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HARTFORDBUSINESS.COM | AUGUST 19, 2024 21 FOCUS | BANKING & FINANCE Celebrating 150 Years of Supporting the Growth & Success of Our Communities 860.283.1874 | 150Years.ThomastonSB.com | Member FDIC Reflecting back on 150 years as your community bank, we are proud to have played a role in helping our local businesses grow and thrive. It has been a true pleasure to see our communities flourish. We look forward to continuing this journey together for many years to come! Stephen Lewis President & CEO "In general, our grants are the first time that a women-owned business has access to capital outside of their own personal invest- ment for the business," Cross said. "So, a lot of the time, they think they don't know what they're doing. They think they don't know what lenders want. So, our grants are not by accident." As part of the grant application process, the WBDC asks questions and for documents a lender would request. And not every business that applies for an Ignite grant receives one, Cross said. "There's a lot of people who don't get the grant the first time," she said. In those cases, it's because "they've never had to think strategically about their business." Going through that process helps prepare business owners for what they will experience in dealing with a lender or financial institution. "Once they go through that process, they find getting extra capital from a lender to be less intimidating," Cross said. 'Big picture' Mark Moeller, of Westport, a former restaurateur and nationally known consultant who mentors new restau- rant owners via the WBDC, agrees that many who start their own businesses don't fully understand everything that is required to be successful. "They don't take the big picture into account," he said. "They say, 'I'm a great chef and I can open a restau- rant,' and they forget that they don't know what they don't know." Finance, for one, is "not something they're usually very good at," he continued. "Others know what equip- ment they want to use, but they don't know how to design their kitchen so it's efficient." He cited the example of Daniella Palazzolo, founder and owner of Cucina Daniella in Darien, her first "brick-and-mortar" business. Pala- zzolo began as a "farmer's market chef," Moeller said, and initially planned to open in a different loca- tion, but she "ran into an issue with the town." Fortunately, she found what turned out to be an ideal location for her Italian specialty food store at 286 Tokeneke Road. "It's a good size for her," Moeller said. "It wasn't too big, where she's biting off more than she could handle, and it also gives her an opportunity to be profitable faster because she can limit her employees." Palazzolo said a $10,000 Ignite grant she received in 2022 was initially intended to be used to buy a dough sheeter, which flattens balls of dough into one large sheet, but instead was used to buy bread ovens. "I will tell you that the WBDC was very instrumental for me," she said, "because I took advantage of all the classes that they offered" and also met Moeller, whom she credited with helping her find her location. She also leveraged the Ignite grant into a $262,000 SBA loan, which she received in January 2023. "For me though, it wasn't just the money," Palazzolo said of the WBDC grant. "It was the contacts. It was building confidence through different classes, how to build a business plan. … Otherwise, I wouldn't know where to start." The WBDC opened the application process for its next round of grants on Aug. 12. The deadline to apply is Sept. 24. Mary Ruth Shields, founder and owner of United Sewing & Design LLC in Hartford. HBJ PHOTO | DAVID KRECHEVSKY Samantha Cross