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- By Tribal Business News Staff
- Indigenous Entrepreneurs
Here are 12 of the most-read stories about inspiring Indigenous entrepreneurs that Tribal Business News wrote about in 2023. From innovative fashion brands and Native film to unique bakery ventures and a Navajo blacksmith, these stories celebrate creativity, culture, and the resilient spirit of Indigenous business owners.
Upstart fashion brand Winston Paul fusing tradition and urban chic on the Navajo Nation
Since middle school, Calandra Etsitty (Diné) has always known she wanted to own a business. Watching her seamstress mother create clothing and drawing inspiration from her father’s jewelry creations, Etsitty also recognized early on that her business would be based around a high level of creativity and meticulous craftsmanship.
Indigenous twins finding sweet success with gluten-free cupcake business
Amber Kilgore and Yarrow Young (Little Traverse Bay Band of Odawa Indians) get a lot of quizzical looks when they tell people the name of their business: Tootsie Bluffins. But the confusion transforms into delight as soon as people try their products — stunningly decorated and boldly flavored gluten-free cupcakes.
Tlingit artist carries his culture forward with national brand collaborations
James Johnson’s career is snowballing. After years of perfecting the ancient, ovoid-based Tlingit formline style, the carver and designer from the Eagle Killerwhale clan has etched out a niche in the cool world of winter sports, collaborating with national brands like Vans, Volcom, Lib Tech Snowboards and Yeti.
‘Just a dream’: Navajo bakery sprinkles baked goods with culture, history
The pages of the family cookbook are worn and discolored, the binding held together by tape. But the recipes inside hold years of memories for Jacqueline Ahasteen (Dine) and a basis for her business, I Knead Sugar, a bakery and tea shop located in Gallup, N.M.
‘We don’t sugarcoat anything’ | Award-winning Lakota tour company highlights the bleakness and beauty of Pine Ridge
A visit to Pine Ridge is the ultimate dose of reservation reality. The 2.1 million-acre Oglala Lakota reservation in South Dakota and the tip of northern Nebraska is the poorest reservation in the country. It’s also the canvas for Tatanka Rez Tourz, owned by tribal members Tianna Yellowhair and her father Guss. “We offer a raw and unfiltered experience. We don't sugarcoat anything,” Tianna Yellowhair said.
Native American beverage brand Sacred Bev poised for growth
In April, Justin Quis Quis launched Sacred Bev, a Native American beverage company, with an initial run of 7,200 cans of wellness drinks sold to tribal clients around California. By mid-August, Quis Quis was touring a production facility in Los Angeles that would help Sacred Bev scale its production to nearly 30,000 cans for its third run.
Weaving friendship with fabrics, Native women launch new retail store
Conventional business wisdom usually says that going into business with your best pal is a surefire way to torch both the relationship and the business. But the story behind Fire Mountain Fabrics, the first Native-owned fabric store in Minnesota’s northwest suburbs, throws water on that theory.
‘We could take a lot of this appropriation back’ | Cody Artis is forging a new path for Navajo blacksmiths
Blacksmith Cody Artis’ first forge involved an old charcoal grill, some horse manure for fuel, and an air mattress pump as a stand-in for his bellows. Fast forward six years, and he now works out of a shop on his in-laws’ property, heating up and hammering out knives and tools that sometimes go for thousands of dollars. T
Native-owned clothing brand weaves community service with its founder’s personal journey to reclaim her Indigenous identity
If a brand ever lived up to its name, it’s 4KINSHIP. The Diné-woman-owned upcycled clothing brand that transforms found fabrics into chic, modern wearable art, is a vehicle for Indigenous empowerment using fashion as the fuel. At the helm is corporate fashion industry veteran Amy Denet Deal.
Mistress Bread: Native filmmaker brings a bold and playful perspective to the screen
An AirBnB doubles as the lair of a proud Native dominatrix in Peshawn Bread’s first film, The Daily Life of Mistress Red. Bread’s clever choice of location is one of many resourceful moves the Comanche, Kiowa and Cherokee filmmaker used to whip the campy 10-minute mockumentary, which twists and toys with concepts of colonization and domination, into shape.
Tocabe moves to Indigenize the ready-made meal business
Ben Jacobs wants to revamp the culinary landscape by incorporating Indigenous cuisine and traditional ingredients into the fast-growing ready-made meals industry. Jacobs, a member of the Osage Nation and co-founder of Tocabe Indigenous Marketplace, believes the move can help expand his Denver-based business and, by extension, the market for his suppliers’ Indigenous ingredients.
Native-owned banking startup Totem aims to close 'invisible gaps'
Native Americans are the most unbanked group in the country, with 16% lacking access to banking services. This can lead to a range of challenges, including difficulty accessing credit, paying for basic necessities, and gaining financial literacy. Totem co-founder Amber Buker, a Choctaw Nation member who grew up in Tulsa, Oklahoma, experienced these challenges firsthand.
Be sure to check out our most-read news stories of the year, important articles about Access to Capital in Indian Country, and our reporters’ favorite stories from 2023.
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