Founders Rico and Crystal Worl began building the brand in 2011 as a brick-and-mortar venture. Years later, the siblings shifted their efforts strictly online due to the COVID-19 pandemic. But the original vision for the company remains.
“Our niche market was identified by the obvious demand for Native-designed items and contrasted by the quantity of cheesy knock off items in gift shops. We decided to provide for that marketplace, but with authenticity,” Rico Worl explains. “We created products that meet the interest in Alaska and Alaska Native art and culture. Many people who have visited, lived in, or grew up in Alaska have connections they hold precious and want to remember or celebrate. We are there to support those celebrations authentically.”
Trickster Company initially started with hand painting skateboards but quickly saw the demand for Indigenous-designed items. To make the products more accessible, they began having the skateboards manufactured. “Over time, we have continuously added more products,” Worl says. “From skateboards, we moved into playing cards, basketballs, apparel, and much more.”
Their successful ecommerce business now operates with the help of many family members, including their parents—Dawn Yolkol Dinwoodie and Rod Worl—who oversee the Anchorage facility. The company now ships its distinctive products to retail shoppers and wholesale buyers worldwide.
Ecommerce is also vital to Wild Alaskan Company, a direct-to-consumer seafood membership service that ships sustainable, wild-caught Alaska seafood to the doorsteps of consumers in all fifty states. The company, founded by Arron Kallenberg in 2017, shipped its first box of fish in February 2018. In 2023, it began to vertically integrate with the acquisition of Home Port Seafoods, a custom seafood processor in Bellingham, Washington.
Kallenberg, the son and grandson of commercial fishermen, often refers to his business as a “three-generation overnight success.”
Despite being born into a commercial fishing family, Kallenberg says he was a “nerdy kid” who loved to tinker with computers. “I would bring my laptop out to sea and even rigged up a very slow internet connection on our boat in Bristol Bay in the late ‘90s,” he recalls. “Growing up, my dad and I would often talk about how the internet would eventually revolutionize the ability of fishermen to build and access direct markets. So in 2017, after spending nearly two decades working in the tech industry, I took a leap of faith, combining my two passions—seafood and tech—to launch the Wild Alaskan Company.”
Emma Privat also grew up commercial fishing. In 2012, she and her sister, Claire Neaton—both raised on a homestead in the Aleutian Islands—founded Homer-based Salmon Sisters. An online platform was integral to the company’s inception. “We started our business using ecommerce because we didn’t yet have a physical storefront established and used social media to gain visibility,” Privat says.
Today the sisters fish together in the Aleutian Islands, Copper River Delta, Prince William Sound, and Bristol Bay, along with their families. In addition to selling wild Alaska seafood, Salmon Sisters offers gear and apparel for fishing and the outdoors as well as branded specialty goods, artwork, and gifts from Alaska. “As women in the industry, we wanted to use our creativity and business knowledge to offer clothing and art to our female peers who were also working on the water,” Privat says. “There wasn’t much out there tailored for women in the commercial fishing industry or that represented or celebrated the work we were doing.”
Before they had a warehouse, inventory systems, and a year-round team in place to help with fulfillment, the sisters quickly learned that they would need space and assistance with shipping—especially with their seasonal work as fishermen on the water. “We had to invest in space for our inventory and hire reliable workers who could step in when we were out at sea and get orders out reliably,” Privat says. “We tried many different shipping methods and different web platforms (Etsy, Big Cartel, Shopify, et cetera) until we were happy with our website experience.”
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