Spotlight on Entrepreneurship: Sioux Guitars Born out of Rebel Passion

BUSINESS OWNER: Ryan Meyers
BUSINESS NAME: Sioux Guitars
MAIN PRODUCTS/SERVICES: Effects Pedals, Amps, and Reverb Tanks
ADDRESS: Sioux City, IA
WEBSITE: SiouxGuitars.com,  and Facebook, and Twitter, and Tumblr

 

1. What makes you an entrepreneur? I don’t know. I’ve always been driven to do stuff without asking permission. I started as a teenager building composting bins out of pallets. Then I started my own music fanzine, shooting and interviewing bands in Sioux City, Omaha, and Lincoln, and then I would lay it out in a magazine format and have it photocopied. I opened a record store in what was unbeknownst to me as the dying days of the record industry. I never intended Sioux Guitars as being a company, I just started messing with mod-ing my own effects and built a few and figured I could pay for my own by making enough to sell to others.

2. What was the driving force behind you starting a business? What drives you each day? I don’t know. I have a 1,000 good ideas a day but lack the time and the capital to do much with them.

3. What’s the biggest challenge you’ve had to overcome as you’ve grown your business? What has been your greatest reward? Time and money have been my greatest challenges as far as it takes a lot of time and energy to develop, source vendors, build, market, etc. It also takes a lot of money to launch an idea, all of which is an investment, and until that investment pays off, you still have mortgage payments, utility bills, and have to put gas in the car. The greatest reward has been working with people I admire.

4. Why are startups and small companies important to a local economy? Maybe I’m cynical but I don’t feel that they are important to the local economy. This community will bend over backwards to court a corporate chain what ever, offering tax breaks and other benefits but someone who’s been here, some auto shop that’s been around and keeps crew of a half dozen on the payroll, the city could care less about. I am disgusted that our city thinks the answers to all our problems are to entice another chain retailer or restaurant here. If I could wave a magic wand, my vision for Sioux City would be unique a thriving downtown filled with unique shops and destinations blended with buskers and street performers.

5. What more can be done to help create, grow and promote small businesses and startups in Sioux City and the region? The city itself should get out of business development. The Promenade Theater is a great example of bad decision making. How could that ever be profitable when the city backed building that and at the last second found a theater chain to run it? It would have been different if a theater company decided that Sioux City would be a good market and they could compete here, and came to the city asking for help instead of how the city put the cart before the horse.

Also rents are insanely high. A dozen years ago when I was scouting a location for my record shop, I inquired about buildings that I know had been empty for decades, and was quoted insane rent prices. Well, it’s no wonder why that spots been empty for decades when they are asking insane prices. I would think it would smarter to rent a spot to someone trying to start something up for $500 a month and get that rent vs. asking $1,500 or $2,000 a month and letting it sit empty. Maybe the city could work with start ups and private landlords to bridge the gap in what’s affordable vs. the rent being asked. I don’t think it would be too much to ask for that kind of city assistance when they don’t think twice about giving the likes of Walmart and other chains tax abatements to entice development.