Chasing Adventure While Running a Business
Connor Bruson and his wife, Alix, have run their wedding videography business together since 2019. It’s a classic entrepreneur story: A couple chooses to combine their talents to build a business that allows them to...
The Best Way to Grow Your Business Is To Bring In Help
Today, Ogo is a busy marketer, operating his company, Thirteenth, in one of the fastest-growing segments of influencer marketing: TikTok. But being first in any field means a long road of lessons and learning to get...
Entrepreneur Story: Arthur Garcia of Contabi Alliance
One could say that being an entrepreneur is in Arthur Garcia’s roots. Growing up, the co-founder of Contabi Alliance saw his parents manage a string of small businesses—an ice cream truck, a taco truck, and a Mexican...
Joelle Lynn - Happy Girl Products
Joelle Lynn got her first taste of entrepreneurial freedom about a decade ago. She left her job as an auditor in mortgage-backed securities to open a waxing salon in New Jersey. At the time, she was going through a...
A Tale of a Small Business Owner and Paying Taxes
Ashleigh Early is a sales consultant and co-creator and co-host of the business-to-business (B2B) sales podcast The Other Side of Sales. When she formed her LLC, she opened separate Azlo business accounts for her two...
Kelyn D. Lanier - Alloi Progress Incubator
“Go to college. Get a good job.” This is often the mantra that parents and teachers recite to children as they prepare them for adulthood. Most discussions about education relate to how it readies graduates for the job...
Yara Simón - La Joya Nicoya
Growing up in Miami, Yara Simón was immersed in Nicaraguan culture. But when she moved to New York City, she became disappointed with the lack of Central American representation in her city and the rest of the country.
Aaron Lide, Jr. - Black Fly on the Wall Productions
Growing up, Aaron Lide Jr. believed that Black men needed to be tough guys, always come prepared with an answer, and remain “strong and silent.”
Keith Forbes - Integrated Sustainability Solutions
Photo credit: Courtesy of Integrated Sustainability Solutions What would you do if your business has an international focus and typically requires a lot of travel? And due to COVID-19, you won’t be able to travel to...
Enovia Bedford - BLKTECH
Photo credit: acjphoto.com In 2016, a Black man named Keith Lamont Scott was fatally shot by a Black police officer in Charlotte, North Carolina. Scott had been sitting in his truck in the lot of the apartment complex...
Tech Female Founder Bronwyn Morgan
When Bronwyn Morgan was a child, she wanted to be a fighter pilot and eventually an astronaut. But as she explains, a physics course during her third year of university kind of killed that dream. Instead, she forged a...
Azlo Customer Story - Kat Arias
Photo credit: Benjamin Hyunh. It takes a lot of grit and guts to turn your passion into a business. That's what Kat Arias did in 2012, when she signed a lease and got the keys to her first dance studio in the Washington...
Azlo Customer Story - Christopher Kabat
Photo credit: Christopher Kabat. When Christopher Kabat launched ProAerial Media, LLC (PAM) in late fall of 2019, he set the wheels in gear for an official kick-off in the spring of 2020. Christopher anticipated that...
Azlo Customer Story - Analicia Honkanen
Photo credit: Laurel Smith Photography. They say bad things happen in clusters. And for photographer Analicia Honkanen, that adage rings true. In March of this year, Analicia’s employer, a furniture company based...
Managing your time when you're self-employed
Back when I worked 9-to-5 and in between jobs, I’d go to a nearby coffee shop and work on my passion project: my fiction. With complete control over my schedule, I’d work whenever the mood struck. I had the freedom to...
How to Test a Business Idea
There’s a reason why so many successful entrepreneurs have a pivot story—the moment when they decided to change their products and business model because their original vision wasn’t working. Not all businesses need to...
Dustin Van Ells Entrepreneur Story - Van Renovation
There’s something uniquely satisfying about building something with your own hands—especially if it’s something that will be used, loved, and enjoyed every day. There’s something intensely energizing about being free to...
Making time for career development as a freelancer
Back when I had a day job as a proofreader at a small publisher, it became obvious that our company sorely needed a social media and content marketing plan. Besides a simple business website, the publisher had...
Balancing a side-gig and a full-time job
I’d like to introduce you to Laura, my long-time coworker. We’ve worked together since 2013 (long before we both started at Azlo), and she’s always taken on work that requires a lot of responsibility and energy. She’s...
Should I quit my job for my business?
Many entrepreneurs find themselves, at some point, wrestling with a difficult decision: “Am I ready to quit my job so I can focus on my business full-time?” Galen Herbst de Cortina, CFP®, vividly remembers making this...
Why self-care and personal development are investments in your business
Meet Galen Herbst de Cortina, the founder of Buff Your Finances. He’s a financial planner who works primarily with professional video gamers. Many of his clients start gaming as a hobby (without ever expecting to make...
What it’s like to start a business with your best friends
Starting a business with your partner and your best friends works if you’re Literally Wizards. Tommy and Riley Day, along with their friends Michelle and Chad Yadon, formed Literally Wizards (an independent game...
How I finally achieved self-care as a freelancer
Back when I was part of the 9 to 5, I landed a full-time contract role as a staff writer for a large insurance company. Alongside our in-house crew of writers and editors, we hired an outside freelancer to contribute to...
How to turn that million-dollar app idea into reality
Have you ever had an idea for an app that you know people would love … if only you could create it? There are a lot of obstacles to creating an app if you don’t know how to make it yourself, so many of these great ideas...
Insights from a serial software startup founder
Meet David Heller, the co-founder of Reimbi, a software startup that enables fast, streamlined reimbursements for job candidates and other non-employees, such as conference speakers and contractors. David has achieved a...
A behind-the-scenes look at small business lending
Applying for a business loan can be a daunting task, especially when you consider the fact that banks reject more than half the business loan applications they receive. When you’re facing a task like this, sometimes it...
Meet the founder of Hey Puppy
Some say that to succeed as an entrepreneur, you have to be passionate about the work that you’re doing. Claudia Monge, founder of Hey Puppy, has a passion for puppies and is using that passion to tap into the growing...
A behind-the-scenes look at starting a fashion brand
Meet Kat Rosati, the founder of Apparel Booster. After years in the fashion industry, (doing everything from design, to production and sourcing, to marketing), she realized that many fashion brands or aspiring...
Building a career and community as a coach
Meet Katie, a coach and meditation leader based in Portland, Oregon. She’s the creator of Ebb + Flow, where she offers one-on-one coaching, leads workshops, and holds free meditation circles with the goal of supporting...
Cultivating authentic partnerships
When my co-founder and I started My Money My Future, we knew we needed to gain the trust of our customers quickly … but trust takes time and relationships. That’s when we decided that a key part of our go-to-market...
Meet the founder of Exponent
Product management is a rapidly growing, dynamic discipline with a wide range of potential definitions. Most tech companies (and many other companies as well) know they need product managers, but not everyone knows...
Why I freelance: Designing a lifestyle-based business
A few months ago, I was at a retreat for women when one attendee, a fellow freelance writer, mentioned that she puts her values above any income goals. In the past, she was earning a six-figure income as a freelancer....
Meet the founder of Florida Virtual Bookkeeper
Jessica Fox is an expert bookkeeper who helps other entrepreneurs build and maintain financially healthy businesses. Her business, Florida Virtual Bookkeeper, offers virtual bookkeeping services for freelancers, small...
Real talk about applying for startup accelerators
Building a successful startup requires a lot of specific skills and knowledge. In addition to building a great product and promoting it to the right market, you also have to learn about the options for getting resources...
What it’s really like to be your own boss
Have you ever dreamed of being your own boss? Of the freedom to choose what to work on, and when, and how? It’s a heady thought. And if you’ve ever worked for a real headache of a manager—someone who gave you too much...
Meet the founder of CMP
Meet Christopher McIntyre Perceptions, a creative entrepreneur working to bring art and technology to the communities where they're most needed. Where he comes from Christopher grew up in two homes, both in Milwaukee,...
Branding basics for small businesses
Meet Betsy Aimee Cardenas, founder of Born in June Creative Studio, a branding agency located in Los Angeles. She, along with her co-founder Jaime Joshua Sandoval, help other brands differentiate themselves from the...
Meet the founder of Studio 1862
Katelyn Dekle is a freelance graphic designer and the founder of Studio 1862. She's been a graphic designer since 2006, after searching for a career that would allow her to do meaningful, creative work. Katelyn's...
When your side project gets an interview with Y Combinator
“How will you get your users?” I asked my cofounder, Max. We stood in a parking lot in Palo Alto, under a basketball net emblazoned with an orange Y. I was imitating Paul Graham, the founder of Y Combinator. “Three...
Meet the founder of LayoverStop
Meet Reham Alsharif, an entrepreneur who helps travelers stop waiting at the gate. Her startup, LayoverStop, picks up travelers on long layovers and takes them on personalized tours of the city.
A spotlight on Azlo ecommerce entrepreneurs
For the holiday sales season, we wrote a series of posts to help entrepreneurs with ecommerce businesses: we covered core strategies for making the season a success, how to use digital payment tools to increase sales,...
Celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month with Super Mamás
Azlo celebrates Hispanic Heritage month by featuring Azlo entrepreneurs Paulina Lopez-Velazquez & Bricia Lopez, co-hosts and founders of Super Mamás Podcast & restaurateurs of Guelaguetza in Los Angeles. This sister duo...