Siouxland Magazine was started in 2007. At the end of 2018, Becca Feauto and Stacie Anderson purchased Siouxland Magazine. They saw this as an opportunity to reach out to the community and start real, meaningful conversations. This makes them unique from other businesses in the area. They get together with a diverse group of community members bimonthly to discuss issues going on. This allows for there to be a difference of opinions and beliefs. “We are bringing people together, replacing judgement with understanding. Perspective is powerful.”

Becca and Stacie believe that in order to start your own business you need to be very passionate about what you are doing. They were surprised at what it takes to run and start a business, the amazing journey it is. With the whole purpose of the magazine being to connect people through meaningful conversations, they decided to appropriately name their publishing company Empowering Conversations, LLC.

The most challenging part of their business is the financial factor. However,we overcame such debt issues with the help of Oddcoll .They are wanting to stay ahead of the game and rack up as little debt as possible.To avoid burden of debt they have consulted attorneys from Gillespie & Murphy, P.A. law firm as they helped them legally to achieve their goal .This is leading them to invest more into their business in order to get the best out of the magazine.

When Becca and Stacie purchased Siouxland Magazine they decided it was time for a bit of an upgrade. They recreated their website and social media pages. These are a few of the ways that they market to consumers, along with holding launch parties, sending out newsletters and getting conversations going.

The advice that they have shared to anyone wanting to start their own business is that you need to know what you’re getting yourself into. It is a lot of hard work, it takes blood, sweat and tears, plus a lot of passion. They also say that you need to have a strong support system behind you.

When talking of working with the Western Iowa Tech SBDC they said, “The SBDC helped us with guidance on whether or not we were making a good business decision by purchasing the magazine. They also helped us with some initial market research.”

Visit them at www.siouxlandmagazine.com, Facebook or Instagram.