Sustainable living practices have seen a surge in popularity in recent years, especially among those who travel. From the banning of single-use plastic straws and water bottles to 10-cent grocery bags (20 in Carbondale), Americans are becoming increasingly aware of their carbon footprint, raising societal interest and often financial incentives for folks to go green.
Enter Carbondale entrepreneur Heather Bryan, CEO and founder of Jupiter and Company, which specializes in creating small, custom, plastic-free products for golf courses, hotels and stadiums. Clients buy Bryan’s engraving station, which comes with all of the luggage tags, keychains, etc., which they can use to personalize customers’ products upon request.
While production is based in Placerville, California, just outside of Sacramento, their clientele base is all over the world. In fact, Bryan is gearing up for a first-time trip to China to meet with one of her clients soon.
Bryan spent her 20s traveling around as an on-site engraver for the PGA Golf Tour; hence where the company got its unique name: from Jupiter, Florida, following Tiger Woods’ move to the area.
All this travel got Bryan thinking about the large amount of waste that those who frequent hotels contribute to the environment from single-use plastic items. One such item every traveler has to have? Key cards. Those cards are easy to lose and often end up in a landfill.
According to some estimates, on average, a 200-room hotel experiences a loss of roughly 12,000 plastic hotel key cards and sleeves per year. Taking into account all hotels in the United States, that’s over 1,300 tons of plastic (source: Pineapple Hospitality).
Jupiter and Company offers both reusable and personalized hotel key gifts — suddenly changing that hotel room card into something you don’t want to lose.
“They’re really pretty,” Bryan said. “The goal is to promote the reuse of them, but you can also throw an initial on them and keep them as a memento from this cool experience you had.”
While the road to success has been rewarding, Bryan said, it was by no means an easy journey. “Being a female entrepreneur in the Roaring Fork Valley has been really tough. But I had a good idea, I was super passionate about it and I’m very persistent,” she said. “I see the end result and my customers do too. But being in Carbondale, it’s family first and work second, so it’s a unique experience.”
As for her advice to other young entrepreneurs, small-town women in particular, Bryan has three non-negotiables: “Do not borrow money! Don’t go into debt,” she said. Bryan owns 100% of her company and said that doing local pitches — rather than trying for bigger “Shark-Tank-esque” miracles, getting in over your head borrowing from the bank, or selling a huge percentage of your company to partners — was key.
“I never borrowed any money. If I asked and got a ‘no,’ I figured it out. I found my first 50 customers, took that money, and moved on to the next stage. And that’s how I developed my Jupiter engraving station.”
Second on the list: “Finding balance in your lifestyle is key.” (Pun intended?) “For me, part of that balance included my entrepreneurial spirit and getting this grand, global-spanning idea off the ground, here in a small pocket of a valley, even when people didn’t really see my idea here.”
And last, but certainly not least: “Persist! Stay with it and figure it out. If you have a good idea, go sell it,” she said.
As for the future? Bryan plans to continue innovating and leading in sustainability practices in the manufacturing and tech industry. “My goal is to make this company huge. I’m gonna sell huge. I’m gonna sell it, and I’m gonna go on this crazy, little curly-haired mission.”