Many people in the LGBT community know that with no other alternative, they’ve been forced to wear ill-fitting ready-to-wear garments constructed to fit the manufacturers definition of an average customer. Every person has a unique body. With that in mind, Kipper Clothiers founders Erin Berg and Kyle Moshrefi began producing their own custom suits and shirts. While the tailoring of their bespoke three-piece suits was perfect, they didn’t have the experience to scale to their business as orders took off. That’s when they turned to BusinessAdvising.org. The mentoring program helped Erin and Kyle connect with a mentor who helped their company restructure its marketing plan and gain new clients. She also taught them how to throw amazing events!
Three Babes Bakeshop
After a successful Kickstarter campaign in 2011 and employing their own social media efforts, Lenore and Anna of Three Babes Bakeshop saw their farm-fresh pies catching national attention. Honored as one of America’s best pie spots with “quite possibly the world’s most perfect pies,” their small business clearly had growth potential. But where would they source their support? They turned to BusinessAdvising.org to access the expertise of our volunteer business advisors, seeking help for business development and financial planning. Our advisors worked with them on valuing a business, budgeting, accounting, and reporting. Now their business is on a sustainable path, and they’re working toward their goals of opening a retail store and a production facility.
Casablanca Market
“It’s always a good idea to support and sustain small women artisan’s enterprises, because the people behind these businesses tend to be the backbone of their families, their children, their communities.” That’s the ethos of Casablanca Market, a company sells handmade home goods and accessories from around the Mediterranean — almost all made by women manufacturers. Katia Essyad of Casablanca market came to BusinessAdvising.org when her business started to grow, and she needed new support in the areas of marketing, finance, and human resources. We paired her with three advisors, and her business has only continued to thrive.
Sourced Adventures
Sourced Adventures — a company that packages day trip adventures for city dwellers in New York — found BusinessAdvising.org when they needed help with developing sustainable business strategies, cash flows, and marketing. We matched Sourced Adventures founder Kyle Davidson with two business advisors: George De Bruin (who worked with Kyle on operations, financials, and business planning); and Brett Weine at Facebook (who’s assisting Kyle with marketing tactics and digital ad strategies.) Since he started his first season adventures, Kyle’s success has spoken for itself. His adventures cater to 5,000 people every season! His team started Sourced Adventures from scratch, and now they’re reporting great growth in revenues.He’s created new jobs, and also given his staff leadership experience and skills they might not otherwise acquire in other jobs.
Bread SRSLY
Bread SRSLY makes delicious and nourishing gluten free sourdough bread in San Francisco’s Dogpatch neighborhood. Founded by Sadie Scheffer, The company began late in 2011 after a furious bout of gluten-free sourdough experiments in Sadie’s home kitchen. She started selling the final results from her own home, and as orders grew, began to deliver loaves on her bicycle. A few months later she was biking late into the night delivering orders. Word spread, then a writeup in Daily Candy SF catapulted Bread SRSLY into a full-time business. Sadie came to BusinessAdvising.org needing help with her Marketing plan, and was immediately matched with an advisor with experience in food, design, marketing, and business development. In the 6 months they worked together, Sadie has been able to increase her direct sales by almost 100%, rebrand her packaging, rebuild her website, and hire her first administrative employee. Bread SRSLY continues to grow and … Read More
Super Woman Productions
Super Woman Productions and Publishing is a diverse media brand growing, expanding and challenging the norm in the areas of book publishing, television, radio, internet, merchandising, motivational entertaining and event planning. The company was founded by Angela T. Jones, who had extensive experience in event planning, business consulting, business start-up planning, contract negotiations, and real estate. However, she’d not run her own business before. As her company started growing, she found BusinessAdvising.org when she needed outside advice. We matched her with an advisor who helped her to improve the marketing of her products and services. She also experienced increased engagement with her core demographic, which has allowed her the ability to strive towards additional business goals. Her mentor has been encouraging and supportive of her goals, and has helped her to look at the overall scope of her endeavors.
Gama-Go
Over its 10 years in business, GAMA-GO has become popular for its well-designed, cartoon-inspired clothing and products. With a dozen employees working out of the company’s location in San Francisco’s South of Market neighborhood, GAMA-GO had strong sales but never had made a profit and continued to grapple with cash-flow challenges, leaving owners and employees alike in a vulnerable position. After doing some research, Co-Founder Greg Long learned of our services to build capacity for small businesses. He and his team moved directly to working one-on-one with an advisor who “helped us drill down on the hard numbers, review projections, pricing and product shipments.” Greg notes, “Our volunteer advisor provided us with reliable, verifiable and high-level advice. After working with us for just nine months, GAMA-GO – for the first time in its history – ended the year profitably. Since then they’ve seen 15% job growth.
Ciro’s Landscaping
Ciro’s Landscaping owner Ciro Delgadillo had a succession plan in place and was preparing to retire from his successful business when the recession hit. With large loans on two commercial properties and business dramatically slowing, Ciro suddenly found himself considering the unthinkable – dissolution of his decades-old family business. Ciro’s turned to the originator of his Small Business Administration loan, San Diego-based CDC Small Business Finance, for help. After reviewing the business’ new operating realities, CDC was determined to deliver a better outcome. Knowing Ciro’s Landscaping needed business expertise to confront the many challenges ahead, CDC brought us in. We worked with Ciro to model realistic business projections and develop a plan for leasing his excess commercial space. We provided sound guidance and asked the hard questions. Our advisors also worked in tandem with Ciro’s Landscaping and CDC to help the company restore its real estate debt payments and its credit. With the company’s properties … Read More
Petit Collage
Petit Collage’s eco-friendly, vintage-inspired room décor and accessories have captured the hearts of parents everywhere, as well as the attention of tastemakers such as Martha Stewart and the New York Times. Owner and designer Lorena Siminovich had been building Petit Collage steadily for five years when she realized the business was experiencing growing pains. The San Francisco-based company’s increasing popularity required a sustainable strategy and Lorena reached out to us for support. Kicking off with a strategy roundtable, a crew of our volunteer advisors identified key issues for Petit Collage to address in managing its growth. Following that initial session, four volunteers devoted one-on-one time to the business. From developing a granular budget to analyzing operational structure, to setting up HR systems for proper compliance, our advisors spent 40 hours supporting Lorena and her team. Lorena Siminovich and Ben Singer have been working together for a year now. Lorena initially started working with … Read More
SASS Products
SASS products and its owner Lauri Raymond are the longest-running match on BusinessAdvising.org. In 1987, Lauri started the company with twin sister Carol and one other partner. Within a year, the sisters bought out their partner and began making and distributing their 1st product, a dressing/sauce/marinade called Eureka Garlic SASS (later changed to Sesame Garlic SASS.) After a short, but exciting, stint of making SASS in Carol’s house, they began distributing in Austin through health food stores and a few locally owned markets. In the late 80’s, Lauri took over all of the day-to-day operations of the company and by the late 90’s, SASS products had become popular in upscale mass-market supermarkets, as well as natural food and specialty stores. A period of regional growth followed, as well as acquisition of Martin Brothers Fresh Dressings, another excellent line of all-natural, fresh salad dressings. In the spring of 2006, they combined … Read More