Tulsa Small Business Week is a week-long celebration of the city's strong, vibrant small business community held annually during National Small Business Week. We proudly honor and support the contributions and achievements of small business owners across the city of Tulsa.
-
My brother got transferred to Tulsa, and I was at law school orientation, which, after 90 minutes, I realized was not for me. He didn't want to stay in the corporate world forever, so I drove halfway across America to take over an ice cream shop and turn it into a 1500-square-foot pizzeria in 2004, and we haven't looked back since.
-
The greatest learning, opportunity, or lesson has been that if you're not impressive, then by default, you're unimpressive. So many businesses aggressively attempt to stay within the lines of what that business should be out of fear of standing out when that's exactly what they should do the opposite of. We've learned that the hard way, and now know it's our bread and butter to be ourselves as much as possible.
-
The number of people we can help in so many different aspects, whether it's giving away free socks for every pizza purchase, or helping a young first-time employee learn the social norms of conducting themselves in the workplace or having someone realize their passion for making food from scratch. All of the things we do, we seek to be life enhancers due to being a part of our business.
-
Flowers inspired us! We are absolutely in love with flowers and how incredible and unique they each are - it is so moving. We wanted to create a business where we could share our love for flowers, and design in a way that highlights the beauty of nature through our floral arrangements.
-
So many learning opportunities but definitely going through 2020. We had almost all of our weddings cancel or reschedule during the pandemic, and we had to learn how to become very serious about the business side of our business very quickly! During the pandemic we also opened our storefront, and learning to add on multiple streams of income has been so good for us.
-
The most rewarding part of our business is absolutely the community we have built and reach through flowers. Having a storefront has really enabled us to meet amazing people, and hosting workshops has allowed us to spread our love for flowers with others! It is so wonderful being a part of the Tulsa community.
-
As a full time working artist I desired to offer an art painting experience to individuals, whether they have art training or not, where they actively immerse themselves in the creation of art which is of personal value. With this in mind I started Create X Art Experience™ Workshops.
-
Word-of-mouth marketing has proven time and time again to be the best advertising. Those who take my workshops and share their experience with their family and friends are my best advertisement.
-
It is always rewarding to see workshop participants relax and be actively present in the moment during their creative process , as well as seeing their joy and satisfaction with their completed work of art.
-
Playing games with my family and friends when I was a kid; from long campaigns of risk, to trivial pursuit to dungeons & dragons, we did all that was available. After the renaissance of board gaming got started, I’ve been hooked. I spent a little over a year with my friend Brent Essley, who was super important in the development of the Shuffles experience and I am eternally gratefully for all his help before and during our first 2 years. I am also inspired by many other friends to bring the food side to life, as well as the bar and coffee programs. It's like each little facet of Shuffles is something that I went down the rabbit hole on and then geeked out on it privately until it was ready to use in a commercial setting. All of these parts dovetailed nicely to bring Shuffles to life combined with my other company Fransen Furniture, we were able to team up with Lily Architects and deliver a one-of-a-kind design experience that immerses each customer in a space that tells the user how to navigate and use it with bits of instructions scattered throughout.
-
That I will have to work an obscene number of hours each week for little or no pay. I learned, slowly, how to interact with my staff and friends better. I learned to let go of some control sometimes (just a little---Im a bona fide control freak). I learned that letting go and letting my staff do certain things is better than just me doing them, but that I can also disagree and that’s ok too. I learned how to run all aspects of a restaurant, that is also an event center, retail store, summer camp, wedding venue, and best of all game night is every night!
-
The people. The staff is my work family and really more than that. I love watching a staff member come and work and either grow in that position and truly enjoy the environment that we have created or moving on to school or other jobs after time well spent at Shuffles. I love seeing the customers all coming in to get off their devices and interact with each other. I love that we keep a very fresh and highly curated selection of games so that everyone has something fresh to play and talk about. We create regulars by offering the Shuffles experience. We want you to come in and get a game from any of our 4 libraries with over 1,000 games and let us take care of you. Enjoy the game, get another game, enjoy great made from scratch food and libations as you while away the hours. There is a very positive note on our customers faces as they fill this hallowed hall each day and bring it to life. We are very thankful for all the people that make Shuffles come to life, from the staff to our customers. Thank you for almost 5 years of service.
