Igniting Business Blog

Columbia Center for Urban Agriculture works to enhance our community’s health by connecting people to agriculture and the land through hands-on learning opportunities from seed to plate. Their 1.3-acre Urban Farm grows thousands of pounds of fresh food for local food pantries and educates thousands of children and adults every year. Founded in 2009, CCUA believes cooking and gardening skills have been slowly lost over the last couple of generations, and they want to ensure individuals still have the opportunity to learn them and use it to feed their families.  CCUA helps people grow and cook food at their homes, at local schools, and other community sites.  Billy Polansky serves as Executive Director of CCUA, leading the day-to-day operations.

At Igniting Business, we have had the pleasure to serve CCUA in their IT needs.  According to Billy, “We tried having our own IT staff and it was difficult. It is a completely different skillset and I could not provide those staff with the support they needed to be successful. Outsourcing our IT needs to Igniting Business was a good move for a small organization like ours.”

We are excited to announce that Benjamin Liu transitioned roles at Igniting Business to our Marketing and Web Specialist. He will be located in our Lee’s Summit office.

Benjamin will work with clients in the greater Kansas City and Columbia areas, working particularly with online marketing, advertising and branding, and social media. He will also hold a role on our Web team, continuing to offer high-quality service on websites in design and implementation.

Upon reaching our 5th year of service, we are excited to announce that our team continues to expand! This past week we had a new team member join us out of our Columbia, Missouri office. Luke Crepeau will serve as a Web and IT Specialist, helping all clients with web and tech needs.

Luke acquired a Bachelor’s Degree in Marketing and Management from Columbia College in Columbia, Missouri, where he later went on to work in digital advertising and data analysis. Luke has acquired a wide range of experience in advertising and analytical platforms, while pursuing his passion of helping small businesses thrive.

At Igniting Business, we’re celebrating our 5-year anniversary in 2017! We couldn’t be more thankful for our amazing clients and team. We began our company in Columbia, Missouri. As we reflect over our past five years, we thought it was only fitting to mention the five things we love most about Columbia.

Both myself and Caitlin are University of Missouri grads (along with several other team members) – so, of course, we might be a bit biased by this one. But it can’t be denied, Mizzou students, faculty, and alums are some of the best in the nation! Mizzou’s spirit cannot be easily squashed. Columbia comes alive every Fall and Spring, and we positively love it!

I started Igniting Business in 2012 as a Junior attending Mizzou. I am a web developer and technology fanatic who began creating websites for corporate clients while still in my teenage years. As I developed websites for small businesses, I found that these companies also needed affordable and professional IT and marketing services that they could trust. To meet the growing needs of our clients and by applying both my experience in technology and education in marketing and economics, I envisioned Igniting Business. We started Igniting Business out of my college apartment with a goal to help small businesses succeed.

Today, Igniting Business has the same vision: Helping small businesses succeed. We have grown to serve over 200 small business and non-profit clients spanning from Alaska to Arizona to Missouri to Washington DC! Expanding from my original home office, we now have two offices in Columbia, MO and Lee’s Summit, MO. Our team has also grown throughout the years and now consists of 9 truly excellent team members. Our team offers an impressive almost 50 years of experience in web, tech, and marketing.

As we quickly approach our 5-year anniversary (January 2017!), we look back over the past five years and recognize the amazing blessings bestowed upon our company.

At Igniting Business, we have so much to be thankful for even just within 2016.

With an aspiration to restore hope, function and quality of life, ICT Muscle & Joint Clinic, a Wichita, KS based clinic’s backbone of its care consists of Chiropractic, Soft Tissue Therapy, & Rehabilitation. Using this triage, they provide care for a wide array of sport-related injuries to pediatric & postpartum care, always taking the time to fully assess each patient's movement patterns to identify the source of their symptoms instead of chasing pain. ICT Muscle & Joint Clinic’s goal is to get you moving and feeling better so that you are able to prevent further injury.

Owners Dr. Keith Sparks and Dr. Rachel Girrens were inspired to open ICT Muscle & Joint Clinic to progress the current healthcare model in regard to musculoskeletal pain and treatment. They both wanted to be instrumental in improving the health and quality of care to the greater Wichita, Kansas community by providing an alternate option. Believing patient education is something that is lacking in most healthcare today, Dr. Keith and Dr. Rachel hope to inspire each patient to be involved in bettering their own health!

We are excited to announce that Caitlin Seidel will be transitioning into a new, full-time role within Igniting Business as VP, Operations & Finance. In addition to working with Igniting Business and our clients since 2012, Caitlin brings over four years of tax, auditing, bookkeeping, and consulting experience to the company, including experience with both small businesses and non-profit organizations.

As our VP of Operations & Finance, Caitlin will oversee our operations management, to help ensure our clients receive the best experience with us. Caitlin will assume management of client billing and vendor accounts, as well as our general financial management. She will also continue to work with clients in implementing efficiency tools throughout their daily tasks and operational structure. Caitlin is excited to serve Igniting Business and our clients in this new role. Connect with Caitlin directly to hear more about how her new role will directly benefit each of our clients.

As 2016 is under way and our company continues to grow, Igniting Business is thrilled to announce that as of April 25th, we have packed up and moved our Columbia office to The Village of Cherry Hill! Although we will miss our old space, we can't wait to start our evolving journey in the new building.

Meet Benjamin Liu, our new Web and IT Analyst.

The Igniting Business team is excited to announce that we have a new staff member joining the team! Ben Liu will be the Columbia office as a Web and IT Analyst.