Being in love is great. Being in love with your business, when you’re an entrepreneur, is even better. Waking up each morning knowing you are getting to do exactly what you love is more than most people could ever say about any job they have had. Although there are days when tossing in your hat seems like a viable option, remembering how much you love your job can quickly snap an entrepreneur out of that mentality. Different business owners also have different reason why they love their business. It might be the products or the customers they deal with, or it could even be the fact that they are the ones in charge of it all. The reasons are as varied as the businesses themselves.
#1 – Family Time
Business are difficult to start and can take a considerable amount of time which usually takes away from family time. We wanted to do something different. Earlier this year, after a few years of thinking and planning, my wife Terri and I started HD Carolina, LLC. HD Carolina produces and publishes short videos about Fun and Interesting Things to See and do in the Carolinas. Our target audience for the videos is the connected TV (CTV) market via devices like the Roku and Amazon Fire TV through the HD Carolina channel. Producing episodes require that we go out and have fun experiencing the many wonderful sites and attractions around North and South Carolina. So while we are growing the business building quality episodes for our viewers, we are also building quality memories together as a family. Not a bad gig in my opinion.
Thanks to Ryan Watts, HD Carolina, LLC
#2 – Helping Travelers See the World
I love that we give our customers a chance to see the world at affordable prices. Nothing pleases me more than to receive e-mails, letters or social media mentions from our travelers who tell me they had an amazing memorable experience, or met a new friend who they plan to travel with again. We make their travel affordable since tour operators have significant purchasing power with airlines, hotels and restaurants. Also, by traveling in a group, we’re able to spread costs across a number of people instead of an individual or couple absorbing all the costs by themselves. It gives me a great sense of satisfaction that we can impact our customer’s lives by offering them an unforgettable and inexpensive quality travel experience.
Thanks to Greg Geronemus, SmarTours
#3 – Open Company Culture
We've always tried to promote a very open culture at our company, where employees can talk openly about any issues that they're facing and be met with potential solutions to their problems rather than shrugs of the shoulders. The office that we work in is completely open plan and we can easily communicate with any other person in the room if we need to. This has contributed greatly to our open company culture and helps us to deal with any problems that we face quickly and in person rather than having to try and communicate with each other via emails, which can lead to serious communication breakdown.
Thanks to Sam Williamson, Ace Work Gear
#4 – Satisfaction and Enrichment
Our language classes are extraordinarily unique in that we are the only school to combine events such as wine tastings and cooking classes with foreign language lessons. For us, there is nothing more satisfying than reading a 5 star review, over hearing a conversation after class or even being written a direct email from a student expressing how much they truly enjoyed our classes and thankful that they enrolled. We love that so many unintentional benefits came out of our classes for our students. Many became life long friends, helped each other find jobs, started a relationship, even travel a broad with their classmates! There were years of struggle, blood, sweat and tears to launch this business and it didn't make it any easier creating a start up in the most competitive market in the world. However, it is absolutely, with out a doubt, worth every…single…. moment of hardship when we hear that we can give back to the city that we love so much and that we are having a positive impact on our student's lives. As an entrepreneur, when you can align your company's growth and success directly with you customer's positive experience (and deliver!) it is nothing short of absolute satisfaction and enrichment of life..
Thanks to John Matthews, City Speakeasy
#5 – Passionate Workers
I love that I get to work with passionate people who love what they do and who believe what they do makes a difference. I get to tell the stories of purpose-driven companies and nonprofits that are making an impact in their communities and industries and get them the attention and recognition they deserve. I feel like we are inundated with negativity (ahem, the presidential campaign), tragedy and crisis yet there are so many people doing great things and those stories get lost. I feel blessed to be a part of helping these organizations grow and make the kind of impact they set out to.
Thanks to Rhiannon Hendrickson, Orapin Marketing + Public Relations
#6 – Positive Impact
With so many important issues in the world today, we need to do more to solve them. In our case we help protect people and their investments from earthquakes. This is what I love about our business, is that we make a positive impact on the world around us. This is probably the most important driver of motivation in a business. Our team knows that our products are important and they treat the whole process in the same way. We all focus on quality and doing things the right way because we know that we're doing something that really matters. So Positive Impact is what I love, because if a business is responsible and does good things it makes every other aspect of the business, just that much better.
Thanks to Richard Frazao, Quaketek
#7 – Expansion
I love my business because I love watching it expand, and being able to go above and beyond clients' expectations. I'm an over achiever, so just making someone happy alone isn't satisfying for me. Unless they are completely blown away by the services I provide (which they always are), then I have failed. Offering luxury office space, conference rooms, day rooms, and virtual offices to our tenants has become my passion. We have been so successful here at Empire Executive Offices that we have opened a new location in North Miami, and are expecting to open another in Boca Raton coming soon! Building life-long relationships with my tenants, and building the Empire, is what I LOVE about my business.
Thanks to Thomas Fallarino, Empire Executives
#8 – Helps Women
I love that my business helps individual women and also advances our societies viewpoint of women in the workplace. As technology has enabled more women to easily create blogs and online shopping carts, it has enabled so many more women to have a fruitful business while also making time for their family. They are no longer trapped in the binary choice of staying home or complying with 8+ hour workdays in a corporation. They can now build amazing businesses while their kids are sleeping or in school and also enjoy time together in the afternoon. I love helping these women build their business brands and grow their revenue while ALSO finding time for their family AND themselves. This is the part most MomPreneurs lose. They feel they have to be business or kids all the time. I help them maximize their brand so they can earn more money in less time. This enables them to find time to workout, see their friends, or read a book and still have great afternoons with their kids. I give them more business, less guilt, and more time for what they want for themselves and their family. It's so rewarding. Plus, the more successful they are, the more our society realizes that women who have kids can be great business women too!
Thanks to Suz O'Donnell, Thrivatize LLC
#9 – Having Flexibility
Having started my marketing and public relations business in 2010 in Park City, Utah during the depths of the recession, it has been rewarding to see it grow year over year with exciting clients that span the country and various industries. I love the fact that because the company consists of just me, I can be incredibly flexible and serve as a true member of my clients teams, developing positive and friendly rapports with them. I often work on weekends and evenings, and I love not having rigid work hours which gives me the freedom to live a balanced life and work virtually from anywhere I choose. I also love that most of my business has come from word of mouth referrals from existing clients and colleagues – it is truly validating that I must be doing something right in the customized and personalized approach I offer.
Thanks to Hilary Reiter, Redhead Marketing & PR
#10 – Variety
I love the variety we deal with on a daily basis. Because we work with doctors, lawyers, law enforcement personnel, and all kinds of other people it's never the same. I've worked at different places and had jobs that were the same every day and it eventually drove me to boredom because we never had any variation. People need stimulation to bring them out of their shells and we get that every day here with our vast array of clientele.
Thanks to Ben Walker, Transcription Outsourcing, LLC
#11 – Doing the Right Thing
I love my business. I love working with people and educating them about my product. I am so passionate about infrared saunas and the sheer health benefits they offer to individuals who often have no other options. I love my customers, I care about their health goals and address their specific health needs. My far infrared saunas have found their way into multiple hospitals and healthcare facilities across the country improving the quality of life for all those who use it. I am a caretaker and everyday I get to go above and beyond the call of duty, telling the truth and always doing the right thing. It is so much easier to live by these principles when you run the company. My efforts and reputation are out there and my customers have paid me in kind. As of June of 2016 I surpassed $2 million in sales since February of 2014.
Thanks to Katie DeCicco, Celebration Saunas, Inc.
#12 – My Employees
My employees are easily the thing that makes me love my business the most. I really am pleased with the crew I have now and how everybody has each others backs. Because we are a small business and each employee wears many hats, its important that we (myself included) are all team players. Being such a tight-knit team also creates a super strong sense of togetherness, resulting in genuine productivity and a positive work atmosphere. As cliché as it may sound, the people really do make the difference.
Thanks to Kornel Kurtz, WebTek Computer Company
#13 – Making Lives Better
I absolutely love the fact that every day we make our customers' lives better with our custom products. I get a real charge when I see ou products being used for self-expression. It makes our relationship more intimate with our customers, as we become a significant part of their most important moments: their weddings, baptisms, or part of their business when they launch a new product or move to a new location. I also love our company culture, I encourage self -expression within our team, so that individuals can innovate faster and better. Of course, we keep homogeneity within our production and operations, but individuals are encouraged to express themselves and their ideas.
Thanks to Andrew Witkin, StickerYou
#14 – Opening Doors for Children
Every day, I get to work with a team of people whose goal is to do what's best for the students we tutor so that they become independent and curious learners. It's a joy to know that we are opening doors for children – and at the same time, reducing stress for their parents! To achieve this goal, there is no room for complacency at our company. We celebrate accomplishments, and we study mistakes. We have each other's backs, and we hold each other to high standards. To work in a company with this culture is to be energized, engaged, and fulfilled. What more could you ask for?
Thanks to Erin Doyle, Nurturing Wisdom Tutoring
#15 – Adventure
My business always keeps me on my toes and drags me out of my comfort zone.Running a business is sometimes like driving in a snow storm. You can see a few feet in front of you, but anything further away is hidden by the elements. Can you get there from here? Sometimes you wind up in a much different destination than what you planned (ask anyone who's written a business plan before starting a business).
The way we react to unexpected obstacles and opportunities are what define us as business people, and what shape our businesses down the road. It's probably my personality, but I'm always looking to get out of my comfort zone, and I see no better way to achieve this (short of having a baby) than starting and running a business. Running a business forces me to deal with unexpected situations in a almost-daily basis, and I wouldn't have it any other way.
Thanks to James Gagné, JM Vapeur