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Alpine · The Big Bend · Texas

Start Local builds the businesses and careers Alpine and the Big Bend need to thrive.

We find gaps in everyday community life and build lasting local businesses to fill them. Across the portfolio, shared resources and expertise help each business serve its community more effectively and create careers with room to grow.

Explore our businesses See how we work Work with us
2022 Founded in Alpine, Texas
4 Operating businesses
Big Bend Region-first focus

The portfolio

Distinct businesses, one foundation

Each business leads with its own name, team, and customer experience. Start Local is the long-term owner and operating backbone behind them.

Kishmish Plaza

An 1800s lumberyard in downtown Alpine, turned into a flexible venue for events, markets, and seasonal experiences — still being thoughtfully restored.

Visit kishmish.events (opens in a new tab) A Start Local company

How we work

How the model works

Start Local is a local business builder and operating partner. We combine patient, long-term ownership with shared operating infrastructure, so each business can focus on its team and its customers.

01

Identify real needs

We start with a gap in everyday community life — not a trend or a convenient property — and study local conditions to build for year-round usefulness.

02

Build durable businesses

We launch and operate businesses meant to last, often putting underused buildings back to work in the process.

03

Develop local talent

We bring experienced leaders into the region, ask them to transfer knowledge, and create careers with training, responsibility, and room to grow.

04

Share operating strength

Shared finance, HR, training, capital, and purchasing strengthen every business, so valuable local services can endure.

Why it matters

Stronger year-round life in the Big Bend

Useful services close to home, stable local jobs, and careers that let talented people stay and grow in the region — that is what we judge ourselves on. Filling unmet needs comes first, then creating stable jobs, keeping spending local, and strengthening year-round community life.

Financial durability is the enabling requirement, not the goal. Our businesses work together: shared systems and the strength of the broader portfolio allow us to sustain valuable local services that may be difficult to support on their own.

What we measure

  • Jobs created and retained
  • Employee training and advancement
  • Local purchasing and money retained in the regional economy
  • Underused spaces reactivated
  • Unmet services introduced
  • Local taxes contributed

Our first consolidated scorecard is in development. Reported measures will use consistent definitions and clearly stated periods.

Work with us

Paths to participate

Community

Know a gap in everyday life in Alpine or the Big Bend that a lasting local business could fill? We want to hear about it.

Employees

Find stable work, real training, and career pathways across the portfolio — with room to grow without leaving the region.

Partners

Bring local knowledge, operating expertise, properties, or resources to help meet a community need.

Investors

Start Local seeks patient, mission-aligned capital with serious commercial discipline. Contact us to request more information.

Contact

Whatever brings you — a community need, a career, a property, a partnership, or an investment conversation — start with a short note.

Tell us who you are and what you have in mind. We read everything and respond to serious inquiries.

Email info@startlocal.llc Explore our businesses

Based in Alpine, Texas. Serving the Big Bend region.