When she was in third grade, Corri McFadden started a sticker trading company during recess. “Everyone would trade their stickers, and they would go through me,” she says. “In order to trade stickers you belonged to the club, and I’m the one who would barter the trade.”

It’s no wonder that today, McFadden runs one of the Internet’s most successful designer consignment businesses. Her multimillion dollar Chicago-based venture, EDrop-Off, has sold over 200,000 items. She built it from the ground up over the last 12 years.

Corri’s story is the first of dozens that will be highlighted – and tapped into – for valuable lessons in entrepreneurship as part of eBay and Gimlet Creative's new podcast, Open for Business. The series debuted today on iTunes, Soundcloud, and anywhere you download podcasts.

At eBay, we’ve been witness to the thrill of entrepreneurship for more than 20 years, as we have partnered with small business owners on our marketplace to help them grow their businesses and pursue their dreams. Success is exciting – but it can also be daunting and bring with it a whole host of new challenges.  And while there is no magic formula, we do everything possible to help entrepreneurs every step along the way.

Open for Business shows how to build a business and talks to entrepreneurs about what keeps them up at night. Combining humor and intelligence, each episode tackles some of the most basic – and most difficult – questions new business owners face: How do you know when to quit your day job? What should you look for when hiring? And, it examines the good, the bad, and the ugly sides of starting a company. 

This podcast also marks the launch of Gimlet Media’s in-house creative agency, Gimlet Creative.  Named one of the world’s 10 most innovative media companies by Fast Company, Gimlet was founded by veterans of This American Life and NPR . (You can listen to the story of Gimlet’s entrepreneurial beginnings in its own podcast, StartUp.)

Gimlet Creative is all about working with brands to tell great stories, and reach audiences on a deeper level. 

To host this podcast, we tapped into John Henry, founder of Harlem’s first venture capital fund, Cofound Ventures, and an entrepreneur himself: He built and sold an on-demand dry-cleaning startup by age 22.

Charming and relatable, Henry has a knack for bringing out the best in his subjects, with some laugh-out-loud moments along the way. “There’s zero room for error,” a cemetery owner tells Henry, explaining the importance of hiring good employees. “You can’t put the loved one in the wrong space.”

The first “Open for Business” episode – The Entrepreneurial Mind – is available now and looks at what it means to be successful. Are people born with an “entrepreneur” gene? Do certain personality types fare better than others? When is it better to sell your company than stay? Check it out here, and be sure to visit our “Open for Business” page, where we’re posting behind-the-scenes details from the podcast and other interesting tips.

Follow along with us.