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.

Jennifer Dawn Gabiola | Branding Expert

My business idea came to me as a divine download. After I lost my successful career as a Design Director, I heard God say to put my personal poetry on t-shirts. It didn’t make sense to my ego, but I went for it because I had nothing to lose since I lost my job and was diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis. And so my entrepreneurial journey began. I did not have a master plan. My journey has all been organic. One faithful step forward at a time. I sold my poetic t-shirts online and in local boutiques to empower women to own their power and beauty from the inside out. I even got into Houston Fashion Week. Everything came full circle to where I am today using all my branding, design and marketing experience to help introverted leaders own their quiet voice and fierce power to build brands that make a big impact. Read more>>

Andrew Foster | CEO & Founder

Our start began with the introduction to saltwater fishing. I grew up west of San Antonio, Texas, and fished Medina lake fairly regularly until I moved to Corpus Christi, Texas for college. While in school, I had gotten away from the pastimes that made me happy as a child. It wasn’t until the later part of 2014 when one of my best friends from college and my girlfriend at the time decided to fish Corpus Christi Bay before we finished school and moved away. Those late summer fishing trips would pave the way to what is now a business that I am so proud of, Reel Sportswear. Back in 2014, I was a self-taught graphic designer and front-end developer. I had received my degree in marketing but was trying to make a living freelancing for various local businesses, musicians, and non-profits. Read more>>

Za “Zay” Smith | Owner, CEO & Lead Creator

That’s a great question. I’ve actually been writing and producing for about 10 years now, and picked up engineering along the way. There was a lot of learning and just trying to polish what I bring to the table in the beginning. The more work I did by myself, as well as with others, the better I became. While working with others though, I always wanted to make sure the experience they had with me was a pleasurable, and an impactful one. I wanted them to genuinely love working with me, and feel like it was different. Fast forward a few years to when I was actually good, haha, people started to hear the work I did with others and the calls started coming in. People would say things like they loved the quality of sound it had, or they’d describe a creative element that grabbed them from the song. The next thing I knew, I had clients coming to me for production, or for a feature, or to be their engineer. Read more>>