Top 5 Inspiring Success Stories of Small Business Owners

Inspirational stories of small business success - There are many small businesses that made it big but there are also more stories of failure than successes. Only a fraction of startups or small businesses manage to become million dollar enterprises. A tiny fraction of those ends up being billion dollar enterprises.

Let me take an example of C. J. Walker, the founder of Walker’s Haircare.

Ms. Walker was born to former slaves, she was a single parent and during the late 1800s, women were not known to be entrepreneurial. Despite the obvious shortcomings of her times, she founded a business and became the first self made millionaire in America.

Ms Walker's products were smartly aimed at African American women who have very different hair from the whites.

One needs to try new things, dedicate all effort, time and resources and be willing to take the risks to get the rewards. She did what she knew and she smartly had a target audience that would have a positive response to what she offered.

The secret to our small business making it big is always in the idea and we execute that idea. How good is an idea if it's in line with what already exists. Why work on an idea if fear of failure will prevent its manifestation.

Let's take a close look at five insightful small business success stories and some of the remarkable lessons they provide to those of you who are willing to learn from the key decisions and sacrifices others have made in order to grow their business.

1. $100 Startup - Flowers From Fatima: A Budding Small Business

Fatima Spencer

As a young entrepreneur, Fatima Spencer - the owner of Flowers from Fatima - was able to make her online boutique bloom from a tiny bud to a pretty flower. She was able to transform what started out as a neighborhood beautification project into a growing small business.

Fatima started to design her own hair accessories using various flowers. The unique and pretty hair accessories, which Fatima wore to College everyday, gained attention among her friends. That’s when Fatima, with a little push from her brother, decided to make this wonderful hobby into a small business.

Flowers From Fatima made its flourishing debut on 2009. Starting up with less than $100 to ‘fund the website and supplies’, she was able to earn double every year as well as establish a strong customer base.

Fatima mentioned that her loyal customers not only supported her, but challenged her to be a better fashion designer and businesswoman.

Fatima Spencer is a talented, skilled and ingenious young entrepreneur who proved that $100 can help we launch our own business and make it big someday.

Fatima's passion for fashion designing and her penchant for natural beauty made her handmade flower accessories bloom beautifully into a booming small business.

2. Annie Choi - Found Coffee: Success in building a loyal fan-base

Annie Choi

Found Coffee has only been open for 3-years, but it’s already managed to cultivate a community of regulars, thanks to great coffee and the savvy use of customer loyalty.

With an eye to design and a focus on specialty coffees, Found Coffee’s warm space showcases a variety of “found” vintage objects—some provided by the regulars themselves.

Found Coffee is located in the close-knit community of Eagle Rock, Los Angeles - a neighborhood near Annie’s childhood home in La Crescenta.

Customer loyalty is key for Annie, who has been using 5-stars from the very beginning. With that friendly introduction, she took the plunge, and is glad that she did, as it’s made a huge difference in Found Coffee’s ability to grow and thrive.

Thanks to Fivestars, one of the biggest potential challenges Found Coffee would have faced was solved before it even came up: “In LA, there are a plethora of coffee shops, and if people don’t live right in Eagle Rock, they can forget about us.”

With AutoPilot, Annie delivers reminders and incentives to her customers to come visit the cafe without having to spend any time on it.

About 85% of Annie's customers are regulars, and she loves being able to reward them for their support. She has found success in rewards that are both typical and creative.

Annie offers the classic ten points and customers get a free drink, but also offers Found-branded merchandise—including coffee mugs, growlers, hats and tee shirts—for customers who want to save up their points.

She's advice to other business owners who want to replicate her success is simple, but effective, “People love free stuff!” Annie says. “Offer merchandise that’s cute, well-designed, desirable and people will want to save up to earn them.”

Annie’s city and her local community are extremely important to her, Annie’s always looking for ways to give back.

Partnering with her neighboring business, craft beer taproom and bottle shop, Found Coffee put on 'Coffee and Kegs for a Cause', in which both businesses donated a portion of their proceeds to a local charity.

In Annie's commitment to her community, her passion for her business, and her success in building a loyal fan-base, Annie and Found Coffee exemplify the values 5-stars was founded on.

3. Timothy Bowser - From garage to 20,000 square feet Warehouse

Timothy Bowser (right)

Timothy Bowser started his first business in 2000, in his garage with a saw he borrowed.

Today, he services an area of about 100 miles and operates Alternative Custom Crating in a 20,000 square foot warehouse, based in Lakeland.

To Bowser, success isn’t just measured by this expansion, but also by the company culture he has built for his 6-employees, whom he calls family.

A loan officer referred him to the Florida SBDC at University of South Florida to find assistance in applying for a loan.

Bowser said the insight into his business that business consultant Brad Owens has given him has been very helpful. Owens helped Bowser construct a formal business plan that will help him close the deal on a loan for improvements to the warehouse and parking area.

Actually, Owens has helped him more than he could ever imagine. Owens’ helped open Bowser's mind to new ideas and different things that has helped him pick up bigger and better accounts and do better for hisself.

The two have formed such a bond that Owens is one of the first people that Bowser contacts when something exciting happens in the business, like landing an important new client.

With the help of Owens, he said the next step for Alternative Custom Crating will be to secure government contracts, a move he predicts will lead to steady work and a more secure future for the company.

4. Komal Ahmad - Copia connects food purveyors with groups that make good use of excess food

Komal Ahmad

Copia is a tech-enabled logistics company, like Uber, that matches people who have excess edible food with people who need it.

Up to 40 percents of the food produced in the United States ends up as waste from restaurants, grocers and other sources.

Meanwhile, many American households do not know where their next meal will come from. Since launching in 2013, Copia has enlisted 650 donor businesses and 200 nonprofit recipients. And it has distributed more than 830,000 pounds of food to more than 700,000 people in the Bay Area.

As a first-generation immigrant from Pakistan, Komal Ahmad thought hunger was a developing-world problem.

In 2011, in her senior year at UC Berkeley, she met a homeless veteran begging for food across the street from a campus dining hall. He motivated Komal to ask the dining hall managers what they did with excess food. They told her that, despite trying to avoid it, they threw away thousands of pounds of edible food because they feared liability for harm if they donated it.

Online, Komal learned that the federal Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Act protects food donors and nonprofit recipients from liability, except for gross negligence or intentional misconduct.

After launching the nation’s first campus food-recovery program, Komal discovered that coordinating food donation was fraught with inefficiencies. She created Copia to close communication gaps using an online and mobile platform.

Copia helps the donors unlock the full value of their unused food. They get an enhanced tax deduction of up to 15 percents of its fair market value.

Donors pay Copia a per-pound pickup fee. Copia provide data that helps them reduce food waste and improve their bottom line, as well as marketing and branding support. The nonprofits provide testimonials and confirm receipt of the food, so Copia can provide businesses with proof of their donation in case of a tax audit.

In January 2016, Komal participated in Y Combinator, which provides seed funding and a support network for start-ups. It gave her $120,000 in exchange for 7% of the company. She has also worked with venture capitalists. Toyota honored her in 2016 as one of its Mothers of Invention, and she won $50,000.

Komal took a salary for the first time in 2016, but she'e not the highest-paid person on their full-time staff of eight. Solving the world’s biggest problems requires the smartest people, and her greatest success is their extraordinary team.

5. Taleem Mandinka - Tenn’Tastic Cutz Barbershop & Salon

Taleem Mandika

Tenn’Tastic Cutz Barbershop & Salon approaches cutting and styling fine and ethnic hair like a scientific art.

With the variety of services they offer – weave care and installation, grey coverage, hair relaxer, flat-ironing, shear tailored haircuts, and dread care and maintenance – Tenn’Tastic Cutz Barbershop & Salon is a neighborhood go-to.

Owner Taleem Mandinka opened his business in 2015 specifically to serve his community, which previously faced a lack of quality hair and beauty options.

Mandika wanted to make sure his community had the best options available to them when it came to their hair.

He wants his clients to enjoy the “duality of looking and feeling good” by maintaining a neat and tasteful atmosphere where comfort is the top priority.

Tenn’Tastic Cutz's employees ensure that each particular style that a client asks for aligns with their lifestyle and image.

They do this through their impeccable attention to detail, and their pride in the end result of each hair service they give.

The biggest challenge Mandinka faces as a business owner is “extending consistent value both as a customer and hair care service provider.” He uses Fivestars as a “Get More, Pay Less” club, through which he provides exclusive rewards for his customers.

Mandika loves Fivestars because in addition to great customer retention and easy client communication, he enjoys offering a free gift with purchase with any haircut.

What are Mandika's customers’ favorite rewards to redeem? The free hair line: instead of a natural hairline, he uses a sharp razor blade to line up the forehead, temples, and back into sharp lines and angles.

Mandinka says he lives off the joy he experiences when he enhances a client’s self-esteem and image.

If you live in the Atlanta area, be sure to get your hair serviced at Tenn’Tastic Cutz Barbershop & Salon if you want to look good and serve looks for a lifetime.

Starting our own business is not an effortless task. A lot of work and research goes into the process even if we have great entrepreneurial flair.

However, this is not a reason for us to give up on our dream. That is why today we’ve looked at some of the most inspiring small business success stories that our dream is worth fighting for.