All Up In Your Business with Kayleigh

Craig and Caz Makepeace didn't just fall in love with Raleigh, they fought a decade-long, White-House-visiting, tent-living, paperwork-hauling battle to be able to live here for good. The husband-and-wife team behind This Is Raleigh (and the globally recognized Y Travel Blog) sit down with Kayleigh to talk about how a teacher-exchange program in 2004 turned into an accidental green card journ...

Birthday Episode!! In this three parter, you will hear from my nephew and what he loves (and we share a birthday, so obviously he loves me enough to join me), my business teach from senior year of high school, and then the tables turn and she asks me advice I would give for students in high school. Brenda Saunders has been teaching business and law at Greenwich High School in upstate New York for...

Scott is the co-founder of Sodabox, a dirty soda shop with six locations across the Triangle. He started the business in a shipping container in Apex with his brother Brent after moving to Raleigh from Utah in 2017. Learn how Scott went from mixing sugar-free Red Bulls at a call center job to building a dirty soda empire across Raleigh. In this episode, Scott talks about why entrepreneurs are born...

Jess Ekstrom is the founder of Mic Drop Workshop, where she helps women land paid keynote spots and become thought leaders. She's also a keynote speaker, author, and mom of two. Learn how Jess went from being the only woman in a speaking lineup (with an event planner who admitted "we just needed a woman") to training thousands of women worldwide to get paid to speak. In this episode...

Amanda Cheney is the founder of aMANda's Best Friend, a pet care service that's been around for 15 years. She started with a one-page business plan and six months from her dad to prove it could work. Learn how Amanda went from wanting to be a vet to working in telecom, banking, and politics before finally saying "I wanna work with the real dogs." In this episode, Amanda talks a...

Danny Rosin co-owns Brand Fuel, a B Corp doing brand merchandising globally, and founded Band Together, a nonprofit that's raised over a million dollars a year for 25 years through live concerts. Learn how his Band Together story raised $60,000 in only 3 weeks. In this episode, Danny talks about strategic abandonment, why nonprofits should invest in overhead, living life through rose-colored...

Tara McCoy didn't wake up one day deciding to start a travel agency. It started with a college internship at AAA, turned into a side hustle to pay off debt, and 12 years later she's running Two Sisters Travel - a boutique travel agency that's sent clients to six continents. The name? Her and her sister Elizabeth. Elizabeth wanted to work from home after having a baby. Tara said let&...

Jamie Davis has been practicing family law exclusively for 25 years - same law firm since graduating law school. She went in thinking she'd do criminal law, took one family law class at UNC, and never looked back. Now she's a board certified family law specialist, certified parenting coordinator, family financial mediator, and host of "A Year and a Day: Divorce Without Destruction&q...

Cody started Unhinged Coffee in April 2025 - and it wasn't planned. After 18 years in corporate America (Wells Fargo, all the way up to VP), they were over it. Missed the human connection. Felt like they were watching communities from the outside. Around the same time, Cody was processing the loss of his dad. The way they connected? Over coffee. Morning, afternoon, and evening coffee. All day...

Holly Schwab's nine-month-old son Zach had a grapefruit-sized tumor attached to all his major organs, including his aorta. They were within a month of it spreading. That was 2008. Zach is now 19, cancer-free, and the namesake of a nonprofit that's been collecting toys for hospitalized kids for 16 years. In this episode, Holly walks through Zach's neuroblastoma diagnosis, why she swi...

Courtney Bowman was a middle school Latin teacher who made charcuterie boards as a creative outlet. Four boards later, she started Raleigh Cheesy in October 2019. Three months after that, she decided to leave teaching and go full-time with the business. Then COVID hit. In this episode, Courtney walks through how the pandemic unexpectedly helped her business grow, why she closed her first location...

Joanne Wetzel bought a camera in 2019 to help shelter dogs get adopted. She had no photography background—just a hunch that beautiful photos would help overlooked dogs get seen. Five years later, she's photographed nearly 1,000 rescue dogs and built a thriving pet photography business that's completely different from what you'd expect. Five Freedoms Photography isn't about quic...

Michele Wilson is disrupting the construction industry with dignity and class—and she's doing it by erasing the lines that keep people siloed. As the founder of Sonder Luxe Home Solutions and the creator of Coffee with Contractors (a quarterly networking movement that pulls 70-100 people every single time), Michele is on a mission to fix what's broken in construction: the lack of collabo...

Maggie didn't set out to open a restaurant. She set out to answer a question that had bothered her since childhood: Why am I always on the privileged side of the volunteer line? That question led her to a day shelter for people experiencing homelessness, which led to a conversation at Golden Corral that changed everything. Her friend John, who'd been homeless for three months, told her h...

Ashley didn't set out to open a coffee shop-slash-craft beer bar in a historic 1930s house. She got laid off from her corporate job, started looking for a tiny coffee shop, and ended up falling in love with a 3,650 square foot space that was definitely not what she was looking for—but somehow was exactly what downtown Cary needed. In this episode, we dive into the story behind The Williams Ho...

Donald Thompson isn't just the Board Chair of Walk West-he's a masterclass in how to scale yourself across multiple ventures without burning out. In this episode, we dive into his journey from selling Jolly Ranchers in fifth grade (and getting suspended for it) to leading a global consulting practice, coaching executives, investing in entertainment talent, and still finding time to catch...

In this episode, I sit down with Kristen Jacoby (KJ) , the powerhouse behind Social to Social and a full-time real estate agent crushing it in Raleigh. KJ opens up about her journey from playing D1 field hockey to building a thriving real estate career while still in college, and her brave move to Raleigh in 2023 that changed everything. We dive deep into the real story behind Social to Social - h...

It is nonprofit week! In this episode, I’m sitting down with Heather Thompson . She’s the Vice President of the Realtor Giving Network (RGN) , but honestly, she’s more of a professional gap-filler for our community. Heather is here to debunk the "nonprofit myth" and show how Raleigh Realtors are doing way more than just closing deals - they’re out here furnishing homes for families, savi...

In this episode, I’m getting all up in the business of Joe Arnao, the founder of 4W Strategic Consulting and host of The Real Joe Show . Joe has spent over 20 years in real estate, but he’s doing something completely different now—acting as a "brokerage matchmaker" and high-level coach. We talk about why agents often pick the wrong office, how to find your actual value, and the "emb...

In this episode, I’m sitting down with my friend and boss, Javier Leiva. He’s the creator of the hit podcast Pretend , where he spends his time interviewing con artists, cult leaders, and undercover feds. We talk about what happens when a "true story" is actually a total fantasy, how he cornered a famous con man in a Vegas hotel, and why he’s so deep in this world that he actually blurre...

Let’s be real: if a business looks perfect on Instagram, someone is probably lying to you. I’m Kayleigh Bain, and I’m obsessed with the stories people don't put in their press releases. All Up in Your Business is where I sit down with local founders, non-profit leaders, and total badasses to talk about the messy, complicated, and usually hilarious reality of building something from scratch. N...

Welcome to the All Up In Your Business Podcast with your host, Kayleigh Bain! How many times have you wondered about the story behind your favorite local spot? Every Wednesday, Kayleigh—founder of Honeygin Marketing and a champion of authentic storytelling—deep dives into the stories of local and small business owners, thought leaders, and non-profits in Raleigh, Durham, and beyond. Expect candid...