Mainebiz

W W W. M A I N E B I Z . B I Z 17 S E P T E M B E R 7 , 2 0 2 0 S TA R T U P S / E N T R E P R E N E U R S H I P "We have complementary skills sets," says Lenz. "I'm about marketing, brand- ing, social media, business pitch decks. She's brilliant at understanding the plan, caring for people and being the heart- beat. So we joined forces." An early decision, in 2018, was to enroll in Top Gun. Lenz had experi- ence with sales forecasting and bud- geting, but none with bookkeeping and hiring. Moore had many products in one store, but no defined business model or even a website. "We needed to define the product line and go with the things that were most effective and most scalable," says Lenz. ey learned how to create a system that tracked product sales and analyzed cost of goods. "With that, we were able to make educated decisions about which prod- ucts could go away and maybe come back later, and which products needed to stay and be promoted harder because they would be best sellers," she says. ey rebranded the company, cre- ated a tag line and built an e-com- merce site. ey recently moved operations from Lenz's home to a new shop and spa in Brunswick. ey hired two part-timers and expect to hire another. ey're now selling direct to consumers and have expanded wholesale to over 50 stores, mainly in Maine but also Oregon and Atlanta, where Lenz is originally from. During Top Gun, they set an aggressive sales goal to go from $37,000 in 2018 to $160,000 in 2019. By year's end, they reached $216,000. Despite the pandemic, revenues remain steady. "We've done a pretty good job of grabbing what we need," Lenz says. Works in progress e educated decision-making Lenz refers to is central to Top Gun's mis- sion, says Kay Aikin, who founded Portland software development com- pany Introspective Systems in 2010 and enrolled in Top Gun two years later. Top Gun "lets you look at your idea critically and really dive into it," she says. "So many entrepreneurs have that, 'Well, I thought of it; it's got to be phenom- enal,'" she says. "It's not. It's a work in progress. I'm still learning new things." "e best piece of the program was to have a mentor to walk through everything with me," says Heidi Vanorse Neal, co-owner of Loyal Biscuit Co., a dog and cat supply boutique with seven Maine locations. She is a 2020 Mainebiz Women to Watch honoree. Neal enrolled in Top Gun in 2014, when she had three stores. She was try- ing to figure out why one wasn't doing as well as the other two. Conversations with a mentor helped her realize that, although the stores were within a 20-mile radius of each other, the mar- kets were vastly different. She learned how to gather and analyze input from customers, break down the types of ser- vices and products they were looking for, and create separate marketing plans. "It set the stage for not only growing my business but also growing myself, because after that course and through other participants who were in it at the same time, I learned of other oppor- tunities," she says. For example, after Top Gun she enrolled in other business education programs. e common theme? "Without them, you get stuck in the day-to-day trenches, putting out fires," Neal says. "For me, one of the best things was the ability to sit down and write a plan, with goals and action items, which I would never have taken the time to do otherwise. Stepping away and having assignments that need to be done and growth plans that need to be submitted, and having someone hold you accountable, makes you look at your business in a different way." Laurie Schreiber, Mainebiz senior writer, can be reached at lschreiber @ mainebiz.biz Pandemic effect W ith 44 enrollees this year, Top Gun went online during the pandemic. "We're learning there are a lot of tools out there to deliver information and to engage with people in our network," says Tom Rainey, executive director of Maine Center for Entrepreneurs. An unexpected benefit? No geographic constraints. "With online offerings, an entrepreneur in Caribou has just as much access to content and experts as someone in Portland," he explains. It also facilitates mentor recruitment from across the nation and provides better accessibility. "People don't have to travel," says Laurie Johnson, Top Gun's manager. "A lot of entrepreneurs have full-time jobs and families. This has been a flexible medium." Rainey notes online programming has drawbacks. "It's great to have the intimacy of people sitting in the same room and giving feedback," Rainey says. "We've lost some of that." It set the stage for not only growing my business but also growing myself. — Heidi Vanorse Neal Loyal Biscuit Co. F O C U S P H O T O / T I M G R E E N WAY Through Top Gun's 2018 class, Ashley Lenz learned how to define a business model for Healing Harbors, a Brunswick startup that produces hemp-infused body and pet care products.

• Cover