Dog’s Next Best Friend

Dog’s Next Best Friend is an in-home pet care company. The owner, Liz Clawson, started running dogs in Michigan four years ago, looking for an early morning running buddy for safety purposes. When she moved out to Breckenridge, CO, in 2007, she continued offering dog walking, running, and pet-sitting services. Due to the increasing demand for in-home pet care in Summit County, Liz established an LLC and hired contract workers to fill in when she was already booked.

Liz learned about the Small Business Development Center at Colorado Mountain College through one of her contract workers. Seeking to turn her little “side job” into a “professional and successful entrepreneurship,” she met with SBDC consultants for several free business counseling sessions. Their wealth of business knowledge was evident to her in their first meeting. They helped guide her through establishing an LLC, writing a business plan, and choosing a name for her company. The consultants gave her positive reinforcement for the things she was already doing and challenged her to think BIG about the potential for her company. Even though she graduated with a bachelor’s degree in marketing, she did not know the basic steps to establishing her own company. The SBDC helped her with the logistical side of starting her pet-sitting business. Her love for dogs and exercise make her…”Dog’s Next Best Friend!”

Dr. Susan Hansen
The Essential Project

Believing the traditional clinic model was missing a big section of the population, Dr. Susan Hansen created The Essential Project in late 2020 during the pandemic. The company’s mission is to deliver health and wellness services to communities across rural Eagle County through an innovative mobile care approach. Providing soft tissue therapy, therapeutic exercise, and chiropractic care, The Essential Project makes quality care accessible. Through her work with the Northwest SBDC, Dr. Hansen completed her

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Anna Sladek
From Lakes to Mountains

Lake and Company is a socially conscious magazine, carefully curated with a give-back message that supports adventure, innovation, conservation, and community built around lake culture. It has multiple complementary brick-and-mortar retail locations in Colorado and Minnesota selling outdoor clothing and gear. Northwest SBDC was able to help two clients through its work with the company.  Early in 2023, founder Megan Kellin decided it was time to pare down the physical locations and devote more time

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Gracie's Coffee Exterior Shot
Gracie’s Coffee

Gracie’s Coffee is a prime example of how Small Business Development Center services help entrepreneurs over the life of a business: from startup to exit.  In 2022, at only 19 years old, Gracie Rounds reached out to the Northwest SBDC for assistance with legally establishing a 72 square foot walk-up and drive-through coffee hut on a busy corner in the rural town of Gypsum.  After seven months of consulting and preparation, Gracie’s Coffee opened for

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Meier Skis

“The whole idea is to keep it as local as possible,” says Matt Cudmore who started Meier Skis in 2009. “We emphasize home-grown, local wood and a product coming right out of Glenwood Springs.” Matt, who had been making skateboards for several years, began making the skis using primarily Colorado-grown beetle kill pine, working in a one-car garage. As the story goes, he gave up searching for “the next perfect ski” and decided to build

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Imagine That Creative

A failing national economy, an iffy local tourist industry, businesses being extremely conservative with their marketing dollars…Imagine That Creative, Inc. faced all these obstacles when it opened its doors for business in August of 2008. “We really questioned the wisdom of starting a new business given the local and national economies,” said Eric Ojala, Customer Service and Sales Director. Imagine That Creative is a business-to-business company offering Web and marketing services to small businesses in

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Amber Barbella
Diversion Designers

Diversion Designers, an environmental sustainability consultancy firm specializing in diverting solid waste from landfills, was founded in 2021 by Eagle County local Amber Barbella. The company implements sustainable waste systems for large public events as well as identifies and solves weaknesses within waste systems, saving businesses money while helping preserve the environment throughout the state of Colorado.  In only two years, over 150,000 pounds of recyclable and compost waste has been diverted from landfills, contamination

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