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Purse Strings: Helping Women Make Sound Financial Decisions

Barbara Provost and her daughter Maggie Nieman created Purse Strings, a platform dedicated to helping women make better financial decisions. They joined The Savvy Entrepreneur Radio Show recently to share how they got started, and some of the challenges they’ve faced along the way.

Barbara spent many years working with financial institutions as a consultant. She felt their really was no part of the sector that was truly serving women’s needs. The focus was on sales, and the assumption was that the man of the household was making the decisions.

And then she went through her own divorce. She spoke with lots of other women going through the process, and realized how poorly prepared many women are to make sound financial decisions. She realized again how financially disadvantaged most women are because they earn less and are out of the workforce more.

Barb launched Purse Strings as a side business, but when Covid struck and her consulting business dried up, she decided it was time to dedicate herself full-time to Purse Strings. And at that point, her daughter Maggie had finished her MBA, and they decided it was time to team up.

Like most platforms, the business has gone through some different iterations to find the right delivery and pricing model. Today, Purse Strings offers a paid membership to vetted financial experts of all types, along with lots of free financial education for women.

It’s a great story, and a business filling a huge need. Click on the arrow to take a listen!

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How to Build a Fitness Business: Marvil Fit

Have you ever wondered if you could turn your passion for fitness into a business of some kind?

Marisella Villano, founder of Marvil Fit, has done just that. Marvil Fit offers spin-related fitness classes (including some unique spin and floor combination classes). She also offers personal training. She’s tried different combinations of offerings over the years, and found this works best for her and her clients.

Marisella shares some of the challenges she’s faced. But she also has lots of suggestions on how you might go about creative a fitness-based business, as well as some key things to think about.

Her creativity and ability to pivot helped her through difficult times, including Covid, which caused a lot of smaller fitness studios to go under.

She shares her story with The Savvy Entrepreneur. She’s full of energy and enthusiasm — just what you’d expect from the owner and founder of a successful fitness studio like Marvil Fit!

Click on the arrow to take a listen to her fun and relatable story!

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Memoir For Me: Custom Memory Books

Nora Kerr’s company Memoir For Me began when her father was dying of prostate cancer and was told he only had 6-8 months to live. Nora took that opportunity to sit down with him over the course of several months. She asked him many of the questions she’d always had about him and his life, and worked to sort through and learn the stories behind the many photographs.

She found she truly loved doing this. She started volunteering her time to do it for friends and other family members, as well as members of her community that were nominated by neighbors.

Along the way, Nora realized that not only could she make money doing this, but that it was a perfect way to blend her writing and photography skills with her IT background. Thus, Memoir For Me, a custom life-story memory book company, was founded.

The biggest challenge, she’s found, is convincing people that their ordinary, everyday stories are worth capturing. That everyday people lead remarkable lives in the small things they do, and that these deserve to be captured. But customers are increasingly finding her, and Memoir For Me is growing steadily.

Memoir For Me has been self-funded so far, but is just starting to look for funding, as Nora is realizing the company can’t continue to grow without investments in personnel and systems. It’s a great story — in fact, The Savvy Entrepreneur hopes Nora takes time to document her very own everyday, remarkable story of how her company got started and has grown!

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The Savvy Entrepreneur: Critter

Jordy & Jahna McNamara took a novel approach to starting their app company, Critter.  They decided to quit their jobs, pack up everything and take a cross-country road trip in a van.  Their road trip allowed them the focus and freedom to finally start the business they’d dreamed of.

Traveling for months out of a van isn’t the easiest way to start a business.  But it got them out of their old routine and into a new one. And they were disciplined enough to work hard almost every day on their new business.  It also had the unexpected benefit of getting lots of in-person customer feedback, with a geographic and demographic breadth that would be hard to do any other way.

Critter was born because Jordy & Jahna wished there was an easy way to summarize everything their dog Lucy needed for various caregivers.  They found themselves writing the same information over and over on scraps of paper.  They knew there must be something easier.

Creating a new app and a company around it was right up their alley – Jahna has a software background, and Jordy a consulting and business background.

The app launched in October 2022, and for now is free.  But they are exploring “freemium” tiers and other options to help monetize the business.  Their long-term goal is to create a suite of apps that would also include pet professionals as well, such as vets, groomers, and boarders.

It’s a fun story about how to navigate the hassles of living in close quarters and moving constantly while trying to start a business together.  It’s the ultimate challenge in being flexible.

But then, that’s what the couple says is one of the keys to a successful road trip, but also building and marketing an app from scratch – have an overall plan, but stay flexible!

Click on the arrow to listen to this fun interview!

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The Savvy Entrepreneur: Encouraging Future Manufacturing Talent

Ed Dernulc. He is the Foundation Director of something called Nuts, Bolts and Thingamajigs (or “NBT,” for short). It's the foundation arm of the Fabricators and Manufacturers Association (FMA).  He joined The Savvy Entrepreneur recently to talk about future manufacturing talent, including entrepreneurs.

NBT's mission is to connect that next generation of entrepreneurs and manufacturers to consider careers in the manufacturing industry.

Ed says that the number one thing that keeps him up at night, along with NBT's and FMA's members, is not supply chain, it's not the cost of raw materials, and it's not finding parts.  It's is human resources.

The U.S. today has about a 2-million-person manufacturing skills gap — meaning there are 2 million jobs in manufacturing that employers can't fill. And it's only growing, so the need is definitely there.

Truly, Ed says, one of the biggest things that Nuts Bolts & Thingamajigs tries to tackle is to change perceptions about manufacturing.  Manufacturing has changed dramatically over the past few years.  It is no longer the dark and dangerous place people might envision.  There are also misperceptions about salary, and skills needed, as well as expected salaries and career paths (hint: the growing labor shortfall has driven up salaries, and by quite a lot for certain skillsets).

To help address those gaps, Nuts Bolts & Thingamajigs offers scholarships, education, and outreach.  But it's probably best known for the week-long camps that it hosts to expose 12-16 year-olds to the world of manufacturing.

In 2022, NBT has grown to 165 camps in 25 states and Canada.  The camps are structured building some kind of project, and also around local industry sponsors, who give students insights into what it's like to work in manufacturing.

NBT also offers Glow & Gadget camps for young women.  Today, women represent only about 12% of manufacturing employment.

The overall goal of both camps is to spark curiosity and open students' minds to the possibility of careers in manufacturing, including many different types of entrepreneurial opportunities.

Learn more about the important work of the Nuts, Bolts & Thingamajigs Foundation in fostering future manufacturing talent by clicking the arrow.  You can also read a transcript of the interview here.

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