2025 CityScope® Spring Issue
by Rachel Studebaker
From tech talent to food products and more, entrepreneurs are choosing Chattanooga to establish and expand their visions. Here, we highlight local companies whose innovative ideas and accumulating accomplishments poise them for continued success in their sectors.
Photos Courtesy of Cheiman Tea
Mother-daughter duo Stephanie and Erika Steiman launched 
Cheiman Tea in 2018 from their home kitchen when they realized their chai latte mixes were in high demand. “Homemade chai lattes were a staple in the Steiman house for decades, and over the years our family recipe was perfected. Oftentimes, it was put into small jars to be given as gifts to teachers, friends, and family during the holidays. Shortly after the holiday season, people came back to us asking where to buy more. At the time, we weren’t selling it, but it gave us the idea to start our small family business!” recalls Stephanie Steiman.
Cheiman Tea sells dry, instant chai latte blends that can be mixed into water. “No fancy equipment, steeping, or tea bags are required because we wanted to make it as simple as possible,” says Steiman. “Whether you are working behind your desk, camping or hiking on the trail, or needing a warm cozy cup to curl up with in the evening to relax, we’ve got you covered!”
Within a year of opening, Cheiman Tea acquired its first wholesale account, moved into a commercial kitchen, and was voted the Chattanooga “microbusiness” of the year. While the business has grown significantly since its debut, the Steimans remain committed to producing their original family recipe in small batches, and always by hand – a practice that sets Cheiman Tea apart from larger, mass-produced chai products. Cheiman Tea currently sells its mixes in over 50 locations and operates a mobile trailer at area events.
In 2024, Cheiman Tea purchased a mini truck 
imported from Japan to expand the business’s availability for event bookings. Both the trailer and truck serve chai lattes as well as a variety of hot and cold beverages, and thanks to support from the local community, Steiman says the opportunities for the vehicles are endless.
This year, Cheiman Tea plans to add small-batch, loose-leaf teas to their offerings and continue to expand their wholesale reach to locations across the country. Having graduated with a bachelor’s degree in business and entrepreneurship, Erika Steiman will be taking a more active role in the company alongside her mother and helping Cheiman Tea continue to thrive.
Photos Courtesy of Zest
After eviscerating a frozen pizza in his oven, Jake Gutstein 
decided his cooking habits had to change. “Graham Kirstein was the best home cook I knew and took to teaching me how to cook,” Gutstein shares. “In the process, I came to find he was struggling with very similar issues to me and was just further ahead on his journey. So, we set out to solve the issue for people like ourselves.”
The duo created Zest, a consumer subscription app that teaches users how to cook through step-by-step recipe instructions and video tutorials for foundational cooking concepts. The app’s recipes are designed for different skill levels and created in-house by its director of culinary, a former Michelin-star chef. “Every decision early in the company was shaped by bringing people closer to their relationship with food,” explains Gutstein.
Zest is a more affordable alternative to meal kit subscription services and is built to be a better tool for retaining cooking skills than simply browsing recipes on social media. “People consume hundreds of hours of content and then step into the kitchen and can apply very little,” says Gutstein.
The app allows users to assess their current skill level; learn important basics such as seasoning, sautéing, roasting, and more; and measure their growth. Helpful tools such as automated grocery lists, shopping tips, and personalized recipe recommendations are also available to make the user experience as streamlined as possible.
In 2024, Zest continued to perfect their app and grow their 
platform. Zest was recognized as the “App of the Day” by the Apple App Store and received dozens of glowing five-star reviews from subscribers. The company also grew its social media following, including reaching 100,000 on Instagram, and currently has tens of thousands of active users.
Gutstein and Kirstein aim for Zest to become the go-to resource for people “to take any recipe on the internet and reformat it to be easy, approachable, and growth-oriented.” As the app continues to grow and create more home chefs, they remain committed to their company’s mission of “sharing knowledge that makes people’s world more sustainable and nourishing.”
Photos Courtesy of Totem
Within two hours of Chase Lemonds’ first music festival, his phone 
had been stolen. As he searched for his friend in the crowd of over 300,000 people, he wondered why there wasn’t a solution for this all-too-common problem. That night, the idea for what would become the Totem Compass was born. Four years later, Lemonds met Carter Fowler, a tech marketer and avid festival attendee, and shared his idea. The concept clicked immediately. The duo joined forces and founded Totem, and in 2024, was ready to introduce the Totem Compass to the world.
In less than a year, Totem evolved from a two-man operation with zero funding and no customers to a seven-person company with $1.2 million in funding and over 23,000 units sold around the world. The Totem Compass is a wearable device that works without cell service or internet and allows wearers to find their friends and communicate emergencies. Whether there’s no cell service available, your phone battery dies, or you’d simply prefer to go screen-free for the event, the Totem Compass ensures that no one ever has to be lost in the crowds again. “We empower people to be more present during the most magical moments of their lives,” says Fowler.
Carter Fowler
Five weeks after officially incorporating, the Totem Compass went viral – something that would happen 18 more times throughout the year. “On Friday, February 16, 2024, I posted a simple video of the Totem Compass prototype on Instagram. In the morning,
I woke up to see that the Reel had exploded online – doing over 8 million plays in just 12 hours,” recalls Fowler.
“Those early days were maximal in every sense. We were forced to scale extremely quickly.”
Totem publicly debuted at SXSW’s Creative Industries Expo in Austin, Texas, that March and completed product development by September. Before the end of the year, Totem had generated over 125 million views online and over $1.5 million in pre-orders from customers in over 60 countries around the world.
Chase Lemonds
This year, Totem will continue to scale to accommodate worldwide demand, build a network of international retail and distribution partners, and make the Totem Compass a household name. The company also has plans to integrate the Totem Compass with event producers to create more immersive, safer experiences for fans.
Photos Courtesy of REPOWR
Founded by Spencer Ware and Patrick Visintainer, REPOWR seeks to solve three critical problems in the logistics industry: fragmentation, underutilization of trailers, and limited trailer accessibility. By creating a platform where logistics companies can rent trailers, REPOWR is reshaping practices in the industry to drive collaboration and efficiency.
“We saw an opportunity to build a collaborative platform to connect logistics providers (trucking companies, freight brokers, and shippers) to improve trailer utilization. Our vision was to make trailers universally accessible and transform how trailers are managed and shared across the supply chain,” says Ware.
REPOWR is streamlining processes for the industry across the board, and currently collaborates with thousands of companies to facilitate over 20,000 interchanges each year.
Spencer Ware
“Over the last decade, the trucking industry has seen an influx of new technology, many products focused on freight-optimization and freight-matching. We had no desire to compete in the freight-matching space, however we knew our opportunity was to offer a trailer-matching solution to complement freight-matching. By offering technology and services designed to optimize trailer utilization, we solve a critical pain point for carriers, shippers, and operators seeking to maximize efficiency. We aim to make B2B trailer sharing seamless,” says Ware, noting, “After all, everything was once on a trailer.”
In addition to more than doubling its key metrics in 2024, REPOWR made improvements to its technology to improve communication for customers. “For REPOWR to be widely adopted, we needed our product to work seamlessly with the technology our customers use every day. We knew this would simplify operations and save companies time and money while helping them make smarter decisions,” explains Ware.
This year, REPOWR plans to keep the momentum going. Ware shares, “We are going to be laser focused on achieving profitability and driving growth by improving the customer experience. We’re finally seeing a few positive signals that the freight industry could be rebounding from a recessionary market, so we’ll be looking to carry a lot of the positive momentum generated in 2024 into 2025.”
(Top) Photo by Fluff Media; (Middle) Photo by Simon West Agency; (Bottom) Photo by Right Hook Creative
A college trip studying abroad in Tokyo, Japan, was the catalyst for Ella Livingston’s gourmet chocolate company. After encountering the decadent flavors of Nama chocolate while overseas, Livingston was inspired to create her own chocolates from a source close to home.
Ella Livingston
“The experience made me realize the untapped potential of Ghanaian cocoa in the global luxury chocolate market. Combining my appreciation for fine chocolates and a desire to spotlight Ghana’s resources, I created Cocoa Asante to bring ethical, bean-to-bar chocolates to life,” shares Livingston. “Cocoa Asante was inspired by my Ghanaian heritage and the story of Ghana’s cocoa beans, which are among the finest in the world.”
Founded in 2018, Cocoa Asante’s early stages involved countless hours researching chocolate-making techniques, sourcing premium ingredients, and perfecting recipes. The company began with small batches of handcrafted chocolates as Livingston experimented with flavors and designs, and has since become renowned for its variety of artisan chocolate bonbons and bars – all crafted using ethically sourced cacao from Ghana.
Cocoa Asante has seen significant growth and recognition since its founding, and stands out with its emphasis on ethical and equitable sourcing. Each piece of chocolate is handcrafted and blends traditional techniques with innovative flavors and visually appealing designs. “Cocoa Asante is more than a chocolate company; it’s a bridge between cultures, a celebration of heritage, and a catalyst for ethical transparency in the cocoa industry,” says Livingston.
Key milestones included Cocoa Asante launching its first line of bean-to-bar products and being recognized by the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development for its impact on the local community. Adding to its achievements, Cocoa Asante ended the final quarter of the year with an online restock that sold out in just 45 minutes.
Cocoa Asante’s goals this year include raising capital to scale operations and continuing to expand product offerings with new flavors and the introduction of a chocolate subscription program. Looking toward the future, Livingston shares that Cocoa Asante aims to eventually farm its own cacao to further enhance sustainability in the supply chain, and ultimately, “change the world, one bar at a time.”
Photos Courtesy of Overlooked Materials
Having spent careers helping companies find solutions, Morgan Holl and his wife, Tracy, were well-equipped to help the Scenic City solve a problem of its own. The couple leveraged their skills, and in 2024, launched Overlooked Materials to provide sustainable glass recycling to the metro area.
“By our best estimates, there are more than 3 million pounds of consumer glass waste 
generated each month in our service area … We see a huge opportunity ahead to help Chattanooga and the greater region be a leader in waste diversion and sustainability,” says Holl.
Overlooked Materials is the city’s first curbside glass recycling service since 2018 and first local processing facility since the 1980s and is committed to keeping the entire recycling process local as well as economically and environmentally sustainable. The company cuts down recycling’s carbon footprint by offering curbside collection and then transforms the recycled glass into sand- and gravel-like materials for use in industries such as construction and landscaping – reducing the need to extract resources from area quarries and creek beds.
The Holls hope to promote sustainability through “experiential recycling,” referring to transparent practices that educate the public on what can often be an opaque process. “We hope to break down these walls with glass and any other material streams we grow into, regularly inviting the public into our facility to share more about what we do and to feel more connected to the process of recycling,” explains Holl.
Since it launched in 2024, Overlooked Materials has grown to divert over 15,000 pounds of glass per month from landfills. The company expanded its service area to include Ooltewah, Collegedale, and Dalton and regularly hosted the public and local school groups for tours of its facilities.
Overlooked Materials seeks to continue to grow its service area, find new commercial and residential partners, and establish large volume use of its recycled materials. With equipment that can process thousands of tons of glass per year, the company is well situated to scale its intake and drive significant, sustainable change in the Chattanooga area.
Photos Courtesy of Miss Mayfly
An avid angler, Kimberly Ranalla is well acquainted with wading gear. However, after years of struggling to find products that worked for her, she decided to take matters into her own hands. “I noticed a significant gap in the market for high-quality, well-fitting fishing and wading gear designed specifically for women. Many of the products available were either uncomfortable, ill-fitting, or simply not designed with women in mind,” she recalls. Inspired to find a solution for her fellow women anglers, Ranalla founded Miss Mayfly Women’s Fishing & Wading Gear in 2018.
“I wanted to create gear that not only met the functional needs of women but also made 
them feel confident and empowered on the water,” says Ranalla. “Seeing the positive feedback from women who finally found gear that fit them well and enhanced their fishing experience was incredibly rewarding.”
Miss Mayfly is a pioneering force in the fishing industry as the only woman-owned, woman-focused wading gear company in the world. In addition to high-quality, durable materials and a comfortable fit, Miss Mayfly offers inclusive sizing options to accommodate women of all shapes and sizes. “Unlike many other brands that simply downsize men’s gear, we focus on creating products that cater to the unique needs and preferences of women anglers,” says Ranalla.
Kimberly Ranalla
Miss Mayfly grew its e-commerce revenue by 47% and built relationships with organizations, colleges, and government agencies. Honoring its commitment to inclusivity, Miss Mayfly also released six new wading gear sizes to meet the sizing needs of women who were previously underserved. The company attended high-profile fishing shows across the country and received industry recognition with the Fly Fishing Show Consumer Choice award for both women’s wader and women’s wading boot – beating out largescale competitors.
This year, Miss Mayfly is set to release a new line of wading gear and aims to grow its connections within the women’s angling community. Plans to optimize processes for product development, market expansion, and sales will set the stage for continued growth and success.
