Find Your Niche

Sanaa is the founder and owner of Alara & Zane, a shop, play, learn, party concept designed to support children and their families from newborn through 8 years! Sanaa always had an entrepreneurial spirit and due to a personal pain point of not having a store that she wanted and a community to go with it - she decided to start one for other moms and kids!

Tiayonna is a garden consultant and an agvocate for growing food, creating access, garden-based learning, and reducing impact on the planet! She fell in love with gardening when she started her first garden in her backyard and realized she could make a career out of helping others grow their own food!

Anna Haddock is the creator of The Coffee Table Blog and you can find her on instagram @Annakhaddock! She graduated from Meredith College with a degree in nutrition but through her college internships, she discovered her passion lies in marketing! Anna works in marketing during the day and spends her weekends & evenings sharing the best coffee shops, restaurants, and places to travel to on her blog! She is so inspiring as everything she does she has learned on her own by following her passions!

Katerina is the founder and owner of Precycle - a shop that sells package-free produce, bulk foods, and home goods in Brooklyn, New York. After becoming a mom and realizing how much plastic waste she acquired she got to work to find solutions to avoid as much waste as possible and the idea for Precycle started. Precycle is NYC's first zero-waste store with the mission to help consumers reduce their food and packaging waste! ***The audio is a little spotty***

Janet Lucia St. Clair is a design & styling consultant in Raleigh, NC. She graduated from Radford University with a degree in fashion design and started her career in NYC as a fashion designer! After moving to North Carolina, Janet decided to go out on her own and into a more creative direction - she works on fashion & editorial styling, social media content creation, brand direction, interior styling, and so much more. She always knew she wanted to have a creative career and has always followed her passion!

Madeline Marshallsea is a consultant! Madeline graduated from University of South Carolina with a degree in global supply chain & operations management & finance and started her career with IBM! If you are interested in a career in consulting - this is the conversation for you!

Tami Purdue is the owner and founder of Sweet Peas Urban Gardens, staying true to its name it is located two miles from downtown Raleigh, NC. After 20 years managing a successful law firm, Tami decided to become an agro-entrepreneur after taking one gardening class! Using an urban growing system called CropBox and focusing on micro greens she sells to local restaurants, farmers markets, and a preschool! She's changing the way we typically farm to produce more efficiently and safer for our planet!

Molly Goldston is the founder of Saving Grace, an animal shelter in Wake Forest, North Carolina! Saving Grace is a private shelter that serves homeless animals across the rural part of NC and beyond. Molly started Saving Grace in 2004 on her homes property and has adopted over 30,000 dogs so far!

Erin Rolandelli is a digital creator, the woman behind the Instagram @RDUGems! RDU Gems is a food blog in Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina unearthing the best gems! While taking a course at UNC Chapel Hill - she discovered her passion for documenting her food experiences no matter where she was - locally, at home, or traveling and decided to start sharing it with the world!

Tiffany Turner Moon is a lifestyle/digital creator, you can find her on instagram @Tiffanyturnermoon! Tiffany has such an amazing and unique story and she shares it all with her community, she promotes easy recipes, activism, and community! She shares the best tips & tricks on how to use instagram to gain followers and how to start monetizing your platform!

Erica O'Connor is a pediatric speech and language pathologist and is the owner of her own practice - Find Your Voice Speech and Language Therapy! I love Erica's story - she worked at MTV & BBC in her 20's which is where she found her passion to work with kids and decided to go back to school for her masters in speech and language pathology.

Chelsy Ferguson is the founder of The Gathering Co., a local wedding and event planning company in the Carolinas! Chelsy found her passion for event planning early in her career journey and decided to take a leap and start her own business. If you are interested in a career in wedding & event planning this is the conversation for you!

Kat Campbell is a meteorologist at WRAL, she covers the weather forecasts daily on the news and builds weather models. She has always loved the weather since she was a little girl hoping for snow and made that passion her career! If you are interested in a career in meteorology or broadcasting the news - this is the conversation for you!

Morgan Lashley and Caroline Dunham are not only business partners but best friends that decided to start an ecommerce boutique that we all love and know as Vestique. Since launching Vestique in 2010 in the spare bedroom of Morgan's house they have expanded to ten locations across the South and have a cult-like following online.

Brooke Markevicius is the founder and CEO of Allobee. Brooke was working at Postmates when she got pregnant with her first child and realized quickly after that Postmates and most companies don't provide enough flexibility for working moms. She decided to pivot and start freelancing when she had the idea for Allobee. Allobee is a unique platform that is designed for small business owners and entrepreneurs that are in need of some business support services such as bookkeeping, web development, social media, and many more services.

Lindsay Rice is the founder and owner of Vita Vite. Lindsay's story is just so dreamy, she has a background in art history and photography. She loves to travel, explore new cities and decided to combine those passions and open Vita Vita - a wine bar and art gallery!

Megan Cain started The ZEN Succulent on Etsy in 2012 with a small shop that just grew and grew into two brick and mortar shops in Durham and Raleigh, North Carolina. Megan is the queen of succulents and has a book all about caring for them called Modern Terrarium Studios!

Dr. Elena Ashburn is the principal of Broughton High School in Raleigh, NC. After college, Dr. Ashburn joined Teach For America and started her career as a high school English teacher before transitioning into the administration side of education and became an assistant principal. Dr. Ashburn was named the 2020 WCPSS Principal of the Year and is a finalist for North Carolina State Principal of the Year!

Alicia Belle founded Mega in 2018, Raleigh's first lagree fitness studio! While working in various careers, Alicia always prioritized movement into her routine and loved exploring new workout studios when she traveled. After working in sales for a while, Alicia had the idea to open up a studio to challenge and inspire you like no other workout you've ever done before!

For our first episode, I sit down and chat with Maggie Kane, founder of A Place At The Table in downtown Raleigh, North Carolina. Maggie Kane was only 23 years old when she had the idea to start a pay-what-you-can-cafe, and on her 25th birthday, she received nonprofit status for the cafe. A Place At The Table's mission is to provide community and good food for all regardless of means and this mission has guided Maggie throughout her journey of launching Raleigh's first pay-what-you-can cafe!