Meet Mitchell and Kimberly Porter of State Flagz in Deer Valley

Today we’d like to introduce you to Mitchell and Kimberly Porter.

Thanks for sharing your story with us Mitchell and Kimberly. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
Mitchell- I guess it all started at a young age. My stepdad owns a laser cutting and CNC machine shop. Naturally, as a young man growing up school was never first on my priority list, I was the kid out in his garage from the time he got home from school until it was time to go to bed. My parents knew I wasn’t the best student and they realized how much I loved working on things. Since my stepdad is an engineer with the means to build anything he could create he always stressed me learning CAD (Computer Automated Design) just as a backup plan if things didn’t work out in my career when I became an adult. At that time the program I started learning on was Autocad. Autocad was a two-dimensional computer automated design system that was very different from the system we all use today.

Fast forward to 26 years old me, I am working part-time at my family’s machine shop and quickly building a career as an ISO 9001 lead auditor. I am literally around machining and manufacturing all day long and randomly one day about a year ago I got the bug to start learning CAD again. The CAD of today is all three dimensional and I have had so much fun learning and drawing things I can visualize in my head and model it right on my computer screen. My advantage has always been having the resources to make what I draw in CAD. Randomly one day my wife had an idea for a decoration for our house and wanted me to design it for her. A few hours later we had the first design for State Flagz. The next day I took that drawing to work with me and had it cut out. I took some photos of the finished product and posted it to Facebook. Almost instantly we had friends messaging us asking for one. We have since started putting them in restaurants around the valley to try to gain more brand recognition. We are still very small and in the beginning stages but my wife and I are having tons of fun with it. She manages the advertising side of things and I design and manufacture the finished product. We also are working on more states and will be releasing more designs soon! Follow @stateflagz on Instagram and Facebook to keep up to date with us!

Has it been a smooth road?
Mitchell- So far this journey has been pretty smooth. With the ability to control the start to finished product it kind of puts it all on us to make sure we are getting the results we intend on getting. So far the only obstacle we have run in to is figuring out how to appropriately advertise our product to a larger audience.

We’d love to hear more about your business.
Mitchell- State Flagz was born from an idea my wife (Kimberly) had. We specialize in sheet metal design and manufacturing. We are known for our only product at the moment which is a sheet metal cut out of the state of Arizona with a cut out of the flag inside. What I have found to set us apart from others is we are making the product from start to finish here locally, I’ve searched all over the internet and no one makes a product similar to ours, another aspect that sets us apart would be product control. We can make our products from multiple different materials and almost any size the customer wants. Our biggest achievement so far was being approached to design a custom state flag for the new fire station off of the I-17 and Jomax. It’s currently in process and will be completed and delivered to them soon.

Is our city a good place to do what you do?
Kimberly- I think Arizona, in general, is an amazing state to own a small business, especially one like ours. We all take pride in our beautiful state and it’s very apparent.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://www.stateflagz.ecwid.com/
• Phone: 6027174718
• Email: stateflagz@gmail.com
• Instagram: @stateflagz
• Facebook: @stateflagz

Image Credit:
Hart Films

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