We recently connected with Amy Winter Cabilovski and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Amy thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear your thoughts about family businesses.
I believe family businesses are the fibers to fabric in our communities. Family owned businesses are based upon typical family values such as loyalty, commitment and support. We reflect those values upon our staff and our customers and provide a welcoming and caring business. We reinvest into the businesses and are deeply rooted into our communities.
Family owned businesses typically do not have a large ROI but they do continuously reinvest into their communities which grows the community as a whole.
If I were to have children I would definitely want them to join our family owned business. It is a great way to learn how to operate many aspects of life. It teaches you hard work, how to manage money, accounts receivable/payable, working for something you want, etc…
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
Amy Winter Cabilovski is a native of Westerville, Ohio and graduated from Otterbein (College) University with an Art Degree in Photography, Drawing; Art History Minor; Associates Degree from CSCC in Graphic Design. With a background in Art & Design and roots in the furniture business, it just seemed natural to combine her passions — and thus, Edwin Loy Home was born in July 2012.
During the summer before my senior year at Otterbein, I worked for my aunt and uncle’s small furniture business in Delaware, Ohio. It was there that I fell in love with the small business lifestyle, and I dreamt of owning my own shop someday. In 2012, after walking by a “For Lease” sign in Uptown Westerville on West College Avenue, I came up with an idea to open a store. The shop specializes in home decor, gifts and artisan furniture and is celebrating its eleven-year anniversary this year. Edwin Loy Home is also a retailer of Chalk Paint® by Annie Sloan.
In 2016 we expanded to Delaware, OH and opened our second location with a clothing boutique, Stone & Sparrow inside of Edwin Loy Home. In September of 2019 we decided to open Stone & Sparrow Apparel in Westerville, OH and it is right across the street from Edwin Loy Home. Stone & Sparrow Apparel is a curated boutique for women & men offering apparel, accessories, apothecary, gifts & more.
In March 2022 we chose to close our Delaware location to focus on our Westerville shops and to have a better work-life balance.
We love to offer a unique and customer focused shopping experience. We provide amazing customer service and we are always ready to help with furniture makeovers to room makeovers.
Can you talk to us about how your funded your business?
Funding a small business can be very difficult without a bank lending you the money or finding an investor. I used my 401K savings from my previous job to help start my business. I also worked a second job in the beginning in order to grow the business. I would work 7-8 hours at the shop and then I would go serve/bartend at the restaurant for 6-7 hours. I was able to take the profits from my business and reinvest into the business instead of paying myself out of the profits. It was long days and hard work but it helped establish my business and help it grow. I did not pay myself for the first year.
When I decided I wanted to sell Chalk Paint® by Annie Sloan, I did not have the capital to purchase the products. I tried to secure small business loans from several banks, however no bank would lend to me. I actually had a customer that wanted to start investing in small businesses and they chose to lend me the capital as a private loan. This helped grow my business and has contributed greatly to my long term success.
How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?
In March 2022 we made the difficult decision to close our Delaware location. We had opened the second location of Edwin Loy Home in August 2016. However, after 6 years of business, my husband (who is also a small business owner) and I made the choice to re-evaluate our work-life balance and chose to close the Delaware location. We had established a wonderful second location, created an amazing following, survived a pandemic but we needed a better work-life balance for our family. We have never considered the closure a failure as the business was doing great and it was growing. It was just a choice to re-focus our attention on our Westerville shops and our personal lives.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.edwinloyhome.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/edwinloyhome/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EdwinLoyHome
Image Credits
Photo in front of mural “art is good for you” is by Periwinkle Photography all other photos are by Amy Winter Cabilovski