What started as a DM: The Story of This is NOCO

Ben, our co-owner and resident creative business powerhouse, had the opportunity to sit down with Voyage Denver to share the story of This is NOCO. You may have heard it from Kelsi's perspective, but keep reading to hear Ben's take. And if this is your first time learning our origins, enjoy.

Ben and Kelsi, Owners of This is NOCO and Discover NOCO Magazine

Hi Benjamin, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story. It started with a comment from Kelsi.

She was on maternity leave in 2023 when she messaged to say that her favorite local Instagram account — one she checked religiously for date night ideas around Northern Colorado — was shutting down. We didn’t want to just watch it disappear. So we did what felt a little crazy at the time: we slid into their DMs and asked if we could buy it.

After a few meetings, the owners decided we were the right people to carry it forward. Just like that, we became the new stewards of NOCO Date Nights, an account with around 5,000 followers and a real, loyal community of people who loved exploring what Northern Colorado had to offer.

For about a year, we leaned in. We scouted restaurants, found hidden gems, covered local events, and shared it all. We became micro-influencers in the date night space, which was equal parts exciting and surreal. But somewhere along the way, we started to feel the edges of what that role could be. The influencer path wasn’t really us, and honestly, we were running out of date night ideas.

We knew we wanted to do something bigger. Something that went deeper than a pretty photo and a caption.

Chef Dan- Now with All in Food Truck

The shift happened when we met Chef ‘Fat’ Dan at Locust Cider. He had this incredible story, the kind that deserved more than a 30-second Instagram reel. His passion for his craft, the community he was building, the work happening at Locust- it all stuck with us. We kept thinking: this is the kind of story Northern Colorado needs to hear.

That conversation planted a seed. We decided to transform the account into something entirely new: a full media company. Articles. A membership website. Long-form video. Real storytelling for real people in our community. And Fat Dan and Locust Cider became our very first feature.

In May of 2025, This is NOCO officially launched.

This is NOCO

We had no idea what was coming next.

By October 2025, an opportunity landed in our lap that we couldn’t ignore. Discover Fort Collins, a long-running local magazine with deep roots in our community, was available to acquire. We brought it into the fold, rebranded as Discover NOCO, and expanded our reach across all of Northern Colorado.

What started as a DM about a date night Instagram account had grown into something we’re genuinely proud of: a media company built by locals, for locals.

That’s still what drives us. Every article we write, every business we feature, every event we cover- it’s all in service of the same thing. Northern Colorado is full of incredible people doing incredible things, and we think they deserve to be seen. We’re here to tell those stories, connect our community, and shine a light on everything that makes this place worth calling home.

We’re just getting started.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had toovercome?

Nobody tells you how much work goes into the stuff nobody sees.

Before we could publish a single article or shoot our first video, we had to build everything from scratch. The website, the membership platform, the content workflow, the brand identity. All of it had to exist before anything could go live. And we were doing it while holding down full-time jobs, raising a family, and trying to stay sane in the process.

There’s a mindset shift that has to happen when you start something on the side, and we learned it the hard way. You have to stop thinking of it as a hobby and start treating it like a job. The nights you don’t feel like it, the weekends that get eaten up, the moments you wonder if anyone is even paying attention: that’s where most side projects die. The ones that survive are the ones where you show up anyway.

So we showed up.

And then the growth came, faster than we expected. Which sounds like a good problem to have, until you’re the ones trying to keep up with it. More followers meant more expectations. More content. More outreach, more relationships to manage, more stories to tell. We were constantly running to stay ahead of something we had started.

The other honest truth is that passion doesn’t pay the bills. Figuring out how to make Discover NOCO actually profitable has been one of the most challenging parts of the journey. Building a sustainable local media business isn’t a playbook a lot of people have written. We’ve had to test, fail, adjust, and keep going, trusting that if we kept serving our community well, the business side would eventually follow.

It hasn’t always been easy. But nothing worth doing ever really is.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?

If you’ve ever opened Instagram on a Thursday wondering what’s happening this weekend in Northern Colorado, there’s a good chance you’ve already found us.

Discover NOCO is best known as the go-to guide for events and things to do across the region. Our community calendars and weekly event guides draw a loyal, engaged audience of locals who trust us to keep them in the know. That trust is everything, and it’s also what makes us valuable to the businesses we partner with.

Here’s the thing we say a lot, because it really does sum up what we are: we’re a media company, not a marketing company. The difference matters. A marketing company starts with a business and tries to find an audience. We built the audience first, and then we connect local businesses to it. By the time your brand shows up in our feed, our newsletter, or our magazine, it’s landing in front of people who are already engaged, already local, and already looking for what NOCO has to offer.

Our mission is Local Supporting Local, and that shapes every decision we make. We work exclusively with local and small businesses, and we price our services to reflect that. We’re not chasing national chains or big-budget brands. We’re trying to make real, effective marketing accessible to the people who make Northern Colorado what it is.

What also sets us apart is our reach across multiple channels. We’re not just a social media account or just a magazine. We’re both, plus a website and a newsletter. We offer local businesses the kind of multi-platform exposure that used to require a much bigger budget, and we handle everything in-house: the writing, the shooting, the editing, the design, the distribution. Our business partners don’t have to lift a finger.

Whether a business is looking for a one-time feature or a long-term partnership, we have options that fit. What we’re most proud of, though, isn’t the packages or the platforms. It’s the comments. Local business owners telling us that new customers came in specifically because they saw them on our page. Community members discovering a restaurant or shop that’s been in their backyard for years. That’s what we’re here for.

Northern Colorado is full of incredible small businesses that deserve to be seen. We’re just making sure they are.

What are your plans for the future? Honestly? More of the same, but bigger.

We’re not interested in chasing trends or changing what’s working. Our focus is on continuing to grow our audience, deepen our relationships with local businesses, and keep telling the stories that make Northern Colorado worth paying attention to. We do have a few new features in the works that we’re pretty excited about, but you’ll have to stay tuned for those. What we can say is that everything we’re building is rooted in the same thing that got us here: a genuine love for this community and the people in it.

The best is still ahead

Find this article and meet other local business owners on Voyage Denver HERE