Pixels and Pints: How Old School Games Helped an Avondale Brewery Thrive November 10, 2016 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
Building a Credit Score From Scratch August 16, 2016 Young adults often bump into a cold fact of financial life: Having no credit history can limit your options just as much as having bad credit does. Lenders, rental offices and insurance companies use your financial track record to judge how likely you are to pay debts and bills — and if you’re a blank… Read More
A Food Truck that Can Dish Out Legal Advice and Healthy, Delicious Food? August 2, 2016 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
FirstBank Partnered with Extreme Community Makeover July 29, 2016 Millennials are awesome! While this is not something exclaimed across society often, it is something FirstBank believes and something our own millennials demonstrate in their actions. FirstBank’s 33 interns from across Colorado joined forces in Denver to help clean alleys in the Globeville neighborhood. These “Off-Duty Bankers” experienced more than a day of painting, weeding,… Read More
How Denver’s Best Food Truck Started With a Friend Request July 21, 2016 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
7 Ways to Save on Household Costs June 6, 2016 Saving money is a key way to fund major spending without going into debt. But if you find hanging on to cash challenging, we got you covered. Here are seven easy ways to making saving money easier. 1. Cut energy waste Unplugging electronics before bed is one simple way to save money. Televisions, computers and… Read More
Top Five Denver Neighborhoods for First Time Home Buyers May 17, 2016 U.S. News & World Report just ranked Denver the No. 1 place to live in the U.S. But a Bloomberg article revealed that being a highly desirable place doesn’t always have its benefits. The median home price in Denver surged to $337,500, jumping more than $40,000 since 2014. What’s more, Denver-metro is holding one of the top spots – out of… Read More
How a Lawyer Left It All Behind to Start a Cat Café April 29, 2016 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 April 22, 2016 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
Why We’re Crazy About A Guy With A Squeegee March 25, 2016 One of FirstBank’s missions is to help businesses get big. It’s one of the reasons we feature our customers on billboards, use their products or services for promotions like Capture the Cube and why we regularly feature customers on our blog, including A Guy With Squeegee owner, Denny Wetmore. But full disclosure: We also find… Read More