Q&A: ‘Heart mission’ is growing business
For the past seven years, Darla Hall has been in the business of making sports-themed coloring and activity books and storybooks for children, as well as coloring books for adults.
Microbusiness
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Indiana IoT Lab in Fishers helps small tech firms think big
The new tech venue in Fishers gives companies that specialize in connecting devices to the internet the access they need to hardware, talent and capital.
Microloans make the difference for small businesses
Dozens of small businesses have been helped by microloans—smaller than $50,000—from the Indy Chamber’s Business Ownership Initiative.
New Broad Ripple co-working space set to open next month
The Hatch plans to target creative types with its art studios, recording booths, green screens and more. It’s slated to open in early August.
PitchFeast helps grassroots entrepreneurs turn business ideas into reality
The PitchFeast crowd votes on the best pitch, and the winner gets 75 percent of admission proceeds plus pro bono business services.
Indy Chamber beefs up its microlending territory
The U.S. Small Business Administration blessed the Chamber’s microlending division with a new designation, giving it more cash to deploy and a bigger geographical footprint.
Fix-it man keeps typewriters clacking
Terry Vorten witnessed firsthand the death throes of a once-world-beating analog technology—the typewriter. Its destruction turned his lucrative profession repairing the machines into an anachronistic cottage industry.
Entrepreneur to offer home brewing minus the hassle
The cost, time and mess that come with brewing beer at home scares a lot of beer connoisseurs, but a Greenwood health care executive thinks he has the answer.
Family peanut-butter venture sees sales take off
B. Happy Peanut Butter is a hit at the summer market—and then some. Available at more than a dozen retail outlets in central Indiana, its seven varieties of hand-packed PB could produce sales of $100,000 this year.
Surge in craft breweries strains hops supply
Hops, used as a flavoring agent, are in high demand by microbreweries that need the crop to give their pale ales and other varieties more taste than what’s found in traditional mass-market beers.
Chamber’s microloan program swells to $2M after grant
Business Ownership Initiative, a unit of the Indy Chamber, launched its microloan fund last September to help small business owners in Indianapolis.
Small businesses share space to find efficiencies
Popular waxing spa The Naked Monkey is set to open its third location Nov. 1—a “Mini Monkey” inside MDG Salon | Studio’s new space downtown. The independent businesses are sharing space to cut costs.
Small loans for small businesses
Business Ownership of Indiana is ramping up its micro-lending program, awarding a $10,000 loan to Indianapolis-based Stage Ninja LLC. Can such small amounts make a difference to fledgling firms?
Not-for-profit hoping to grow microloan program
Small amounts of funding often ignored by larger banks.
Satellite training sites give entrepreneurship agency a boost
Participation at Business Ownership Initiative-led training sessions is up nearly 30 percent so far this year as more Hoosiers start businesses of their own. Executive Director Julie Grice is looking for more counselors and money.
What did you do this weekend?
Dozens of enterprising entrepreneurs spent 54 hours planning new businesses as part of Startup Weekend Indianapolis.
Global micro lender Grameen ramps up in Indianapolis
Low-income women could receive loans in weeks.
Kitchen incubator celebrates graduation of first user
Avec Moi, a company that prepares meals to go, is moving to a permanent home at 701 E. 62nd St. In recognition of the event, the city of Indianapolis awarded Indy’s Kitchen a $17,000 grant.
Law student taps connections for shoe startup
Arsene Millogo is sitting out the current semester at IU School of Law-Indianapolis to work on his own line of running shoes, a startup he and three friends financed with more than $50,000 of their own money.
Business Ownership Initiative hires executive director
Julie Grice, a 10-year veteran of the Greater Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce and former business owner, began her tenure as executive director of the not-for-profit Business Ownership Initiative of Indiana on Sunday.