rotten bananas

With Mother’s Day upon us, I felt it was appropriate to discuss some of what’s going on in her life right now. My mom will be 55 this year, and she’s been dreaming of owning her own business. It’s gone through a number of phases, starting with the purchase of a small embroidery machine.

While working her full-time job as an accounting manager, she had some success with her embroidery. She’s since upgraded her machine twice. She’s also semi-recently purchased a heat press, mug press, and button press. She makes some cash on the side doing all of this, but not enough to sustain herself (in the lifestyle that she’s grown accustomed to). I think she could do rather well if she did a lot more marketing, but she isn’t convinced.

Within the past year she’s also attempted to start her own line of Thank God gifts (shirts, mousepads, mugs, etc). She has some pretty cool designs (if you’re into that sort of thing), but she can’t seem to find her market. I’m going to be spending some time trying to get it some attention, so I’ll be updating on that as I make discoveries.

Her most recent venture has been attempting to purchase a local uniform shop. She lost her job a few months ago (after the initial burn, she’s more than happy with this turn of events), and it looks like a good investment. It comes with a decent bit of real estate, including a home that’s currently being rented out. The problem is that she can’t find funding. No banks have been willing to give her what she thinks it’s worth (which is still a bit lower than what the owner is asking for).

I’m not going to claim to know much about business valuation, but the underlying problem is that the banks seem mainly focused it’s near-future earning potential, while the current owner (and my mom) think that it has much more potential further into the future. The shop has seen steady growth with practically no marketing. It’s been a one-man operation for years, and that’s only a standard 46-hour (retail) work week.

She’s waiting on a few quotes right now, but she’s been offered much too little too many times already, so her hopes are starting to dwindle. Her greatest fear at this point is that she’ll have to begin looking for a ‘real’ job. She’s had enough of the corporate world and absolutely does not want to go back.

I think this business would be an awesome opportunity for her, and she would do a great job running it. Unfortunately, there just doesn’t seem to be as much disposable income milling around the bank vaults as we had hoped. I highly doubt she’ll give up on her dreams if this falls through, even if she has to get an awful, ‘real’ job, but it’s definitely frustrating.

Does anyone have any experience with this sort of thing? Have any advice?