Growing my business

  In 2003, my husband and I lived in a camper and worked unfulfilling odd jobs, not out of laziness, we're just adventurous types not satisfied with the status quo. We were entrepreneurs at heart, but just didn't know it yet. Our first idea was to travel the country in an old van, go kayaking, film our adventures, and make a movie to sell to the world. We spent the entire summer repairing the van and ended up in debt and with no video footage. In desperation, we got jobs selling pumpkins for Halloween in CA, but we ended up being laid off, and the van's motor had to be replaced in AZ on the way back to NC. Finally returning east, we rented a tiny room, my husband lost his web design job that we been scraping by on, he got appendicitis, and my Grandmother died.

While stranded in AZ, we worked on our next plan--to start a yoga adventure travel business named Yoga Ventures and to make a yoga DVD, "Yoga for Paddlers." We took the $2K my Grandmother left me and reproduced the video. We spent that spring traveling to paddling events and selling tons of DVDs. So, we decided to go for another market and made "Yoga for Cyclists" DVD, which also sold like hotcakes. So we dropped the yoga adventure travel idea and branded the DVDs Yoga Ventures.

During this time, we decided to buy a house since credit was available to unemployed people, but we stayed within our means. We set up our office and my husband finished his whitewater guide that he had been working on--North Carolina Rivers and Creeks came out in 2005. Now we had 3 products and were an actual business! We incorporated that year and became Brushy Mountain Publishing. We decided to have an entire line of yoga products for outdoor sports and created "Yoga for Hikers" DVD and book, Yoga for Cyclists book, and "Yoga for Climbers" DVD. Then we were approached by a fisherman to make a fly fishing guide, which was released in 2007, Western North Carolina Fly Guide. "Yoga for Cyclists" DVD sold so well that we created "Yoga for Cyclists 2, Road Edition." For another form of income, we added kayak instruction and adventure travel and branded the whitewater guides, instruction, and travel River Gypsies.

We have truly combined our abilities and passions to create a business. Our corporate mission is embedded in our souls--to inspire others through our products and services to be fit in mind and body and to explore and appreciate this amazing planet on which we live.

Advice for others

  Don't get pigeon holed by your business plan--leave room for creativity. Don't create products without a solid and researched marketing and distribution plan. And most of all, have balance in your life--work is not everything--take time to enjoy life.