January 31, 2022: This week in the Rochester entrepreneurial ecosystem

Welcome to another week in our entrepreneurial ecosystem!

First off, I wanted to announce that our team is now full! We were very excited to have brought on a brand new Director of Navigation, Manasseh Kambaki, to our Collider team last week! We will introduce you to him more fully over the next few weeks. But I am beyond thrilled to have Manasseh on the Collider team. He has an extremely deep history of relationship building and small business development in the city of Rochester. He has also built communities of support for many years and is the founder of Hope Fuse, a local nonprofit that explores and addresses solutions to generational poverty in Rochester youth. Manasseh will be focused on Collider's Ecosystem Navigation work, meeting 1:1 with entrepreneurs, listening to their story, and rapidly connecting them into the right resource to remove business challenges they're facing. If this sounds like a service that could be helpful to you, please contact Manasseh at manasseh@collider.mn.

Our Collider storytelling is back! Please take a few moments to learn the incredible story of Paige Jehnke, owner of Janky Gear. This is quite the story of how this Rochester native and marine engineer followed her passion to launch an outdoor consignment shop in September 2021.

And lastly, we now have a new and improved community calendar to make it easier for you to find events taking place in the Rochester ecosystem. You can access the calendar here. If you have a business event taking place in Rochester, MN that you think should be added, please email us at hello@collider.mn.

-Amanda

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Join us on Thursdays to unwind, share ideas, network and support local businesses! All are welcome! Our next Happy Hour is Thursday, February 3rd at Bleu Duck Kitchen (14 4th Street SW) from 4:30-5:30.

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From Marine Engineer to Consignment with Paige Jehnke

Collider is passionate about sharing the stories of Rochester entrepreneurs and small business owners! We recently had the pleasure of meeting with Paige Jehnke, owner and founder of Janky Gear, a local gear shop that sells top brand outdoor clothing and equipment on consignment, who was willing to tell us her story and share some insight on what it’s like opening a small business in Rochester.

Paige’s journey with Janky Gear, though it wouldn’t open for another 13 years, started when she graduated from Mayo High School in 2008. After graduating, she spent the summer working at a camp in Northern Minnesota, with plans to attend college in the fall in pursuit of an art history degree. But amidst her days spent taking kids outdoors, hiking, backpacking and sailing, she couldn’t shake the doubts she had about pursuing that path.  During a “freak out” she decided to change course, and zip codes, in a big kind of way! For the next year, Paige worked in Alaska with at-risk youth through AmeriCorps before instead pursuing further education at the University of Alaska, majoring in Outdoor Recreation. 

After her time in Alaska, Paige headed to Colorado where she worked a variety of jobs, from being a ski attendant to working on trail crews, all in her favorite field- literally anything outdoors. She had found her desired lifestyle, but she wanted it to be more sustainable. Driven by a desire for stability and health insurance, Paige returned to school, this time to become a marine engineer with the end goal of working on ships. 

->Read the full store HERE