Up to $10,000 to take your business to the next level. Submit entries between March 3rd and April 23rd for your chance to win. Grand Prize is $10,000 and Runner Up Prize is $5,000 check made out to the business. This grant is awarded QUARTERLY every Fall, Winter, Spring and Summer.
Nav Grant Spring 2022 Winner:
Sipping Streams Tea Company
Going into 2020, life and business were good for Jenny Tse, founder of Sipping Streams Tea Company in Fairbanks Alaska. She had turned her passion for tea, health and wellness into a tea store, restaurant, factory and tea farm. After a difficult divorce, she had remarried and her husband had recently quit his government job to work in the business full-time.
Then the pandemic hit, and the first sign of trouble was a big one: a $15,000 order that was ready to be shipped was canceled. But Tse didn’t panic. She had already been through so many setbacks that this was just another one to take in stride. “I’ll find some other way to sell that tea,” she resolved.
She did, and her business continues to grow. But supply chain woes have left her business in urgent need of funds to purchase custom printed tea canisters to save time and money, as well as to increase revenues. Getting turned down multiple times for bank loans left her discouraged. Serendipity led her to the Nav Small Business Grant, where she secured crucial funds to take her business to the next level.
Her passion and perseverance, along with her clear vision of the next steps she needs to continue to grow her business, inspired Nav to award Sipping Streams Tea Company the Nav $10,000 Small Business Grant for the fourth quarter of 2021.
Starting from Passion
Tse’s business idea began percolating long before she officially launched. Working at a physical therapy clinic many years ago, she found tea to be a conversation starter and loved hearing about her clients’ and coworkers’ traditions around the beverage. Intrigued, she started learning more. She found it even opened up conversations with her parents, who had been reluctant to talk about their childhoods in China until Tse started visiting tea farms there.
“Not only is tea the most-consumed beverage in the world,” she says, “but it is also intercultural and intergenerational. It ties all people together and it heals us from the inside out.”
Tse was pursuing a career as a high school teacher when she started Sipping Streams in 2007, putting every penny from her paychecks after bills were paid into the business. When she was laid off, her plans went into high gear.
She gave talks about tea and began creating her own custom blends. She became a certified tea specialist with the Specialty Tea Institute, going on to win top recognition for her blends at the North American Tea Championships. Over time she was able to turn her passion into a business.
Financing Challenges
Tse has not used a lot of financing in her business. She says she’s tried several times to get bank loans but despite being profitable, she was turned down. “They’ve told me I need collateral other than the business, but since I don’t own a home or brand new car, I don’t qualify,” she explains.
She raised $40,000 from family and friends as loans to start her first tea house location.
The blessing in disguise was CARES Act funding, which allowed her to secure funds from the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and the COVID-19 Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) program.
Surviving Setbacks
Three years into her business, and just after she started paying herself a salary, she faced a trifecta of setbacks, both personal and professional. No one would have blamed her if she threw in the towel.
Tse was getting divorced; she discovered that her CPA wasn’t paying businesses taxes on time, resulting in expensive penalties from the IRS; and then she learned an employee had embezzled several thousand dollars from the business, destroying the books in the process. It was an almost impossibly difficult time.
“I lost all my working capital,” she says. Yet she had to find a way to keep paying her employees, even though she didn’t have much product to sell because capital had dried up.
Still, she refused to give up. She didn’t want to disappoint her employees, and she didn’t want to disappoint her customers. She had seen how tea had transformed others’ lives and she “wanted other people to experience the same positive impact my family felt from the community and culture of tea.”
Then the pandemic hit. After the $15,000 order was canceled, a slew of other cancellations followed. She doubled down and researched ways to sell her tea online. She credits her mastermind, The Product Boss, for helping her hone in on next steps for growth. She also found the Fairbanks Economic Development Corporation to be helpful, and most of all, she credits her local community for their support.
She and her husband continue to grow the business, and recently launched a worldwide first: a geothermal tea farm to grow and source their own tea.
What’s Next
Like so many small businesses, Sipping Streams Tea Company has been impacted by supply chain disruptions and has had difficulty finding long-term employees. Being located in Alaska adds even greater hurdles when it comes to getting timely deliveries. She installed machinery to make pyramid tea bags, which saves valuable time.
Her immediate challenge, though, and the one she plans to solve with funds from the Nav $10,000 Small Business Grant, is the need for custom-printed canisters. Her business loses sales when she can’t offer tea in canisters, but her current process of sourcing and labeling individual stock canisters is labor intensive and not cost-effective, especially with current supply chain challenges.
“Our best seller is our teas in canisters,” she explains. Without a reliable source of canisters, sales slow and that affects cash flow, creating a vicious cycle she’s anxious to put to an end so she can focus more on growth.
Ultimately her goal is to continue to grow the business she loves, both in her local community and online. Tse thrives on stories she hears from her customers who have benefited from the health and wellness benefits of her teas. And the tea house brings her a special kind of joy. “We love family and friends meeting at our tea house, having tea parties, catering their weddings, hosting their baby showers,” she shares. “I see memories being made.”
With $10,000 from the Nav Small Business Grant, Tse can continue to grow her business and serve the community she loves.
Nav Grant Winter 2021 Winner:
Herban Frequency
“It’s so much more than the food. It’s about the love,” says Alexis Allen, founder of Herban Frequency. Blending her background in the music business with her love of creating delicious vegan food, she is growing a business featuring unique flavors. Herban Frequency is Nav’s $10,000 Small Business Grant winner for the fourth quarter of 2021.
“As a true music head and professional audio engineer for the last decade I utilize my extensive background in mixing records and approach cooking just like a music mix; attention to detail, flavor balance of highs and lows, leveled spices, passion and loving energy all cultivating a high frequency electrically composed “Opus” of a dish,” she explains. “I love music and every menu item has an audio commercial we affectionately call a #Soundbite.”
Allen has been a vegan for nearly ten years. She lost 145 pounds and regained her health after giving up animal products. She lost her mother to heart disease a few years ago, and is convinced this way of eating has saved her own life.
But the route to becoming an award-winning chef was not a direct one. Herban Frequency originally was the name of the podcast she created and hosted for several years while working as a music engineer.
Allen returned to Houston Texas after she left the music industry so she could be closer to family support. She took a job working at an Amazon warehouse where a coworker was intrigued by the delicious smell of her lunch; a vegan creation made of jackfruit and one of her original seasoning blends. After tasting it, she asked if she could pay Allen to make lunch for her once a week. Soon other coworkers were clamoring for her meals.
Surviving Setbacks
Eventually she purchased a food truck and opened it two weeks before the pandemic shut down restaurant businesses all over the country. With help from the community, she managed to stay afloat during those turbulent months. But then came the Texas freeze in February 2021. The truck, which was leased, was irreparably damaged in the storm and Allen was forced to give it up, forfeiting everything she had put into it.
More setbacks followed, and despite the rave reviews her food received (including recognition from the Food Network), she found her business barely hanging on. She describes access to capital as her number one challenge.
Allen’s passion and persistence were apparent when she applied for the Nav Small Business Grant. She described how she would use the $10,000 toward a down payment on a commercial restaurant building lease in a building she’s found, and to fund a new flat top grill.
There are many elements that make Herban Frequency unique; among them the seasoning blends and sauces she makes herself. They are so popular she’s fielded inquiries from multiple retail chains interested in carrying them, but she needed money to get into a co packing space before pursuing those opportunities. The commercial kitchen will be her next step in getting there.
Rebuilding Her Business
Allen found Nav while trying to build credit with the goal of eventually getting the financing she needs to grow her business. “I knew nothing about business credit,” she says. She signed up for Nav and began closely monitoring her personal and business credit. With her Nav Business Boost account and the tools and resources she received, she has boosted her business credit more than 125 points. “I check my Nav account two or three times a week,” she laughs.
She almost didn’t apply for the Nav grant, though. “I was so down,” she says. Like many entrepreneurs, she had bootstrapped her business and with savings exhausted she wasn’t sure how her business would survive. Her fans rallied behind her when they heard she applied for the grant, giving her the encouragement she needed to keep going.
Upon learning she was the winner of the Nav $10,00 Small Business Grant, she shared how life changing it will be. “I have so much vision for my business. I will be your biggest success story,” she promised. We can’t wait to see where she takes it.
Nav Grant Fall 2021 Winner:
Roseland Born Logistics
Starting a business is challenging and takes a lot of courage. Starting a business in the midst of a global pandemic takes the courage and vision like that of Mark Davis and Chris Banks. They started Roseland Born Logistics LLC in April of 2021 because, like a lot of other small business owners, they wanted to be masters of their own destiny and help people with their transportation needs.
So far, they have self-funded their startup (named to remind them of where they were born) with personal capital. Other than a business credit card, they haven’t borrowed to get their business off the ground, but they have a big vision for the future that starts with the addition of the box truck they plan to purchase with the help of the $10,000 grant from Nav. The beginning of what they hope will become a fleet someday.
The Challenges of Starting A Business In 2021
Although one of the biggest challenges they face, accessing capital for their new business, is difficult in any business climate, it’s particularly difficult for a startup right now. Most lenders want to see at least a year in business and a track record of consistent revenue and cash flow before they’ll approve a small business loan in the best of times. Finding startup capital in the middle of a pandemic is particularly difficult.
They didn’t know financing was so difficult for a new business and, according to Davis, “I wish we had done more research on banks that truly support start-up businesses willing to help finance commercial vehicles.”
Fortunately for Davis and Banks, they became acquainted with NextGen Financial, who introduced them to Nav and the Nav Grant.
As business owners, they recognize the importance of making good decisions and how, at the end of the day, the buck stops with them. However, they have a great network of support from family, friends, and their social network to keep them motivated, let people know about their business, and keep them pushing forward.
Nav Users Before They Applied For The Grant
The importance of building a strong business credit foundation to qualify for a business loan wasn’t a surprise to Davis and Banks and they’ve used the Nav app to access their business and personal credit updates and alerts because it’s quick and easy.
“We used Nav’s MatchFactor to find the right business credit card for our business,” says Mark. “That’s the only borrowed capital we’re using right now.”
What’s Next For Roseland Born Logistics LLC?
There are very few Black- or minority-owned transportation businesses in Minnesota, so in addition to showing others what a pair of committed entrepreneurs can do, they are focused right now on building a profitable business with the revenue they’ll need to expand their fleet of trucks to grow their operations beyond Minnesota.
When asked if he has any advice for new entrepreneurs, Davis says, “Mind your own business and make sure this is what you want to do.”
“Stay patient, stay disciplined, and be organized,” he added.
Good advice.
Congratulations Roseland Born Logistics
We couldn’t be happier to see a pair of entrepreneurs like Mark Davis and Chris Banks win the $10,000 grant this quarter. We can’t wait to hear about the impact it makes on their business.
Nav Grant Summer 2021 Winner:
JW Equine Services
A passion for her business and a clear plan to put her grant money to good use to grow it has vaulted Jonna Wisher Ibañez, founder of JW Equine Services in Rosenberg Texas, to first place in the Nav’s quarterly $10,000 Small Business Grant.
Jonna has turned her lifelong passion for horses into a full service equine business that includes lessons, boarding and training horses. She plans to use the funds from the grant to help build a covered arena which will allow her to extend her business to serve clients in all weather conditions. “I will be able to make money more consistently,” she explains.
Running an equine business means her days include many different responsibilities; caring for horses, training them and their riders, competing on client’s horses or coaching riders through competitions, keeping track of farrier and veterinary care and more. She also raises, trains, competes and sells prospects from the dam line Miss Millennium Zippo who is owned by her client Michele Mertz-Terry.
“I coach competition-based lessons to all ages and levels of riders,” she says. “Each of my clients are unique. I do my best to create attainable goals each year with them and follow through as we progress. I have also helped my clients with college applications and scholarships, job applications, referral letters and more.”
A recent divorce has also left her with additional responsibilities as a mom. (Her 3-year-old daughter rides and competes as well.) Juggling her roles as a single mom and business owner hasn’t been easy, but she says family and friends have helped her pull through a difficult patch
Like so many small businesses, cash flow is often a challenge. “There have been several situations where I needed to max out a few credit cards and I spent every dime that I had keeping my business going,” she admits. But she’s now debt-free and uses her credit card to earn rewards while paying the bill in full each month.
Jonna feels fortunate that she gets to do what she loves, and to work with clients who have stayed with her for many years. “I love to be able to pick my clients so I always have good people surrounding me,” she adds.
In addition to training client’s horses, she has two of her own: Cricket and Rose, on which her clients compete. The out-of-pocket expenses for her horses can add up quickly. “Horses are the most expensive sport that I know of,” she observes.
She knows she will need financing in the future to realize her dream of owning her own full-service facility someday, and she sees the grant— and Nav— as a stepping stone toward becoming qualified for the financing she’ll need as she grows her business.
She found the Nav grant through the SCORE chapter in Houston TX where she has also begun working with a SCORE mentor. Her parents have been her biggest source of business help and inspiration. “They are both extremely savvy with business, and always steer me in the right direction morally.” she says.
As for advice for other business owners, Jonna says, “Do something you love or that you are passionate about. Seek help from others, there’s always somebody out there that knows more than you. Be nervous, take risks. It means you care.”
And she adds, “always, always have a good legal contract!”
Nav is proud to award this hard-working entrepreneur the $10,000 Nav Quarterly Small Business Grant and to support her dream to take her business to the next level.