Edwards recalled for her audience how in 2019 she walked into Second Street Market to buy popsicles for herself and her children.
She walked out with an offer to buy a business.
Since then, her business has grown to 13 employees, $175,000 in revenue and a growing presence on local shelves.
“We’re literally expanding faster than we can keep up with,” Edwards said.
Jeffrey Dice, president of Moraine-based Winsupply, led a panel of area entrepreneurs who offered their thoughts on the perils and rewards of launching one’s own business.
“That amazes me every day that people put their own money, their own skin in the game,” to start a business, Dice said.
Zachary Kiehl, president and CEO of VigiLife (formerly with Sentinel and Aptima), said his journey to starting businesses in the realm of real-time health and safety monitoring, particularly for people working in confined spaces, was a matter of some urgency for him.
He said his business has already saved the life of a Columbus client. “I didn’t look at it as a risk. It was more of a calling,” Kiehl said.
Ayman Salem, president and owner of Xenia’s Material Resources, LLC, said he quit a six-figure day job to start his own company in the last recession, working for three years for himself before drawing a salary.
“We’re a bunch of nerds playing in a big sandbox,” Salem said of this business, which handles metals processing and additive manufacturing for defense and other clients.
Errin Siske, owner and creative director of Spark Space Creative, vividly remembered the moment when she stopped being a freelancer and started being an entrepreneur. It was when she realized that to continue to help her clients, she had to quit her day job.
She called it a “leap of faith,” but added that she already could see a time when it would become easier.
“It was brutal,” she said. “I’m not going to lie.”
Both Siske and Kiehl urged business owners to avail themselves of the many local resources for entrepreneurs, from The Entrepreneurs Center to Launch Dayton and more.
“Even people who compete with one another in this town will help each other out,” said Dave Bowman, president of The Ohlmann Group
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