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.

Kateryna Sheremet | Co-founder

I have always preferred giving experiences as gifts rather than material things. In 2018, I made the decision to fulfill my husband’s dream and gifted him a skydiving experience for his birthday. I usually enjoy presenting all my gifts physically, and at that moment, I found myself contemplating how to wrap this unique gift. It turned out to be quite a challenge, as I had to purchase various components separately, print the confirmation letter, and handle several other details. It was not an easy task, but it was worth it in the end. Read more>>

Kianna Brown | Entrepreneur

I’ve always wanted to be a fashion business owner since I was a little girl. What inspired me to focus on ethical fashion, however, was the documentary “The True Cost of Fashion” that I saw on Netflix a few years ago. It shed light on the awful working and financial conditions faced by garment workers in overseas manufacturers. Learning about these issues ignited a strong desire within me to create a business that promotes ethical practices. I wanted to support businesses committed to ethical and sometimes sustainable practices and bring them all together in my ethereal online and in-person pop-up boutique. Read more>>

Alyssa Fazio | Owner of Uncle Rico’s Surf Wax

It was actually my dad Ken and brother Eric who started Uncle Rico’s – they have a baseball products business (Tyrus Baseball) where they make sticky products for wood bats. Pine tar, grip sticks, etc. One day they thought “Hey, let’s make a surf wax.”. Their products have similar ingredients and the same end goal as surf wax does, just for a different part of the body. I did, however, help to come up with the name when they were first throwing around ideas. We called Eric ‘Rico’ growing up, and it was sort of a play on Uncle Tito from Rocket Power. Read more>>