RECENT ARTICLES

Thriving During the Holidays: How 5 Entrepreneurs Embrace the Unique Seasonal Opportunity

Thriving During the Holidays: How 5 Entrepreneurs Embrace the Unique Seasonal Opportunity For many small businesses, particularly retailers, the holiday season can be a double-edged sword. Often unprepared to compete with the massive big box retailer sales, failing to ramp up staff and inventory sufficiently, or simply not considered the unique holiday sales message, many small businesses find only...

From Service to Startup: Veterans Making Their Way as Small Business Entrepreneurs

From Service to Startup: Veterans Making Their Way as Small Business Entrepreneurs Veterans of our military are one of this nation’s greatest resources. Given much greater responsibility than their civilian counter parts much earlier in their military careers and taught leadership in high-stress and high-stakes situations from the get go, veterans typically exhibit greater maturity...

Operation Supply Drop: Making Fun Where There Is None

Operation Supply Drop: Making Fun Where There Is None Stephen “Shanghai Six” Machuga graduated from Purdue University and its ROTC program in 1998. He served as infantry officer at Fort Bragg where he earned both his Airborne and Ranger tabs. In 2003, while with the Fort Lewis-based 2nd Infantry Division out of Washington, he was...

Captain Charlie Plumb: Winning Through Adversity

Captain Charlie Plumb: Winning Through Adversity Lessons from A Navy Fighter Pilot and P.O.W Captain Charlie Plumb graduated from the Naval Academy at Annapolis and went on to fly the F-4 Phantom jet on 74 successful combat missions over Vietnam. On his 75th mission, with only five days before he was to return home, Plumb was shot...

The FEARLESS: 3 Entrepreneurs Who Didn’t Let Fear Stop Them

The FEARLESS: 3 Entrepreneurs Who Didn't Let Fear Stop Them In this issue of Smart Hustle Magazine we are proudly highlighting small business entrepreneurs who looked fear in the face and instead of letting it stop them, took the leap! They ignored the naysayers and skeptics and threw caution to the wind to start their...

Rustic Crust: The Little Company That Could… and DID!

A fire burned Brad Sterl’s pizza-crust manufacturing plant to the ground, but couldn’t destroy this entrepreneur’s can-do spirit. It was March 2014, and Brad Sterl was enjoying a relaxing dinner with his wife after a long day at the Natural Products Expo West trade show in Anaheim, CA. Suddenly, Sterl found himself facing every entrepreneur’s...

entrepreneurs do good

Entrepreneurs Do Well By Doing Good

Ask successful entrepreneurs what made them decide to start a new business and you’ll hear everything from “I saw an opportunity in the marketplace” to “I was tired of making money for someone else.” Ask an entrepreneur whose business has a socially conscious mission, and you’ll get a different type of answer. Entrepreneurs starting businesses...

App-etite for Success: How Two College Pals Built a Successful App Company with No Experience

App-etite for Success College pals Joshua Tucker and Keith Shields didn't know how to build apps, but that didn't stop them from creating a successful app company.   How do you get named the “Coolest College Startup of 2014” by Inc. Magazine? For Joshua Tucker and Keith Shields, cofounders of app creation company Applits, it’s all about...

4 Entrepreneurs Who Braved Stepping Into Uncharted Territory

4 Entrepreneurs Who Braved Stepping Into Uncharted Territory For those with a true entrepreneurial spirit and mindset, barriers are something to leap over, not stop you dead in your tracks. That applies even to those for whom the barrier is creating a business in and industry and market for which they have no experience or knowledge....

How Dogged Persistence is Growing a Business and a Community

How do you launch a successful restaurant in South Central Los Angeles—an inner-city area plagued by gang violence and poverty, where there are few businesses other than liquor stores? For Karim Webb and Edward Barnett of PCF Management, the answer is simple: Show the community you care, and the community will support your business.