FUN FACT

this year. In 2022, Preston attended SUNY Adirondack’s StartUp ADK, an eight-week, 16-hour course focused on business planning that provides aspiring entrepreneurs information about marketing, market research, bookkeeping, tax issues and cash flow, financial projections, legal considerations, human resources, business insurance and more.

Having such contacts helps Preston and Keenan focus on what they know best: creating environmentally respectful and sustainable landscape designs. Inspired by Dutch garden designer Piet Oudolf, who uses a naturalistic approach to gardening that includes selecting perennials and grasses less for their flowers than for their structure, Preston said she considers the land’s natural environment and creates designs similar to it.

“During COVID, people turned to the outdoors and began to value their space in a different way,” Preston said. “A lot of attention goes to the inside of your house, but how much goes to the outside? How can you be part of that environment based on what’s outside your door?”

The connections she built during StartUp ADK elevated Country Home. “SCORE, Albany Small Business Center, the college librarian, mentors — those connections were so important for me trying to get my feet for this business and build a foundation,” she said. “I had someone I could ask specific questions about anything: first hires, basic accounting skills, any of the fundamentals.”

Preston has visions of Country Home Landscapes growing to include employees, a fleet of electric vehicles to transport plants sustainably and water trucks.

“It’s really fun to design native landscaping because there is so much beauty here already,” she said. “Something about nature is so absorbing; we have to be outside, it’s therapeutic.” www.advokate.net

What Kate Austin envisioned to be a one-person business to help artists has evolved into a full-service marketing agency with a staff of eight and hundreds of clients.

Advokate, which Austin founded in 2010, recently moved from a tworoom second-floor space on Exchange Street to a suite at 333 Glen.

“At first I thought, ‘I’ll help artists,’ because there’s so much to selling your art that isn’t just making art,” said Austin, an artist herself.

“I started Advokate because I had friends who were trying to do so many different things: they had to book shows, hang shows, bring their artwork, schlep their stuff to the gallery, do the posters, do the marketing, do the data entry on their billing, make sure they had a logo and a website, and a clear, recognizable brand — and it’s a lot when you really just want to make art.”

She started the business hoping it would be enough to support her. “I never thought I’d be this established in the community or have employees,” she said. “It has turned into an