Connecting to your “why” may be one of the most powerful things you do as an entrepreneur—especially if you’re just starting out. Building a business takes grit and perseverance, but having a clear motivation makes all that hard work worthwhile.
According to a 2025 Shopify survey,* 77% of US business founders strongly agree that they started their business to turn a passion into a reality, and for 70%, greater control over job security was a motivating factor.
Below, 10 founders share their own “why” behind their leap into entrepreneurship.
To monetize a passion
Nicola Hamilton was working as a magazine art director in Toronto and was always on the lookout for niche publications. The problem? There weren’t any local storefronts that sold the types of magazines that appealed to her.
“It’s something that I really wanted to exist in the city, and so I sort of built the space of my dreams,” Nicola says on Shopify Masters. “I wanted a physical location; a place where I could go and actually flip through the things. I wanted people to experience that feeling that I experienced discovering a new title in a new city, in a physical space.”
She went on to launch Issues Magazine Shop through a mix of alternative lending programs, personal capital, and professional mentorship. These days, the space is a haven for creatives in Toronto.
Fashion entrepreneur Stephanie Ibbitson was working in advertising before launching her leather accessories brand Sonya Lee. After popping into a leather store on her way home from work one day, Stephanie got the idea to make a handbag for herself.
“I’ve always been a self-starter, so I kind of just continued doing it, because it was the thing that I was most passionate about,” she says. “I gave my two weeks’ notice maybe a month or two after that.”
Stephanie identified a sweet spot that catered to people who wanted luxury bags at a more affordable price and turned it into a profitable business.
To be your own boss
In 2010, Peter Dering took a leave of absence and spent a stretch of time traveling through Southeast Asia and India.
“That just spawned an incredible breadth of things I wanted to do in this world. Many of those things would eventually become Peak Design,” says Peter, who founded the travel gear company shortly after. “When I was traveling for four months, I was my own boss. I was in charge of my own time. There’s not much more that feels freeing than that feeling of being in charge of one’s own time.”
During his travels, Peter also learned firsthand just how difficult it was to be on the go with bulky photography equipment. That spark of an idea led him to quit his job and design a camera-carrying device that became Peak Design’s first product.
To create opportunity for underserved markets
Debbie Wei Mullin’s Vietnamese heritage has always been a driving force behind her work. It’s what originally led her to international development at World Bank, but she soon realized she wasn’t making the impact she’d hoped.
“I really wanted to have my career dedicated toward making better opportunities in Vietnam,” says Debbie, who saw firsthand while visiting “how amazing the culture was, the food, but also how there was no opportunity.” Debbie’s family was “just completely obsessed with all things Vietnamese cuisine,” which is how she discovered Vietnamese coffee.
“I had no idea that Vietnam was the second-largest coffee producer in the world,” Debbie says. “It was just completely left out of the specialty coffee scene—and [I realized] what an opportunity that would be for Vietnamese farmers and for people along the supply chain in Vietnam to be able to have economic development by having access to the US specialty market.”
Getting the brand launched and profitable was an uphill battle, as many investors misjudged Copper Cow Coffee as too niche. However, the coffee’s undeniable quality soon had buyers from Whole Foods, Nordstrom, and Walmart calling.
To solve a personal problem
Anyone who’s ever walked around in heels all day knows how uncomfortable it can be. After dealing with her own sore feet for too long, Cassidy Caulk knew there had to be a better way to swap her heels out while still looking good. But the packable flats that were available were a far cry from sophisticated.
“Everything on the market was kind of throwaway,” she says. “It was pretty cheap; just not something that was, in my opinion, fashionable to wear. And so I kind of had that aha moment of, ‘You know what? I think I can make something that’s higher-quality, more luxe, and more sustainable.’”
Cassidy dove in headfirst, learning the art of shoemaking from YouTube videos, Reddit forums, and leather-working communities—all culminating in her own fashion-forward (and comfortable) foldable sandal brand, called Kindred Label.
To fill a gap in the market
Sometimes an unexpected challenge can actually be a blessing in disguise for a budding entrepreneur. At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, both Marina Larroudé and her husband, Ricardo, found themselves out of work. After the panic faded, the couple knew they needed to take matters into their own hands to ensure a bright future for themselves.
“I had a vision of what I thought the white space was in the market,” says Marina. “And then Ricardo did a deep dive into the footwear industry, and we came into a realization that the white space was real—that there were these super-high-end brands and then the lower-end brands, but nothing in between.”
With just $4,000, Larroudé was born in the couple’s living room. The footwear brand has since grown into a nine-digit-revenue business.
To unlock new revenue streams
Dan Demsky, cofounder and CEO of the clothing brand Unbound Merino, is no stranger to entrepreneurship. In 2009, he cofounded a full-service digital video agency—but was hustling hard to stay successful.
“Meanwhile, I’m seeing my friends who start these ecommerce businesses and they’re scaling in a totally different way,” Dan says. He turned his attention to launching a product-based ecomm business, but hadn’t found the right product—until he took a trip to Greece that changed everything. While lugging multiple suitcases up the streets of Hydra, he started thinking about ways to pack for international trips with only a carry-on.
“The tip was to use merino wool clothing because it’s antibacterial, it’s odor-resistant, so you could rewear the same shirt multiple times—and then instead of needing to pack 14 t-shirts for your trip, you could pack three or four,” Dan says.
Enter Unbound Merino, which specializes in exactly that type of clothing. The company has been going strong for almost a decade and is projected to reach $60 million in revenue in 2025.
To make a difference
After losing a friend in a biking accident, Gloria Hwang set out to create a new kind of bike helmet—-one that could keep riders safe and that they would actually want to wear. She founded Thousand with one goal in mind: to save 1,000 lives.
“Our whole design premise and our whole mission has been really around how do you make a helmet cool,” Gloria says. “And how do you change the perception around a product that’s maybe like a safety item to a lifestyle accessory?”
She took inspiration from the ’50s and ’60s to design inclusive helmets in retro colorways for adults and children. “From my perspective, if you’re trying to get people to change behavior, fear is not a great motivator. But to get someone to want to do something is more interesting,” Gloria says. She also incorporated customer feedback into the early stages of the business to ensure the final design would resonate with her target audience.
To future-proof a career
Before Nima Jalali founded Salt and Stone, he was a professional snowboarder—but he always knew that career had an expiration date. “You get older and your career starts to kind of go downhill a little bit, right?” Nima says “And with building a brand, it doesn’t come and go with your athleticism or anything like that.”
Nima set out to build a legacy brand that could go the distance. “I just wanted something that I can work on now and continue to work on for the rest of my life,” he says. “And so that was the plan with this brand.”
When an ACL injury inspired Nima to pay more attention to what he was putting in his body, he noticed a gap in the market. He couldn’t find a nontoxic deodorant that could keep up with his athletic lifestyle, so he decided to make one. In addition to Salt and Stone’s bestselling aluminum-free deodorants, the brand has since expanded into body wash, lotion, and fragrance.
*These findings are from a survey by The Harris Poll for Shopify, conducted online between August 22-31, 2025. It included 519 American business owners and senior decision-makers from companies selling products online.
