For the last three years, Colton Sleister’s small business has been music to his ears.
The recent high school graduate founded his business, Sleister Brass, in 2013 after noticing how expensive it was to buy an instrument online or from a music store. With the help of his high school band director, he gathered up 15 used trombones, polished and repaired them, and sold them to families in his community for a fraction of the price they would have paid elsewhere.
Sleister operates his business out of the basement of his parents’ home in Ankeny, Iowa. The company has grown substantially over the past three years. He started out by selling his first batch of 15 trombones, and this year, he has already sold 100 instruments, he said.
That success led NFIB to honor Sleister with a college scholarship, the NFIB/Iowa Leadership Council Young Entrepreneur Award.