Freed Stories

Returning from the last episode is Kayla Castañeda, C.E.O. and co-owner of agua fresca company Agua Bonita . She is here to elaborate more on her journey and discuss some topics such as what it was like to launch a company amid the COVID-19 pandemic last year and how the pandemic has impacted her business currently, and she also gives some advice on what the first step should be for someone who wa...

Andy and Maggie take the reins in this episode of Freed Stories to interview our Freed fellow of April, Kayla Castañeda! Kayla is the C.E.O. and co-owner of Agua Bonita , a company that makes healthy and ready-to-drink agua frescas (a traditional Mexican drink). Kayla is here to share her Freed story and share some background information about herself and Agua Bonita! Kayla got her foot in the bev...

Joining me in this episode of the podcast is Blair Paysinger! Blair is owner of Post 21 , an online marketplace for Black-owned businesses with approximately sixty vendors. They have been in business for a little more than a year, having initially launched on June 1, 2020, and Blair walks us through how Post 21 came to be and what it has been like running it alongside her mother, with Blair handli...

Those of you who have been listening to the podcast regularly may recall our having chatted back in the sixth episode with Tyla Hansen of Tyla's Writing Services , and we are touching base with her again now to get an update on where her business journey has led her since we last spoke. As a reminder, Tyla's Writing Services helps businesses meet their business goals by offering assistance with in...

Andy Louis-Charles and Nathan Rodgers are back to answer more questions about entrepreneurship sent in by the Freed community! In this session of answering these questions, we start by discussing how to go about attracting customers. Andy argues that you should find customers – or people who believe in you and what you're capable of doing – before you have a product, and Nathan reiterates what he...

It's Maggie here stepping in for Jackie in this episode of the podcast, and I welcome Andy Louis-Charles and Nathan Rodgers back to the podcast, both of whom have been on the show in the past. (If you haven't heard the episodes in which they are featured, be sure to check them out!) We mix things up a little bit this time and do something different, answering questions that have been submitted by...

Maggie Partin joins me again to talk about her new company and what has changed in her professional life since you heard her in the first episode of the podcast. Maggie's new company is called The Seventh Sense and is a loungewear line intended to support strong emotional and mental health. Maggie discusses what inspired the clothing line and details what the objective of it is, and she also share...

Tune in as I chat with Natalie Maniscalco and Irene Zervoudis of Wonder Girls , one of the winners of the Freed Fellowship grant ! Wonder Girls was founded in 2020 and is an after-school program for female high school students. The mission statement of the program is to build confidence, leadership skills, a sense of community, and essential business skills to succeed in the career path that these...

Freed fellow Tami Thornton , owner of Beehive Soap & Body Care , joins me today to discuss her business and how she got started with it. Beehive Soap is based out of Utah (the Beehive State, hence the name of the company) and has been in business for nearly twelve years! Tami, funnily enough, started making soap as a hobby, but it eventually became a career. As a young girl, she saw herself as...

Freed fellow Elif Ekin, culinary artist and owner of Bohemian Baklava and of a Turkish cafe called Kahve Cafe , joins me in this episode of Freed Stories to share her journey and how she became an entrepreneur. Initially deciding to go into psychology, she soon realized that it wasn't actually for her and chose a path in art history instead which indirectly led to her career in making baklava. She...

I am joined today by fellow Freed member Becky Pool, founder and C.E.O. of Country Chick's Solutions , an online virtual assistant service for coaches, mentors, and online business owners who are looking to be online in a greater capacity or are looking to grow their online presence and influence. 2020 was a very difficult year for many of us, as it was for Becky. Becky was completely shocked when...

We have a very special episode in store for you today as we welcome Freed Fellowship founder Andy Louis-Charles. Andy was only eight years old when he started his first business, and he continues to do great work as our inspirational Freed leader. As our leader, he removes obstacles and roadblocks and also serves as a coach, but he, as he states himself, also tries to let us do our own thing. Andy...

Join me as Nathan Rodgers shares his own freed story this week! Nathan is currently a digital marketer and has a background in the public sector in the Peace Corps (which he joined after college). He then worked at UNICEF and had the opportunity to do business analysis and training around a software system called SAP. Nathan then lived and worked in Thailand and got to see a lot of the world which...

Join me as I talk to Nto, of the company Busy Bumblebeees , about her business and how it got started, how she had been a content creator and manager at a restaurant but was laid off because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and how she got started as an entrepreneur via Upwork . Nto also shares how when she was much younger she had dreams of having a regular, stable job as an accountant, taking part in s...

Imagine, if you have to, having a career that allows you to encapsulate pretty much all of your interests. Most of us aren't that lucky, right? Well, Deja Tyla, founder of Tyla's Writing Services , is that lucky! With a background in project management and information technology, Deja was able to marry her interests in writing and business management with her company, which helps businesses meet t...

Freed fellow Sammy Kelly, one of two co-owners of Digivangelism , is here to share her freed story with us! When Sammy was younger, she always saw herself as a missionary, excited by the prospect of a lifestyle other than the typical 9-5 grind, which is what led to her eventually co-developing Digivangelism, a company whose goal is to spread hope and healing through knowing Jesus Christ and to hel...

Beginning her journey networking on social media for various animal rescue sanctuaries, fellow Freed member Shawna joins me in this episode to share her Freed story, sharing how she got into virtual assistant business six or seven years ago which was when she realized that that was where her true calling was because it was what she most enjoyed. She has since been working as a virtual assistant, e...

Switching things up a bit in this episode by doing a reversal of what we did in our first episode, Maggie Partin now interviews me, host of the Freed Stories podcast Jackie Heil, who, like Maggie, made the scary jump from the corporate world to the world of entrepreneurship! I was in the corporate world for about eight years as a communications and events coordinator, but I am now a freelance cont...

Are you in the corporate world looking to make the scary jump to entrepreneurship? Are you worried about the road to entrepreneurship being a lonely one? If your answer to either of those questions is yes, then the Freed Stories podcast is for you! The Freed Stories podcast seeks to bridge the gap between wantrapreneur and entrepreneur. Join me, your host Jackie Heil, in this episode as I intervie...

Welcome to the Freed Stories podcast from the Freed Fellowship, a program that gives small businesses and entrepreneurs feedback on their ideas as well selects a monthly fellow who receives a grant and mentorship. In this intro episode, I – co-founding member of the Freed Fellowship Andy Louis-Charles – give you a little bit of background information about myself, such as how I became an entrepren...