Bottle it up: Vapur exec, daughter team to put filling stations in schools
Kathryn Reinke had the idea to team up with her father’s water bottle company, Westlake Village-based Vapur, to raise money to install new fountains that would have cold, filtered water in addition to a “filling station” feature that would let students easily refill reusable water bottles.
Business Times founder honored with entrepreneurship award
Henry Dubroff, the founder, editor and chairman of the Pacific Coast Business Times, was honored with the Joe Nida Entrepreneurial Spirit Award at the 2013 Clean Business Investment Summit in Santa Barbara on Sept. 12.
The award recognizes exceptional work promoting entrepreneurship on the South Coast. “Henry has been at the heart of the success of so many entrepreneurs, businesses, and organizations throughout our region — including our own,” California Coast Venture Forum CEO Jerry Knotts said in a statement. “We are extremely honored to present The Joe Nida Spirit Award to Henry, to acknowledge his exhaustive efforts on behalf of entrepreneurs and to salute him as an example of entrepreneurship and clean business growth.”
Dreaming big: Arroyo Grande mattress retailer plots national expansion
When partners Jimi Breazeale and Hector Amaya opened Get-A-Mattress in Arroyo Grande in 2009, they wanted to transform the mattress-buying experience from what Breazeale calls “dirty window” into a showroom atmosphere. After all, with the average mattress costing around $2,000, it’s a considerable consumer purchase.
Small-business groups can match banks, borrowers
Business is as much about who you know as what you know.
Long-time art gallery owner Sylvia White came to realize that as she struggled to get financing to purchase a building in downtown Ventura. She had purchased the gallery space with owner financing several years earlier. But now the five-year period on that high-interest loan was coming up, and White needed a bank to take over. She was turned down by lenders again and again.
Anatomy of a business failure: How one small firm was squeezed out
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To B or not to B: Small businesses say yes to benefit corporations
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