Every year, Founded Communities releases a mini-magazine highlighting our community's impact. In the 2024-2025 year, we were thrilled to feature four of our members doing impressive work, from revolutionizing communication in the foster care system to hand-painting murals across Raleigh. Read our story about Isabella Dearr, founder of Dearr Bella Designs.

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Isabella Dearr has been on both sides of the Triangle’s student-to-entrepreneur pipeline and relationship as a North Carolina State University entrepreneurship student and as the Events Coordinator at Raleigh Founded, curating events and making connections for entrepreneurs in the Triangle every day.

Isabella is an artist who, like many entrepreneurs, wasn’t always aware of her future career path or the niche she would soon inhabit. She had worked with friends and individual customers before to create her custom-designed and painted shoes – but never with other small businesses. That changed when Michael Evans, co-founder of 321 Coffee, reached out to Isabella to commission a pair of shoes for his co-founder, Lindsey Wrege, to be displayed at the grand opening of their Durham location.

“That was the moment that I was like, ‘Oh this is real.’ This is a business. This isn’t just my friend that’s going to pay me.”

Since then, her time as a Millers Fellow and as a member of Raleigh’s entrepreneurial community has culminated in her current standing as a talented muralist who creates art on food trucks, still designs shoes, paints buildings across Downtown Raleigh, and more.

While art has surrounded Isabella for as long as she can remember, grappling with the ‘entrepreneur’ part of being an art entrepreneur was, and can still be, a little complicated.

“In the beginning, it felt like I was separately ‘Bella the artist’ and ‘Bella the entrepreneurship student. As I kept taking art entrepreneurship classes at NC State, I realized there was a third option.”

“I didn’t have to be one or the other. That's advice I would tell artists – you can be both of those things.”

Now, Isabella says, she feels more comfortable describing herself and her wide range of work as legitimate. She curates events for Raleigh Founded’s entrepreneurs, and is a muralist, while also working on customer discovery for her app, which aims to lessen the burden of the calculations required to create murals.

“The idea is to have a software that does all the math for artists so that artists don’t have to.”

The app will use AI to handle all calculations necessary in estimating the materials, time, and cost of jobs, shortening the time dedicated to providing clients with information before a project. Isabella hopes the app will act as a data management tool, helping artists back up their rates to clients and quickly get to the most enjoyable part of their projects – the art!

She cites the support of professors like Dr. Gary Beckman, Director of Entrepreneurial Studies in the Arts at NC State, and Founded’s community culture as essential to keeping her motivated in the early stages of her career.

“Having people that are a little bit crazy, who are enthusiastic about others’ work to no benefit of their own, that’s so important for entrepreneurs. When everyone learned about the shoes I did for 321 [Coffee], the community was so supportive.”

Bella’s advice to beginner art entrepreneurs is to find similarly supportive communities where colleagues will hold you accountable and ask the questions that get you thinking. Another tip for artists who are hesitant to approach art entrepreneurship?

“If you have a day job and a stable income, you won’t lose anything from posting your work for money. There’s only something to gain from that. As cliche as it sounds, don’t be the thing holding you back!”

You can find Isabella primarily around our Raleigh Founded - North Street location. Learn more about our offices, events, and coworking memberships in Downtown Raleigh at raleighfounded.com.