Startup Missouri Information to fuel Missouri business startups

Couch cushions. Brandin Vaughn can trace his entrepreneurial career to a couple of couch cushions. The St. Louis native said his family was not well-off while he was growing up, so when his 10-year-old self found a couch in an alley, he decided to take it home and sew new cushions made from an old coat. “What that did for ...

Charlie Backer remembers “chugging” bottles of Tobasco with his brother when he was just 8 years old. So it’s no surprise that, as an adult, Backer has founded a fast-growing line of hot sauces under the brand Hot Charlie’s Hot Sauce. A former payroll and human resources consultant, Backer said his product line was born a few years ago when ...

One of the most significant business lessons Eric Grant has learned is to always pick up the phone when someone calls you. Luckily for Grant, he took his own advice and discovered a ranch-owner in Warsaw, Missouri, was interested in funding the business he soon hoped to launch. Grant had worked as a journalist since 1986 for various agriculture publications ...

This is part of a series about Missouri entrepreneurs, their products and their retrospective advice for others who dream of launching their own startup businesses. Cate DePrisco’s husband, John DePrisco, was a wedding photographer in 2011 when he decided he needed to find a way to stand out from his competition. Melding a passion for photography and a family history ...

Part of a series about Missouri entrepreneurs, their products and their retrospective advice for others who dream of launching their own startups. Fashion is in Lia Glynias’ blood. The St. Louis native is the great-granddaughter of Greek immigrants who settled in the city and opened a dry-cleaning business. Their daughter — Glynias’ grandmother and namesake, Olympia — became a seamstress, ...

First in a series about Missouri entrepreneurs, their products and their retrospective advice for others who dream of launching their own startups.   Richard Lozano’s cell phone used to be a problem. As a St. Louis defense attorney, he needed to be accessible to clients. Traditional SMS texting, though, allowed for late-night messages from unknown numbers; it also constituted billable ...

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