Conversations with Brooke Csikos & Tyler Barnum

Today we’d like to introduce you to Brooke Csikos & Tyler Barnum.

Hi Brooke Csikos, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
To begin this story, we need to rewind a little bit. Brooke has a beautiful banded rock that she collected while visiting the Grand Canyon; This unknowingly started it all. We decided to rescue a puppy, Max, to keep our other rescue dog, Cambria, company. We have always lived an active lifestyle and enjoyed hiking, camping, fishing, and outdoor activities. Shortly after adopting Max, we planned our first trip as a family of four. Kanab, Utah, was the destination because it sits between multiple national parks and monuments. Within 30 minutes, you can visit Zion National park or Bryce Canyon, just over an hour away. The dogs had the time of their lives on the 5-acre, fenced-in yard. We came to find out the home was owned by the CEO of the nation’s largest no-kill sanctuary for companion animals, “Best Friends.” After the trip was over and we were on our way home, we decided to stop near the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument entrance. The drive was many miles down a dirt road, and we decided to stop and look for a rock from Utah to join Brooke’s rock from the Grand Canyon.

After finding numerous small pieces of colorful Jasper and Agate, we decided to hightail it out of there due to the multiple rattlesnake skins littering the area. These rocks were only the beginning. The obsession didn’t start until we started looking specifically for Jasper near Cave Creek, Arizona. This was the first time we had gone looking for a specific rock, and we weren’t entirely sure what to expect. Would we find anything? Do we know what to look for? So many questions. After about an hour of hiking on our friend’s property, Brooke pulled a piece of amazing Jasper from the wall of a wash, and the rest is history! After our son was born and the pandemic hit hard, we started to evaluate our career paths for something we could do from home and truly enjoy. Due to both of our career experiences, myself being a digital marketing executive account manager and Brooke working with human resources, we launched Arizona Rock Shop solely online. We built the website from scratch, used the little material we hand collected, built relationships with miners, and sold our pieces online. After a few months, we established the following base on Instagram that launched our business. After 8 months in, we were both able to quit our jobs and work on lapidary products that we hand collected while supporting our family. This month marks two years that Arizona Rock Shop LLC has been open. We have over 13,000 followers on Instagram and have sold our products worldwide, including: in Australia, Italy, Canada, Malaysia, Iceland, France, Switzerland, and Saudi Arabia. Within two short years, we supplied the lapidary world with over $250,000 of unique and premium materials.

We have learned much over these past two years, from developing better cabochon making and polishing processes, investing in necessary machinery to mainstream things and developing essential and life-changing relationships with lapidary legends (seriously like the Lebron James of rocks).

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Taking a risk and starting your own business during a pandemic is never a smooth road. We’ve faced many hurdles throughout these first years, but it comes down to perseverance. Developing better processes for everything; shipping/billing process, lack of necessary lapidary equipment due to the financial burden, working almost double the hours as our old 9-5, loss of benefit packages (401K, medical, dental), work-life balance, etc.

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
We are a small lapidary business specializing in the Five Fine Porcelain Jaspers: Blue Mountain Jasper, Imperial Jasper, Willow Creek Jasper, Morrisonite Jasper, and Bruneau Jasper. We strive to source our material from small, ethically sourced miners. It has been our mission to put the American miner at the forefront of our business and highlight the amazing material that is pulled out of the ground right here in the USA! We recently invested in a slab saw and can now cut whole rocks into slabs, cubes, and towers. Although we specialize in Porcelain Jaspers, we are fluent with Agates of all kinds, Petrified Wood, Fossils, Obsidian, and Psilomelane. A huge portion of our business sells slabs of various materials to a variety of lapidary individuals, People making cabochons, jewelry of all kinds, artists, and collectors. We do everything! Collect the rough rocks, slab, polish slabs, make cabochons, picture frames, stone coasters, and pendants, and we’ve made it! What sets us apart from other businesses is that our material is the premium grade at a quality price. We strive to provide the best materials at the best prices while supporting other small businesses/miners.

What are your plans for the future?
Our plans for the future are to expand our business. The ultimate goal is to find an amazing new material (Agate or Jasper) right here in Arizona! We would love to set up our mining claim and show the world the incredible material Arizona has to offer. After going to many different rock shows around the country, Arizona is underrepresented in the Agate and Jasper category. We would love to have our mining claim, which allows us to mine on 40acres.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://arizonarockshop.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/arizonarockshop/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ArizonaRockShop/