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What do you do?

We are a small knitting studio that has been making PPP since March 2020. We quickly adapted to making face masks and face coverings from cashmere and felted them to improve their effectiveness.

What inspired you to start your business?

I wanted to leverage my skill and personal background to create clean, well-done products that are customers love while the company tackles more than business issues and be an environmentally clean and socially responsible way of doing business.

What's special about your business?

All our products are made in the USA from sustainably sourced materials and come with a repair and return guarantee.

What have been the high and low points of being a business owner?

High points have been getting thank you letters from our customers while the low points have been in March of 2020. We are still not out of the woods yet, but we are well on our way.

What is your relationship with SCORE? SCORE client What influenced you to seek help from SCORE?

Experienced executives, who can help me for free locally in person. It is an AMAZING service and I have been telling everyone who listens about it. Their perspective and good-natured advice have been irreplaceable to our formation to success.

How SCORE helped.

My earliest mentor Jan helped me to choose the business type that I wanted to be in and mentored me all the way to sample production to setting up my knit studio in Oakland. There was numerous very high-quality pieces of advice were given by Shirley, Larry Tesler, Jan, Mark, Janet, Susan, Barbara, and many more.

What's great about my mentor?

My mentors always make time for me within days of notice and made sure to follow up and ask questions that helped me to understand the aspects of the business that I had no clue about or little understanding. Some of them even typed out what I should do as SEO or how to improve my online presence etc. Dear Larry even came to visit us in person to encourage and offer his help. Over the 3 years of mentoring they have made an outstanding contribution to our work. I can't praise it enough.

What advice would you give to someone thinking of starting a small business?

Start with a good mentor and keep at it.

What have you learned from your experiences as a business owner?

I am in business to serve not to get rich fast or run a profit-only enterprise. Our products and the way we do things have impacted more than financially and we need to be very aware of our footprint beyond cash flow.

Additional media My mentors

Susan Ruth Lundy

Sold my business/retired in 2019: Work best with Service business owners who are marketing...

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Larry Tessler

I can help you start a new business or improve your existing business. I can work to guide you...

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