Ongoing growth with Elevate Hennepin

Ongoing growth with Elevate Hennepin

Katie Ross, the founder of The Arts Creative in Bloomington, launched her business a few years ago now. But last year, she began using Elevate Hennepin resources to turn her fledgling business into a growth-focused, arts-education company.

She joined CEO Start, an Elevate Hennepin cohort that empowers new entrepreneurs with systems and process to get their business going. She also worked with several advisors, who tackled multiple challenges and went after business opportunities with her.

Now, she's taking stock of the past year, the ups, the downs, and how she continues to use Elevate Hennepin resources to push her business forward.

She’s on her third year of hosting arts-education summer camps and interest has been strong. The business is running more efficiently too. She found some new digital tools that automate some of the heavy lifting and tedious part of reaching and engaging with prospective students and parents for her classes.

A little less time spent managing the day-to-day business also helped her explore some new opportunities. Like offering corporate clients arts education as team building and a range of events including an arts series with a brewery partner that includes date nights, childcare and llamas, because everyone loves llamas.

She's working with Happy Jolly Llamas, a fellow CEO Start graduate she met through Elevate Hennepin. Katie said both companies will be part of the Bloomington Street Arts Festival, her crowning achievement of the year.

"My biggest accomplishment is probably having the second year of the Bloomington Street Arts Festival," said Katie. "I'm two years into it and now I’m thinking about year 10."

Of course, there have been some bumps in the business road over the last year too. Katie ran into a frustrating legal issue. But she worked with no-cost legal consultants from Elevate Hennepin to manage through.

"I definitely don't think that I've been able to deal with my legal questions without Elevate," said Katie. "I would have to spend a lot of money, and I would have to find a lawyer."

As she explores where she wants to take the business next, she said the advising and training from Elevate Hennepin continue to help her find the right next step.