Where Starters and Community Connect
Let Foundry Collective and CO.STARTERS help you create a culture of small business success
Register for 2026 Core and Bootcamp Classes
Seats are limited - New communities added weekly
Ever wonder what your business could become with the right guidance? Our community-driven CO.STARTERS Core and Bootcamp programs might be exactly what you're looking for. We love matching ambitious business owners and starters with the program that fits them best so be sure to let us know you're interested.
And even if we haven't made it to your area yet, we want to hear from you. Your interest helps us know where to expand next. Let's explore what's possible for your business.
Gain Valuable Insights to Grow Your Small Business
CO.STARTERS Bootcamp 4 Session Program
Bootcamp and Core Locations
Fall 2026
Additional Locations and Programs Coming
Click on image of event to register
Bootcamp is a 4-part workshop series designed to help you bring your business to life. There are times when your small business isn't growing as expected or generating the sales you need. Bootcamp offers a proven framework to help identify and address key issues with your current strategy to get you on track fast.
Gear Up Maupin - Maupin, Oregon - Fall 2023 CO.STARTERS Bootcamp & Spring 2024 CO.STARTERS Core graduate
Bootcamp is ideal for businesses that are "stuck" and the owners who are ready to look at new ideas. If you're wondering if Bootcamp will help you move thing forward, then let us know and we'll reach out.
Make Your Business Dream a Reality
CO.STARTERS Core 10 Week Program
Core is a 10 week, cohort based program designed to help you launch your small business idea. Action-driven and collaborative, you will learn to identify your assumptions about why and how your business will work then talk with potential customers to validate those ideas. Along the way, you'll learn new ways to look at launching, marketing, and funding your dream.
Wild Sage Restarant - Condon, Oregon - Spring 2023 CO.STARTERS Core Graduate
Core is perfect for anyone who wants to fine tune their ideas or needs guidance and help to get started. When you let us know you're interested in Core, we'll set up some time to connect and make sure the program will fit your needs and help you achieve a sucessful launch and plan for long-term success.
Entrepreneurs Thrive in Connected Communities
Bring CO.STARTERS to your town
Empty storefronts don't have to stay empty forever. Sometimes all it takes is one person with a wild idea and a supportive community to bring them back to life.
Think about that coffee shop you've always dreamed of opening, or that business idea you scribbled down and never showed anyone. In small towns across Oregon - from the coastal curves of Waldport to the high desert of Burns - people just like you are turning their "someday" dreams into "right now" realities.
That's where we come in. Through community-driven CO.STARTERS programs and other support, Foundry Collective connects dreamers with doers in rural communities. We're not just about starting businesses - we're about starting movements. When a community rallies behind its entrepreneurs, magic happens. New shops open their doors. Local artists find their audience. That empty building everyone complained about? It becomes the place everyone talks about.
We help build networks of support that stick with new business owners every step of the way. Because when small towns back their own, something amazing happens - they don't just survive, they thrive.
Simple as that. Your community has the power to write its own success story. Why not start today?
CO.STARTERS WILL ENERGIZE YOUR MAIN STREET
Forget Silicon Valley and ivy-covered university halls. CO.STARTERS was born in the heart of Chattanooga, Tennessee — a place where people make things with their hands and build businesses from the ground up. No buzzwords about unicorns or Series A funding here. Just real support for artists, craftspeople, and dreamers who want to create something meaningful in their hometown.
While tech startups chase billion-dollar valuations, CO.STARTERS focuses on the businesses that actually shape our communities: the local coffee shop where everyone knows your name, the pottery studio that teaches kids to create, the food truck that makes the best tacos in town. They've taken years of experience helping these Main Street entrepreneurs and combined it with proven startup strategies to create something unique — a way to help regular people turn their passion into a living.
Think of it as business support with a community-focused twist: practical, community-minded, and more interested in creating local jobs than chasing IPOs.
Silje Christoffersen
Steep Creek Studio
When Silje Christoffersen moved back to her small, rural hometown of Enterprise, Oregon, she knew she wanted to pour into her community through her passion for design.
Silje Christoffersen is the owner of Steep Creek Studio, a design studio in Enterprise, Oregon. Her business is supported by Reinventing Rural, a local CO.STARTERS partner.
Enterprise, Oregon is a tiny rural town bordered by forests and valleys. There are only about 2,000 residents in the town—not the most likely candidate for an entrepreneurial revival. Recently, though, the town has been seeing an uptick in entrepreneurial activity, thanks to the nonprofit Reinventing Rural’s work in providing support and resources for all sorts of entrepreneurs in the small town.
Silje Christoffersen, who runs the design studio Steep Creek Studio, is one of these entrepreneurs.
She’d grown up in Enterprise, but moved to Idaho for her partner’s job in 2019. She had always been interested in art and design, so, after moving, Silje pursued several graphic design and branding jobs, working with businesses such as a women’s clothing company, a civic organization, and a creative agency. In January of 2021, Silje took a job as the graphic designer for a local motor vehicle parts manufacturer to further hone her skills.
“I had exposure to speaking in a lot of voices,” she explained.
In 2022, she started feeling a strong pull to return to her hometown in Oregon to open a design studio of her own.
Because of Enterprise’s small scale, Silje wasn’t sure if her hometown would have the resources to support her business. But it was important for her to invest in her community and follow her passion for art.
When she found out that Reinventing Rural had partnered with a local economic development organization to offer CO.STARTERS courses to entrepreneurs in Enterprise, Silje decided that would be a great way to see if she could realistically turn her passion for design into a business. She had always done projects on the side for people in Enterprise. Now, she would have the opportunity to see if her small town could sustain a full-fledged graphic design studio.
“CO.STARTERS Bootcamp and Core were helpful in teaching me not to let perfect be the enemy of good. Especially since we’re in a rural place, it’s easy to compare ourselves to businesses with more resources and funding, and think we need all that to get started. But that actually sets you up for failure. CO.STARTERS helped me to re-center, realize that I don’t need all of that, and distill my resources to the least I needed to just get started."
In December of 2022, Silje joined CO.STARTERS Bootcamp to get Steep Creek Studio off the ground. Even though she was a bit overwhelmed at first, struggling with worry and imposter syndrome, she was encouraged by the community she found in the two-day business planning intensive.
“Everyone came in with different experiences and levels of where we were with our businesses. It was a very accessible, welcoming environment to ask questions, and it gave me the confidence to just get started,” Silje explained.
After CO.STARTERS Bootcamp, Silje officially registered Steep Creek Studio, which has attracted a steady stream of local and national clients, to the extent that she’s been able to support herself with her work full-time. While she’s still refining her specialty, the studio offers a wide variety of design work, including graphic design, illustrative and traditional art, and logo, promotional, and website design.
To build on what she had learned in CO.STARTERS Bootcamp and continue solidifying her business, Silje enrolled in CO.STARTERS Core, a longer and more in-depth cohort-based program, in January of 2023.
“CO.STARTERS Bootcamp and Core were helpful in teaching me not to let perfect be the enemy of good,” Silje said. “Especially since we’re in a rural place, it’s easy to compare ourselves to businesses with more resources and funding, and think we need all that to get started. But that actually sets you up for failure. CO.STARTERS helped me to re-center, realize that I don’t need all of that, and distill my resources to the least I needed to just get started.”
She also appreciated that CO.STARTERS Core reminded her that she would learn things along the way.
“That would be my advice to entrepreneurs just getting started: Your business model canvas and business plan don’t need to be perfect!” she said. “Unexpected things might happen, and it’s important to be open to letting the process itself show you how to move forward.”
From the CO.STARTERS Substack - Original Article Here
CO.STARTERS is now part of FINSYNC
Access Starter tools and an AI Assistant to help you turn your business dreams into reality
The powerful combination of FINSYNC's Starter Tools and local expert guidance is the perfect solution to turn your busienss dreams into reality. Fynn, your AI Assistant can save time and create a business plan or CO.STARTERS Canvas.
In tiny towns scattered through the Pacific Northwest, big dreams are brewing. That's where Foundry Collective comes in. The Reinventing Rural Movement matches local dreamers with the resources they need to build something amazing right in their own backyard.