Startups

State Forty Eight Builds Community around T-Shirts

State Forty Eight is an Arizona apparel and lifestyle brand that is rooted in community. CEO Mike Spangenberg, who co-founded it with Nicholas Polando, describes it as more than just T-shirt company, committed to collaborating with local organizations in the form of unique T-shirt designs that help with raising awareness and even serve as a fundraising tool for charity organizations. With Polando as creative director, the company also offers screen printing and embroidery solutions as well as art and branding services.

“We launched State Forty Eight because we recognized a need for apparel that was both stylish and a way to represent Arizona,” Spangenberg explains. As natives in a state filled with transplants, Spangenberg says they were tired of people rooting for other teams or knocking Arizona down. “There is so much to love about where we live. Nick created a really cool Arizona-inspired design that we decided to put on a T-shirt and people really gravitated to it.”

As a startup, not having enough time and resources was the biggest challenge the company had to overcome, resulting in a lot of trial and error in the years before Spangenberg and Polando could focus on State Forty Eight full time. They met those challenges by never trying to do too much at once, reinvesting everything they made back into the company for the first few years and really focused on leveraging their network and building their community.

“Our company wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for the support of the community,” Spangenberg says. In 2019, six years after launching company, they launched an initiative that focused on creating awareness and encouraging volunteerism for local charities. “It was then we realized that people wanted to take part in what we were doing. So, in 2020 we took another leap and launched a 501(c)3.”

On the nonprofit side, the State Forty Eight Foundation is dedicated to fostering the entrepreneurial spirit in Arizona and activating the community through meaningful partnerships and volunteer-driven events, supporting Arizona’s startup culture through educational resources, networking and grant funding. The goal is not just to give back but to encourage others to do the same. —RaeAnne Marsh

State Forty Eight statefortyeight.com State Forty Eight Foundation statefortyeightfoundation.org

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Supurb Technology Innovates Cannabis Delivery

Supurb is a technology company connecting people with nearby dispensaries to help them get their cannabis delivered in a quick, efficient and cost-effective manner. We conceptualized the idea for Supurb knowing that technology in cannabis was limited for both consumers and retailers. We understood that applying technology in the form of delivery would create significant value for both consumers and retailers.

It’s been important to be a master in listening and communicating with our customer base; we believe that, if a technology company can listen to its audience and innovate off of what they are saying, it will always stay ahead of the curve. Being a self-funded technology company has been difficult because we have to innovate with discipline and restraint, so we speak with our customers through the highest level of customer support and we are regularly in the dispensary learning more about their daily operations. This has helped us grow into a company people genuinely like using and will continue to use no matter what innovations we come up with.

One challenge that was extremely difficult to overcome was convincing the dispensaries of the value we were providing. Many looked at us as adversarial rather than complimentary, worried that delivery would take revenue generating opportunities from their retail locations rather than open the doors to new opportunities such as increasing customer retention and access to customers in further reaching areas.

In order for us to overcome this challenge, we created a performance-based value proposition for the dispensaries. Access to our lead generating technology and advertising opportunities were free to use and would only pay a commission when an order was submitted. If all else we knew dispensaries wanted to increase their online footprint of visibility if nothing else. And if they are not an option for the consumer then the transaction will inevitably be submitted elsewhere.

Founded in Arizona in 2016, where delivery will remain medical-only until January 2023, Supurb will be moving into new markets in the first quarter of 2022. —Jonathan Ghiz, CEO of Supurb (www.supurb.com)