Nominate Bay Area Companies You Love

It's hard for me to believe that the vision of Companiesandme is finally being unveiled today. That vision is to curate the rich stories of companies around us, and to bring us closer to the people behind them. As we unveil the site, I find myself completely inspired by the type of people who have taken the time to share their stories and engage in a real conversation with you.

There aren't many places where you can can find a founder of a well-respected local company talking passionately about how we should live our lives in "joy bubbles," celebrating every moment. Or about the deep introspections that followed a sobering accident and directed a new path toward art and building a tea company genuinely committed to the planet and the well-being of people on it. Or a brewery started in the Port of Oakland simply to bring beer production back to Oakland, after the city had been abandoned by brewers nearly 50 years ago. As people of the Bay Area, these are our companies, our home team, and it feels damn good to know that.

But Companiesandme is for the Bay Area companies that you love, not just the ones we do.

Because we want to curate the stories of the companies you love, we'd like to ask you to nominate them so that we can help them build deeper relationships and awareness of what they do. This site isn't about buying anything, it's about building real relationships, something precious in our hyper-connected world of go, go, go.

As our economy rebounds, I've already seen a growing number of companies surfacing that seem to question how we will do so. These smaller brands have something about them that exists far beyond product or price, only captured and shared in stories. And we hope to make it easier to discover those stories and companies right here.

Please nominate Bay Area companies you love: by responding below and/or on Twitter (I suggest including a link to this conversation and @companiesandme, as I did)

Nominated companies get to join Companiesandme risk-free and every dollar we earn this month goes to the Yele Haiti Earthquake Fund.

Why: We wouldn't feel right taking the money of a company you nominate, and while we could certainly use the subscription fees as a bootstrapped startup, it feels like the right thing to do. The people of Haiti could likely use it more than we can right now.

Some rules/commitments: We'll accept nominations through the end of February. It's our policy to refund the cost of the first month if the participating company isn't satisfied. And we'll still honor this and send every dollar they paid to Haiti either way (out of our own pockets, if the cost of their subscription is refunded).

Nominated companies must:
- Be in northern CA
- Be independently owned (there are some great publicly traded companies out there, but it's the independent ones that can't share their stories during American Idol)
- Make a physical product (service businesses tend to be inherently relationship-based, but it is harder to really get to know people behind product companies)

Finally, we have to reserve the right to be selective about which companies we allow on the site. We poured our hearts into what you see, to ensure that it would build relationships with companies committed to a two-way conversation.

Thanks in advance for building on our hard work by inviting the companies you love to feature their stories and connect with you on the site. If you have any other ideas or feedback, please do share them below or send us an email at hello at companiesandme.com.

Image credit, with great appreciation: Thomas Hawk

Responses

Michaela Biaggi

5 minutes ago

0 people like this

Bohemian Creamery....great cheese and passionate cheese makers

Ryan Mickle

San Francisco, CA

about 8 hours ago

One person likes this

Thanks for the great recent suggestions! Olivia, out of coincidence, I spoke with ChicoBag earlier today! They are fantastic!

Olivia Khalili

about 13 hours ago

Chico Bags in Chico. Great products and approach to making the world greener and more colorful!

Matt Olson

2 days ago

A couple more:

http://www.methodhome.com/

http://www.philwood.com/

http://www.paulcomp.com/

Stacie Wickham Shepp

6 days ago

Longevitea Kombucha http://www.lonjeviteakombucha.com/

7 days ago

Thanks for all the great nominations! I've spoken to a handful of those you've suggested and we hope to have a new group of companies joining shortly. If you can, ask around for nominations as I feel like every time I meet someone new they turn me on to a new company with fantastic stories.

Princess Me

8 days ago

PollyAnn's Ice Cream...

2 people like this

BLUE BOTTLE COFFEE... I<3 BB...

Green Apple Books...

Nominees: Pet Food Express, Painted Tongue Press, Peerless Coffee, Kasper's (or Casper's) Hot Dog, Cowgirl Creamery, Double Rainbow Ice Cream

Jenni Olson

Love your site and thanks for giving me the opportunity to express my great love and affection for Bi-Rite Creamery which is an absolute civic treasure — for their handcrafted, delicious ice-cream products as well as for their commitment to the 18th Street corridor (and I know they have a fabulous and heartwarming story to tell about their roots and the way they run their business).

Thanks!

12 days ago

I second Rivendell, Chronicle, and Anchor!

Richard Ault

3 people like this

Hess Surfboards is a great one.

Seconding:

Hess

Heath

Apple

Strauss Family Creamery

Some others:

Mollusk Surf Shop (not sure if they qualify)

DLX skate shop (not sure if they qualify)

Boy it's hard to tell who is in the area, and who isn't. Maybe that's the point :-)

sondra bernstein

14 days ago

Can I nominate my own company? I love this new concept - can't wait to read all of the inspiring stories and be juiced up by the experts!

the girl & the fig

15 days ago

I think I'm going to need some samples of Mateveza to give it proper consideration. :)

Abby Monroe

MateVeza! Of course. ;)

Cameron Matthews

16 days ago

Great ideas and congrats on launching the site. I'd like to nominate studylikeachampion.com

Adam Lamoreaux

I think Clif Bar and Anchor Brewing are no-brainers, but I'm not sure if Clif is still privately owned still.

Nate Bolt

I'm gonna nominate the incredible and local @willotoons and her SF-based clothing company: http://willotoons.com

Jim Huysse

Three Twins Organic Ice Cream!

17 days ago

Hey Ryan,

Good to see TCHO on here. What a cool company.

Here are a few more I thought of:

Tellason Jeans
Goorin Bros
Upper Playground
Mission Bicycle Company
Niman Ranch
Prather Ranch Meat Co
Marin Sun Farms
Hog Island Oyster Co
Green Gulch Farm
Magnolia Brewery
Humphry Slocombe
Gelateria Naia
Strauss Family Creamery
Cowgirl Creamery
St. George Spirits
Charles Chocolate
Guittard Chocolate Company
Drinkwell Soda
June Taylor Company
Primavera

Can you tell I like to eat? :) Well really its just that this seems to be the specialty in the Bay Area when it comes to products... There's a million other locally owned companies/organizations that I love in the Bay Area, but you'd have to branch out to markets, retailers, nonprofits, and other sectors.

Also, I second Patagonia -- I think they're the coolest clothing company out there -- but not Bay Area, Ventura I think. But as you expand, I would definitely add them to the list.

These are great suggestions, thanks Matt, Jamie, Felix and Victoria. I hadn't heard of Hess Surfboards, Heath Pottery, or Amazing Grass before. Will reach out to them shortly and see if they'd like to share some of their stories with you and help us support relief efforts in Haiti. Keep the great ideas coming!

Matt, did you see TCHO on the site? We might just have been one step ahead of you. :)
http://companiesandme.com/tcho

Victoria Soroczynski

I would like to nominate:

Galaxy Granola
Zola Acai

Jamie Walker

Here are the companies I'd love to nominate:

Zola Acai

Galaxy Granola

Amazing Grass

Felix Desroches

Awesome! I definitely have a few to nominate, but I'd first like to nominate a Twitter hashtag: shall we say #c&m or #companiesandme ? That way I can nominate from the Twittersphere a little more easily :)

My wish list is:

Epicenter Cafe
Apple
Hess Surfboards
Heath Pottery
Patagonia

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Ryan Mickle

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