Author · Entrepreneur · Family Historian
I built a business from nothing while working a full-time job — and Journey Began is the memoir of the family that made it possible, beginning with my grandmother, Dorothy Bell Hunt.
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The Promise
In 1957, a young woman with a third-grade education borrowed a pair of shoes, packed everything she owned into a brown paper bag, and got on a bus out of Dawson, Georgia. She was determined to keep her three children from being separated. Her name was Dorothy Bell Hunt, and she was my grandmother.
Everything I've written, and everything I've built, traces back to that bus ride. Dorothy carried a family through five generations on grit, faith, and the refusal to quit. I grew up the family historian — the one who held onto the stories — and somewhere along the way I made her a promise to put them down on paper so they'd outlast all of us.
Everything she owned fit in a brown paper bag. The shoes on her feet were borrowed. What she carried that nobody could see built five generations.
Journey Began is the keeping of that promise — a memoir about faith, perseverance, and a Black family's legacy built on the belief that faith without works is dead. It's dedicated to her.
Dorothy Bell Hunt
MARCH 19, 1935 — JULY 5, 2022
My grandmother, and the reason for all of it.
Five generations of grit
The story doesn't start or stop with Dorothy. It runs five generations deep — traced from a man born to slave parents in southwest Georgia, through a cotton field, to a hospice bed in Miami Gardens. None of them had money to leave behind. What they left was sturdier than money: the proof that this family does not break.
That grit showed up in different ways. One of my great-aunts rose out of that same rural South Georgia, graduated from Florida A&M University, became a registered nurse, and went on to teach nursing at Albany State University and later Hampton University. For a Black woman of her generation, that was no small thing. The fuller, more complicated stories are in the book and on the blog.
Watch the trailer
Five generations. One promise kept. A ninety-second look at the story behind Journey Began.
What you'll find here
I write for the person reading this on a break between shifts — someone with a little money, a big idea, and a job they can't quit yet. If that's you, you're in the right place. My writing focuses on things like:
- How to start a business with no money and no investors
- Building something real while working a full-time job
- What the failures actually teach you — and how to only pay that tuition once
- The family history, faith, and perseverance that carry you when the numbers don't
- Generational resilience — staying patient long enough for the work to compound
I'm not writing from a distance, as someone who figured it all out years ago. I'm writing as someone still in it — who knows exactly what it costs to build from nothing.
Each failure is in here as tuition — paid, so you don't have to pay it twice.
A few things about me
My debut memoir, Journey Began, is out now — an honest story of building from nothing. What it's about →
I built a rental company from one vehicle into a real operation — no investors — while working full-time in aviation. Degree in hospitality management from Johnson & Wales University, earned at its North Miami campus before it closed in 2021.
I'm the keeper of my family's stories — five generations of grit, beginning with Dorothy. It's why the next book is the fuller story of her life.
What's next
This is just the beginning. A companion journal for entrepreneurs is on the way — the lessons of the memoir, made practical — and there are more stories from Dorothy's life still waiting to be told. The journey that began on that bus is far from finished. Follow along on the blog →
Frequently asked questions
Who is Eddrick Trumpler?
Eddrick Trumpler is an author and entrepreneur from South Florida who built a business from nothing while working a full-time job, with no investors or inheritance. His debut memoir, Journey Began, tells the story of his family across five generations, beginning with his grandmother, Dorothy Bell Hunt.
What is Journey Began about?
It's a 2026 business memoir about building a business from nothing while working a full-time job. It traces five generations of family grit, starting with the author's grandmother's 1957 bus ride out of Dawson, Georgia, carrying a brown paper bag and a borrowed pair of shoes.
Where did Eddrick Trumpler go to college?
Eddrick Trumpler earned a degree in hospitality management from Johnson & Wales University, at its North Miami campus, which has since closed. That hospitality training became the foundation for the service business he later built.
Who was Dorothy Bell Hunt?
Dorothy Bell Hunt was Eddrick Trumpler's grandmother and the inspiration for Journey Began. In 1957 she left Dawson, Georgia with three children, a brown paper bag, and a borrowed pair of shoes, refusing to let her family be separated. Her grit anchors the entire memoir.
Read the story
The promise, the build, and everything in between — it's all in Journey Began. Paperback and eBook, free with Kindle Unlimited.
Paperback · $24.99 eBook · $9.99All book details →
eddricktrumpler.com
Miami Gardens, Florida · [email protected]
© 2026 Eddrick Javon Trumpler. All rights reserved.