Ayesha Curry Has Built a Business Empire -- and She's Still Learning The entrepreneur turned a YouTube channel into a lifestyle brand, including a book, restaurants, and TV gigs. Her guiding principle: Treat every step as an education.

Ayesha Curry just wanted her family and friends to eat healthier. So in 2014, she started sharing her favorite recipes and tips online -- but when people outside her inner circle took note, she saw an opportunity to turn a hobby into a career. Over the past six years, Curry has grown her video-blogging habit into a popular YouTube channel with more than half a million subscribers and built an Instagram following that's nearly seven million strong. She has segued that success into a best-selling cookbook, her own series on Food Network, a barbecue-focused chain of restaurants, a lifestyle website and e-commerce shop, and, with husband (and NBA star) Stephen Curry, launched the Eat. Learn. Play. Foundation in their hometown of Oakland, Calif., to help kids nationwide. To manage this growth, Curry stayed constantly aware of what she did and didn't know -- and what it would take to get to the next step.

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How much of a plan did you have when you began all this?