How to Build a Successful Business Through Art and Expand Internationally
A Shopify Masters interview, hosted by Benjamin Godly and recorded at the Santa Fe Indian Market as part of a Build Native series, with Colleen Echohawk, CEO of Eighth Generation, an art and lifestyle company based in the Seattle area that is owned by the Snoqualmie tribe and works with Native artists. She says the company was founded by artist Louie Gong and later sold to the tribe, explains why shared ownership and artist collaboration matter, and contrasts the approach with brands that are merely inspired by Native design. She tells how cleaning hotel rooms in rural Alaska and watching her grandmother run a business taught her to be fearless, shares her motto fail often to succeed sooner, describes the marketing challenge of selling Native-designed products with the tagline inspired natives not native inspired, and recounts a British Vogue cover that featured the company's blanket. Sponsor: Shopify, which produces the show and is named in the description with a free trial offer. PARTIAL COVERAGE: this note is based on the opening, the ownership and design sections, the early career and fear section, the marketing challenge section and the Vogue story, and may not cover every point in the roughly 33 minute video. Business and cultural claims are the guest's own and not independently checked.
Executive Summary (TL;DR)
A Shopify Masters interview, hosted by Benjamin Godly and recorded at the Santa Fe Indian Market as part of a Build Native series, with Colleen Echohawk, CEO of Eighth Generation, an art and lifestyle company based in the Seattle area that is owned by the Snoqualmie tribe and works with Native artists. She says the company was founded by artist Louie Gong and later sold to the tribe, explains why shared ownership and artist collaboration matter, and contrasts the approach with brands that are merely inspired by Native design. She tells how cleaning hotel rooms in rural Alaska and watching her grandmother run a business taught her to be fearless, shares her motto fail often to succeed sooner, describes the marketing challenge of selling Native-designed products with the tagline inspired natives not native inspired, and recounts a British Vogue cover that featured the company's blanket. Sponsor: Shopify, which produces the show and is named in the description with a free trial offer. PARTIAL COVERAGE: this note is based on the opening, the ownership and design sections, the early career and fear section, the marketing challenge section and the Vogue story, and may not cover every point in the roughly 33 minute video. Business and cultural claims are the guest's own and not independently checked.