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From Brandi Daniels, Embrace Sweets:

I co-own Embrace Sweets, a gourmet dessert company I started with my mom, Sandra.

We started ES in 2004, with the idea of:

1. Having a successful business & doing what we love!

2. Making our grandmother and great grandmother proud.

We come from a long line of bakers, but we are the first to turn this casual event and gift into a career.  We absolutely love what we do and wonder daily ‘what took us so long’.

A lot of people love the fact that we’re mother and daughter, first they can’t believe it– “You two actually get along? Wow that’s really cool”. Sandra and I are best friends; we complement each other and know where the other is stronger and weaker–it’s a great partnership.

In 2006, we won a national award for our brownies and were the Entrepreneurs of the Year by our Chamber of Commerce.In  2007, we won Emerging Business of the Year (by the Chamber) and Client of the Year (by SCORE).

This is more than a job for us; we love being creative in the kitchen and in our business (we’re creating the buzz word ‘brownie boutique’ now!) and most importantly our fans.

We started Embrace at our local Farmers Market, and it was a great way to meet people, to connect with them and share our story.

There is nothing like seeing someone take a bite of a cookie or brownie and just this overwhelming sensation comes over them and you see it; and you feel that your job is done–but it’s actually just beginning.

Anytime and anyway I can get my story and experiences to those who are timid or scared of starting their own thing I jump right on. I believe in the entrepreneurial spirit and the small business owner.. More power!

To contact Brandi Daniels, visit www.embracesweets.com.

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In addition to the 70 stories in The Entrepreneur Story, we love hearing your entrepreneur stories. There’s just so much we can learn from each others’ experiences.

• Why did you start a business?
• What have you learned?
• What was it like starting your first business?

Today’s story comes from Jill Harding, of Boundless Design. She was tagged by Jon Speer, one of the authors in The Entrepreneur Story.

You can also submit your story or recommend someone else’s at www.theentrepreneurstory.com/yourstory.

***

Jill Harding, Boundless Design

My Entrepreneur Story really started my senior (May 2001) year at Indiana University.

My goal was to work for a sound company to gain exposure and experience in both print graphic design and marketing. Then in 10 years take my learned experiences and create my very own Graphic Design Company.

The awesome part about my story is - I was able to start my Graphic Design Company much sooner, it only took 6 years versus 10 years.

By starting my own Graphic Design Company, I have had the great fortune to meeting many amazing individuals and companies.

It also came very prevalent that a lot of companies big and small have a need for my services. Plus Boundless Design, LLC is able to provide competitive branding, marketing and graphic design (print and web) outcomes at an extremely affordable price. Custom one-on-one attention to details unparalleled to agencies and firms.

Boundless Design technically became a LLC business May 2007, but through my vision and design talent the sky is truly the limit.

I also have had the opportunity to meet many like minded individuals when I joined a powerful networking group in July 2007 “Rainmakers.” Also through Rainmakers, I became a part of LinkedIn.com which has given me even more exposure.

So my Entrepreneur Story is simple - I have a creative talent which I truly enjoy that allows me to help many companies big and small while being easy on their bottom dollar.

***

To read more, visit Jill’s website at http://jillharding.com.

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Part 3: Every Entrepreneur Has A Story… What’s Yours?

My Dream Team

The following are the ten entrepreneurs whose stories I would love to hear. If I were a brand new entrepreneur, this is the dream team I would put together to collaborate with, to learn from and to get ideas about starting a business.

1. Paul Allen, WorldVitalRecords.com– since he’s one of the entrepreneurs that got me started in the first place! Paul thinks big, and sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn’t. I’m grateful for that article about Provo Labs that motivated me to quit working at a lame job and find great entrepreneurial people to work with.

2. Paul Graham, YCombinator– because he writes some of the smartest, most applicable essays on the realities of being a tech entrepreneur, being a young entrepreneur, and the joys and curses of the Silicon Valley phenomenon. Paul has a very interesting incubator for young geeks, YCombinator, with a best-kept-secret forum with fantastic content for those in that field.

3. Josh Coates, Mozy– because he is one of our local superstars in the Utah entrepreneur scene. He has a very technical background, he’s known by all who’ve interacted with him to be a riot and a mover & shaker, and because frankly, his Mozy product has saved my bacon so many times.

4. Brock Blake, Funding Universe– because he’s one of the few people I know younger than me who has more entrepreneurial fire than I do. And I just love his company, Funding Universe, because they provide such a necessary service for entrepreneurs who don’t know what to do in order to prepare for funding.

5. Patricia Norins, Specialty Retail Report– even though she’s one of our entrepreneurs featured in The Entrepreneur Story, Patricia is one of my entrepreneurial heroes and I know there’s more to her story than what I’ve read so far. She is a rockstar woman entrepreneur whose attitude, motivation, and kindness I really appreciate.

6. Oprah– yeah, kind of a stretch, I know. I’m sure Oprah has a lot better things to do than write blog posts, but if she’s not the epitome of the American dream as facilitated through personal ambition, opportunity, hard work, and entrepreneurship, I don’t know who is.

Does she think of herself as an entrepreneur? Do other women entrepreneurs look up to Oprah as an example of taking the bull by the horns and not only making a living for themselves, but also taking an idea and making a serious impact? Oprah– what’s your entrepreneur story?

7. Hugh MacLeod (otherwise known as Gaping Void). To the best of my knowledge, Hugh has two main business pursuits: he draws “cartoons on the back of business cards”, and he sells Stormhoek wine. The essence of being an entrepreneur is to do something that you love, and I admire that Hugh has fairly simple concepts that keep him happy.

8. Linda Wells, Stanford Center for Entrepreneurial Studies. I visited Stanford’s Center for Entrepreneurial Studies back in June and met Linda’s wonderful staff, Nancy Gross. I was very impressed with the warm, friendly, practical environment Linda’s established at the Center to help student entrepreneurs.

And I was even more impressed when I met Linda at a Stanford MBA event in Salt Lake City this past September. She lives in Park City, Utah, and runs the Center in Palo Alto, California. To me, that is the entrepreneurial lifestyle, and that she can accomplish that, motivates me to find a work-lifestyle balance that suits me specifically.

9. Marina Martin, efficiency consultant, is an absolute rockstar. She’s younger than I am, a full-time self-established consultant, very ambitious, highly admired in the tech community, independent as all get-out, and just the nicest girl I know. I want to know how she has accomplished twice as much as I have, with several less years to do it. Marina? What’s your story!

10. Heather Armstrong Heather writes a blog called Dooce.com. She is probably the Perez Hilton of mombloggers in conservative Utah. She used to work a day job and blog about her adventures there, albeit anonymously, until she was called on the carpet for it and fired.

So Heather thumbed her nose and turned to blogging full-time, and supports her family through her sardonic, naughty blogging on parenting, Utah, and all things IKEA-esque. She has impeccable taste and I love her story.

***

So– will you guys share your entrepreneur story with us?

You can blog it, email it, or call me personally (801) 319-4715 and tell me directly. And, you can send it in to The Entrepreneur Story for our next version of the book, if we do one.

In fact, anyone reading this– please feel to write an “Every Entrepreneur Has A Story… What’s Yours?” blogpost, where you write your story and tag a few others. I think we’ll learn a lot.

And, if you send it to www.theentrepreneurstory.com/yourstory, we’ll post some of them here as well. You know my story– now I’m really looking forward to reading YOUR story!

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This seriously is the longest blogpost in history, so I’m breaking it into three sections:

Part 1. My Story
Part 2. My Story’s Still Being Written
Part 3. What’s Yours?

Part 1: My Story

Behind every business, successful or otherwise, there’s an entrepreneur with a story.

For whatever reason, this individual goes against the traditional expectations most people have to get an education, find a job, get promoted, be secure and happy.

Entrepreneurs can’t seem to follow that pattern. We have an innate need to be the boss, to start something, and to do something amazing that hasn’t been done before.

To celebrate today’s release of my book The Entrepreneur Story, I’ll tell you my story– and then tag 10 other entrepreneurs whose stories I’d love to hear.

Career Ambitions At Nine Years Old

When I was 9 years old, I wrote in my journal that “The best job would be an author, and the worst? A garbage woman.” Little did I know that being an entrepreneur would trump both, and sometimes, require skills from all of the above.

In college, I struggled to find one discipline that I resonated with. I changed my major constantly. Music. Spanish. Russian. Business. English. Dance. Then back to Music.

I loved doing everything, so it’s no surprise that I found myself as a senior with enough credits to graduate, no major, and no clue as to what my profession would become.

In a stroke of good karma, my university concocted a degree for people like me who couldn’t figure it out: “University Studies”. It was a schmorgasbord degree: pick any three areas, take enough credits to be respectable, and would you graduate already??? So I chose Music, Modern Dance and English, and I had a fantastic time.

Realizing I Graduated With A Useless Degree

When I got out of college, I realized my diploma wasn’t marketable. Now what?

My first year of post-college work experience reflected a certain lack of knowing what I wanted. First, social work. Then freelance editing. Then teaching English as a Second Language.

At one point, I got tired of working part-time jobs that weren’t going anywhere, so I got serious about a career and landed my first “real job” as a writer for a marketing company.

As it turned out, not all companies are equal. This organization had such structural and ethical problems, there were two complete staff turnovers in the short 6 months I worked there.

In the meantime, I realized three things:

1. If you solve big problems, you become immediately invaluable to a company.
2. I was fascinated with web-based applications, specifically in marketing and also creating websites.
3. If I didn’t find a rockstar organization to work at, I was going to suffocate.

Finding– And Losing– My Dream Job

I began researching companies to find a new job. I determined that somewhere in Utah, there had to be an amazing organization dealing with web stuff, startups, and great people. And there was.

I found Provo Labs, an internet incubator, when CEO Paul Allen was profiled in a local business magazine, Business Q.

I read the article and soaked up the details: everyone there had a BlackBerry. They were researching and developing not one startup company, but 12 simultaneously. It was an exciting, inspiring organization, and I determined I would work there.

On the recommendation of a friend, I wrote this blog for Provo Labs, and was hired two days later.

It was the best experience of my career to that point, although, a little embarrassing.(At that point, I was unfamiliar with the concept of a “blog”, and was mortified when I realized everyone associated with Provo Labs had read the blog before I even showed up that first day. Eeek.)

Well, it started off great. I was so excited about my new dream job.

So much so, that three weeks later, when the company closed its doors, I was still fairly enthused– as a group of us decided to continue the entrepreneurial adventure and start TagJungle, a search engine for the blogosphere.

Living “The Entrepreneurial Dream”

To be honest, I was so clueless. We all were, to some degree. For many of us, it was our first time truly living the entrepreneurial dream: working in a basement. Going without pay. Building a search engine.

It was only 18 months ago that we first broke away to start that business, but when you’re an entrepreneur, life seems to accelerate.

And in that time, I witnessed the shut down of the new company as well, started and endured the failure of The Hundred Dollar Business kiosk, started three other microbusiness projects (The Entrepreneur Story, Human Census, and The Cozy Home Spa), and have worked for a year starting the Eastern Idaho Entrepreneurial Center.

It has been a ridiculous, poverty-stricken, workaholic, exhilarating, depressing, wonderful adventure. To be an entrepreneur is to realize that life is a vacuum, and if you’re going to go anywhere at all, it’s because you’re the one who’s going to make things happen.

No one else holds your hand and calls up customers for you to make sales so that your company stays alive and you can eat food this week; you must do that for yourself.

I just love being an entrepreneur. It has nothing to do with having a major, having a “job”, or even going without pay sometimes.

It’s about taking an idea, and putting it into action, and fighting against yourself, your past business mistakes, and struggling in a global economy to carve out a niche where you can provide economic value to others.

Read More in Part 2: My Story’s Still Being Written

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