Retail and consumer founders in Northwest Arkansas

A lot of why Northwest Arkansas looks the way it does comes back to retail. Walmart's headquarters in Bentonville draws a supplier community of agencies, brokers and brand teams stretching down through Rogers and Lowell, and the region's own consumer businesses grew up alongside it. Eleven conversations make this the show's largest industry group, and the group splits three ways: the agencies serving Walmart's suppliers, the long-running family retailers, and the newer consumer brands.

Ross Cully of Harvest Group in Rogers was the show's very first guest. Harvest Group is one of the region's larger Walmart-supplier agencies, past 250 employees, and in Cully's own words it has been bootstrapped since its 2006 founding. Allisha Watkins spent twenty years in corporate consumer goods, including Procter and Gamble and Mars Wrigley, before founding Paradox in Rogers in April 2019. It's a women-owned retail marketing agency that reached seven-figure revenue by 2021 and earned WBENC certification in 2022. If you've never sold to a big retailer, both episodes walk through how a brand actually gets onto the shelf.

The family retailers have some of the longest histories on the show. Lewis Automotive Group has sold cars in Fayetteville since 1946 and is now run by Matt, Shelby and Taylor Lewis of the fourth generation, across six locations carrying more than 1,000 vehicles. Troy Underwood is vice president of Underwoods Fine Jewelers, which opened in July 1957 and is in its third generation. Ben Clark acquired B-Unlimited in 2006, twelve years after its founding, and grew the Fayetteville screen printing company past 60 employees serving Greek organizations on 250 campuses. Donny Hubbard opened Hubbard Clothing in Rogers in March 2018 and expanded by acquiring The Independent and D&E Clothing before opening a third store in Fayetteville.

The newer consumer companies are the ones to hear if you're starting something. Kendall and Bailey Beykirch turned KenzKustomz from a side hustle begun around 2021 into a brand carried by Scheels, Anthropologie and Buckle. Thomas Addington and Allen Befort were part of the group that founded Givingtons. They made the Inc. 500, nearly lost the company and rebuilt it, and their episode tells the whole story. Chris Chandler runs Chandler Capital Group in Springdale, a family manufacturer of vehicle accessories and outdoor products dating to 1978. It announced a $14 million expansion in December 2025 and acquired Free Spirit Recreation in February 2026. Sarah Autry, Stephanie Peters and Garrett Peters run Duncan & Stone Paper Co. in Fayetteville, a guided journal and stationery brand that began as Sarah's stationery shop on Etsy and sells through Amazon, Etsy and its own site, with four full-time people and no office. JD Blagg, Aaron Seifritz and Josh Teff built Fowlco Outfitters into a national hunting brand around a 120-acre refuge and a lodge in Garber, Oklahoma, opened in 2018, booking waterfowl hunts in both Oklahoma and Arkansas.

Eleven conversations, three cities, and companies founded as far apart as 1946 and 2021. That's a good look at the range of what Northwest Arkansas sells. The list below runs newest first.