a particular household, or spend your free time nurturing any particular hobbies — entrepreneurs grow from all walks of life.
In this series, entrepreneurs, founders, and small business owners from across the Dayton Region share their individual stories to break down pervading stereotypes about who can or can’t be an entrepreneur.
They proudly declare, “I Am an Entrepreneur” — and you can be, too.
Can you recognize and pronounce the ingredients in your body care products? If you shop Baba Love Organics, the answer is yes.
The birth of her daughter, Primrose, inspired Vaniti Byrd to launch her company, specializing in natural body care products.
“I just really indulged in our bath time, it was a really nice time that we bonded. So I just wanted to provide moms with a very simple way to bathe their babies,” she recalled. “I created products that could be used for both hair and body, because being a new mom is already stressful enough.”
But what began as a product line for babies morphed into more when Vaniti saw the need in her community.
“I bought into this skincare stuff prior to making it, and I was like, I can’t get this stuff close. I have to drive at least 15 to 20 minutes to get my hands on a product that is good for my babies, that’s good for me. And I want people to have access to these products here,” she said.
Vaniti developed the formulas for all of her products, making them from scratch in her home kitchen. She sold products at pop-ups, then through an Etsy store.
Today, she sells online and at her storefront at 116 W. 5th St., in downtown Dayton.
“People are becoming a lot more ingredient-conscious, and they really resonate with products that have ingredients that they can actually pronounce. A lot of my products you might see in your kitchen, like coconut oil or grape seed oil,” Vaniti said. “It gives people a peace of mind being able to say, oh this product was made in Dayton, let me Google this person, or being able to physically walk into this space and purchase products here.”
Vaniti is also an elementary school teacher.
“Teaching small people, you know your level of patience is definitely tested. Transitioning to just educating people about skin care, something that I already love, it was just really easy. There is a problem and I’m just easily providing a solution,” she said.
For Vaniti, making body care products was a hobby before it became a business.
“I ran myself ragged the first three years,” she recalled. “It was like, okay, I think I want to do this, and then it started picking up, and I was like, okay I guess I’m doing it. It wasn’t like, okay, let me go get all these things in a row. I got in there, I got hands on with making that product, and I just fell in love.”
That doesn’t mean every day is easy, though, she said.
“There’s days that you’re in it alone. I was making products until 4, 5, 6 in the morning, and then going straight to work. It’s just you and your thoughts and whatever you’re trying to do,” Vaniti said. “There are people on the outside who are supporting you, but before you have those people supporting you, it’s just you, and so you really gotta want it for you before you can introduce anything.”
Just start, she said.
“Don’t wait until you feel like you have all the pieces, because essentially, as you’re building this business, or this idea, you’ll never have all the pieces,” she said. “You’ll continue to just add to the puzzle.”
And don’t allow fear or other people’s opinions to sway your your journey, she added.
“Everyone is going to have an opinion, but if you’re truly passionate about it, it will show through to whatever it is that you’re doing,” she said. “Money is oftentimes a deterrent for people. I literally started this business with $500. I thought that I needed all this stuff, and I didn’t, I just needed the drive, and with that drive, you can attain anything.”
My name is Vaniti Byrd, and I am an entrepreneur.
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There’s no one way to be an entrepreneur.
You don’t have to look a certain way, operate in a particular industry, pursue specific education, grow up in a particular household, or spend your free time nurturing any particular hobbies — entrepreneurs grow from all walks of life.
In a new video series we are excited to launch today, entrepreneurs, founders, and small business owners from across the Dayton Region share their individual stories in order to break down those pervading stereotypes about who can or can’t be an entrepreneur.
They proudly declare, “I Am an Entrepreneur” — and you can be, too.
Kourtney Terry had it all — a beautiful family, big house, a good-paying job in corporate healthcare.
But she wasn’t happy.
The realization led her down a path of discovery, at the end of which, she launched her company, Taste-T-Love Baby Food.
“I wasn’t born to go to work so I could pay my bills, and then go to sleep and wake up and do the same thing the next day,” she said. “If I’m not passionate about what I’m doing, then I’m wasting my time here on this Earth. It made me dig deeper to figure out what it was that was going to make me happy.”
Kourtney had just given birth to her third child when she began to seriously contemplate a career change. She was applying to jobs in other healthcare systems, but nothing sparked her interest. She cried, prayed, fasted. Then two friends in opposite parts of the country suggested she start a baby food business.
They’d seen her share photos of the food she’d started making for her son.
“There was a lot of opportunity, there was a need. There’s a lot of people like me in Dayton, who work full-time, or even if you don’t work full-time and you’re a stay-at-home mom or a parent, there is a need for fresh and healthy food in general,” Kourtney said. “When it comes to baby food, it’s twice that, because you’re introducing a healthy way of living to a new generation, literally.”
Tapping Into Aviatra Accelerators
“There is a facade that can people can put on sometimes about being an entrepreneur, like it’s this glam, fun life, and you work for yourself,” Kourtney said.
Initially, being a new business owner was fun, fresh, new, she recalled. Designing a logo, crafting recipes, figuring out packaging, brought her happiness. Then she realized she had to figure out marketing, find customers, hone in on her target market.
“If I had paid attention to, or if I had gave in to the disappointment of that reality, I wouldn’t be in business today,” she said.
She reached out for help — and found it at Aviatra Accelerators.
“When I decided that I needed to walk away from my job, Aviatra was that pillow for me,” Kourtney said. “Aviatra taught me or refreshed me in every aspect of how to make my business successful. It was that comfort that I needed to just get out and fly and be all right.”
Today, Kourtney is stepping into a new project manager role with the organization to bring Aviatra’s programing to the Dayton region.
‘Be hungry’
Kourtney’s oldest daughter dreams of following her mother’s footsteps to become a business owner.
“It is really just impacting them to know that they can do anything that they put their mind to. They can do anything that they want,” she said.
And so can you, she adds.
“And you can make a living doing something that you love. You can, that’s what we were put on this Earth for, is purpose, Kourtney said. “Even if you feel like you don’t have all the resources or information, if you have a passion or purpose for something, just do it. ”
Take that first step — and then be hungry.
“Be hungry for information and education because it’s one thing to start a business, but starting a business and being an entrepreneur is not depending on other people, it’s depending on yourself,” she said. “You have to constantly be hungry for knowledge and information in order to keep moving forward and growing your business.”
“My name is Kourtney Terry, and I am an entrepreneur.”
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There’s no one way to be an entrepreneur.
You don’t have to look a certain way, operate in a particular industry, pursue specific education, grow up in a particular household, or spend your free time nurturing any particular hobbies — entrepreneurs grow from all walks of life.
In a new video series we are excited to launch today, entrepreneurs, founders, and small business owners from across the Dayton Region share their individual stories in order to break down those pervading stereotypes about who can or can’t be an entrepreneur.
They proudly declare, “I Am an Entrepreneur” — and you can be, too.
Save some time for family and friends this holiday season — let Tumble handle your laundry chores.
Founders Charles Wheeler III and Jeffrey Caldwell II started researching the idea for the on-demand laundry service while they were college roommates at Miami University.
“He’d just got off of work, still had a lot of laundry and a lot of other chores to do, and he was like, ‘Jeffrey, what would it be like if there was actually a business that took care of all your laundry, your wash and fold, you know, and put it all in a nice, neat, packaged bag for you, and left it at your doorstep?’,” Jeffrey recalled. “I was like, Charles, that could be us, that’s a brilliant idea!”
As the pair begin researching, they discovered laundry was a multi-billion dollar industry, he said.
“That got us really sparked up and interested in the whole business,” Jeffrey said.
After graduating from Miami University, both men returned home to Dayton and launched Tumble, offering wash, fold & dry-cleaning services, available via pickup and delivery.
“There’s a lot more entrepreneurs here than people will believe there to be, and so it’s good to be a part of a community full of entrepreneurs,” Jeffrey said. “And it’s a growing market. We have everything almost at our disposal, it’s like our little playground to go ahead and get ideas worked out in real life.”
Both Jeffrey and Charles dabbled in entrepreneurial endeavors as kids.
Charles cut grass, shoveled snow, washed cars, sold Kool-Aid at summer camp.
“I definitely knew I had the knack for finding ways to make money outside of a job to supplement myself,” Charles said. “Being able to take the reins and freedoms into my own hand for how much I make each year and what my workload looks like for a day, that definitely made it more enticing to me.”
Jeffrey also used to cut grass, as well as clean out garages to supply an Ebay shop.
“It’s always been a really big passion of mine, owning my own business, and it’s funny now to think like, at a younger age, this was my dream, and now my dream has come true to a certain extent,” Jeffrey said.
Resiliency is key to that entrepreneur life, Charles said.
“That’s part of the game, you’re going to get knocked down a couple times, or things aren’t going to work out the way that you exactly planned for them to work out,” he said. “It has definitely pushed us out there to be more confident in our abilities and just tap into the resources and networking that we have. The earlier on in your life that you make mistakes — and figure out how to bounce back from those mistakes — the more wisdom and resilience you’ll have down the line.”
The sky is the limit, Jeffrey added.
“Only you stand in your way. Only you can dictate how far you’ll go,” he said. “There will definitely be haters and naysayers on the way, but they’re not the ones putting in the work. Only you can lead you to your dreams.”
“I’m Charles Wheeler III — and I’m Jeffrey Caldwell II — and we are entrepreneurs.”
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There’s no one way to be an entrepreneur.
You don’t have to look a certain way, operate in a particular industry, pursue specific education, grow up in a particular household, or spend your free time nurturing any particular hobbies — entrepreneurs grow from all walks of life.
In a new video series we are excited to launch today, entrepreneurs, founders, and small business owners from across the Dayton Region share their individual stories in order to break down those pervading stereotypes about who can or can’t be an entrepreneur.
They proudly declare, “I Am an Entrepreneur” — and you can be, too.
In 1956, Korean war veteran Charlie Ferrell, call sign ‘Mutt’, thought people were too wasteful with condiments — so he mixed his own one-sauce-for-all recipe.
More than five decades later, his granddaughter and fellow veteran, Charlynda Scales, inherited that recipe, and launched her company, Mutt’s Sauce, to share it with the world.
“I’m probably the worst cook in the family. I don’t have the credentials, I thought at the time, to carry this forward,” Charlynda recalled. “There were a lot of introspective moments of, why me?”
Charlynda was halfway through her last military assignment when she launched her business. She did a Google search for free business help, and wound up at the door of Dayton Score, a free business support organization that connects new business owners to mentors.
“I just wanted to make a couple bottles of this sauce for friends and family. I wasn’t thinking big business,” she said. “When we had the first conversation, [my mentor] started telling me about Kraft and Heinz and the big brands of tomato-based products that eventually became conglomerates, and he said, it started with a recipe.”
She was glad to find herself launching a business in a military-friendly region.
“People who have the background that I had as a service member could say, we know that you are still dealing with challenges being a service member,” she said. “I am a 70-percent disabled veteran. From the outside, I’m perfectly fine, but I deal with challenges every single day that I have to overcome in order to appear normal and get the same job done as everybody else.”
Charlynda draws every day on her core values — values she learned from her grandfather and her military service.
“As a entrepreneur you cannot get complacent. You have to be hungry at all times. You have to be okay with learning something new. And you have to be willing to put in the work,” she said. “The lessons that I learned on active duty, I can carry with me throughout my journey as a business owner.”
And you have to stay humble, her grandfather taught her.
“My grandfather used to tell me that humility will take you further than money. I didn’t understand that. But if you look at the core values of integrity first, service before self, excellence in all you do, there’s a lot of humility in there,” she said. “There were a lot of times when I went to a mission, and I was scared to death. I didn’t feel like I had enough experience, or I didn’t have enough resources. But when I look back on it, the job still got done, it was just that moment where you just take action.”
Action cures anxiety, she added.
“Act on it before your fear can get in the way,” Charlynda said. “If you have a dream, sometimes that’s exactly what happens. There’s that moment where your fear turns on and it stops you in your tracks. So just act before you can feel it, and then you’ll look back at all you’ve accomplished.”
“I’m Charlynda Scales, and I am an entrepreneur.”
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There’s no one way to be an entrepreneur.
You don’t have to look a certain way, operate in a particular industry, pursue specific education, grow up in a particular household, or spend your free time nurturing any particular hobbies — entrepreneurs grow from all walks of life.
In a new video series we are excited to launch today, entrepreneurs, founders, and small business owners from across the Dayton Region share their individual stories in order to break down those pervading stereotypes about who can or can’t be an entrepreneur.
They proudly declare, “I Am an Entrepreneur” — and you can be, too.
When April Pollock and Shelly Heller sat down to have lunch together in 2015, they never dreamed the idea for sticker-style thermometer would explode into a multi-million-dollar business.
But that’s exactly what happened with their side hustle, Tempagenix, when the COVID pandemic hit in early 2020.
“We each have other businesses,” April explained. “We slowly worked it, set aside time every week to work on it together, and by 2019, we knew we had something when we launched into every Target nationwide. That was a defining moment. Then the pandemic happened, and our little side hustle exploded into a $5M company.”
It was a wakeup call for a founder who never thought she would be an entrepreneur, she said.
Tempagenix is a certified women-owned business through WBENC, the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council. It was largely connecting to other women founders through WBENC that gave Shelly and April confidence in their own entrepreneurial endeavors, Shelly said.
“We learned through being part of WBENC that authenticity, honesty and openness with other women-owned businesses is the key to this whole things,” she said. “It’s really about sitting next to people, and stop being afraid, because everybody is afraid, but nobody’s ever told anybody the secret that everybody else is afraid.”
Being part of WBENC and participating in their supplier diversity programs opened a lot of the doors from the company, April added.
“It really is a community for women who just help each other, and you don’t have to know everything,” she said. “To be able to share your fears, and what you feel you’re lacking, and get advice on how to acknowledge that or to rectify that is a pretty powerful thing.”
Dayton is hometown for both April and Shelly, and they hope to bring jobs to the region as they grow. They’re inspired by the region’s long history of innovation, and they hope the next generation of founders is inspired, too.
“To all you students out there who feel like you;re not the smartest kid in class, or actually not smart at all, or you’ve been told that — remember you were created by God that created us all uniquely,” Shelly said. “Be present, pay attention to what you’re good at, pay attention to what you love doing, pay attention to what you put your sights on and follow that, no matter how silly it seems to the rest of the world.”
“If you have an idea and you truly believe it’ll fit a need and you can set yourself apart from the competition, pursue it!” April said. “It doesn’t have to be a full-time commitment, you can still work another job, do what your passion is, but if you truly believe in your idea or product, there are ways.”
“I am Shelly Heller; and I am April Pollock — and we are entrepreneurs.”
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There’s no one way to be an entrepreneur.
You don’t have to look a certain way, operate in a particular industry, pursue specific education, grow up in a particular household, or spend your free time nurturing any particular hobbies — entrepreneurs grow from all walks of life.
In a new video series we are excited to launch today, entrepreneurs, founders, and small business owners from across the Dayton Region share their individual stories in order to break down those pervading stereotypes about who can or can’t be an entrepreneur.
They proudly declare, “I Am an Entrepreneur” — and you can be, too.
If you’ve been fly fishing or white water rafting out west, there’s a chance the raft you rode was created and built right here in Troy.
SmithFly founder Ethan Smith has a degree in industrial design and visual communications from Ohio State University. The Troy native spent about about a decade in Columbus before moving back home to raise his family and start his company.
“My background gave me a good foundation of how to iterate and develop ideas from start to finish from an imagined world into the real world,” Ethan said. “That’s what we do here — think of cool things and how to make them.”
Ethan actually launched his company in the tumultuous and uncertain period following the 2008 recession, as he watched the design company he worked for lay off more than half its staff.
“I’d come home on Friday, and they’d laid off 20 or 30 people,” he recalled. “My wife would be like, well, when are you going to get cut?”
He wondered the same — so he started a side hustle.
“I thought, if I start a business over here, then lose my job, I can at least collect unemployment and work on the business for a few months, and maybe it’ll be going well enough that by the time unemployment runs out, I can just do this business thing,” he said.
In reality, he spent about three years working both his day job and his side hustle. Part of the final motivation to step out on his own was frustration in corporate.
“I was working with a lot of really big businesses that are really clumsy and terrible at innovation and terrible at taking risks,” he recalled. “I was seeing the amount if ineptness that goes into these multi-billion-dollar brands, and how many fantastic ideas designers would come up with on a daily basis and present to these giant customers, and they’d be like, ‘yeah, that’s dumb, we’re not doing that.’ And so, you have enough of these moments in your life that someday, you just have to put your stake in the ground and do what you’re gonna do.”
But there’s no straight path to entrepreneurship, Ethan said.
“A friend of mine says, it’s like climbing a mountain and you’re cutting your own handholds, and they disappear after you use them so that nobody can ever follow your same path,” he said. “In my case, I just developed some products for fly fishing and started iterating on solving problems of fly fisherman that I saw when I was out on the water.”
Design is always about compromises between engineering and execution and materials, Ethan explained.
“It’s finding a happy medium between what you conceptualize and what you create,” he said. “Being a design professional helped me to solve problems and think about business, less as a numbers game, and more about making products that make a difference in the world.”
Flexibility is important, too.
“We have to wear a lot of hats. That’s part of small business in general, always just incremental little steps moving towards the greater goal,” he said. “There’s no secret sauce, no matter what people tell you, it’s always just a battle one day to the next to be flexible and nimble and make the best with the hand you’re dealt.”
Launching a business in your hometown brings a different level of support, Ethan said.
“Growing up in Troy, I had that really positive environment where people are interested in what you’re doing and care a little more than if we were in a place like boulder or Austin,” he reflected. “They might have a more robust startup community, but they don’t have the network of fiends and family and supporters around that care about what we’re doing.”
That connection is especially important on the high-stress days, he added.
“I worked in high-stress environments, Fortune 500 companies, doing pretty important design work, rebranding some clients in hospitality and retail, but owning your own business is a totally different type of stress,” he said. “I didn’t really conceptualize it until I was in that position, and it’s super important to know that support is there. The mayor of Troy was my mom’s principal when she was a teacher for 43 years — having that level of interconnectedness in the fabric of community woven around the whole business is important.”
“My name is Ethan Smith, and I am an entrepreneur.”
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There’s no one way to be an entrepreneur.
You don’t have to look a certain way, operate in a particular industry, pursue specific education, grow up in a particular household, or spend your free time nurturing any particular hobbies — entrepreneurs grow from all walks of life.
In a new video series we are excited to launch today, entrepreneurs, founders, and small business owners from across the Dayton Region share their individual stories in order to break down those pervading stereotypes about who can or can’t be an entrepreneur.
They proudly declare, “I Am an Entrepreneur” — and you can be, too.
When he was a kid, it was Yuxing Wang’s brother who enjoyed taking risks, not Yuxing himself.
“I’m a risk-rewards person, but my brother is different. He was doing all sorts of crazy stuff,” he said, recalling a day when his brother encouraged him to jump off a 10-foot tall wall. Yuxing stood there for many minutes before finally jumping and letting his brother catch him.
But today, it is Yuxing taking the risks as an entrepreneur. The researcher is cofounder and CTO of MilesAhead Energy, where he’s developing new battery technology that will power the electric cars and airplanes of tomorrow.
“It lead me to think, where did I get that gene, or the why to do something crazy like entrepreneurship?” he said.
He credits much of that shift to his experience as a foreign exchange student. Born in China, Yuxing came to the U.S. when he was 20 to study at the University of Washington.
“It was probably through that experience that I grew a pretty thick skin,” he said. “You do need thick skin to be an entrepreneur, right, people say no to you all the time, and you’re doing things that you’re not even sure about, so you just have to push forward.”
America is a very different place from China — more open & business-friendly, Yuxing shares.
“There’s not a lot of rules, socially,” he said. “If I was still in China, I probably wouldn’t start a business, but in the U.S., if you look at the culture, the tax codes, the opportunities — whoever has the means to start a business without being too adversely affected by the risk, I really feel you should try here in the U.S.”
And Dayton in particular is a good spot to give it a go, offering great schools and low cost of living, he said.
“Dayton is a really great place to raise a family,” he said. “And low cost of living — that’s important for me. As an entrepreneur, you have to think about those first couple years, when you don’t have revenue coming in. My wife is a full-time employee, so she’s actually the breadearner of the family, and because of the low cost, we still have a fairly good standard of living here, so it gives me peace of mind to pursue something that’s very risky.”
The city also offers great resources through institutions like Wright Patterson Air Force Base and entrepreneur support organizations like Launch Dayton partners Entrepreneurs’ Center and Parallax, Yuxing added.
“This is the birthplace of aviation,” he said. “Yes, there’s been decline, and companies have moved out, but I was still marveled at how many great resources there are, whether it’s people, infrastructure, and even entrepreneur support. Dayton is such a great place for raising a family and starting a business.”
Thinking of giving it a go yourself? Yuxing offers a few nuggets of wisdom.
“My first advice is, be brave,” he said. “If you’re not willing to try things, to do things that are tough, to explore things or push boundaries, then there’s a very low chance you can be successful. Being a foreign exchange student, someone not familiar with the environment, is tough. So be brave.”
His second piece of advice? Open your heart.
“You really have to have curiosity of learning things,” he said. “America is such a big country with such a diverse culture. And also, in the technology space, you’ve gotta learn from a lot of people — mechanical people, chemistry people, physics people, or maybe even some field that you feel is a little irrelevant. Try to open up from your small field of expertise and just embrace what’s out there.”
And finally — persevere.
“Once you are really insistent on doing something and start making progress, people will come onboard and see, this is someone they can rely on, someone they can gather on, and eventually parts just pick up,” he said. “Maybe you don’t have expertise in this, but you have someone who belieevs and sees your perseverance and really want to help. Here in America, and especially in Dayton, there’s so much help you can get.”
“I am Yuxing Wang, and I am an entrepreneur.”
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There’s no one way to be an entrepreneur.
You don’t have to look a certain way, operate in a particular industry, pursue specific education, grow up in a particular household, or spend your free time nurturing any particular hobbies — entrepreneurs grow from all walks of life.
In a new video series we are excited to launch today, entrepreneurs, founders, and small business owners from across the Dayton Region share their individual stories in order to break down those pervading stereotypes about who can or can’t be an entrepreneur.
They proudly declare, “I Am an Entrepreneur” — and you can be, too.
Global Neighbor founder Jon Jackson dreams of a world where farmers don’t need harmful chemicals to feed us — so he’s using light to kill weeds instead.
His son, Patrick, first had the idea to use directed light energy to tackle weeds. The first iteration tackled weeds in flower beds, but the next iteration will take on weeds in sprawling corn and soy fields.
“We were always looking for an alternative to chemicals,” Jon said. “Farmers have been dealing with weeds since we first cultivated plants. What we can do that no one else can is, we can use light to control a plant’s growth, both at the seed stage and when it’s growing.”
This tool for a potential green ag revolution was funded by in part by what might seem an unlikely source — the U.S. Air Force, via its Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program.
“The Air Force was looking for a way to control plants without using chemicals, so they put out a solicitation,” Jon recalled. “I probably had 100 people from the area call me up and ask, did you see this?!”
Working with the SBIR program was a “godsend,” Jon said.
“There’s a constant amount of solicitations out,” he said. “If you can fit in a topic, that’s a great way to launch a business, or launch a new product within in an existing business.”
Dayton’s proximity to and connections with the Air Force are only one of the perks to launching a startup in the region, Jon said — there’s also a huge manufacturing base in the area for founders to tap.
“You can buy so much stuff within 50 miles of here,” he said. “Just about everything I needed to build our prototype, it’s all here.”
There’s also a supportive entrepreneurial community, with Launch Dayton partners like Entrepreneurs’ Center eager to help, he added.
“We’re not Silicon Valley, right, where there are a lot of folks, but we have our own following, and people are helpful all the way around.”
Global Neighbor’s work hits close to home for Jon — he grew up on a farm.
“I have tribal knowledge from working in the field myself and dealing with some of the same issues they’re dealing with today, only it’s even worse today,” he said.
Jon and his wife moved to Dayton in 1987, and have called it home since. Jon’s career took him through a variety of roles, in companies big and small, all of which help him be the entrepreneur he is today.
“You have a much more expansive role in a small company or startup. You’re no longer just the head engineer or team lead or marketing guy. You’re the janitor, you’re doing the testing, designing negotiating with vendors,” he said. “Participating in many different aspects of business suited me well for moving forward into the startup environment.”
“I’m Jon Jackson, and I’m an entrepreneur.”
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There’s no one way to be an entrepreneur.
You don’t have to look a certain way, operate in a particular industry, pursue specific education, grow up in a particular household, or spend your free time nurturing any particular hobbies — entrepreneurs grow from all walks of life.
In a new video series we are excited to launch today, entrepreneurs, founders, and small business owners from across the Dayton Region share their individual stories in order to break down those pervading stereotypes about who can or can’t be an entrepreneur.
They proudly declare, “I Am an Entrepreneur” — and you can be, too.
As a teen working in his parents’ restaurant, Luis Estevez just thought his dad was being a hard boss when he insisted his son jump into new positions without any formal training.
Today, he sees that push as his first lesson in entrepreneurship.
“The way I’ve approached my career path and into entrepreneurship is really what my dad said — just jump into it,” he recalls. “If that’s what you want to do, just jump into it, and work hard to achieve it, and if you make mistakes, fix them along the way instead of looking from outside, trying to figure out how to do it, over-analyzing it. Just make a mistake, get it out of the way, and move on.”
Luis is the founder of Advanced & Innovative Multifunctional Materials — AIMM for short.
He works with nanoparticles to create a variety of products, from water purification systems to self-disinfecting medical equipment.
Luis began his career in science labs. It was in a lab at Cornell University, pursuing his Ph.D., that he began working with nanoparticles.
“I knew, if you can control materials on a nanoscale, this really, really, tiny scale, it could be pretty remarkable,” he said.
His post-doc took him to the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, where he had the opportunity to propose his own research. But it wasn’t until he landed at the University of Dayton Research Institute that he began to consider a career outside the lab.
“I’d been working on energy storage for awhile, with porous materials and loading them with all kinds of nanoparticles, and I realized, these can be used for water purification. I realized this is where I can make an impact,” he said. “I started working on it with UDRI, but I realized I could move the technology along a lot faster if I spun it out into a startup.”
Luis tapped a variety of resources in the Launch Dayton entrepreneurial ecosystem, including UD’s Propel Dayton tech transfer program, Parallax’s Early Risers Academy entrepreneur bootcamp, and Entrepreneurs’ Center’s ESP portfolio program.
“There are tremendous resources in Dayton,” he said. “The startup bootcamp — at that point, I was a scientist, not an entrepreneur, I was knowing that I didn’t know quite a lot and needed to learn quite a bit. That program was so beneficial to transition from scientist to entrepreneur.”
“We have an expression in science, you stand on the shoulders of giants,” Luis said. “You move science forward based on what people have done previous to you, who have gotten there first and laid the foundation for you to build on.”
The same could be said of his experience as the child of immigrants, he said.
“My parents both immigrated from two totally different countries into this country, became citizens, had a family, settled down, started a restaurant,” he said.
The story is crucial to his entrepreneur journey, he said.
“It just set this idea in my head, if you want to get somewhere, you just do it, and it’s going to make you better in the end. It will be rough in the beginning, tough, high-risk, with potential for high-reward, so if you can go for it, go for it,” Luis said. “That’s the mentality a lot of immigrants have coming into this country, they see it as a place you can really do something. That’s what my parents did. I wouldn’t be here if not for them, wouldn’t have the same opportunities.”
“My name is Luis Estevez, and I am an entrepreneur.”
————————————————
There’s no one way to be an entrepreneur.
You don’t have to look a certain way, operate in a particular industry, pursue specific education, grow up in a particular household, or spend your free time nurturing any particular hobbies — entrepreneurs grow from all walks of life.
In a new video series we are excited to launch today, entrepreneurs, founders, and small business owners from across the Dayton Region share their individual stories in order to break down those pervading stereotypes about who can or can’t be an entrepreneur.
They proudly declare, “I Am an Entrepreneur” — and you can be, too.
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