Indigenous Entrepreneurs
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- By Jamie Miller, Special to Tribal Business News
- Indigenous Entrepreneurs
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Marni King’s career path began far from the boardroom. A member of the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin and Oneida Nation of Wisconsin, she started in a meatpacking plant before becoming a certified nursing assistant while pursuing a nursing degree. From there, she transitioned to insurance at Humana, where she earned six promotions in nine years.
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- By Chez Oxendine
- Indigenous Entrepreneurs
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Success, for Christen Falcon, looks more like a problem: more customers than shuttles, more demand than her Blackfeet Nation-based ecotourism business can handle. Tourists eager to explore Glacier National Park through the lens of Blackfeet knowledge and stewardship are booking faster than her small fleet can accommodate. She needs $25,000 to add vans and drivers — modest expansion capital that’s often hardest to find in Indian Country.
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- By Brian Edwards
- Indigenous Entrepreneurs
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One Navajo entrepreneur with helicopters wants to build fuel stations across the reservation. Another, a metal fabricator in Phoenix, struggles to secure even basic credit. These contrasting examples illustrate what Heather Fleming calls a persistent challenge: Native businesses that have outgrown microloans but remain too small for traditional bank financing.
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- By Valerie Vande Panne, Special to Tribal Business News
- Indigenous Entrepreneurs
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If you feel shame about money — especially shame about having money — it’s actually a sign you can be trusted with it. That’s a message that Chantel Chapman shares with Native entrepreneurs who struggle with the conflicted feelings between building wealth and honoring community values.
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- By Jamie Miller, Special to Tribal Business News
- Indigenous Entrepreneurs
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Indigenous entrepreneurs and Native-owned institutions that support them are building successful businesses by prioritizing community impact and cultural preservation over pure profit—continuing a tradition of commerce that dates back centuries.
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- By Tribal Business News Staff
- Indigenous Entrepreneurs
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Native American entrepreneurs in Michigan can apply through Oct. 13 for IndigiPitch, a business pitch competition offering $7,500 in total cash prizes at Odawa Casino in Petoskey on Dec. 5.
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- By John Wiegand, Special to Tribal Business News
- Indigenous Entrepreneurs
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Chiricahua Apache silversmith Neil Zarama quit his Silicon Valley tech job during the pandemic and built a jewelry empire by transforming colonial-era silver into Native American art. His clients include Jason Momoa and Ralph Lauren, but his real mission is cultural resistance.
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- By Chez Oxendine
- Indigenous Entrepreneurs
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When Roddell Denetso launched Black Street Apparel in 2021, he had the gear, the designs and the drive — but not the business know-how. A mentor pointed him to Change Labs, a Native-led business incubator serving the Navajo and Hopi nations, and that changed everything.
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- By Tamara Ikenberg
- Indigenous Entrepreneurs
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A mortar attack in Baghdad ended Rose McFadden’s military career, but launched her path as a Navajo entrepreneur building community through wearable art.
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- By Chez Oxendine
- Indigenous Entrepreneurs
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Damond Crump loves designing games, but hates marketing them. After creating tabletop war games like Patrol: WW2, Crump’s usual procedure was to design, write and format a set of rules, then post them on an online marketplace.