Suzin Skyler Hein wanted to get a bead on a new business. Sondra Musa had a great idea for a high-end tattoo art house. And Janie Walton wanted to cut and paste her way to success with scrapbooks.

All three entrepreneurs were looking to start their own ventures from scratch – to grow their creative abilities into profit-making ventures. And all three women are now watching – and working – as their dreams turn into reality.

But building a sustainable business plan based on a craft-based product or an inherent artistic ability isn’t easy. Unlike other start-ups in more traditional lines of business, creative capital or bright ideas don’t necessarily carry a lot of weight with lenders or landlords.

“Banks are in the business to make money. And what’s the security with a creative idea?” asks Lorraine Moulding, executive director of the Alberta Women’s Enterprise Initiative Association (AWEIA), a federally funded organization that has loaned more than $5.3 million to women entrepreneurs in Alberta, resulting in 101 business start-ups since 1995.

Larry MacDougal, Business Edge
The bead goes on for entrepreneur Suzin Skyler Hein – who needing an eye-catching marketing tool for her new business, created a real Saab story.

Women tend to go into business because they’re passionate about something, Moulding says – they believe they have something special they want to share with others. “From a conventional sense, they probably do find it a little harder” to start up such a business, she adds. “I think you’d find many of our clients are self-financed. They’re not going to traditional lenders.”

Each of the three entrepreneurs have different experiences to relate – but all managed to make it through the minefields of launching their own enterprises without the help of traditional funding sources.

Suzin Skyler Hein was already an experienced small-business owner when she decided to follow a personal passion for the art of beading. As the past owner of two franchised picture-framing stores with regular clientele, she had an established track record in running a business, as well as maintaining a career on the side as a jazz vocalist.

But starting a new business based on the 40,000-year old craft of beading proved to be a tougher needle to thread, especially when it came to financing.

“Banks have not been my friend . . . I have not found them to be very friendly or helpful to me in the past,” says Skyler Hein. “I think it’s their perception of small business in general and women especially, unless you’re doing super, super well and you can prove you’ve been really successful for many years – then they’ll loan you money.”

Her family – her father is a retired small-business entrepreneur – proved to be a welcome source of support and financial assistance, and she was able to purchase and renovate a small house in the east Calgary community of Inglewood into funky commercial space. She even retrofitted her beloved 1984 Saab with a coat of beads as an eye-catching marketing tool on wheels.

She decided against a traditional business plan and has instead drafted a personal strategy she believes will carry her store, Suzie Q Beads, to profitability within a couple of years. The shop, located at 1207 10th Avenue S.E., had its grand opening late last month and is now offering beading classes “for the beginner and the already-obsessed.”

“It’s a ton of debt,” Skyler Hein admits. “You front-load a lot of expense (with the renovations) but over the long term it’s an investment property.”

Sondra Musa also has a passion for artistry, and like Skyler Hein, found it difficult to attract any attention from traditional lenders. The Alberta College of Art and Design-trained goldsmith was looking to open a specialty art house featuring custom jewelry as well as custom body design and piercing.

“The biggest challenge is that you’re an artist – right away, when people look at your business history, banks really don’t consider that as an income, because it’s too sporadic,” Musa says. “Unless you have a lot of equity, which a lot of artists don’t, or you have already a lot of money you can provide, the lenders are not willing to take the risk.

“As artists, when we file income taxes, we try to look as poor as possible,” she laughs. “But the Catch-22 of that is that no lending agency is going to give you money.”
In addition, it was difficult to find a landlord willing to gamble on an artistic endeavor.

“Some people would not even return my phone call,” Musa says. “They don’t want to take a chance, and they worry about galleries and art shops – they’ve seen many open and close, and they’re worried it will just be another one.”

Musa, who is also holding down a job as head bartender at the Hyatt Regency in downtown Calgary, was able to turn to AWEIA for a five-year loan.

“It’s a scary transition” from an employee to a business owner, she allows. But with the help of the loan and a landlord willing to take a risk, she now has secured retail space on 10th Street in Calgary’s trendy Kensington and plans to open The Art House on Nov. 1.

“I have awesome forecasts,” she says confidently of her business plan. “The figures are very strong. It’s like, people would be silly not to invest.”

Janie Walton is another entrepreneur who has put her stamp on small businesses in Calgary through a unique scrapbooking enterprise called Scrapbook Sally.

A former department manager for the Bay with strong administrative and networking skills, she admits she’s not a “crafty” person – “I’m an artistic thinker,” she says with a smile.

She’s also been a fan of scrapbooking since she was a child, and saw a niche for the craft – still in its beginning stages in Canada. But she, too, encountered challenges in both financing and finding a landlord willing to rent space to a small, craft-based wholesaling business.

There weren’t any other scrapbooking stores in Calgary, and the best offer she received from a major bank was a line of credit with a high interest rate and a high monthly fee.

“I think it’s way harder for craft-based, creative-based, non-traditional businesses to get money,” says Walton. “And I think it’s way harder for women to get money from banks as well.”

For Walton, strong family support and the help of two five-year loans – plus a business coach – from AWEIA proved to be key in launching her business six years ago. Scrapbook Sally (www.scrapbooksally.com) now wholesales scrapbooking supplies to retail stores throughout Canada and the U.S.

Her husband Greg took on the role of general manager, while one daughter became marketing director and the other a creative development director. A third daughter now manages the retail store located at 1344 Northmount Drive N.W., while her other two children, aged 9 and 13, are learning life lessons about business through their parents and siblings.

“You have to have a dream you believe in, and understand how you make it come to fruition,” advises Walton. “And then you have to be able to convince your family that it’s right – so they can see the dream and hold it for you when you get discouraged.”

It’s a strategy almost all small-business entrepreneurs understand very well.