In 2015, a Chicago entrepreneur invested $5,000 in a CFO side hustle; years later, it became a seven-figure business with 16 staff

Establishing a business from the ground up often begins with identifying a challenge and finding a practical way to solve it. For some entrepreneurs, that opportunity arrives while they are still working another job. For John Frank, what started as a side project eventually developed into Third Road Management, a professional services firm concentrated on helping small and mid-sized organizations handle their financial operations.

Frank says Third Road Management is currently a multi-seven-figure business and has most recently been developing at 15-20% per month. The company started in 2015, after Frank had already spent many years doing similar work as a side project.