When Michele Azan and Elisabeth Perez visited North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains in 2007, they fell in love with the area’s natural beauty. In 2015, they purchased a century-old property near picturesque Hendersonville that had once been part of a mountain resort. After transforming the property’s two-story stone guesthouse and several other rundown buildings into…
Run by the Kelsey family for 80 years, Montana’s Nine Quarter Circle Ranch offers guests a magnificent mountain-and-river landscape, traditional Western activities including horseback riding and fly fishing, and old-fashioned family-style meals that promote conversation and community. Many of the ranch’s original buildings are still in use, and the Kelseys continue to breed, raise, and…
I’m the founder of a specialty luggage business based in Bloomington-Normal. For months, small businesses like mine have struggled with rising costs, supply chain disruptions, economic uncertainty, and sagging consumer confidence — and now many may be….
Thank you for the opportunity to offer comments on regulatory reform on artificial intelligence (AI). On behalf of the Connected Commerce Council (3C) — a nonprofit organization dedicated to ensuring small businesses have the digital tools they need to thrive in today’s economy — I urge you to prioritize policies that ensure small businesses’ ongoing…
Laid off from his corporate job in 2001, Minnesotan Jeff Taxdahl turned a moment of crisis into a moment of opportunity. With a single embroidery machine, some spare room in his basement, and years of marketing experience, Jeff and his wife, Wenda, started a new business: embroidering local companies’ logos onto hats and shirts. Within…
When 16-year-old Kentucky native Ben Childers received a drone camera for Christmas in 2011, he didn’t realize it would help him launch a business. But when his drone footage of a popular local waterfall received nearly 200,000 views on YouTube, he knew he was onto something. He started posting more footage, and soon local property…
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, longtime friends Kristen Gardner and Lance Lemon put their plans to open a wine shop on hold and launched RichWine, an online delivery service offering natural and biodynamic wines throughout Virginia. In 2022, after the success of that venture, they cofounded Penny’s Wine Shop, a brick-and-mortar wine bar and restaurant…
Mohammad Salehi grew up on his family’s 10-acre saffron farm in Herat, Afghanistan. After serving as an interpreter for U.S. forces, he immigrated to Chicago in 2014 — but missed the rich, fragrant spices of home. When a classic Persian rice dish didn’t taste right with the saffron available in U.S. stores, he realized there…