I helped build Urban Decay, which sold for over $300 million. My sons came to the office and watched me build the company.

• Wende Zomnir helped build Urban Decay into a top-selling makeup brand in the mid-1990s. • Her two boys came to her office after school, and family conversations often centered on business. • She started Caliray when her sons went to college. Now, they're also interested in entrepreneurship.

This as-told-to essay is based on interviews with Wende Zomnir, the founder of Caliray. It has been edited for length and clarity.

I started my career in advertising in Chicago in 1989, but those fabric cubicles quickly sucked the soul out of me. My dad had worked in corporate but dreamed of entrepreneurship. He never took the leap. He had a family to support. A part of me wanted to take the risks he didn't.

In 1994, I moved to California in search of something creative and met Sandy Lerner, th