We Built This Life

Finding a Niche, Remaining Debt-Free: How Kari Miller Built Tiny Dog Press

Episode 35 with Kari Miller of Tiny Dog Press is about growing a small business at your own pace, and more. When a friend asked Kari Miller to print his wedding invitations, she saw that his fiancé at the time had created an illustration of Baltimore’s “Greatest City in America” bench for their RSVP card. Kari thought the image would make a great card, and this was the beginning of Tiny Dog Press. In this episode, Kari talks about: ·       How she discovered her niche in cards even t...

From Family Recipe to Small Business: How Tiera Chin Built Yorktown Spice

Episode 34 with Tiera Chin of Yorktown Spice is about when a family recipe inspires a small business. In 2021, Tiera Chin was working full-time in the healthcare industry while raising two little daughters, the youngest of which was 4 months old at the time. This is also when she launched her new small business, Yorktown Spice, featuring her crab sauce that was inspired by family recipes. In this episode, Tiera talks about: ·       The actual steps she took to get her food product-ba...

From Hobby Podcast to Small Business: How Erin Scott Built the Believe in Dog Podcast and Erin Scott Podcasts

Episode 33 with Erin Scott from the Believe in Dog podcast and Erin Scott Podcasts is about when a hobby leads to a small business. In 2019, Erin became a cancer survivor and decided to start saying yes to the ideas that excited her. She started the Believe in Dog podcast to tell heartfelt stories about the powerful connections between people and their dogs. Believe in Dog is now a top 5 podcast globally, and Erin went on to co-host a second show, The Alternative Dog Moms podcast. Now,...

Mental Challenges & Triumphs in Entrepreneurship: How Rebekah Murray Built Dare & Co.

  Episode 32 of We Built This Life with Rebekah Murray from Dare & Co. is about mental challenges in entrepreneurship—and the rewards that come with getting through them. In 2014, Rebekah Murray, an entrepreneur throughout her adult life, was looking to transition from international wedding photography to something new. Her parents suggested she start a clothing line. Three years later, Rebekah launched Virginia Dare Dress Co. with a line of timeless, high-quality women’s dresses. In 2...

From Educator to CEO: How Ashley Williams Built Clymb

Episode 31 of the We Built This Life podcast with Ashley Williams from Clymb (@clymb_up) is about persistence and mindfulness and how these two skills were assets as Ashley built her own company. In 2018, Ashley Williams, a former educator and school leader in Baltimore City, founded Clymb (then known as Infinite Focus Schools), her company that produces emotional health software for school-aged children. In this episode, Ashley talks about: ·      The steps she took and resources sh...

6 Small Businesses to Support for Earth Day 2023

Welcome to Episode 30 of the We Built This Life podcast! I’m your host, Jennifer Walker, and I’m talking this week about six small businesses that make low waste or sustainable products and that you can support for Earth Day 2023. I’ll share my favorite products from these businesses or the products I am hoping to try in the categories of personal care, reusable items, cleaning, clothing, and planners. You can also check out the We Built This Life podcast archive for more ideas. Thank yo...

How Mandy Memmel Built The Well and Hon's Honey

Episode 29 of We Built This Life with Mandy Memmel of Hon’s Honey is about building relationships and community and helping women rise through social enterprise. After spending a decade serving the community of Curtis Bay in Baltimore, Mandy Memmel founded Drink at the Well (The Well) to provide an opportunity to build relationships, as well as a range of support services, for women experiencing trauma, including addiction, abuse, and/or generational poverty. Five years later, Mandy took...

How Emma Reisinger Built Yellow House Farm

Episode 28 with Emma Reisinger of Yellow House Farm is about finding your place in the industry that interests you, even if the road is slightly winding to get there. Since 2017, Emma has owned Yellow House Farm, her small business that started as a tiny farm and CSA outside of her yellow house in Baltimore’s Waverly neighborhood. Today, the business has evolved to focus on ecological gardening and landscaping. In this episode, Emma talks about: How she found her place within agricultur...

How Kate Christian Built Bliss Woodworks

Episode 27 is a small business story about saying yes to opportunities and having the courage to follow new paths. After moving to Baltimore in 2014, Kate Christian—who had worked as a business analyst, a boat captain, and as chief operating officer for a company that made at-home STD tests—got a gift certificate to the Station North Tool Library from her wife. She took a cutting board class, fell in love with working with wood, and ultimately found a new career path. Today, Kate owns Bl...

2022 Small Business Holiday Gift Guide

Welcome to Episode 26! For this episode, I'll talk you through a fun holiday gift guide highlighting 10 small businesses in a few categories: jewelry, planners and stickers, skincare/body care, photos and related products, wood creations, clothes for kids and adults, gift boxes, and, briefly, home goods. For the most part, I’ve either already purchased amazing products from these businesses or I plan to this month.  You can also check out the We Built This Life podcast archive for more i...

How Nina Ross Built Nina's Cookie Explosion

During the pandemic, Nina Ross’ full-time job suddenly became part-time, and she needed something to do with the extra hours in her week. Her family holds cookie parties every December, and these are some of Nina’s most cherished memories.So Nina started baking again to fill her free time and gave the dozens of cookies she made to friends and family. After a few months of this, Nina decided to turn her passion into a small business and founded Nina’s Cookie Explosion, a company that offe...

How Jaz Erenberg Became an Independent Community Artist and Muralist

While she was a student at the Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore-based artist and muralist Jaz Erenberg worked on her first community-centered art piece with the homeless population residing along Falls Way. Then, around graduation, Jaz was part of artist Michael Owen’s HOME Artist Residency. This opportunity allowed her to continue to focus on public art while painting her first mural, a large, quote-filled piece in Highlandtown that centers on the theme of “What is home?” To...

How Michele Dickinson Became a Life and Business Coach

  Michele Dickinson had been building her successful corporate career at a large investment firm for more than a decade. But after having her third baby in 2018, she started to think about her life’s purpose and began to feel she was meant to be doing something else. Michele ultimately became a life and business coach who focuses on helping women build legacies and make a difference in the world through entrepreneurship and online businesses. In this episode, Michele talks about: When s...

How Aaron Dante Built the No Pix After Dark Podcast

For about a decade, Aaron Dante was one of the hosts of an annual party called No Pix After Dark. So in 2018, when he was planning to start a podcast to tell positive stories, he used the same name. Back then, the people who came to his parties—which had grown to about 1,000 attendees, including his college friends and their friends—naturally became his audience. Today, the No Pix After Dark podcast has nearly 200 episodes, and Aaron has several corporate partners and sponsors and just cel...

7 Tips for Reaching Big Personal Goals

Episode 21 of the We Built This Life podcast is about 7 Tips for Reaching Personal Goals. Last month, I reached my big personal goal of 20 podcast episodes, which is a number I have been working toward since starting my podcast in September of 2019. In this episode, I talk about the steps I took to reach this goal, including: Finding time; Dealing with feelings of rejection and protecting the ego; Making adjustments along the way; and more. I also talk about why I started this podcast ...

How Theresa Cangialosi Built SoBotanical

Theresa Cangialosi was drawn to essential oils in the 1980s, long before they were readily available in the United States. She was one of the first people to start an aromatherapy bar in the U.S. and has had some form of this type of retail space for more than 30 years. Today, SoBotanical, Theresa’s aromatherapy apothecary in Baltimore, has two retail locations and a warehouse; carries essential oils, as well as its own skincare, haircare, and specialty lines; and offers education and even...

7 Tips for Eczema and Grover's Disease + Thoughts on Food Elimination for Skin Issues

Episode 19 of We Built this Life is Part 2 of a three-part series about my experiences with naturopathic care for skin issues and more. This episode focuses on my seven tips for dealing with eczema and Grover’s disease. I’ll cover resources, products (beauty, clothing, home), and supplements that I have found to be helpful in addressing itchy skin and rashes. Many of the products I mention are made by small businesses, which ties back in to the podcast’s original (and hopefully soon to be ag...

Storytime: My Experience with Naturopathic Medicine

  I'm breaking from this show's normal format today to tell a story about my experience with naturopathic medicine. I'll cover why I sought out this type of care (eczema, Grover's disease), how this type of care was structured, what tests I had done, and my treatment plan/recommendations from my naturopathic doctor (ND).  This episode is intended simply to give an idea of one person's experience with naturopathic medicine. How this type of care is structured and more may and probably will va...

How Rachel Wagner Bought and Shaped FIT4MOM Baltimore City

Rachel Wagner’s path to fitness company franchise owner began in a pub with a near stranger about 7 years ago. This is when Rachel, a former teacher and a mom to one young daughter at the time, got to talking to another mom about how FIT4MOM Baltimore City, a company that offers fitness classes and community for moms, was going up for sale. The two didn’t have more than a passing relationship, but they decided to go into business together. Today, Rachel, now a mom of 2, is the sole owner o...

How Jerron Johnson Built the Hidden Know-Hows Podcast

Writer and Director Jerron Johnson realized his dream when he started his podcast, Hidden Know-Hows. In this episode, he'll talk about growing up in a small North Carolina town that didn’t offer many options for young people in terms of activities and future opportunities and finding his place and his voice through writing. Jerron will also talk about Hidden Know-Hows, his podcast that focuses on conversations with creative people who are doing amazing things but maybe not yet getting the ...

How Mora and Henry Reed Built Zoe & Co. Candle Company

Parents Mora and Henry Reed had a big year in 2020: They got married and started their business, Zoe & Co. Candle Company, both during the pandemic. Since launching Zoe & Co. in May, they've met all of their targets and have seen steady growth.  In this episode, Mora and Henry talk about how they began making their hand-poured soy candles as a hobby and how an unfortunate job loss during COVID times led them to turn their hobby into a business. They’ll also talk about their creative proc...

How Heidi Shenk Built Row House 14

Nearly a decade ago, Heidi Shenk, a middle school teacher in Baltimore City Public Schools at the time, began illustrating at night as a way to relieve stress after long days in the classroom. She opened an Etsy store for her greeting cards and other stationery-type products and got her big break when a major retailer ordered 2,000 of her cards. This made Heidi think that her part-time side hustle could actually become her full-time business. She left teaching in 2013 and began working on Ro...

How Davon Pulliam Built Tortuga Kombucha

Chef Davon Pulliam had his first taste of kombucha at an early morning farmer’s market in Baltimore about five years ago. He began making his own kombucha as a hobby, then opened his business three years later. Tortuga Kombucha offers several varieties of kombucha that showcase the teas' natural flavors, including Oolong, Jasmine, and Genmaicha. Today, Davon, who has left the restaurant industry for the moment, runs his business while taking care of his young daughter. In this episode, Dav...

How Kate Schauer and Nicole Santacroce Are Balancing Work and Kids During COVID-19

For Episode 12, I talked to two full-time working moms, Kate Schauer, whose son is 12, and Nicole Santacroce, whose kids are nearly 6 and 3, about how they are balancing work, virtual learning, pre-existing health challenges, anxiety, communicating with partners, and more during this time of COVID-19. I hope this episode offers other moms some commiseration, as well as ideas for specific tactics that can help them deal with these stressful, challenging times. Also, a note: Kate, Nicole, an...

10 Lessons I Learned in One Year of Podcasting

The We Built This Life podcast has been around for one year! (Plus a few months, but that's a small detail...) When I started this podcast in May 2019, my goal was to complete 10 episodes. And in May 2020 I reached that goal. I’m calling this collection of episodes “Season 1” this, Episode 11, celebrates the 10 stories told so far. The first six lessons come from the amazing guests who have been on this show, and the next four lessons come from my own experience starting something new (and e...

-

How Ashleigh Becker Built a Nonprofit Jewelry Company

Ashleigh Becker began making jewelry as a way to relieve stress and boredom after her first child was born. Then, wanting to raise money for a mission trip for her husband, Ashleigh went to her first craft show, where she realized there was a market for her designs. Today, Sela Designs sells handmade jewelry and donates 100 percent of the profits to charity. In this episode, Ashleigh talks about how her interest in jewelry design developed despite being someone who was never particularly i...

How Kenny Yee Built a Painting Practice

More than a decade ago, Kenny Yee would often wander the streets of Chelsea in New York City, drifting in and out of galleries to look at art. This is where he learned about color, form, and texture. Then he’d go back to his basement apartment in Queens to paint. He had a side hustle of sorts then, selling his work to several collectors in New York. Now he lives in Baltimore and works full-time as an admissions counselor, but he still considers himself a serious painter and makes time for th...

How My Family Has Built a More Low-Waste Lifestyle

When I was pregnant with my first child in 2012, I was interested in using cloth diapers to reduce waste (and save money), and I've been slowly making more swaps in our home ever since. In Episode 8, which releases around Earth Day, I talk about my favorite swaps--and the ones that I think have made the most impact--for the kitchen, the closet, and the bathroom, as well as the cleaning products we use and some swaps I’m thinking about for the future (like alternatives to conventional toilet ...

How Designer Amy Homan Built a Sustainable and Ethical Fashion Company

In 2017, Amy Homan took a fashion design course. Today, she has her own fashion line and a sustainable and ethical clothing company called Evolverie. In this episode, Amy talks about the 16 years she spent working in collections, the rise and fall of her wedding décor business, and the ups and downs of designing and producing a fashion line. We also get into the financial challenges that can come with owning a business, the power of relationships, and Amy's commitment to building a company...

How Astrologer Adam Elenbaas and Clinical Herbalist Ashley Litecky Elenbaas Built Sky House Yoga

Astrologer Adam* Elenbaas and Clinical Herbalist Ashley Litecky Elenbaas started dating in September 2011. Three months later, they decided to go into business together. Based in the Washington, D.C., area, Sky House Yoga encompasses astrology services (readings, certification courses, and private apprenticeships), herbalism offerings (private consultations, an apothecary with more than 300 herbs, and an herbal apprenticeship program and teaching garden), and until recently yoga.   In this...

How Former Starbucks Store Manager Emily Silverstein Built an Organic Skincare Company

Six years ago, Emily Silverstein was a barista at Starbucks (having stepped down from her role as store manager after having her first child) who made her own skincare products at home. One day, while talking to her husband, Cory Silverstein, about how they were going to balance work and daycare with their new baby, Emily suggested listing her products on Etsy. This was the start of her company, Urban Oreganics, which makes beauty, skincare, haircare, and personal care products. Today, Cory ...

How Emily Silverstein Built an Organic Skincare Company

Six years ago, Emily Silverstein was a barista at Starbucks (having stepped down from her role as store manager after having her first child) who made her own skincare products at home. One day, while talking to her husband, Cory Silverstein, about how they were going to balance work and daycare with their new baby, Emily suggested listing her products on Etsy. This was the start of her company, Urban Oreganics, which makes beauty, skincare, haircare, and personal care products. Today, Cory ...

How Graphic Designer Ashley Shelly Trotier Built a Planning Company

Episode 4 is about Ashley Shelly Trotier, a graphic designer who sells planners, budget notebooks, and other items through her business, Ashley Shelly. While working full-time as a creative director for a weight loss company, Ashley began thinking about being more intentional with her finances, and she designed some budgeting pages to help her do so. She turned those pages into a notebook and put them up on her Etsy shop, where at the time she was selling baby shower invitations as a side hu...

How Sociologist Mercedes Lyson Built a Career in Beauty Blogging

Episode 3 is about Mercedes Lyson, a sociologist who runs an online beauty blogging business called L’Amour et la Musique. Mercedes graduated from Brown University with a PhD in sociology and spent a few years working in research. Along the way, she began making beauty videos on YouTube. Her business has grown to include a thriving page on Patreon, a subscription-like service where people can support content creators by paying a monthly fee in exchange for various perks, such as additional c...

How Ryan Sullivan Built a Career in Real Estate

For this week’s episode, I tell a story about Ryan Sullivan, my friend since high school whose career has come full circle over the span of nearly 20 years. Ryan began working in real estate in his 20s then went back to school after the stock market crashed in 2008 to become a mental health counselor for children. But after graduating with student loans that needed to be paid, he made the decision to circle back to real estate and decided to give back by volunteering with an organization tha...

How Ryan Sullivan Built Two Careers in Real Estate and Found his Purpose as a Volunteer

For this week’s episode, I tell a story about Ryan Sullivan, my friend since high school whose career has come full circle over the span of nearly 20 years. Ryan began working in real estate in his 20s then went back to school after the stock market crashed in 2008 to become a mental health counselor for children. But after graduating with student loans that needed to be paid, he made the decision to circle back to real estate and decided to give back by volunteering with an organization tha...

How I Became a Freelance Writer and Why I Started This Podcast

Thanks so much for tuning in to the first episode of We Built this Life. I wanted to start off with sharing my story and my goals for this podcast.  In this episode, I talk about how I started off working at various nonprofit organizations after college, the life event that nudged me into freelance writing, and how being a writer is a good fit for me now as a mom of three young(ish) kids.   On the We Built This Life podcast, I’ll mainly talk to entrepreneurs and freelancers, telling a ne...

How I Lost Someone and Became a Freelance Writer

Thanks so much for tuning in to the first episode of We Built this Life. I wanted to start off with sharing my story and my goals for this podcast.  In this episode, I talk about how I started off working at various nonprofit organizations after college, the life event that nudged me into freelance writing, and how being a writer is a good fit for me now as a mom of three young(ish) kids.   On the We Built This Life podcast, I’ll mainly talk to entrepreneurs and freelancers, telling a ne...

Trailer

A new podcast about how entrepreneurs and freelancers built their working lives from the ground up. Subscribe now! New episodes coming soon.