Amanda Dimova in her local jewelry shop

Amanda Dimova liked to make things as a kid. While her friends aspired to be singing stars or ballerinas, she was inspired by the hands-on creativity that she saw in her parents.

As college students, Amanda’s parents started making homemade children’s shoes out of their apartment. They used scissors and hand-sewn needlework. Like other self-made Americans who we love to champion, they eventually expanded to a 20,000 square foot business in Brownwood, TX.

Vinca Gets Its Start

With a heritage like this, Amanda believed that she too could build a business from the ground up. Though her creative interests began with fashion design, she began making jewelry out of the leather scraps from her parents’ shoe factory. She founded an Austin jewelry company called Vinca, after a flower that her parents used to sew onto their children’s shoes. [Read more…]

Joshua Bingaman, HELM Boots Founder

The Old Man and the Sea. Marlon Brando. Neil Young. Lobster fishing. Growing beards, smoking pipes, riding motorcycles, wearing dirty blue jeans.

These all-American, working-man images have inspired HELM Boots founder Joshua Bingaman to pursue the difficult task of producing a boot that is made entirely in the U.S.A. The quality of his work has earned the partnership of a generations-old shoe factory in Maine. More recently, Nordstrom picked up the brand to sell online and in stores nationwide. [Read more…]

First timers are often skeptical about using a chiropractor. I know I was.

I mean after all, you are literally putting your body into the hands of a stranger who is going to manipulate it, making it snap, crackle and pop.

Admittedly, the first time I ever went to a chiropractor was out of desperation. I was just out of high school and had this pain in my neck that wouldn’t allow me to turn my neck to the left at all. I tried everything and nothing worked. Then a friend suggested a chiropractor and, with great hesitation, I went in.

Fifteen minutes later, I was out of the office. My neck was like new and I was totally floored.

Now there should be a fair warning: [Read more…]

In case you haven’t noticed, we’re a hyperlocal blog that loves to share about the gems we find in Austin. When we originally found out about the Go Local Austin card from some friends, we looked into it.

Though the card is now available in 11 different cities, including Boston, Chicago, Houston and Albuquerque, the genesis of the company started right here in the city of Austin. Bob Tuschak founded Go Local on Earth Day 2008 and thousands of local businesses and consumers have been benefiting from his idea ever since then.

The concept behind Go Local Austin is simple and it has two parts:

Part 1: Give local Austinites the ability to save money and support local businesses at the same time.

Part 2: Give local businesses an incentive program for new customers who want to support Austin business. [Read more…]

Dan Graham, BuildASign CEO

If you go to the home page of BuildASign’s website, you may think to yourself, “This isn’t the type of small, local business that The Austinot normally talks about. And is it even based in Austin?”

I validate your secret thoughts because I thought them too. At first.

Though BuildASign now serves four different countries, employs more than 200 people and pulled in $30 million in revenue last year, the company didn’t start there. In fact, BuildASign’s story began not too differently from many of the Austin entrepreneurs and small business owners who you know and love. [Read more…]

70% of all perc used by traditional dry cleaners ends up in the environment. That’s bad. The EPA and the International Agency for Research on Cancer have concluded that this toxic cleaning agent, formally named perchloroethylene, likely causes cancer. By 2023, perc will be illegal in the state of California.

When his daughter became sick from a dry cleaning facility near her home, EcoClean founder John Henderson did his homework. In 1996, he broke the mold for garment cleaning in Austin when he opened EcoClean and decided to use wet cleaning only. [Read more…]

A local app focused solely on Austin  is saving Austinites money and providing exposure for Austin businesses.

Weird Coupons Helps Austin

If you want or need something, chances are there’s an Austinite who makes it, provides it, carries it or creates it. -WeirdCoupons.com

Vital Skin Care is a small, local business that uses Weird Coupons

On June 26th, we published an article about Weird Coupons, a company that believes in Austin and is dedicated to exclusively helping local businesses. [Read more…]