Pixels and Pints: How Old School Games Helped an Avondale Brewery Thrive An Emmy award-winning visual effect artist, two fans of Nintendo and a passion for brewing – these are the ingredients behind one of Phoenix’s favorite craft breweries, 8-Bit Aleworks. Started by Ryan and Krystina Whitten in 2015, 8-Bit’s name and retro-gaming theme was inspired from the Nintendo game console the husband-wife duo played as kids. The… Read More
A Food Truck that Can Dish Out Legal Advice and Healthy, Delicious Food? Sometimes the best things in life come from unlikely sources. This is at least what longtime Colorado resident and practicing lawyer, Elizabeth “Biz” McDermott, has taught us about her Denver-based food truck, Keenwah, Co. The University of Denver law graduate and self-proclaimed health and fitness enthusiast realized she wasn’t in love with her career path and… Read More
How Denver’s Best Food Truck Started With a Friend Request Mandy and Steven Smith, owners of the award-winning food truck Crock Spot, don’t have a typical story of falling into the food business. They never owned a restaurant. They didn’t go to culinary school. They didn’t work in the industry. In fact, Mandy was a life coach in San Francisco, and Steven was an actor… Read More
How a Lawyer Left It All Behind to Start a Cat Café Sana Hamelin was scrolling through online newsfeeds, when a Mashable headline caught her attention: “On the Greatest Day Ever, America’s First Cat Café Opens.” The story was about a promotional stunt from pet food company Purina that was playing on a popular cat-and-coffee craze that swept its way through Japan, Taiwan and Europe. At that… Read More
Five Ways to Tell If Your Business Will Succeed Several years ago, a few friends and I decided to start a business. The business? Give event-goers, nightlife crowds and tourists free rides to Denver’s most popular bars and restaurants. And have the bars and restaurants, interested in getting an influx of new customers, pay us. After sinking countless hours and thousands of dollars into… Read More
Customer Spotlight: Kushi-riki When an earthquake devastated Nepal last April, Austin Paik, who was traveling throughout Asia at the time, knew he had to help the many children impacted by the disaster. He had always hoped to improve the lives of children around the world, but the events in Nepal provoked a sense of urgency and desire to… Read More
Customer Spotlight: Arizona Wilderness Brewing Co. This week beer lovers across the U.S. are celebrating American Craft Beer Week. The 2015 festivities (May 11-17) mark the 10th anniversary of the week-long celebration of small and independent craft brewers. One of our favorite craft brewers is FirstBank customer Arizona Wilderness Brewing Co., the back-to-nature brewpub based in Gilbert, Arizona. And, we’re not… Read More
Customer Spotlight: Colorado Beard Company Nothing embodies the Colorado lifestyle more than the mountains, craft beer and the rugged yet sophisticated look of a strong beard. At least that’s the belief that inspired FirstBank customers Cody and Ashley McAllister to found the Colorado Beard Company. Cody, who has been able to grow a thick beard since his early 20’s, found… Read More
Customer Spotlight: State 38 Distilling Several years ago when Colorado native and longtime FirstBank customer, Sean Smiley, wanted to leave a successful career in the oil and gas business and invest his life savings into creating an all agave-based spirits distillery, not everyone was onboard. But Smiley had good reason for this drastic lifestyle change: to spend more time with… Read More
3 Questions to Ask before Starting a Business From our experience working with thousands of businesses — from small start-ups to nationally recognized brands — we can tell you that overnight success stories are more the exception than the rule. Knowing that launching a business involves a lot of hard work, research, testing and money, here are three important questions to ask yourself… Read More