Bozeman Startup Wins National Green Award

By Robert Struckman, 11-06-07

Sweet Onion Creations, a Bozeman-based startup offering modeling and other services to architecture firms, has set itself apart with greenness.

“We sell tools to help you visualize what your project looks like,” said Jake Cook, who co-owns the company with his wife, Lee.

The pair uses computers to create three-dimensional images that are then manufactured in their garage as models on a special printing device. The raw material is basically pancake batter. Glue made from sugar water holds the model together.

“We do what someone (in an architecture company) does in a back room with foam board and an exacto knife, except for one-fourth the cost and one-sixth the time,” Jake said.

Yet it is the startup’s green credentials – and creative, new media marketing – that have given the company a national profile.

On Monday, Sweet Onion Creations got its biggest coup yet. It won the Greenest category in StartupNation Home-Based 100.

“The co-founders of Sweet Onion Creations… embody the higher-road ideals of running a business that’s green and growing,” writes Rich Sloan of StartupNation. StartupNation offers insights and services for entrepreneurs on the Web sites of major national media, including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Entrepreneur, CNN, MSNBC, FOX News Channel and others.

Until the StartupNation award, Jake and Lee spread the word about the firm’s green focus through its Web site and on a YouTube video (which you can watch below).

For Jake and Lee, an environmentally friendly focus first fit their personal goals and then seemed natural as a way to open conversations with potential clients.

In October, Jake was cruising the Small Business Section of the New York Times Web site, he said, when he saw the competition for the greenest startup. He and Lee put together and submitted an entry. Several weeks ago, the Sweet Onion office got a phone call saying the business was a finalist and asking for more information. They talked about their minimal impact on the environment. They recycle everything possible and even buy renewable-energy credits, known as Green Tags, from the Bonneville Environmental Foundation to offset their energy consumption.

For such a small company, this kind of recognition feels especially good, Jake said.

“It’s great,” Jake said. “We’re hoping people think it’s cool.”

Editor’s note: For the sake of full disclosure and transparency, we should note that Sweet Onion was a sponsor of NewWest.Net’s 2nd Annual Real Estate and Development in the Northern Rockies Conference last month.