We were lucky to catch up with Miriam Duenas recently and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Miriam, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear how you think where to draw the line in terms of asking friends and family to support your business – what’s okay and what’s over the line?
I wasn’t prepared to open a business so when we opened Cute to the Bone I saw myself with no money to survive, much less to cover the expenses of a business that was just starting. I had to ask my family and close friends for help and they responded to my request not only helping me with money but also with words of encouragement and faith that everything would be fine.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers
I love animals since I was a kid and I feel very lucky to be able to work as a professional pet stylist. Working with animals helps me recognize how special they are, each of the fur babies that come to the salon have their own personality.
We take the time to work with them so they can feel comfortable and can trust us.
We do our best to answer all the questions our customers may have regarding the care of their puppies’s skin and coat.
Can you talk to us about how your funded your business?
Well….like I said previously…. I wasn’t ready to open a business, but it happened and I don’t regret it. My friend and a friend of hers asked me to join to star a dog grooming business together , I bought all the equipment using my personal credit and I would be the only groomer until we had enough clients to hire more staff.
One of them would be in charge of the reception and would be my assistant, the other would be in charge of the publicity, None of them was a groomer or knew about it. Precisely for this reason one of them quit before opening and the other one did it tree monts after we started. Until now I still think that all that had to happen.
My brother Martin knowing what was happening gave me all his support to be able to keep the business.
Can you open up about a time when you had a really close call with the business?
The first months ,there was at time when it was only me answering the phone, doing check ins ,bathing dogs , grooming and doing check outs and I started getting more business so I asked my daughter Michelle to come to work with me as a receptionist/bather/assistant …..Wait!!! ….. I almost forget to tell you , while all of this about opening a business was happening , I was going through divorce, I strongly believe that this situation made things harder for me to keep the business running, I had many responsibilities and expenses on my shoulders.
Ok , going back to my daughter working with me….I remember there were a few times when I paid her and asked her to hold the checks for two weeks or a month because there was not money in the account , was hard for her too and she needed that money to pay for her school .
I am so blessed to have the family I have !
The power was cut off several times in the business as well as in my house but I always kept the faith that everything would be ok.
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