Four Athens will host another Startup Stories event on Monday, February 29th, bringing local entrepreneurs to the stage at Hotel Indigo’s Rialto Club to share their founding stories with the Athens community. The fourth event of its kind, Startup Stories highlights the entrepreneurial spirit of Athens in a unique format, providing the public an opportunity to hear the personal accounts of local startup and business founders sharing their real-life stories of starting and building a business in Athens. Monday’s keynote speaker is Chris Herron, CEO and co-founder of local craft brewery Creature Comforts.

Having recently announced their expansion and several new hires, Creature Comforts Brewing Company has experienced impressive success and steady growth under the leadership of Chris Herron. The company has gone from five full-time staff to twenty in less than two years, and continues to receive accolades as one of the fastest growing craft breweries in the Southeast and a favorite new brewery nationwide. Mr. Herron co-founded Creature Comforts after a 14-year career with industry leaders such as Miller Brewing Company and Diageo US Spirits and Wines.

Shayna Hobbs, co-founder and Creative Director of Sons of Sawdust, will also speak at Monday’s event, telling the compelling story behind the inspiration for the local artisanal carpentry endeavor, and sharing insights into the rapid growth and expansive popularity of the family-operated business. Alongside her husband Matt and brother-in-law Ben, Ms. Hobbs helps manage the company’s operations and is primarily responsible for their lucrative social media following, a result of combining her considerable photography and storytelling talents to communicate the company’s brand to a vast and rapidly growing audience. Originally from Nashville, Ms. Hobbs is happy to call Athens home with her husband and their two children.

Also part of the evening’s lineup is Brittney Naala Laryea, UGA student and co-founder of The Dorm Room Beautician, a hairstylist booking platform focused on the African-American student market and supporting entrepreneurial students of color who provide specialized in-demand styling services on university campuses. The Dorm Room Beautician was one of the finalist companies of the UGA Idea Accelerator program last fall.

Rachel Watkins rounds out the evening’s celebrity bill serving as Master of Ceremonies. After three years promoting Athens with the Convention & Visitors Bureau, Ms. Watkins joined the children’s literacy nonprofit Books for Keeps as a program manager in January, and is the events director at Avid Bookshop on Prince Avenue, coordinating author events and leading Saturday story time at the shop. Well known as an advocate of Athens entrepreneurship and business development efforts, Ms. Watkins will introduce each speaker, and facilitate an open Q&A session with the audience.

Jim Flannery, Executive Director at Four Athens, expressed his excitement about the evening by saying, “This is a unique opportunity for people in Athens to hear what it truly means to start a business in Athens, and grow it beyond the local market-- to dream big.” He went on to say, “The real story behind any successful business venture is about the people who make it happen.”

Startup Stories takes place at the Rialto Club at Hotel Indigo in Downtown Athens on Monday February 29th. Doors open at 6:30pm, and the program will begin promptly at 7pm. The event is free and open to the public.

The previous Startup Stories event held in October 2015 featured Will Leitch, prolific sports writer, author, and founder of the popular Deadspin site, and Tom Robertson, CEO and co-founder of Athens-based education technology startup Cogent Education. Speakers at Startup Stories events in previous years have included founders, CEOs, and UGA Alumni from startups such as Scoutmob, Insightpool, Yik Yak, Path, and others.