Our city is home to so many incredible businesses and so we asked the founders how they came up with the ideas for their businesses and have shared their responses below.

Nikki Jack | CEO & Founder of Coco Elan Deodorants

I grew up with a chronic inflammatory skin condition called Hidradenitis Suppurativa (HS), which causes painful lumps under the skin in high friction areas. I’ve struggled with it since I was in high school. Back then, I thought that everyone had this issue and I just had to deal with it. Once I started to experience “flare-ups” with fever, debilitating pain, and complete misery, then I knew I needed medical attention. My primary physician treated my condition in severe cases but encouraged me to make lifestyle changes to decrease the occurrence of flare-ups. Read more>>

Maria Stratigis | Maria Stratigis | Life, Style & Beauty Creator

Building my brand has been an ever evolving process since the idea first manifested almost a decade ago. I started by wanting to create a safe space for beauty and self-expression through makeup. But as I evolved as a person, and life happened, I started gravitating towards the expansion from just beauty and makeup into style, fashion and how we present ourselves aesthetically to the world. I’m also a Libra, which is the zodiac that loves anything aesthetic – we want things to look nice and we care about how we carry ourselves in our lives. What’s beautiful about style and fashion is that it’s so unique to each and every one of us. Read more>>

Ron ROBARE and Kimber Hardick | Artist and founders of the Bella bottega

After moving to the area we had no time to get out and meet people before the start of the pandemic. We have always had our studio at our home and decided in jan of 2021 it was time to move our studio out of our garage. To have a place to go beyond our home. In the process of looking for studio space to rent I kept thinking how cool it would be to have a place just for artist. But I didn’t want to be the driving force for it. I had my eye on a cute little building for our studio, but as luck would have it, it was already rented. We found a great little space on Tamina road that was affordable and perfect for us. Read more>>