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Boulder Acupuncture and Herbs

Boulder Acupuncture and Herbs is a small business that is founded, run and owned by Norah Charles, an acupuncturist and Chinese herbalist. What makes Boulder Acupuncture and Herbs unique is that Norah works primarily with patients over 70 years old. Norah treats senior clients with a host of difficulties, including chronic pain, depression, and isolation. In addition to her acupuncture, Norah uses over 300 Chinese herbs for distinct wellness purposes.

Starting a business is not often easy, and it certainly was not for Norah. “I started up with virtually no money, which was really challenging,” said Norah. “I had to do everything on a shoestring and that meant that I had to learn to do everything by myself. That was initially the hardest part.”

Norah first reached out to the Boulder Small Business Development Center in May of 2015. She has since worked with consultants at the SBDC in regards to her budding business, specifically marketing.

“Before I even started my practice I went in to the SBDC and did some one-on-one consulting, which was great. We talked about basic finance, like recurring costs versus one-time costs, and all these things that I had never thought of. It helped me feel like I had the intelligence to run a business. I knew I had skills as an acupuncturist, but no business skills. The SBDC consulting team really showed me that I could do it.”

Even with some consultation, establishing yourself as a prominent and profitable business is a tough task, especially in the first couple of years. According to Norah, “When I eventually went into practice, the first year was very hard, but the first six months were particularly brutal. Sometime over that time period, [an SBDC staff member] called me and asked how I was doing. At the time I was really not doing well. I wasn’t going to fold my business, but I was worried I was going to run out of money.”

Norah continued, “But when he called out of the blue to just say, ‘hey, how are you, we’re here for you, and if you ever feel like you’re going to shut down your doors, please come talk to me before you do that,’ it was so powerful for me. When you’re a solo entrepreneur, you feel pretty alone so to have that lifeline, and to know that if I needed to shut my business I could call [and the SBDC] would find a way to help me, it was a big deal.”

Norah now has a multitude of clients, and her business is growing. She is also a volunteer acupuncturist with the Colorado Acupuncture Medical Reserve Corps, offering acupuncture on-site to first responders and community members affected by natural disasters or catastrophic events. She continues to be ambitious and has serious aspirations to expand her practice and impact on the community.

“I have a pretty big vision for my business. For the business itself, I hope that it thrives and continues to serve seniors in Boulder, but my real larger vision for what I’m doing is that, in my profession, there is not a lot of specialization, and specifically there are very few people who focus their practices on seniors. I feel like this is an underserved population that can benefit from what I do. My plan is to get the skills I need, and then help train other acupuncturists to work in eldercare.”

Norah’s focus and dedication coupled with her ambition and readiness to reach out to the Boulder SBDC has enabled her successful business.

Boulder’s Best Organics

Sure, visitors to Boulder enjoy the Flatirons, the creek path, and the Pearl Street Mall. But they also enjoy Chocolove dark chocolate, Justin’s peanut butter, and Pangea lotion. Locally made products define the unique character of Boulder just as much as the town’s natural setting. This inspired Arron Mansika to form the company Boulder’s Best Organics. Boulder’s Best Organics creates gift collections of the finest organic items exclusively from Boulder based companies. Mansika chose to

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AOW Handmade

Annie Oakley Waterman is an entrepreneur and owner of AOW Handmade. AOW Handmade, founded in 2015, is a unique business that connects artisan enterprisers from all over the developing world to buyers in the United States. Whether it is textiles, silver, brass, paper maché or other materials, Annie seeks out socially responsible producers and helps them to sell their products to the western world. Annie’s favorite places to find her goods are in Mexico and

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Plains To Peaks Chocolate

Plains to Peak Chocolate Company is run by Sunni Sylvester and her husband Jeff. The two did not always have aspirations to make their own chocolate, but like many businesses today, a simple passion and idea can be all it takes to start something great. The direction of your business career can be random, and that is exactly what happened with Sunni and Jeff. “We started randomly. I would buy chocolate, look at the ingredients,

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Black Swift Technologies

Boulder-based company Black Swift Technologies was founded by three PhD students from the University of Colorado. The three men were inspired to start the company from their work in the field during their studies. At CU, they learned how to chase storms and collect data using old military equipment, which is relatively complicated to use. They set out to simplify the process with unmanned aircraft systems and Black Swift Technologies was born. Although they are

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Flight Deck Grill

One day, after leaving her full time job, Diann and her husband were at the Vance Brand airport in Longmont for flight class. She really just wanted to sit down at the end of the day and have some good food and cold drink. She realized that the Vance Brand Airport in Longmont, CO had a lot to offer except a restaurant. That desire and realization was the birth of The Flight Deck Grill. Over

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ERC Insulation

ERC Insulation is a local, majority woman-owned and operated business based in Boulder, Colorado, serving Boulder, Denver, Jefferson, Eagle, Garfield and Pitkin Counties. The story surrounding the formation of ERC Insulation began in 2006, when Elton and Christine Randall formed Elton Construction and Design. Elton had difficulty finding a spray foam contractor for his jobs, so he sought a solution to this problem. Elton purchased a trailer with a spray foam reactor, which he could

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