 Why should you research fireworks before you buy them? So you get the best BANG for your buck! But in all seriousness, Utah Grand Finale Fireworks is no joke! These are the best aerial fireworks you can find in Utah, hands down and what makes these fireworks stand out even more is that they all have a fun Utah theme like BYU and U Holy War, Utah's Green Jello, Wasatch Thunder, the Polygamist, Uinta Flowers, This is the Place and more. We love these playful pokes at Utah culture but what we love more is that Douglas frequently models for the artwork on his fireworks, a big surprise when he first applied for a microloan! Utah Grand Finale Fireworks is our July Business of the Month so keep reading to see how Douglas got his start creating these awesome fireworks!
UMLF: Tell us about yourself and your background? Douglas: I am 63 years old, married and have twenty grand children. I would describe myself as adventurous, an adrenaline junkie. I love sports and am a two time Ironman Triathlon World Championship racer. I also love hunting, skiing, fishing, rock climbing, camping, and of course the BYU Cougars. I am also a six time semi-finalist for the TV show Survivor, but not been chosen yet!!!! UMLF: What inspired you to start Utah Grand Finale Fireworks? Douglas: I have alway loved fireworks and I wanted to do something different than everyone else so I decided to focus only on aerial with Utah themes and now here we are! UMLF: A lot of your fireworks have fun Utah themed names and pictures. How did you come up with these? Douglas: I raised and raced horses for 25 years so I always loved naming the babies born every year so naming fireworks came naturally to me. All of my fireworks themes have a story behind the name and a friend from our triathlon club does all my photography. We have the funniest photo shoots! I have 5 beautiful daughters that can be my models but they are busy with kids. My oldest daughter was the model for the SLC 2002 Winter Olympics. UMLF: Every business has its highs and lows. Tell us about a challenge you faced as a small business owner and how you overcame it? Douglas: The high in my business is providing a great quality product, something that brings happiness to people, the smiles on peoples faces with the names of the fireworks. Customer service is very big to me. We have a very faithful customer, the Billings family, from Highland/Alpine area and they drive to PG to buy fireworks. They must pass at least 10 fireworks stands to get to my Water Gardens Theater fireworks location. When I run into a person that has seen one of my fireworks shows, and they tell me it was the best show they have ever seen. Lows: Financing. I am so thankful for UMLF!!!!! UMLF: How do you believe the Utah Microloan Fund has helped your business? Douglas: I am so thankful for UMLF, there would not be a way for my to grow and expand my business without their help. My bank is Altabank in PG. They are so personable I can walk into my bank and they all know my name and I know their's. Small town bank helping a small town business. My banker Creig Rowley introduced me to UMLF. I am so thankful for the bankers that are on the board of UMLF to make all this possible for me. I thought last year was a crazy year when the ports were closed in China to ship explosive cargo due to an explosion at one of the ports, 2020 totally buried last year!!! UMLF: Where can people buy your fireworks? Douglas: All locations will be in a container this year. The hour for all are:
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 With our dog food that is! KetoNatural Pet Foods is our June Business of the Month and not just because owner and founder Daniel Schulof has some of the cutest dogs on the planet. Read our interview with Daniel and how his keto dog food went from just an idea to his successful business below:
UMLF: Tell us about yourself and your background. Daniel: In a past life I was an attorney at a major international law firm in the city of Atlanta. I began thinking it wasn't the right fit for me right around the time that I got my first dog, a Rottweiler named Kody. Having worked in a high-stress corporate environment for the better part of a decade, I was inspired by an idea popularized by Tim Ferris's bestselling book "The Four Hour Workweek" -- the notion that the Internet economy has made it possible for entrepreneurs to create highly-automated e-commerce micro-businesses, which can serve as a primary means of income (rather than a 9-to-5 job). I thought the idea of working only a few hours a week sounded pretty cool, so I decided to give it a shot. And, since I was so enamored with my new dog, I decided that I'd create a business for dog-owners. My first company, Varsity Pets, was born in the spring of 2011. By the fall it was making enough money to pay me a small but adequate salary. So I quit my job at the law firm on November 1, 2011. I've been in the pet industry ever since. UMLF: What inspired you to start KetoNatural Pet Foods? Daniel: I am a pretty anxious and ambitious person. So even though Varsity Pets was a success, in the sense that I was able to pay my bills while only doing a few hours of work a week, all the free time gave me ants in my professional pants, so to speak. So I began a business-related writing project that started small but quickly grew dramatically in scale. Basically I started writing about why so many pets in the United States are too fat. The facts about canine obesity are staggering: more than HALF of the dogs in America are overweight, and being overweight is deadlier for a dog than a lifetime of smoking is for a human being. That didn't make sense to me -- how could so many pet owners be allowing this to happen to their beloved pets? I thought there was more to the story. And I was right. I spent four years researching and writing what would go on to be "Dogs, Dog Food, and Dogma: The Silent Epidemic Killing America's Dogs and the New Science That Could Save Your Best Friend's Life." It was published in the fall of 2016. One of the core theses of the book is that there's a big body of evidence showing that carbohydrates are horrible for canine health -- far worse than most vets were taught in vet school. But kibble products, even the fancy ones, are typically at least 40% carbohydrate. Which is why so many pets in the U.S. are obese. So I decided to create a first-of-its-kind product, a kibble with little or no carbohydrate. KetoNatural Pet Foods is the vehicle for that product. UMLF: For those who don’t know, why is keto dog food beneficial for our furry friends? Daniel: There's abundant evidence that dietary carbohydrate does all kinds of nasty things to dogs. It causes blood sugar to spike, it elevates insulin levels, it causes obesity, it's linked to cancer, the list goes on. So a very low-carbohydrate diet is far more healthy than one stuffed with starch, like 99% of kibbles are. It's also much more "natural" for a dog. As part of my book research I lived with the biologists from the Yellowstone Wolf Project. And they explained to me that for 99.9% of the domestic dog's genetic evolution, they ate precisely zero carbohydrate. Their entire diet was made up of animal-based protein and fat. And it's only recently (with the invention of agriculture) that they began consuming huge amounts of starchy carbohydrate. Right around this time, a host of chronic diseases started becoming common among dogs as well. I don't believe that's a coincidence. UMLF: Every business has its highs and lows. Tell us about a challenge you faced as a small business owner and how you overcame it? Daniel: Pet owners are often very emotional about their animals and they tend to assume the worst when a new business comes along saying that everything they think they know about their pet's nutritional needs is kinda wrong. So I have found that new customer outreach is often met with skepticism and emotionally-charged negativity, some of it personal. I've had to find ways to live with that. Patience helps, I try to remember that I've been on the other end of these types of conversations too and I have rarely given the benefit of the doubt. But blocking and deleting trolls helps too. UMLF: How do you believe the Utah Microloan Fund has helped your business? Daniel: The UMLF has helped us tremendously. In the early stages of the business, before we had any financial track record to speak of, UMLF gave me a chance. And they believed in me enough to invest in our company when most conventional investors wouldn't touch it. Without their faith I legitimately don't think KetoNatural would have gotten off the ground. Even today, several years after executing our loan agreement, UMLF continues to provide us with resources -- I meet with Sara Day literally every week and her ideas and professional network have been vital to our success. I am a major UMLF fan. UMLF: What’s next for KetoNatural? Daniel: We closed our first venture capital financing transaction earlier this year. And now we're putting that money to work in a few different ways: expanding our product line, overhauling our website, and bringing on exciting new talent, all while continuing to blast away at the ideological "house of carbs" that legacy kibble companies have constructed to keep veterinarians and pet-owners in the dark about the dangers of carbohydrate consumption. UMLF: And for fun, if your dogs could talk for one conversation, what would you say to them? Daniel: I think I'd try to explain that the dogs that appear on our television from time to time aren't real. Kody seems to believe that they're his mortal enemies and he goes ballistic every time he sees them. My home would be a quieter and more peaceful place if my dog didn't think he needed to kill Scooby Doo or whatever. To follow KetoNatural Pet Foods or to try their products for your furry family, check out their profiles here:
 Designer Michael Ryan Andolsek. (Photo courtesy of SLCC) During these current times, we think it goes without saying that we could all use something beautiful to be inspired by right now. With all of the ongoing bad news, uncertainty, feeling stuck at home, and trying to remain hopeful for tomorrow, everyone could definitely use some inspiration and whimsy to brighten their days so our team at the Utah Microloan Fund want to show off a client who brings nothing but beauty to their work. Who is this ray of sunshine? Designer Mr. Michael Ryan Andolsek, creator of ANDOLSEK, a couture fashion label created right here in Utah. At the age of 19, Michael Andolsek was accepted into Parsons Paris The New School For Design after attending Salt Lake Community College’s Fashion Institute. During his time at Parsons, Michael had the opportunity to be mentored by Cecile Pelous, a retired Mater Draper for notable couture houses like Christian Dior and Nina Ricci. Michael's talent then earned him an acceptance into the prestigious École de la Chambre Syndicale de la Couture Parisienne. He was one of three Americans accepted that year. A huge deal! With an ongoing focus of providing women with timeless yet modern apparel, the label is unique in that its designer and his team live with Autism Spectrum Disorder and work to sustain themselves through this company. Keep reading as we interview Michael and learn about his process, his incredible background and more about our May Business of the Month! UMLF: What inspired you to start your own fashion line? MRA: Clothing has been of great interest to me, and I decided to study fashion design in school. After returning home from Paris, where I did just that, launching my line seemed like an appropriate next step. UMLF: When did you first know you wanted to be a designer? MRA: At age fifteen, my best friend would frequently show me fashion magazines. The apparel in these magazines was exciting and completely different from the clothing worn by the people around me. It was like a whole new world opened up, and until then, I had focused on drawing castles and flowers, but all of a sudden, sketching clothes now became a thing for me. UMLF: Tell us about your process behind designing a collection, where do you start? MRA: Sometimes, I need to start with a silhouette and then draw until I'm pleased. That is often the process when working with a client looking for something in particular. Textiles, trims, and notions, however, give me a lot of ideas, so I usually start from there, and then plans for things pop up. UMLF: The Andolsek Company hires interns and fosters a safe, comfortable environment for people with autism to work, explore, and learn about the fashion industry. You have a lot of awesome initiatives and projects that benefit autism awareness as well. How has your own personal journey with autism shaped your label? MRA: Firstly, thank you very much! I am glad you like what we've been up to lately. My journey as a human is ongoing, and yes, I'm on it with autism, so it probably impacts everything I do. Specifically, at ANDOLSEK, any input or direction I provide based on my point of view means it somehow has autism attached to it. You can view more about our mission here: www.andolsek.com/autism UMLF: Every business has its highs and lows. Tell us about a challenge you faced as a small business owner and how you overcame it? MRA: My education was on design and fashion and not entrepreneurship. Developing and refining a business side to my thinking to coexist with my designer side has been tremendously challenging. I like clothes, not commerce. However, as a business owner, I have to acknowledge that they go hand in hand in order for the company to succeed. UMLF: How do you believe the Utah Microloan Fund has helped you and your business? MRA: Well, the funding you provided was instrumental in the launch of my business, so that was a great help! UMLF: And for fun, what is one current fashion trend you love and one you absolutely hate? MRA: It is becoming more and more difficult for me to distinguish trends and fads from lasting style approaches because it seems that anything goes. What was once a trend that I wish would return is the wearing of gloves. Life's probably easier without them, but they look so darn good. Website: www.andolsek.com Instagram: www.instagram.com/andolsekofficial Youtube: www.youtube.com/channel/UC3Ej1dfX5aZzQnu4d1VrqwA/featured |
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