What qualifies as a new business? For some, it may be the ribbon-cutting at a brick-and-mortar retail shop. For others, it’s the moment you walk away from a dead-end job and towards your dream. Here at Spaceworks, we have a surprising definition: a City of Tacoma business license, a Washington state business license, and a DUNS number.
Nonprofit nerds, read on. Otherwise, you can skip to the list of 12 new businesses below.
Why these requirements? It’s because our incubator program is largely funded through a Community Development Block Grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Spaceworks is part of a comprehensive grant package that is submitted and administered each year by the City of Tacoma. The outputs are six newly established microenterprises in Tacoma and six full-time equivalent jobs, with an emphasis on low-to-moderate income households. This year (July 2018-June 2019), thanks to the leadership of Gwen Kohl and the creativity of our entrepreneurs, we hit 12 new businesses.
They include:
- Steve Buchanan, GoodDesign
- Anne Baker, ATMO Architecture
- Perry Pettacia and Shannon Shintani, Magic Circus
- Aaliyah Al-Mahdi, The People’s Parlor
- Ea Murphy, Aikido Tacoma Aikikai
- Geoff Cole, Tangential Studios
- Katie Burki, KdBird
- Katie Dean, Little Green
- Isaiah Hunt, Top Tenth Clothing
- Kirsty Kalkhoven and Devon Long, Chowtown
- Emily Ager, Danielle Schell, and Olivia Bennett, Fern + Foster
- Colin Andersen, Colin Andersen Illustration
Congratulations to our courageous new business owners and thank you for including us in your journey.
(And these are just a fraction of the businesses we’ve helped launch or support this past year. These are just the twelve that helped us meet our official grant requirements. Here’s to even more in 2020!)
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