Page 35 - Flathead Beacon // 9.30.15

TRANSACTIONS
WEEKLY BUSINESS BRIEFING
NEW ASIAN FUSION RESTAURANT OPENS IN KALISPELL
A new restaurant serv- ing a flavorful variety of Asian fusion food has opened on the west side of Kalispell.
Ryohin (pronounced YO-hin) is open seven days a week from 11 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. at 1260 U.S. Highway 2 West in the former Skip- pers building.
The restaurant will
feature a menu of Chinese,
Japanese, Thai and Korean
food. It will have lunch and
dinner items for take out or dine in, and there are plans to deliver in the future. Pepsi products will be served as refreshments.
For more information, call 406-755-5541.
Opening, moving or expanding a business in Northwest Montana? If you would like to be featured in “Transactions,” please email information to [email protected]
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 33
is almost ready to hit to market. “Startup Weekend for me, it vali-
dated the idea,” Carlburg said.
The weekend starts with 60-second pitches from entrepreneurs, which are then voted on by the participants. The top ideas are announced and the entre- preneurs list what they would need to make it a viable business. For Carlburg, his three team members brought the IT experience, marketing chops, and engi- neering brains he needed to make his
idea a reality.
They wrote up a business plan and
put a pitch together, which was then judged on Sunday of the weekend. Carl- burg said he spent a lot of time at the event, staying until the wee hours of the morning most days.
“We did a lot of work in a short amount of time,” he said, laughing.
His idea took third place, and he decided to continue with it after the weekend. Carlburg sent his original design to a manufacturing company, which made the prototype he uses now in his studio.
The shelf holding the potter’s wheel can move up and down at the push of a button, and atop the backsplash guard sits a light and of course USB ports for phones and music accessories.
Using it has helped him work out the kinks, Carlburg said, and to realize
the added benefits he hadn’t thought of before, such as being able to raise the wheel up to eye height to work on details.
“So far it’s been working better than I had imagined,” he said.
He brought it with him to a pottery event in Great Falls, where it received plenty of attention from the clay world. Carlburg said his website should be up by the beginning of 2016, and he plans to start selling units after he intro- duces the work station at the annual National Council on the Education for the Ceramic Arts conference in March, a massive gathering of potters, educa- tors, and others involved in clay work.
The prototype is also testing very well with other artists, he said.
Carlburg said Startup Weekend is a major reason he’s in this position with his burgeoning business, and that even after the weekend, he was able to reach out to mentors with questions.
He encouraged interested entrepre- neurs to give it the weekend a chance, because their solution to a specific prob- lem might be one to receive support from an enthusiastic audience.
“They say bring your idea, launch it, make it into a business,” Carlburg said. “In our case, it happened that it worked.”
For more information on Carlburg Pottery, visit www.handmadegrowlers.
com.
IT’S BACK!
SHRIMP!
MONDAY - THURSDAY AFTER 4PM SUNDAYS ALL DAY
[email protected]
ALL YOU CAN EAT
MONGOLIAN GRILL
SEPTEMBER 30, 2015 // FLATHEADBEACON.COM
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