Small Business Profiles
A CEO Leads Her Company Out of the Yellow Pages
Morgan Miller Plumbing used to advertise the same way as other plumbing companies: in the Yellow Pages. Each year, the ads got more expensive and less effective. “At one point, it seemed like the Yellow Pages were going to bankrupt us instead of helping us,” recalls former CEO Stella Crewse. The company pivoted to digital…
Feliciano’s Peninsula Party Success
Feliciano Zavala and his wife own a small party equipment rental company. Peninsula Party Rentals offers helium tanks, tents, chairs, and popcorn machines for birthday parties, school events, church carnivals, corporate events, and any gathering you can think of. When Feliciano started the company in 2005, it advertised in local magazines and Yellow Pages, which…
Math and Music in Harmony
As a child, Marcus Blackwell had a self-described “fear of math.” Music was his passion, which started with his first piano lesson at five, through college. And it was in college that he figured out that music and math were linked, and this revelation unlocked math for him in a way that it became his…
Digital Services Bring Everyone to the Table
The Scaffidi Restaurant Group is a multi-brand Foodservice Corporation headquartered in Steubenville, Ohio with a variety of concepts within its portfolio, all with the mission to bring the taste of “Grandma’s House on Sunday” to its customers. Run by Frankie DiCarlantonio, his cousins, and their mothers (known as “The Nonnas” to guests), Scaffidi’s prides itself…
FanFood Hits a Home Run
First started by Carson Goodale as a college student in 2014, what began as a concessions ordering app for stadiums soon grew to become a contactless ordering platform for locations and businesses of all kinds. Today, FanFood has more than 300 signed deals with high schools, minor league baseball teams, colleges, drive-ins, hotels, resorts and…
An Old-School Workout Tool Goes Digital
Kettlebell Kings is the brainchild of three friends—Jay Perkins, Nehemiah Heard, and Chad Price—who wanted to build a company that would bring people together and make them happier and healthier. Their company sells kettlebells online, and includes at-home workout programs and online training sessions. Instead of selling in chain sporting good stores, where competition for…
How Digital Tools Bring Companies and Consumers Together
When Jason Needleman’s mother started Peacock Alley nearly 50 years ago, the internet was nonexistent. They worked out of their garage to sell their luxury linens and bath products to independent sales people and wholesalers who then sold their goods to retail stores who sold them to consumers. After more than 40 years, Jason and…
Tech Shakes Up the Memphis Property Market
Amber Hayes started her Memphis-based technology startup after realizing the traditional property management industry was overdue for a shakeup. “I didn’t plan to start a company, but when I saw an opportunity, my excitement got the best of me, and I dove right in with my co-founder,” she recalls. After spending several years as a…
E-Commerce Sets a Local Florist Apart
When Molly Meulenbroek bought Studley’s Flower Garden in 2008 with her husband Jeffrey and brother-in-law David, she inherited the 80-year reputation of the Rochester community staple and the pressure of a family business — Studley’s has been owned by a member of her family since 1971. Immediately she encountered her first big challenge – online…
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