Startup Missouri Information to fuel Missouri business startups

As founder of The Mission Center, Chris Miller knows one important thing about philanthropy. “Most people don’t go into nonprofit work because they are passionate about doing accounting,” he said. That’s why The Mission Center exists. Founded in 2010 and housed in the Cortex District of St. Louis, Miller’s brainchild specializes in outsourcing back-office operations for nonprofit organizations. That’s not ...

In 2012, Colin Dowling had big ideas on how to help grow City Greens, a nonprofit grocery store based in the Forest Park Southeast neighborhood of St. Louis. Dowling was a graduate student at Washington University in St. Louis’ Olin Business School, and during a social entrepreneurship class, he learned about issues some people face in accessing fresh, healthy food. ...

Austin Hallett says his goal of becoming an executive chef began cooking after he watched “Ratatouille,” an animated film about a cartoon rat named Remy who dreams of becoming a great chef, despite the industry being “rodent-phobic.“ “When I watched ‘Ratatouille,’ I learned that, just by their skills, I’m learning the way they’re communicating and the way they’re handling the ...

Galen Gondolfi doesn’t work for a traditional lender. For starters, his institution is among the few who would turn away a borrower for having too perfect a credit report. “If you come in with an 800 credit score and real estate collateral, we’re going to say, ‘We’re not the program for you,’” he said. But Gondolfi’s organization, called Justine PETERSEN, ...

Missouri jails housed 11,000 people in 2018, the most recent year for which data is available, according to the Prison Policy Initiative, a U.S. public policy think tank oriented toward criminal justice issues. And while judges may offer the option of pretrial release to many prisoners, the cost of GPS tracking that often is required as a condition of bond ...

Summersalt co-founders Lori Coulter and Reshma Chattaram Chamberlin consider speed to be their biggest competitive advantage in the entrepreneurial world. Given the brisk rise and early success of their clothing company, it’s safe to say they might be onto something. Whether it’s expeditiously expanding their clothing line to include more categories or picking themselves up swiftly after an investor turns ...

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If life imitates art, then perhaps business can imitate art school. Jordan D. Williams first picked up the moniker “Bowtie Jordan” while he was a student at Columbia College in Chicago. “I would always wear bowties on campus,” Williams said. “In college, no one was really dressing up. They just don’t. It’s very rare, especially at an art school. I ...

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In 2009 and 2010, Andrea Robertson won the Mrs. America competition wearing a sparkling gold dress and qualified for the USA Triathlon National Championships in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. For the three-part triathlon competitions, which include swimming, bicycling and running, she wore a men’s one-piece triathlon suit. (The top for such suits runs over the shoulders; the bottom is similar to bike ...

Social enterprise is hard — hard to succeed in, even hard to explain to those ensconced in dog-eat-dog capitalism. Just ask Dawn Manske. In 2011, she launched Made for Freedom in the city of St. Louis. It’s an online apparel company that sells jewelry, bags, shirts, pants and more, all produced by women — mostly overseas — who have escaped ...

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Fashion icon Ralph Lauren once noted that he didn’t design clothes. “I design dreams,” he said. That may be true, but turning dreams of a new clothing startup into the tangible reality of product hanging on a shelf can be a genuine challenge — even in fashion Meccas such as New York or Los Angeles. Still, there is a small ...

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