Tag: Collective EX

Colleen Monroe, Floraloom

Floraloom’s Colleen Monroe put her green thumb on the steering wheel, leaving LA for KC sunshine

By Tommy Felts / February 12, 2021

Quarantine changed people — including Colleen Monroe, the serial entrepreneur said, looking back on the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic in Los Angeles and the day she loaded her car with a few personal belongings and as many vases as it could hold. Uprooting her once-busy life, she hoped growth opportunities might bloom in…

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Rose latte by HITIDES Coffee

Hot cocoa, mocha, donuts and aloha: KC’s new tiki hideaway pours the unexpected — 1,600+ miles from the beach

By Tommy Felts / January 21, 2021

Snowy skies and frosted windshields outside, beach vibes within. A new tiki-inspired cafe — tucked away in the East Crossroads — offers a warm, inviting atmosphere and tropical transformations of classic treats and sips. The concept: Blend the flavors of surf and sunsets with perennial staples like coffee, donuts and ice cream. “It’s an all-inclusive…

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SewKC at Collective Ex

How an elastic team turned an early tip about face masks into SewKC’s saving grace

By Tommy Felts / October 30, 2020

Editor’s note: The following is the third in a series of stories about Kansas City fashion companies putting their own creative spin on the often-utilitarian face mask. As demand for face masks surged this spring, a massive and sustained influx of traffic and orders at SewKC crashed the Crossroads creatives’ online retail engine — forcing the…

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Johnny and Michele Dawbarn, SewKC

Married to collaboration: SewKC couple stitches meaning into each hand-sewn design

By Tommy Felts / October 30, 2020

Michele and Johnny Dawbarn’s symbiotic studio space in the Crossroads allows the always-evolving creative duo to do more than finish each other’s sentences. It stitches ideas to passion, threading a common mission through their businesses, they said. “When you sew-” Johnny began. “You bring two things together,” finished Michele, co-founder of SewKC with her husband.…

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Sandlot Goods

Sew you want a fight? Makers across KC mobilize mask production to slow COVID-19 spread

By Tommy Felts / March 25, 2020

Editor’s note: The following is part of Startland News’ ongoing coverage of the impact of Coronavirus (COVID-19) on Kansas City’s entrepreneur community, as well as how innovation is helping to drive a new normal in the ecosystem. Click here to follow related stories as they develop. Kansas City’s makers aren’t sitting idly as the ongoing Coronavirus…

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