Start Up Loans Have Lasting Impact For These Growing New Brunswick Businesses
When Mike and Vanessa Duncan were thinking about opening a coffee shop in uptown Saint John last year, they knew it had to stand out from the rest to be successful.
“One thing we didn’t want to do was just open something that Saint John already had,” says Mike Duncan. “Although there are other great coffee shops, we just wanted to offer a unique experience.”
So when Rogue Coffee finally opened last July, they were able to offer just that, bringing in specialized coffees, beverages, and equipment to offer customers an experience they couldn’t get anywhere else in the city. They were able to do this by receiving a loan from Impact Atlantic. In Saint John, Impact works in partnership with the local economic development agency Enterprise Saint John.
“It allowed us to really go where we wanted to go for the quality level of the equipment and we really focused a lot on the coffee gear. With the Impact Loan, we were able to get the best espresso grinder on the market,” says Duncan.
“We thought that was super important because we didn’t want to go half-way with Rogue. We really wanted to offer what we consider to be on par with the best coffee shops in the world. We thought Saint John definitely deserves one of those.”
Impact Atlantic’s loans help foster small and medium-sized businesses in urban Atlantic Canada. Entrepreneurs of all ages can apply for a business start-up loan, while established business owners between 19 and 39 can also apply for expansion financing.
Impact loans are low-interest and go up to $25,000 with flexible repayment terms and no penalty for early repayment of the principal. The application process is fast and straightforward so entrepreneurs can reach their goals more quickly and take their business to the next level.
That’s what it allowed Fredericton’s Jeff Alpaugh to do on his mission to make the world’s most ‘dangerous’ dress shirt. As the founder of Jeff Alpaugh Custom, he offers custom dress shirts for men and women by providing a unique and experiential experience for his customers. He says receiving an Impact loan in the business’s early days helped bring the brand to where is it now by allowing them to open its first pop-up shop and strengthen ties with their partners in Vietnam.
In Fredericton Impact works alongside the economic development agency Ignite Fredericton.
“We started our business in our condo and that was working well. However, you try one thing and it works, and then you have a hypothesis to see if another thing works. So we were able to use the loan to go back to Vietnam and really make the shirts a lot better in terms of how much you can customize them,” says Alpaugh.
“It helps so much to meet face-to-face. We go to Vietnam twice a year and at the time, we needed the loan to fund another trip there to really be like, ‘Ok, we got a great thing and everyone loves it, but what can we do to make the shirts even more customizable and more fun so that people really get a chance to design their own shirts that they will be the only one that has it.’ “
He says without the loan, growing the company would have been more slow.
“Certainly, a lot more time would have been spent on things that weren’t really productive,” he says. “It would have made progress so much slower.”
Jenna Lynn and Fabiola Bloquel, owners of Moncton’s Namaste Spa say getting their business off the ground would have taken much longer without their Impact loan too.
“Maybe we would have a little bit more headache. Just two young women starting something and it was not easy [getting a loan] with the banks. [Impact] helped us,” says Bloquel.
The pair bought Namaste Spa in 2015. The spa, whose location in a heritage building attracts customers, offers everything from manicures and pedicures to pregnancy massages.
The spa’s previous owner introduced Lynn and Bloquel to Impact when they were preparing to buy the business. It wasn’t just the loan that helped Lynn and Bloquel. It was also the business coaching that came with it. The 3 Plus Corporation in Moncton is Impact’s local agency partner.
“There was a lot of research and homework to do [to get the loan]. But we had [an Impact partner] that was coaching us. Whenever we have any questions, we just reach out to him and he would guide us along. It was the whole process of having done your business plan, having knowledge of your accounting and all that,” Lynn said.
“When sometimes it was overwhelming, our coach was there to get us excited again, to remind us it’s good to be an entrepreneur and to want to do our own thing,” Bloquel said. “To really have someone that can come in and talk to us and tell it like it is, not just the wonderful picture, but behind the scene of a business. That makes a big difference.”
Mike Duncan says the coaching and business skills training that came along with applying for the loan was also useful when it came to opening Rogue Coffee.
“It felt like a really local process in a way. It didn’t feel like going to the bank. It just felt a little more organic in the way that it flowed,” he says.
“It was a really good process and we were really lucky that in Saint John these funding options are available to us, and thanks to them for willing to take a risk on small business.”
If you’re looking help in chasing your dreams in business, Impact Atlantic should be the first place you go.
”I think anybody that has a dream and wants to do something, they should go see them and make the first move,” says Bloquel.
This story is sponsored by Impact Atlantic. Impact is a loan to help urban Atlantic Canadians start or expand small businesses. With low interest rates, a quick and easy application process, and a drive to help people reach their goals, Impact is built to do exactly what its name says. Apply online or find more information at: ImpactAtlantic.ca