Micah Kearns packed his life into his van after selling his Sacramento home in 2021. He made his way to the East Coast, and one fateful day, he decided to go to IKEA. After meandering through the store he made it to the light section and decided to play around with lamps.
He took a perforated lamp shade off of one lamp and put it over the top of another lamp that was turned on. In doing so, he became transfixed with how the shadows formed patterns and bounced around on the walls of the store.
After he left, he couldn’t stop thinking about his experiment.
Kearns immediately thought he could use the lamp and its associated shadows as a guide to reduce people's breathing rates. He thought this could be transformational for people using their physiology to affect their psychology.
“Then I just ran with it,” Kearns said. “I looked [it] up online, and I didn't see anything similar. And then I went to a patent lawyer and did a patent search, and they were like, ‘There's nothing like this out there.’”
So Kearns spent two years developing and patenting a health and wellness product called The Breathing Light. This light casts patterns on the wall, but the patterns oscillate up and down, making it feel like the whole room is breathing.
“Because of that effect, if you set it to be at an ideal breathing rate, your body will actively synchronize your breathing with it,” he said. “Or it will passively influence your breathing to take slower, deeper breaths. And through that, it's great for mitigating stress and anxiety, as a sleep aid and for emotional regulation.”
Once Kearns got the patent in January 2024, he returned to Sacramento after backpacking in Asia to develop his product. He joined the Lean Innovator Program at the Carlsen Center at Sacramento State.
Although he got the device patented, Kearns said he still had a lot to learn about running his small business, ILU Innovations, which is why he joined Sacramento’s EveryDay Creative Program.
The program takes a cohort of 20 Sacramento entrepreneurs and puts them through an eight-month training process that will help them turn their creative projects into businesses.
Empowering Entrepreneurs
The program is a collaboration between nonprofit and economic developers CLTRE and Creative Startups. It is funded by the city’s Office of Arts and Culture through federal American Rescue Plan dollars.
The program began in late September and it helps primarily BIPOC entrepreneurs turn their creative projects into a sustainable career, competing in the $1 trillion dollar creative economy. It offers mentorship and training, networking opportunities, a storefront residency and financial support through grants, loans and investments.
“We are thrilled to be partnering with CLTRE,” said Jason Jong, cultural and creative manager for the city of Sacramento. “There's something to be said for their track record of uplifting low income communities, communities of color in all of their programs, and to have a focus on creative entrepreneurs through their organization is really exciting.”
According to CLTRE Executive Director Roshaun Davis, the program's antithesis came from data from two studies on the trajectory of the city’s creative economy, the Sprout to Growth plan and the Creative Edge plan.
Both reports aimed to shed light on how to best develop Sacramento’s creative economy. They also identified potential pathways for the growth of creative businesses, specifically for BIPOC entrepreneurs.
The creative economy added $1 trillion to the national GDP in 2021, and by 2030, G20 insights predicts that it could account for 10% of the global GDP.
“They might be videographers, they might be game makers, they might be chefs,” Jong said. “They might be graphic designers or composers, so folks that are using their artistry and their creativity and contributing to their own economy, their livelihood. This is the vehicle for their livelihood, but they're also contributing to the broader economy.”
In Sacramento, an estimated 52% of media production professionals identify as BIPOC. Roughly 43% of Sacramento design professionals identify as BIPOC, as do 60% of experienced economy professionals, according to the Sprout to Growth report.
“You have this growing economy that's creative, and then you have a base of creative professionals. How do we turn that into them being able to be sustainable and be creative everyday is where the program came from,” Davis said. “How do we teach them to get ahead of it, to compete at an industry level, and compete at a sector level, compete at the GDP level, in creating a business for themselves.”
Davis said entrepreneurs who go through the program get up to $3,500 in mini grants for their business on the outset. He said they’re “forgivable grants that the city is investing in” and that the program also offers bigger grants, ranging from $7,500 to $10,000, which are divided out as they progress through the program.
“There's a pot of funding, which we're just calling the CLTRE fund, but we're looking to partner with [a venture capitalist] to manage the fund,” Davis said. “Then we can invest up to $25,000 into their business at a very low loan. I think it's anywhere between 0% and 3% [as] a loan for their business.”
Kearns, the breath light designer, said he’s hoping that the program will teach him how to have a better idea of how to approach investors and have the tools and structure necessary to look like a legit business that's worth investing in.
“My experience so far has been absolutely terrific,” Kearns said. “Roshaun is extremely helpful and supportive, connecting me with people and giving me additional resources.”
Algo Bueno Productions
Cecelia Romo is an independent filmmaker and one of the 20 entrepreneurs participating in the Everyday Creative Program. She is also the founder of Algo Bueno Productions, which translates to “something good productions” in Spanish.
Romo began filmmaking in 2020 and started her own production company last year. So far, she has produced two short films, one of which will debut in November, titled “Me Porto Bonita.”
The film is based in Sacramento, and follows a pair of friends taking on the town after one gets dumped.
“She takes out her friend for a day of chaos,” Romo said. “They go eating tacos, they go shopping, and they eventually get revenge on her ex ex-girlfriend. So it's kind of like a slice of life of living in Sacramento and doing those chaotic things with your best friends to try to help them through their breakups. Experiences that I know I've had in my life.”
Romo said she joined the program for various reasons, but she hopes to gain community and resources from it.
“I love Sacramento. I love our neighborhoods, and I love maintaining the creative force in Sacramento,” Romo said. “So community is one of the top things, as well as mentorship. The cohort I love, meeting other people, meeting organizations. So the opportunity to be able to be in those spaces with those individuals is something that I really look forward to, as well as learning the process of being a creative entrepreneur, because that's something as a first gen, Mexican American that I lack in, and it's hard to get those resources.”
Davis, the CLTRE Executive Director, said he hopes the program will help launch “more creative businesses that understand their positionality in the creative economy” and will give back to the Sacramento community.
Jong, the cultural and creative manager with the city, added he hopes to create a system that can be replicated from this program.
