Brooke Worthington got her start in the jewelry-making business after first creating pieces for her friends and family as a creative outlet.

Others took notice and she started selling her custom-made jewelry at a local store in Nashville. One thing led and another, and her business started to grow.

Recently, she opened her own retail store in Nashville, where she sells both her own works and an assortment of curated items from other lines.

What began as a hobby is now a thriving business. 

In this episode of Small Business War Stories, we talk with Brooke about how she got her start in the jewelry business, and how she continues to evolve and learn.

St. Louis is a BBQ town.

Outside of St. Louis, what we know as "St. Louis Barbeque", is a pork spare rib cut where the ends of the ribs are trimmed so they're all the same length.

However, within St. Louis, BBQ is much more than just a cut of pork. 

We take a deep dive into the St. Louis BBQ Tradition with owner and operator of Pappy's Smokehouse, John Matthews.

Pappy's Smokehouse was started over 9 years ago and now has multiple locations and lines out the door. What started as John, his business partner and 3 employees, has now grown into a 50-plus person operation.

We speak with John about how he started, how he hires, markets and much more on the latest episode of Small Business War Stories.

Matt Eich knew he wanted to be a guitar maker. 

After attending guitar-making school, he worked various factory and manufacturing jobs for 10 years before he was able to start Mule Resophonic Guitars, a custom handmade resonator guitar business based in Saginaw, Michigan.

Everyday, for 5 years, he started work at 6:30am. Get up, do the work, learn, rinse and repeat.

He had to make a lot of mistakes along the way and have incredible discipline to get to where Mule is today with a 12-month customer backlog.

For him, building a guitar for someone is a personal experience. The customer is involved in every step along the way. People who buy a Mule aren't simply purchasing a thing, Matt and his team are putting their soul into the guitar's creation and connecting the consumer with their art.

This is their passion and their story. This and more on the latest episode of Small Business War Stories.

There are a ton of benefits to urban farming. 

Local food, farm to table, 100 mile diet, all of this is possible with urban agriculture. Further, urban gardens are often built over abandoned spaces in cities, converting them into green space, helping increase the beauty and value of the neighborhood.

However, there are also many challenges with urban farming. There's potential contaminants from city water runoff, zoning laws that must be overcome, laws about owning chickens, bees, and other farm animals, as well as major space constraints.

We get into all this and more on the latest episode of Small Business War Stories featuring Mel Millsap of Urban Roots Farm.