It all began in 2023 at West Slope Startup Week in Durango, where Robin, Kelly & TJ were on a panel about rural collaboration. They discovered that their businesses all faced similar growth challenges, inherent in smaller communities. These obstacles are shared by many rural brands, and there is an opportunity to address them collectively. During the discussion, they held an off-the-cuff collaborative workshop that generated some pretty rad ideas they had to follow up on. A few months later, they created Rural is Rad to build a directory of rural brands and a community of founders that is 50+ and growing.