Meet the newest EveryDay Creatives!

The fifth EveryDay Creative cohort is underway, bringing together a group of Sacramento-based founders working across a wide range of creative industries for 12 weeks of business craft guidance and expert mentorship. Their work spans film, hospitality, design, fabrication, marketing, beauty, and wellness, reflecting how broadly “creative work” shows up in local economies today.

This year’s cohort includes:

• Collective Brilliance Co. (Creative placemaking & Community Building)

• Algo Bueno Productions (Film)

• Frontal Lobe Hospitality Group, LLC (Hospitality)

• Liz Awesome Art (Art & Design)

• Forge Studio (Creative Services & Fabrication)

• Crispín Supper Club (Food & Events)

• Everything Ruthless (Beauty)

• Beyond Words Production (Marketing & Communications)

• SledgeHammer Graffix (Production & Education)

• The So Good Agency (Creative Services)

• EcoPress Sacramento (Design, Fabrication, & Environmental Innovation)

• Holding Space (Mental Health)

• Deeper Cuts Therapy (Mental Health)

• Lumina (Retail & Community Events)

• SheSō (Design & Branding)

The cohort offers a useful snapshot of how Sacramento’s creative economy is evolving. What stands out is not just the range of industries and creative practices but how interconnected they are. A supper club functions as both a food business and a cultural gathering space. A design studio may support multiple other businesses in the cohort. Creative-centered mental health practices are part of the same landscape, responding to the particular needs of the people building and participating in these creative communities. The lines between sectors are increasingly blurred, and that overlap is part of what makes Sacramento’s economy more resilient.

EveryDay Creative, developed by Creative Startups, CLTRE, and the City of Sacramento’s Office of Arts and Culture, is structured to support that kind of interconnected growth. Offering both 6-week programming for early-stage businesses and a 12-week curriculum for those looking to reach the next level with their existing organizations, EveryDay Creative brings founders together not just to refine individual businesses but to better understand how those businesses operate within a larger network.

Over the next 12 weeks, this new cohort will work through core areas like revenue models, marketing, and operations. At the same time, they’ll be exposed to different ways of approaching similar challenges across industries. A fabrication studio, a therapy practice, and a hospitality group may have very different outputs, but they are all navigating questions around capacity, pricing, visibility, and long-term sustainability.

That approach is grounded in Creative Startups’s long-term work building support systems for creative business owners. Across more than a decade of programming and strategic planning, the organization has worked with over 700 founders in 19 countries, developing models that combine business training, mentorship, and access to capital in ways that reflect how creative businesses actually operate. Those insights shape EveryDay Creative directly: from its focus on practical tools to its emphasis on peer exchange and cross-sector learning. For a deeper look at how this work has evolved, read the 10 Year Retrospective.

Creative Startups has had the pleasure of working in the Sacramento region for almost five years, beginning that effort with Sprout to Growth: Potential Pathways for Growing Sacramento’s Creative Economy, a strategic report built for the City’s Office of Arts and Culture identifying real opportunities for creative businesses to expand. The report highlights how interconnected sectors (like media production, design, and experience-based businesses) are already driving growth, and underscores the need for continued investment, coordination, and support. That same foundation carries into EveryDay Creative, linking individual founder growth to a broader, long-term strategy for Sacramento’s creative economy.

The cohort will conclude with a public Pitch Night, where founders will present their work and share how their businesses have developed over the course of the program. As with prior cohorts, the event serves as both a milestone and a point of connection. Previous Pitch Nights have welcomed esteemed guests and speakers like Khaim Morton, Deputy Treasurer of California, as well as past EveryDay Creative alumni, and this cohort’s culminating celebration is set to continue that tradition, gathering a mix of public leaders, industry practitioners, and alumni to highlight the progress of this year’s founders and strengthen the connections that sustain Sacramento’s creative ecosystem.

Stay tuned for more details about the Pitch Night and how you can join us to celebrate Sacramento’s next wave of creative innovators.

Creative Startups, based in New Mexico, has a proven track record developing economic strategies and programs leading to measurable economic growth in the creative industries. At the forefront of the creative economy for 15 years, Creative Startups develops strategic plans for regional governments, supplies in-depth economic analyses of assets and market opportunities, supports cultural and Tribal institutions, and develops and delivers innovative programs for creative entrepreneurs and artists. Through their work across New Mexico, the USA, and the world, Creative Startups has developed a comprehensive understanding of the technologies and trends driving the remarkable expansion of creative industries.