by Ricardo Harvin

Yesterday, following the great Awards lunch, the next session featured small business owners sharing their stories, and some insights into what it takes to run a successful business, moderated by Colleen DeBaise, Small Business Editor, The Wall Street Journal
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Maxine Clark, Founder, Chief Executive Bear and Chairman, Build-A-Bear Workshop; Jon Najarian, Co-Founder of optionMONSTER and tradeMONSTER, CNBC Contributor; and Colin Roche, CEO of Pacific Writing Instruments answered questions from Colleen and the audience.

Their stories all shared a common thread - recognition of a market need, and the willingness to put themselves out there to turn the kernel of an idea into reality.

Whether it was an innocent comment from a child frustrated by not being able find the exact product she was looking for, "We could make these", a flash of inspiration from killing time in detention that the shape of toy could be used to reshape an everyday product to alleviate discomfort, to the realization that one successful product and its resulting publicity opened a door to creating an even larger line of related offerings, each of these entrepreneurs took an idea from thought to successful businesses.

They all embody the spirit of free enterprise and the promise that, in America, any good idea has a chance to succeed.

When asked to share any advice they had for the audience on how to build and grow a successful company, they all agreed that it's important not to focus too much on what the competition is doing, but to make sure that every step of the way you're focusing first on providing the best product or service, and on great customer service.

Another key element to each of their successes was having good partnerships - each of them relied on professional and personal relationships to help build and grow their companies. The lesson there being that no matter how good you are, everyone needs a hand or second pair of eyes along the way.

There was no pessimism in this group, they're all still pushing forward and Dreaming Big.