Finding the key partners to work with can make or break your venture. After thousands of conversations with aspiring entrepreneurs, it’s one of the most common obstacles and risks holding folks back from pursuing their idea. So – we asked some of the smartest, most resourceful entrepreneurs in the community to share their lessons and insights to help inspire and educate the next great set of entrepreneurs.

Elizabeth Ostendorp

As a full time public school ceramics teacher, I had been working out of my basement studio for about 2 years nights and weekends. I was creating bowls, mugs, vases, plates, etc. When schools were shut down due to the pandemic, I had felt compelled to ‘help’ in some way, so I made a bunch of magnets and raised over $5000 to various pandemic relief funds. Read more>>

Tracy Jordre

As I was starting to contemplate creating a leather bag, I knew that I wanted the leather to be American sourced as I am from a multi-generational ranching family in North Dakota. As I searched for the right leather, it was clear pretty quickly that my options were quite limited, but I kept reading about the outstanding quality of the leathers from an east coast company called Wickett & Craig which has been in existence for over 150 years. As I continued to research the company, Read more>>

Justine Green

My husband and I founded Green Rose Publishing LLC during COVID shutdown where everything went remote. The plus side to remote work is that many people were now reachable by email or online. After I wrote “Completely Me”, I wanted to find the best illustrator for my vision. I searched and searched before finding Luísa on instagram. She lives in Portugal and I live in Florida. Read more>>