Samantha Ettus founded Park Place Payments in 2018. She was not a typical startup founder. Her goal was to transform how financial services are sold to small businesses.

As a best-selling author and host of the women-in-business podcast, she built a career around supporting women pursuing their dreams. Then, at a speaking conference, she saw a gap in the market that could attend to the needs of small-business owners and create jobs for women.

Kara Goldin founded unsweetened flavoured-water company Hint in 2005. At the time, unsweetened flavoured water was not even a category.

As an outsider entering a well-established industry, she discovered that consumers and buyers are more interested in a story. It's one thing to have a brand name, but consumers buy your "why".