Starting and growing a business is hard, but often deciding to start the business in the first place is even harder. We asked some successful entrepreneurs from around the community to open up to us about how they thought about starting a business.

Casey Cavanaugh | Native American (Shoshone) Beadwork Artist

I was taught to bead (appliqué style) by my Mom when I was in 7th grade and wanted to jingle dress, which is a style of category dancing for Native American pow wows; she said I’d have to help make my outfit. I spent over 40 hrs beading one butterfly, and at that time, didn’t have the patience for beading. I put the needle down for a over 20 years! But, then I was inspired by the beadwork of Jamie Okuma, a fellow Shoshone, and beadwork artist, who has really taken Native American beadwork to a new level of fashion (jokuma.com). I attempted at beaded a Christmas present for my Mom, about 8 years ago and since then, I’ve been beading steadily and have sold a lot of beadwork to friends and family. At one point, I offered a few items in downtown Phoenix at the Dine Bizaad store, but that closed permanently. In the last year, I started offering my beadwork online at
Beadedwithlovebycasey.com And most recently, in the last few months, I’ve been working on launching into a larger market beyond friends and family.
I enjoy utilizing natural elements in my beadwork including salmon skin, birchbark, shells, porcupine quills, fox fur, etc. And I like to make one of a kind, unique pieces. Read more>>

Destiny Bradd | CEO + Founder of Girl-tivities®

In the process of starting Girl-tivities®, I thought to myself… other women HAVE to be feeling the same way. There has to be other women that are looking for a safe place for women to connect. There has to be other women that want a group of girls to do things with but yet their friends always cancel on them. And I decided to make the leap to be the one to create that space because otherwise, who will? Read more>>

Kyle Fuller | Owner of Factum Financial

I reached a point with my mentor at the time where he could no longer provide the value I needed to grow, so I needed to make my own path to build something that would provide the value for others that I was looking for. Read more>>

Linus Schief | Artist & Weaver

I never imagined I would own a shop! I had fantasized about a hybrid retail/workshop space for years but lacked the capital and a solid business plan. Just before I opened Warm Shape, I was exploring a tech career after attending a coding bootcamp. However, after a couple of years in that industry, I felt increasingly stressed by computer work, and it never really “clicked” for me. I initially thought I had imposter syndrome, but it turned out that tech simply wasn’t the right path for me. Interestingly, this journey led me directly to starting my own business. Read more>>

Nic Beckett | Co-owner & Ice Cream Enthusiast

During the pandemic (2021), my brother and I were sitting at one of Flagstaff’s drive-thru establishments where we ordered some milkshakes. I looked over at my brother and asked, “How is this the best ice cream in Flagstaff?” A week or so later, I started experimenting with different ice cream recipes at home using my Cuisinart ice cream maker. Each batch I made was better than the previous batch, and we soon realized that we were onto something special. As we became a bit more serious about starting a business, we experimented with different milk and cream combinations, and we even experimented with most of Arizona’s dairy products. They were good, but not great, so we decided to look into organic milk and organic cream from California, and it was love at first bite. My first reaction after eating our Vanilla Bean was, “This is the best ice cream I have ever had!”. It was at that moment, we knew that we had to start a business. We wanted to share that same feeling of happiness and joy with our Flagstaff community. Read more>>