Offthebooks profiles business owners building profitable companies outside the spotlight, uncovering the decisions, setbacks, and lessons behind real businesses.
Sep 23, 2026
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6 min read
Kathleen King spent twenty years building a bakery in Southampton, lost it to the partners she brought in to lighten the load, and started over in the one thing they couldn't take.
Sep 16, 2026
8 min read
After a failed internet business, a real-estate collapse, and an agency he had to leave behind, Jason built his next company with a different kind of ownership in mind
Sep 9, 2026
7 min read
Garrett Mehrguth wanted a job at Bain or McKinsey and never got past the application form. Thirteen years later he owns a $25 million agency and a second company that buys agencies like it
Aug 26, 2026
Allison Maslan had Ben and Jerry's and Supercuts on her client list by the age of 25. Getting free of it cost her almost everything it was worth.
Aug 19, 2026
Leah Garcia spent twenty years on television before she mortgaged her house to start NULASTIN. The skills that made her good in front of a camera turned out to be the ones holding the company back.
Aug 12, 2026
Over two decades, Julia Hartz helped build Eventbrite from a three-person startup into a public company. Then COVID erased its business almost overnight.
Aug 5, 2026
Nick Huber arrived at Cornell convinced entrepreneurship meant building the next big thing. A student storage business changed how he thought about companies, wealth and what it really means to be an owner.
Jul 29, 2026
After years building businesses for other people, Nathan Lenahan discovered that the fastest way to become an owner wasn't starting from zero. It was buying a company someone else had already built and earning the right to carry it forward.
Jul 22, 2026
A summer back in San Diego, a batch of homemade soap and one overlooked plant forced Sandra Velasquez to ask a question that eventually became Nopalera.
Jul 15, 2026
Tommy Mello built A1 Garage Door by doing everything himself. Years later, he found himself confronting a problem that hard work couldn't solve.
Jul 1, 2026
5 min read
Sinead Garrity booked a routine beauty appointment expecting nothing more than a lash lift. She left with her first client and a business she never planned to build.
Jun 24, 2026
4 min read
When a cat named Osborne changed the way Janet Marlow thought about sound, she began a thirty-year pursuit that would eventually become Pet Acoustics.
Jun 16, 2026
For nearly a decade, Pro-Line searched for the product that would define the company. When it finally found it, the result reshaped the Black beauty industry and turned Comer Cottrell into one of its most influential entrepreneurs.
