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- By Chez Oxendine
- Indigenous Entrepreneurs
When Roddell Denetso launched Black Street Apparel in 2021, he had the gear, the designs and the drive — but not the business know-how. A mentor pointed him to Change Labs, a Native-led business incubator serving the Navajo and Hopi nations, and that changed everything.
“They do really well at helping somebody that’s just starting from the ground up,” said Denetso, a Shiprock, N.M.-based entrepreneur. “I could already design and produce, but for me it was mainly them helping me hone the business side — how to take my product out to more people.”
Now, Denetso and other Indigenous entrepreneurs won’t have to travel three hours to Change Labs headquarters in Tuba City, Ariz., for that kind of support. On July 18, Change Labs celebrated the grand opening of its second E-Ship Hub — an entrepreneurial workspace — in Shiprock to bring training and resources to a region where rural entrepreneurs have long been underserved.
The expansion brings the nonprofit business incubator across state lines to support more Native entrepreneurs and keep more dollars on the 27,425-square-mile reservation, which spans three states.
The 2,000-square-foot hub space, leased in the Tse’ Bit’ A’i Shopping Center, offers coworking desks, high-speed internet, a tech-equipped meeting room, basic printing services, a resource library and on-site business coaching.
Change Lab’s flagship E-Ship Hub in Tuba City has welcomed more than 1,000 visitors annually since its June 2023 launch. Executive Director Heather Fleming (Diné) said the Shiprock location removes a major travel barrier for entrepreneurs in the northeastern part of the Navajo Nation.
“Change Labs can be accused of being too Arizona-centric, but having the Shiprock space allows us to signal to New Mexico residents that we're there for them too,” Fleming said. “It also makes things more accessible for some of our applicants interested in business incubation, loan programs, or workshops. Now they don't have to drive all the way into Arizona to access those resources; they can just go to Shiprock.”
Denetso, the Black Street Apparel founder, said the internet-enabled hub with basic production facilities could help local entrepreneurs scale up marketing and leap into e-commerce.
“It'll make a big difference for people wanting to start these businesses to have a place that they can go to get online and take their business online,” Denetso told Tribal Business News. “There’s a lot of rural areas out here that lack that stuff, so people can access things like the internet they wouldn’t normally have.
“It's a huge asset - you basically have the potential, whatever you're wanting to do, or are doing already, you have the potential to double that.”
Having more startups in Shiprock should create a multiplier effect, according to Nick Smith, who runs Nick’s Print Shop. As more businesses start up, they begin to trade and collaborate among each other, supporting one another’s growth, Smith said. He pointed to his own shop as an example: new businesses are going to need help getting stickers, shirts, and banners, after all.
“I anticipate a movement of entrepreneurs connecting and conquering whatever obstacles are in front of them with this new support. My business feeds off new businesses,” Smith told Tribal Business News. “This is just a small example of how Change Labs stimulates our local economy.”
The collaborations and a growing small-business ecosystem should keep more money on the reservation. More than 65 cents of every dollar earned on the Navajo Nation flows to border towns — what economists call “economic leakage” — draining wealth from community, Fleming told Tribal Business News previously.
Shiprock faces this challenge directly. The town sits just 30 minutes from Farmington, N.M., where many residents travel for basic goods and services unavailable on the reservation.
“We targeted Tuba City initially because of its proximity to Flagstaff and airports, and because it was a self-governing chapter. But Shiprock always made sense as the second location,” Fleming said. “The economic leakage issues in the northeastern part of the Navajo Nation are the most severe.”
The Shiprock hub cost about $250,000 to stand up — far less than the Tuba City hub, which was built from the ground up, while the Shiprock hub uses leased space.
Change Labs has no immediate plans for additional locations. Finding staff and suitable locations makes expansion challenging, Fleming said.
“I don't know what our third location would be at this point, or if we would even pursue a third. These hubs are a lot of work,” Fleming said. “The other big challenge is when you have a new space, you have to hire a team to run it. We need people in those spaces who can empathize with entrepreneurs and who have some entrepreneurial skill themselves to share. Finding those people can be challenging.”
Even if Change Labs' expansions stop here, the growth offers a model on how to "build from within," said Jackson Brossy (Diné), a Change Labs board member and former assistant administrator at the U.S. Small Business Administration.
“This space supports ideas, business growth, and job creation rooted right here in our communities,” Brossy said. “It’s a model for what we need more of across Indian Country, and I look forward to seeing the fruits of this labor flourish from the seeds planted today.”
