2 friends pooled $2,000 of their own savings and turned it into a $30 million company by focusing on 'green-light activities'

Laurie-Anne King, left, and Britt Baker cofounded the financial-education company Dow Janes. Haley Busch Two friends turned $2,000 into a business that's on track to generate $30 million in revenue in 2026. Their advice: Build a product customers want, then create a clear path to sell it. Their 'green-light' framework helped them focus their time on revenue-generating work. Before Britt Baker and Laurie-Anne King even launched their financial-education business, they had $40,000 in sales. "That whole idea of sell it before you build it really worked for us," Baker told Business Insider. After finishing Harvard Business School and moving back to the Bay Area, Baker joined a women's circle. At the meetings, she kept hearing the same question: "What should I do with my money?"