22 Fast Growing Business Ideas For Colorado

There is a huge gap in helping women navigate pregnancy and postpartum fitness or even in general. Information and well-meaning words such as “listen to your body”, “keep doing what you’ve always done” to the other end of the spectrum of don’t lift more than 25 pounds are often given as considerations during this time.

That’s not enough.

As an athlete, I did not want to hear I could only lift 25 pounds. When I was told to listen to my body I thought I could do that… but what does that mean? How do you listen to a body that’s in constant change? I modified movements as I needed, but often more out of consideration for my growing belly not with the consideration of pelvic floor, structural, emotional or hormonal implications.

I remember “learning” to ski in the backyard at about the age of 3. My initial love of skiing came from stories my parents told of skiing in Colorado in their 20s. We grew up on a farm in very flat south central Minnesota. It was almost two hours to the nearest ski hill (valley) so I spent a lot of time skiing behind a snowmobile, making jumps in the fields. Being pulled by a rope engrained a back seat skiing style that I am still fighting to this day.

I study and try to emulate the success of brands who have earned a solid reputation with a focus on quality and specialty products instead of following the mass market routine.

When my brothers and I got older, we took a few family trips in our station wagon to Colorado and I was hooked. I couldn’t believe how big the ski areas were. Extremely impressive coming from farm land so flat I could see three towns from our house. For several years I read every single word, including the ads, of Ski and Skiing magazines.

For as long as I have had a dream for my life, the one and only constant one were to own a shop. This idea seemed so unattainable but it stood there, in the back of my mind, quiet but from time to time it would push it’s way up into the forefront of my mind. I have always loved the idea of self-employment and doing something creative while being a part of my community was so attractive to me. Owning a shop seemed like the perfect marriage of the two ideas.

I decided it was only going to be a dream. One that I hold dear but would let slip away in the midst of adulthood. It wasn’t until a road trip a few years ago where my dad asked out of the blue if I still wanted to open a store. It really took me about 2 seconds to answer YES, followed by inner panic. Yes, I will always want to open a store but how, when? It just never seemed possible. I decided that if I didn’t pursue this dream, this ache inside of my chest, that I would regret it for the rest of my life. I was tired of seeing everyone else do what they loved while I sat on the sidelines.

After a few setbacks, having a child, and finally quitting my actual day job, I received a text message from a friend who wanted a logo designed. I had experience in marketing, graphic design and photography so she asked if I could design her a logo for a clothing boutique. I immediately knew that it was now or never and asked if she wanted to grab a coffee. We sat for about three hours hashing out every detail we could think of and with a game plan in mind, Blush Boutique Co was created. I designed the logo, registered us for an LLC and Tax ID, found a CPA, created our social media platforms, and mapped out the layout for the shop in my basement. Neither one of us has any business background or education but we went for it anyway. It wasn’t glamorous, it wasn’t perfect, but it was a start.

We came up with the idea for Adventurist about 3 years ago when Matilda and I were 21 and 24 years old, respectively. Since Matilda is from Sweden, and I’m from the U.S., we spend a lot of time traveling back and forth from North America to Europe (not to mention that we love to travel anywhere whenever we get a chance.) This means that a good backpack for us is an essential.

We had no idea what we were doing and how we were going to get the word out about our new company. But we decided to move forward with the idea and start an Instagram account, the only free way we could think of advertising our new brand.

We are both fans of Scandinavian minimalist design, and I loved the style of all of the backpacks we saw people wearing in Sweden, as well as Denmark, Finland, and Norway. They weren’t just a tool to carry your stuff around in, but also a fashion accessory in which you could accentuate your personal style - and most importantly make your outfit look even better by wearing a backpack, not worse.

I have always been a strong-willed, hard-working, and sometimes stubborn person.

I’m definitely “The Achiever” on the enneagram test, so working for myself has been a great change for the most part. I stand up for what I believe in, especially when it comes to patient care.

After graduating with a Master’s degree in dietetics, completing a 2-year-long internship process and taking a huge exam I was so excited to start my career. My dream job (so I thought) was to be an intensive care unit dietitian, because I felt it would be challenging and rewarding.

Lena and I were retired from 2000-2009 thanks to some clever real estate investing and passive income from some Internet businesses I had built. But with the crash in 2008, things were changing.

Coincidentally, in 2007, at the age of 45, I got back into competitive sprinting, and was getting injured all the time. A friend who is a world champion cross country runner suggested I try running barefoot to see if that helped with my injuries.

If you’re a true entrepreneur, there’s no way I can convince you not to start your own business (no matter how bad your idea may be)

In 2010, while living in Chicago, IL, I interviewed for a graphic design position at an international commercial real estate company located here in Denver.

After almost four years with the company I began growing restless with a desire to challenge myself creatively and to continue to grow both as an artist and as a person.

After several phone conversations and a Skype interview, I was offered the job. Craving adventure and a big change, I packed up a U-Haul and moved myself across the country to Denver to begin this new chapter in my life. I loved my new corporate job at first! Commercial real estate was a foreign language to me in the beginning, but made sense after some time, and of course what I loved was that I was able to apply my knowledge as a designer to my work. The bulk of my work at the time was spent designing marketing items, such as brochures, mailers, email marketing, etc. And every once in a while, I had the opportunity to design something very fun like a logo or a website.

From 2015 - 2017 I ran biz dev at a Techstars-backed wearable tech startup in Denver. We raised a $3M seed round, grew to a full-time team of 25, and were in most major retailers in the US… and then it all abruptly ended in September 2017. It was pretty devastating, and I can’t really go into the reasons why it ended, but leaving retail partners at the altar without holiday inventory was particularly upsetting for me as the partner lead.

Build a business model first, not a product. So many entrepreneurs spend time and money building a solution for a problem they perceive without ever validating that it’s a viable business.

After that experience, I decided that the timing was about as good as it was going to get for me to found a company: I had a great CO network, had just been through Techstars, was on the founding team of a company that launched two crowdfunded physical products at nationwide retail, and had built a skill set in marketing and distributing physical products. That said, I didn’t have much money in my bank account (working at startups will do that to you), and I didn’t want to raise VC right off the bat, so I knew I had to do a crowdfunding campaign.

In the beginning, it was an idea based out of necessity. I couldn’t find the product I wanted so I created my own. At the time, I was not strapped for cash because I was in the Army, but I was only making about 50 grand a year risking my life for a cause I no longer believed in.

You have to find what works for and motivates you to keep going day in and day out for as long as it takes. Are you willing to sacrifice 20 years to dedicate to this dream without pay? If not, then you may not have what it takes, if so, you do, and most likely it won’t take 20 years.

The idea

After building my own million dollar law practice and then another million dollars a year online training company serving lawyers, I decided to walk away from all of it and file bankruptcy, honestly because I couldn’t handle the success I created and didn’t fully believe in the work I was doing. And, part of me hated being a lawyer. My mindset was really bad, and I didn’t understand how much that was impacting me, and the people around me.

Funny enough, in the process of walking away from everything I had created, Life showed me that it wasn’t being a lawyer I hated. It was what being a lawyer evoked in me because of the broken mindsets that many lawyers have around scarcity, and competition, and win/lose dynamics. And, I eventually came to see that being a lawyer is a huge gift when we have the right mindset, eliminate scarcity, shift into collaboration and win/win dynamics.

Ultimately, I was able to see that I really do have something special and important for lawyers who are longing to be able to bring their hearts and souls into their law practices, without sacrificing their income or time with their family or friends. I saw that I was meant to create the business model and systems lawyers need so they could focus on being the counselors and trusted advisors to the families and small business owners they serve, while we made the marketing, technology, team, and numbers part of the business much easier.

I had just moved to Medellin, Colombia in 2011. I would, about every morning, go to my local “Juan Valdez” brand coffee shop and notice these single serves of “Panela” ‘endulzante’. Spanish for ‘sweetener’.

I wrote it off as just another artificial sweetener but my curiosity got the best of me. I asked the barista “What is this Panela stuff?”. They replied “It’s sugar!”. Alright I’ll give it a try. I opened a sachet of this fluffy golden powder.

It wasn’t a crystal or hard like a rock like refined or turbinado sugars. I put it in my cappuccino and that was the famed “ Aha! ” moment. It made for the best cappuccino I had ever had.

I have always been a tinkerer, inventor, and aspiring entrepreneur. I still remember coming home crying in third grade because I had an idea to make shoes that fit on LEGO characters (I was convinced that “LEGO Loafers” would be the next big thing), but I couldn’t figure out how I would end up making them clip to the LEGO man’s feet. Since then I have always enjoyed finding creative solutions to problems by inventing new products.

As a child, I grew up shooting but shooting became a more serious hobby when I was in college. It was during this time that I bought my first .22lr AR-15 and started taking it to the range. After a few trips to the range, it gradually became more annoying to show that the rifle was clear during a cease-fire since I couldn’t lock the bolt in the open position. I ended up putting my keys in the way of the bolt, but it was a hack solution to the problem. It was then that I decided to try to make a new bolt catch that would restore the bolt hold-open functionality back to that of a standard (.223) AR-15.

There has never been a better and easier time than today to create something out of an idea, regardless of your background or skills.

I never thought I would have my own business, much less a tourism business. It was born of necessity, a bit of luck, and good timing.

You can have the best product in the world, but that won’t do you any good if customers don’t know about it.

First, some important context – this is technically my second attempt at entrepreneurship. Back in 2011, when I was living in Dubai, I had the idea of starting an online food delivery business – basically UberEats, for Dubai. At the time there was only one serious competitor, Foodonclick.

We have always been dog-lovers, but we never imagined being lucky enough to be able to help dogs for a living. Michael had multiple dogs while growing up and they were always part of the family. Erin even started a dog-sitting business when she was 13 and filled her home with her neighbors’ dogs.

When Michael moved to Los Angeles in 2012, he quickly got his own dog, James. He’s an 80lb pit bull mix with the sweetest demeanor. In 2016 James was struggling with joint pain and ended up needing ACL surgery on both knees. After his surgery, he was prescribed multiple medicines, one of which he was supposed to take indefinitely. The side effects were not great and could harm his liver in the long run.

Michael was looking for natural alternatives for James around the same time he and Erin discovered CBD while traveling in Colorado. After experiencing the benefits of CBD personally and doing extensive research on how cannabinoids work naturally in the endocannabinoid system of both humans and dogs, we decided to begin treating James.

I graduated with a PhD in chemistry in 2005 and after working in academia for a few years as a nanotechnology researcher, I joined a small angel venture investment firm as a technology analyst.

One option was to get a regular job, or… we could start a brewery.

I participated in the founding of a few angel-backed companies and as the venture fund dried up, I joined one of the portfolio companies as Chief Technology Officer. The company, Amicrobe, Inc. is focused on developing biomaterials to address antibiotic resistance.

We started Parker Baby Co. (formerly ‘The Good Baby’) as a side hustle in October 2015. At the time, we had 7-month-old twins and were spending A LOT of money on baby products. I (Sam) was working full time for a boutique investment bank in Denver, and Kirsten had recently quit her job at a local high school to stay home with the twins.

Kirsten always had ideas on how to improve products that we were using on a daily basis with our twins. We had noticed that the cloth pacifier clips we were using with our twins would always end up in the mouths of our teething babies. We decided to make the straps of the clips from silicone teething beads. We developed the product and sales took off quickly. However, this product ended up being a total flop (more on that later).

One of our twins had acid reflux issues and was constantly spitting up. We used bibs to avoid changing her outfits multiple times a day, but we could never find the perfect bib. We wanted something that was stylish and could be worn with any outfit. We wanted something without velcro, which complicated laundry. We wanted something soft and absorbent. So we designed three bandana bib sets and launched them on Amazon.com. They were a hit.

While I was in high school, I started getting interested in software and coding. I took a few fundamental coding classes and fell in love with it. Come my senior year, I decided to follow this interest and study Computer Science at the University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass Amherst). This is where all the magic began to happen.

For those of you that don’t know, UMass Amherst has the top dining in the nation. Because of this, myself and other students would spend hours on end per day in the dining commons.

You might be asking, Why on earth am I talking about food right now right?

Acumen Brands was founded on January 1, 2009, at the height of the financial crisis.

From doctor to entrepreneur

At that time, I already had well over decade of ecommerce experience. I founded my first ecommerce business from my college dorm room in 1995, and the proceeds from selling quiz bowl questions and study aids on the early internet financed my medical school education.

In August 2016, I was on a steep downward trajectory in my job as a communications director at a nonprofit as a result of philosophical differences with the organization.

It was very uncomfortable, at best. The day before I was to part ways with the organization, I was having my pickup truck worked on at my mechanic shop and needed a ride to pick it up. Having applied the previous night to a communications job at a ride-sharing company, Lyft, I downloaded the app to my phone and hailed a ride.

The man who picked me up was clearly not from our hometown of Nashville, Tennessee. Although he had a strong indeterminable accent, he spoke fluent English and we had a great conversation on the way to the mechanic. Turns out the man was from Nepal. When I asked him if he knew anything about the Everest Base Camp (EBC) trek — something my wife and I had placed on our Bucket List years ago — he smiled and said, “I am an Everest Region Sherpa. I’ve guided that trip dozens of times. I actually own a small trekking company in Nepal.” We exchanged numbers and quickly set up a meeting for that weekend so my wife could ask him about the trek.

I started Bio-One Inc. over two decades ago.

Bio-One is the nation's leader in Crime & Trauma Scene Cleaning with over 90 franchised to date and growing. Bio-One isn’t like any other business you get into, it’s not all about profit.

Let me explain a bit more. When a suicide, homicide or an undiscovered dead body is found, there are many people who get called to the incident. The police, coroner/medical examiner, fire department, detectives and the last responders are companies like mine, Bio-One the crime scene cleaners. Not all scenes we clean are crimes, but the term crime scene cleaner gives some mental picture of what gets done. We clean and remediate what is commonly left behind from EMT’s, police, fire departments and coroners to name a few.

The database consulting was a natural progression from my day job. People were asking me for help on projects outside of my workday so the work fell into my lap. It was then that I realized I could turn this skill into something for real on the side.

Look at your business idea as a brick wall that needs to be built brick by brick. Don’t get overwhelmed by the amount of things that are involved in starting a business or side hustle. Instead just focus on the one brick in front of you. Go slow and steady. Be sure to add a new brick to that wall every single day.

At the time I started doing the side work I was in massive debt from school. I was already paying for my lifestyle through my regular job so I knew any income I earned on the side could go to directly paying off my student loans. It worked. I paid off my loans a few years ago and now have the flexibility to use my side income for other things.

I wanted to get into the cannabis industry following graduation from the University of Oregon in 2010. The industry was starting to take off. I had recently finished an internship at Morgan Stanley, which put the final nail in the coffin determining that I would not be joining the financial sector--I’m just slightly too alternative to join the mercedes driving, country club crowd.

The month following graduation I moved into my brother's apartment in San Francisco and parked on his couch, applying to probably 30-50 cannabis-related companies a week. After about three weeks of my brother and his girlfriend probably thinking “how long will this kid crash here?” I got a couple of calls back, and I ended up landing a position as a mid-level manager at a dispensary. I worked at the dispensary for about six months before taking a job at another company that focused on selling cultivation equipment online.

My goal in working for diverse cannabis-related companies was to understand the industry holistically and figure out my best long-term place within. In the beginning, I first thought I would open a dispensary. Around 2011, opening a dispensary was for cowboys i.e., people with a high appetite for risk, willing to take on the possibility of law enforcement raiding your establishment--depending on the current local political climate. I decided this was too risky for me.