Category: C-BIZ

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C-BIZ

Recipe for success: Vu Noodles’ survival story

Julie Vu Whitaker of Vu Noodles. Photo: John Robinson

Those who work in business can tell you that success requires hard work, adaptation, and some smiles from fate. Julie Vu Whitaker, founder and driving force behind Vu Noodles, can attest to all three.

In 2013, after 20 years as a social worker, Whitaker decided on a career shift. “[While] I still loved it, I was ready for a change,” she says.

From childhood, she enjoyed cooking and sharing foods from her Vietnamese heritage, and she credits her immigrant family (they arrived in Waynesboro when Whitaker was 8) with instilling a strong work ethic: “My family has always been in their own business.” She began selling Vu Noodles, her “to-go” take on traditional Vietnamese vegetable bowls, at The Farm corner grocery in Belmont. “It really opened my eyes,” she says. “People liked my food.”

Vu Noodles’ popularity led Whitaker to get her home kitchen commercially certified so she could supply vendors around town, from Whole Foods Market to Rebecca’s Natural Food and Martha Jefferson Hospital’s café. After three years working long hours—her bowls are prepared fresh every day—Whitaker says she needed some help. “I was thinking, ‘I can’t keep doing this alone.’” She jumped at the opportunity to take over The Spot on Second Street in partnership with Kathy Zentgraf of Greenie’s.

Demand soon meant the business had outgrown Whitaker’s home kitchen, so she struck a deal with Pearl Island Catering to rent the kitchen at the Jefferson School City Center and supply the café there. “Now I had a sit-down space, and could interact more with the customers, which I loved,” she recalls. But sharing the kitchen with Pearl Island’s growing business began to bind. By late 2019, Whitaker was considering the new Dairy Market, which would have meant taking on significant debt. “I’d always been able to fund my business myself,” she says.

One of Vu Noodles’ offerings. Photo: John Robinson

Enter another opportunity: Early this year Whitaker got an offer to take over The Flat Creperie’s space—right off the Downtown Mall, with its own kitchen, and small enough for Whitaker to handle with help from her husband and two sons, now in high school.

In another smile from fate, in May the United Way of Greater Charlottesville and the city’s Minority Business Alliance announced the first grants under a new partnership to help support local minority- and women-owned small businesses. One of the $5,000 grants went to Vu Noodles, although Whitaker had to be convinced by a friend to even apply. “I always feel that someone else needs the money more,” she says.

The timing was perfect. The grant (and the pandemic shutdown) enabled Whitaker to renovate the kitchen and install a microphone for contactless ordering before opening in July.

Starting up at a new location while downtown foot traffic is just recovering is a challenge, but over the years Vu Noodles has developed a sizable and devoted following. Whitaker’s offerings now include pho and banh mi sandwiches as well as her noodle bowls, and are all completely vegan—except for one important holdout. “I had to keep the fish sauce,” she says with a smile. “It’s so much a part of our food tradition.”

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C-BIZ

What dreams are made of: 5 stories of locals turning their passion into their business

Adam and Nicole Goerge of Elevate Training Studio (Photo Credit: Amy and Jackson Smith)

If thinking about your passion keeps you up at night, while your job leaves you snoring, it may be time to see if you can make a living doing what you love. The Charlottesville area is home to plenty of small business entrepreneurs— and dreamers. Albemarle County, and much of central Virginia, has a self- employment rate ranging from 10-20 percent, according to the U.S. Small Business Administration’s 2019 state profile. And local initiatives, like the Community Investment Collaborative and the i.Lab at UVA, are here to help. So as you contemplate transforming your dream into a business, let these five stories inspire you to take the next step.

Adam and Nicole Goerge | ELEVATE TRAINING STUDIO

Adam Goerge and Nicole Yarbrough met as trainers at ACAC, where they both continued working after their marriage in 2006. But they always dreamed of opening their own training studio. “We wanted to be our own bosses,” Nicole recalls.” We wanted to develop a community of clients who supported our style of training—not like a big-box gym, more like a family.” Adam says they talked about the idea for seven or eight years. In September 2017, they agreed the time had come—and 14 months later, they opened Elevate Training Studio.

In preparing to make the leap, the couple spoke with colleagues at other gyms—“all different styles, from big gyms to boutiques,” Nicole recalls. They cruised small business websites (see sidebar), worked out the space and equipment they needed, and estimated expenses, from rent to taxes and salaries. They even had a color scheme (royal blue and grass green) and a mascot (their goldendoodle Velo).

While still working full-time, the Goerges took on everything from finding a location to figuring out financing—as independent contractors at ACAC, they couldn’t show a steady monthly income, which made it hard to qualify for business loans. They went through four possible sites before settling on a space on Berkmar Drive off Route 29 North, close to town and convenient for clients.

But that was just the beginning. When their contractor fell through, Adam, who had construction experience, stepped in as subcontractor for the renovation. They hired independent contractors for specialized tasks, but handled everything from demolition to drywall themselves, with their son Caden, inlaws, and friends pitching in. Handling a business license, a LLC application, rezoning, permitting, and building inspections was an education. Adam recalls spending a lot of time on the Albemarle County website.

Not everything went to plan, says Nicole: “It was all about doing what needed to be done at that moment.” Because they were both still employed—and because, as Nicole notes, “Charlottesville is a small town, especially in our field”—the couple kept the idea quiet until they were ready to launch. In the meantime, Caden was making the transition to middle school and the family moved into a new home.

Now, as they enter their second year, was it worth it? Absolutely, both agree. “We’ve been able to create our own space,” says Adam with satisfaction. Nicole says, “I walk in, and this is where I belong.”

Heather Hightower | THE CENTER FOR VOCAL STUDY

Heather Hightower had a passion for singing and performing from an early age. But her journey to becoming founder and owner of The Center for Vocal Study took a roundabout—and often serendipitous—path.

After majoring in voice at UVA, Hightower applied to graduate schools, but “my intuition told me that this was not the next step for me,” she recalls. Instead, she took a more winding route: teaching music in Guatemala; taking a series of corporate jobs; and working retail back in Charlottesville. With friends urging her to put her vocal and coaching skills to work, in 2012 she began a side gig teaching voice students in her home.

In 2013, Hightower was hired as choir director at The Field School. “It was a total adventure,” she says. “I was starting the program from scratch.” As she was developing the school’s music program, Hightower’s private lessons were outgrowing her home. In 2016, another voice teacher mentioned renting space together, “so I opened an Excel spreadsheet and started crunching the numbers,” she recalls.

In 2017, Hightower took the plunge, signing a lease on space on the Downtown Mall, and—with lots of cleaning and furnishing help from her family, friends, and students—The Center for Vocal Study opened. Soon, a group of voice teachers was using the space to collaborate, and The Center began to offer expertise in other aspects of singing and performing, from Alexander technique to auditioning.

“When you’re getting started, you have to do everything—editing the website, figuring out the online scheduling,” Hightower says. She drew on her past experience in business, in fundraising, even in sales and customer service—augmented with the help of a coach she found through a business program. And she did hire both part-time administrative help and an accounting firm.

In 2018, she left her Field School job to focus full-time on The Center—just in time, because soon her lease was up. “We knew it was coming, but I wasn’t quite ready,” she says ruefully. “But again, like with our first location, I just had to leap.” The Center’s new location on Pantops “feels like a retreat center,” she says, “and has me thinking in new ways about what we do here to embolden singers to find their voice.”

Clearly, bringing her dream to life has been both grueling and inspiring. “Making so many decisions—it can be exhausting,” Hightower admits. “Some days are glorious, and others are more like being swept away into the ocean. But I am constantly being surprised at what is being created here.”

Angelic Jenkins | ANGELIC’S KITCHEN

Angelic Jenkins has always loved to cook. “My house is the come-to house for the holidays, because everyone knows I’m going to cook up a feast,” she says.

Growing up, “I was always in the kitchen, under my mother and my grandmother, watching them and asking questions.”

The Charlottesville native also has vivid memories of eating fried fish at summer festivals in Washington Park. “To me, it was just something totally different,” she recalls. “I thought, when I grow up I want to be at the park and I want to sell fried fish.”

In high school, she spent three years studying culinary arts at CATEC, even winning a bread contest. She thought she might become a chef. But instead, she veered into another career path, taking up office technology, and eventually landing a job in HR.

While she was working full-time for DoubleTree, she spent her weekends shopping. “My husband said, there has to be something better you can do with your weekends,” she recalls with a laugh. That’s when she remembered those childhood festivals. “And I said, ‘I want to sell fried fish.’”

Her husband, Charles, encouraged her to go for it, and he rented the equipment she would need. She started off with a tent at the African American Cultural Arts Festival, in Washington Park. The event was so successful that before she knew it she was working festivals as far away as Virginia Beach, selling her fried fish, wings, hush puppies, and onion rings to a rapidly growing fan base.

Jenkins then entered a program for entrepreneurs at the Community Investment Collaborative, received her catering license, and went on to open her own catering business, Angelic’s Kitchen, renting commercial kitchen space at Bread and Roses.

As she continued to sell at festivals, she also tweaked her fish breading, experimenting with different herbs and spices to make her product stand out. Once she got the recipe down, she found a manufacturer through CIC. She had the breading bagged so she could sell it to customers interested in frying at home.

And in 2018, she and Charles bought a food truck: Angelic’s Mobile Kitchen. They sell from a parking lot on Pantops in the summer and at various festivals and other spots throughout the fall.

Now, Jenkins is poised to open her first bricks-and-mortar location, at the new Dairy Market food hall in 2020. Jenkins says her 609-foot stall will focus on soul food—her famous fried fish, but also classic down-home dishes like barbecue chicken, yams, corn pudding, and potato salad.

The biggest challenge, she says, has been the financial strain of growing the business. Because she’s still working full-time, as the head of HR for DoubleTree, she doesn’t qualify for a lot of small grants. At the moment, she has a GoFundMe up to help cover the start-up costs of the new location.

But while she plans to keep working for the first year (covering evening and weekend shifts while Charles mans the stall during the day), she’s hopeful that she’ll eventually be able to work at Dairy Market full-time.

“My hobby has turned into a career for me,” she says. “I never thought I’d end up here.”

Jenny Peterson | PARADOX PASTRY CAFÉ

Jenny Peterson has always had two passions: “From the time I was a little kid in West Virginia, I was either doing gymnastics in the yard, or [I was] in the kitchen baking with my mom.” She built a career as a personal trainer, and while her then-husband was stationed in Europe, Peterson attended the famed Cordon Bleu in Paris and interned at a noted French patisserie.

When the family came to Charlottesville in 2004, Peterson began working in the kitchen at the Boar’s Head Inn— but “I knew if I wanted to open my own business, I needed to be out in the community.” She became a personal trainer at ACAC, and started building a client base by baking for friends, giving samples to her training clients, and taking on jobs at cost to build word-of-mouth.

Through SCORE, a local business organization (see sidebar), Peterson was connected with Joe Geller, retired owner of the Silver Thatch Inn, whom she credits with helping her develop her business plan. Peterson’s concept: an open bakery. “My idea was based on my mom’s kitchen. She always has someone in, it was a community place. I didn’t want to have a wall between us and our customers—I wanted to see who we were serving, and have them see us.” Thus the name: Paradox Pastry Café, where a personal trainer is making delicious treats, and the bakery becomes a place to convene.

Peterson got a business loan through a small local financial institution. She found her space on Second Street SE– “I signed the lease before I got my loan approved,” she admits—and much of the renovation was done by “me and my friends, and a rag-tag bunch of guys working on another restaurant nearby.” She hired and then fired a business consultant. Meanwhile, she was still working at ACAC, running her home business, raising her two children, and navigating a divorce. “I was 49 years old,” Peterson recalls, “and I thought, ‘I don’t want to be 80 years old and never have tried this.’”

In June 2012, Peterson launched her café—and, almost eight years later, she admits there are still parts of her business plan she hasn’t gotten around to implementing. But her core vision remains: a community place where she and her staff greet the regulars and patrons can linger.

“There are other bakeries in town, but they’re not my competition,” Peterson says. “We don’t make breads. We don’t offer gluten-free—I don’t have the space for completely separate ingredients and equipment. To me, it should be, do what you love and do it better than anyone else.”

Emily Morrison | THE FRONT PORCH

Music has always been vital in Emily Morrison’s life; the daughter of two musicians, she is a skilled banjo player herself. But she also has a calling to teach. When she came to Charlottesville in 2000, her “real job” was teaching high school English. Then she began teaching music and drama at Mountaintop Montessori school.

“It was the first time I had taught music,” Morrison recalls, “and it was so much fun!” She created a musical/ cultural “world folk tour,” recruited local musicians to help start a school string band, and launched a children’s choir. She had found her passion: people making music together—“performance as, not outcome-based, but as experiential.” That’s how the dream of a community music school began.

Morrison and a friend came up with the name The Front Porch because “that’s the place, all over the world, where people gather.” She went to a hackathon at Monticello High School to develop her website, and got a business license to offer music lessons out of her home. In summer 2015, she took part in the i.Lab incubator program at UVA. “This former English teacher didn’t know anything about business,” Morrison says. “That’s where I decided this [venture] should be a nonprofit and learned how to set it up, with a board and everything. That little test model is still what we’re doing today.”

Morrison leased space at Mountaintop for her burgeoning school. The first year’s budget was $50,000, half of it raised on a GoFundMe page. While Morrison was committed to paying her teachers a market wage, she herself was working for free. Among her “success factors,” Morrison credits her husband John, whose steady income and support enabled her to pursue her dream.

By 2016, student enrollment had doubled–and Mountaintop needed its space back. Morrison found a new location, just off the Downtown Mall, that needed extensive renovation. Another “success factor:” Jack Horn of Martin Horn Inc., a supporter of The Front Porch’s programs, whose firm handled (and partially funded) the renovation.

By 2019, the school’s annual budget surpassed $300,000, and “we were finally appropriately staffed,” she says. From hiring staff to recruiting board members, Morrison drew on relationships she had built as a teacher and as a musician. And she kept learning–visiting other community music schools around the country, and cold-calling people around Charlottesville to “have coffee with me so I could pick their brains.”

Her assessment, after five years? “I’ve mentored people who want to start a nonprofit, and I tell them it’s going to take over your life,” Morrison says. “But there’s still a learning curve, which keeps me interested.” And she’s keeping her dream alive: “The world—all of us—needs more time being together, playing music and being peaceful.”

TOP TIPS FROM FELLOW DREAMERS

We asked our featured entrepreneurs to share some of their hard-won wisdom:

Don’t quit your day job—yet. Finances are the single biggest source of stress, and the main reason business ventures fail. Having an outside job while you test the waters is a good way to prepare. (If you’re lucky enough to have a spouse or partner with a steady income, that’s a huge help too.)

Plan, plan, and plan some more. All these entrepreneurs developed (and kept revising) their business plans, financial spreadsheets, and to-do lists. Work out how much money you need (including your salary), where it’s coming from, and what you will have to charge. At the same time, as Heather Hightower cautions, expect problems—and opportunities—to come up before you’re ready.

Be willing to do everything. Jenny Peterson says on any given day she might be cleaning toilets, training a new worker, or coming in to cover for a sick employee—in addition to baking, running the café, and greeting customers. There is no 35-hour work week for a business owner.

Find the skills you don’t have. While your personal work experience may be helpful, there’s always something you won’t know. Find a mentor, hire a consultant, take a course, search the Internet— and be willing to pay for the expertise you need, whether it’s bookkeeping, marketing, or legal advice.

The buck stops with you. If you have a hard time making decisions or taking on more responsibilities, think twice about running your own business. “The owner is the catalyst,” says Peterson. “We set the tone, the vision—it’s our full responsibility to make it happen.”

It’s also your dream; don’t forget to enjoy it. Every one of these entrepreneurs said their goal was not huge profits or thousands of clients, it was the creation of their dream. Being happy in your work is a perfectly acceptable measure of success.

FINDING SUPPORT

Ready to take the leap and start a business? Here are some local resources that can help:

Community Investment Collaborative (cicville.org) focuses on helping microenterprises with financing support and counseling, networking opportunities, support groups, co-working space and services, and education. CIC’s small business classes range from a two-hour “How to Start Your Own Business” course to a 16-week “Entrepreneur Workshop.”

City of Charlottesville’s Office of Economic Development (Find it on the city’s website, charlottesville.org) has a range of resources for small business owners at any stage. “Cville Match” provides additional funding to companies that have received grants from a range of state and federal programs; once you’re launched, the “Advancing Charlottesville Entrepreneurs” program assists small (fewer than six employees), city-based businesses with grants for advertising, equipment, and supplies.

Central Virginia SCORE (centralvirginia.score.org) offers an online business library, webinars on everything from budgeting to marketing, and assistance in developing a business plan. SCORE also provides access to a stable of retired business professionals who serve as volunteer mentors for fledgling entrepreneurs.

Small Business Development Center (centralvirginia.org/ small-business-development-center) provides free business counseling services and assists with feasibility studies and business planning. SBDC also sponsors seminars and training, often in conjunction with CIC and SCORE —including the monthly Charlottesville “Entrepreneurs & Espresso” at UVA’s i.Lab.

If your dream is evolving in a nonprofit direction, the Center for Nonprofit Excellence (thecne.org) offers its members workshops, training and consulting in areas from financial management, fundraising, and grantsmanship to marketing and advocacy, as well as board recruitment and development. Membership dues start at $100/year and are keyed to the organization’s annual budget.

Don’t forget to check the course offerings at Piedmont Virginia Community College (pvcc.edu) to build skills in accounting, management, business law, IT and marketing.

Once you’re launched, the Charlottesville Regional Chamber of Commerce (cvillechamber.com) can help you connect with other entrepreneurs and potential customers and clients. Some Chamber programs, like the monthly Business Women’s Round Table and ProTip Tuesday, a social and learning event, are open to the public; its signature networking event, Let’s Connect, is for members and prospective members only. Note: If your small business (fewer than 11 employees) belongs to the Chamber in a neighboring county, you can become an affiliate member of the Charlottesville chapter at no additional charge.

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C-BIZ

Inside job: Charlottesville’s rosy employment outlook

Job fairs, like this one hosted by the Downtown Job Center, are a great way to see a lot of opportunities at once.

2020 will be a prosperous time for area job-seekers, says Juandiego Wade, coordinator of Albemarle County’s Career Center, thanks to a low 2.5 percent unemployment rate propelled by strong local business growth. “If you’re looking for a job and you have skills, you have buying power right now.”

But where to start? A job search can be a bewildering exercise—whether looking for a first job, a better job, or employment to make ends meet. Luckily, knowledgeable counselors in career resource centers abound in both the city and county, and they’re ready to help. “I might see someone here that just got out of prison after 12 years, or I might see a nurse who is completely stressed out from her job and needs a career change,” says Wade. “I encourage everyone to think about their transferable skills, and to learn to decode fancy job titles into what that job truly entails. People are often surprised by the range of options they have.”

The Career Center, Charlottesville’s Downtown Job Center, and Virginia Career Works all have dedicated staff who can help job seekers create and update resumes, draft cover letters, and participate in mock interviews. Wade walks candidates through several online search engines such as Monticello Avenue and Indeed to jumpstart the process, and advises them on how to self-promote. “You’ve got to develop good social skills and eye contact, and you should assess how your social media presence reflects on you, because employers will look at that.”

Local career counselors predict there will be plenty of opportunities for prospective employees, many at increased wage rates. “We are seeing a strong demand for health care workers, particularly certified nursing assistants, patient care assistants, and other critical positions,” says Tom Gillette, Virginia Career Works center manager, “as well as many openings in hotels, restaurants, and the catering business.” Prior expertise can come in handy as well. “Commercial drivers are in high demand, as are workers in skilled trades— electricians, pipe-fitters, HVAC technicians, and welders,” he says.

UVA, the area’s largest employer, increased its base hourly wage for all full-time and contract employees to $15 per hour in 2019, generating an uptick in pay rates county-wide as other employers vie for workers. Free or reduced-cost training courses such as Fast Forward at PVCC, Goodwill youth and adult programs, Job Corps, and the city’s Growing Opportunities program can set job seekers on a path to earn even higher wages.

“Over the last five years we’ve trained over 200 people into high-demand, mid-level jobs that pay a self-sufficient wage,” says Holli Lee, chief of workforce development strategies in Charlottesville’s Office of Economic Development. “Our flagship program is GO Driver, where we partner with Charlottesville Area Transit to train people to become bus drivers. We incorporate workplace readiness training into these programs as well, to teach soft skills like showing up to work on time and dealing with conflicts in a professional situation.”

The OED pushes available job notices out to anyone who has registered at the Job Center by posting on social media sites such as Facebook, and by handing out fliers in local neighborhoods. Lee says job fairs are a great way to see a lot of opportunities at once.

“We recently held a targeted hiring event for Aramark, who will be staffing six new restaurants in 5th Street Station over the next few months,” she says. “We had 100 people come through and fill out applications and do interviews, and 32 people were offered employment on the spot at wages starting at $11.40 per hour.”

In this job-rich environment, employers must up their game to compete. “We are inundated with companies offering retail and food service jobs right now and they just can’t find enough people,” says Lee. “I tell them, if you’re trying to pay someone only $9 per hour in this environment, good luck to you.” Lee notes that Tiger Fuel recently increased wages and added to their benefits package to try to stay competitive.

“My advice to employers is—adjust your old-school approach to getting new people,” says Gillette. “Be friendly (and maybe a little aggressive) in talking to potential candidates. And, once you have them, do everything you can to help them survive and succeed. For dissatisfied employees, there are plenty of other options.”

Senior-level employees are in demand as well, and networking is the key to finding those positions. Elizabeth Cromwell, CEO of Charlottesville’s Chamber of Commerce, says she’s noticed “a lot of fairly senior-level positions such as CFO and COO opening up lately, perhaps as more people are retiring or moving on into consulting gigs or more flexible options.” The Chamber enables connections through its website jobs board and social media. “Many sole proprietorships or small companies are able to leverage the networking opportunities at the Chamber to reach a larger audience.”

Carolyn Kalantari and Heather Newton, who coordinate UVA’s Dual Career program for accompanying partners of UVA new hires, recently launched Embark, a community resource that showcases highly skilled jobs and job-related events in Charlottesville. “It’s a shared platform that everybody can access, particularly those highly educated, mid-career professionals that local businesses are trying to find,” says Kalantari.

Newton notes that smaller firms, like startups moving to the next phase, are often growing quickly and need managers before they know it, and points to Embark’s collaboration with Suntribe Solar as a recent example. “We have a newsletter and Twitter feed on our website, and job boards with postings and information for both employees and employers,” says Newton. The pair encourage job seekers to think of networking in the broadest sense, where neighbors, friends, or fellow parents can provide informal connections.

Charlottesville’s OED also coordinates GO Connect, a modern networking conduit that organizes speakers and meet-ups for professionals in casual settings. “Even if you’re not looking right now, you should still be putting yourself out there,” says Lee. “The person you met a month ago might have some job leads for you.” Lee’s advice for both employers and employees: “Don’t be your own island—reach out and find what’s out there and how we can work together.”

Source: Virginia Employment Commission Charlottesville Community Profile, Dec. 2019.
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C-BIZ

Rock the house: Albemarle Countertop owner stays grounded

Photo Credit: John Robinson
Courtesy of Albemarle Countertop Company

An entrepreneur with deep roots in the local community, Albemarle Countertop Company’s founder and owner Wes Carter has set his business apart by forging connections and honing his craft.

After working for (and eventually running) his mother’s bathtub repair company at an early age, Carter became fascinated with stone and trained himself to become “a granite guy.” “I joined a brethren of stone workers called the Stone Fabricators Alliance, went to workshops across the country, and learned techniques to better cut and install countertops,” he says. “And now I teach them to the people who work for me.”

Carter opened ACC in 2003 and moved the business from Market Street to its current Hydraulic Road home in 2017, adding a new location in Crimora—Valley StoneWorks—in 2019. Surviving the lean recession years, the company continues to thrive by word of mouth because people love stone surfaces. “The lion’s share of what we do is kitchens and bathroom vanities,” says Carter, “but also quite a bit of fireplace surrounds, and sometimes even dining room tables. It’s a big deal to me that we do the best work we can, because people talk.”

While natural stone is closest to Carter’s heart, ACC sells lots of manmade, engineered stone composed of granite and quartz chips infused with resin and colored pigments. Though he could work through wholesalers such as Lowes or as a subcontractor for other remodelers, Carter prefers the direct approach. “The best model for us is to sell directly to customers because we’ve figured out how to work with people,” he says. “We have staff that can help, who are creative and patient, with an eye for design and great attention to detail.”

Leveraging that advantage, ACC is in the midst of an expansion of its Hydraulic Road shop, enlarging the showroom and adding finished vignette spaces and fullsize slabs of stone so customers can envision their project with more than just a small sample. Noting that Charlottesville land is mostly zoned for residential or commercial use, Carter laments that there are only small pockets in town where operations like his can fit in. “A maker needs an industrial space,” he says. “Where do all the businesses go that can make things instead of just having everyone buy things?”

Even as technological advances such as digital scanners and cutters have made the process of crafting countertops more efficient, Carter still relies on his connections with people, and a grassroots understanding of his own skill set, to succeed. “I think the one thing I’ve been able to innately do is to find good people to help me do all the things I can’t do, like bookkeeping, marketing, and selling,” he says. “Find great people and pay them well, and they do great things for us.”

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Ramp up your productivity

Have you ever been presented with new technology that professes to make your work-life easier to manage and more productive, and then thought to yourself, “Nah, I’m good?”

You may want to reconsider.

If you’re having trouble keeping track of your time and productivity levels, one of these apps could help. Here’s a rundown of some of the most popular choices:

HoneyBook (honeybook.com)

Jenna Kutcher of “The Goal Digger Podcast” loves it, so it’s gotta be good, right? HoneyBook was created to help “creative entrepreneurs and freelancers book more clients, manage projects, and get paid—all in one place.” The customer relationship management software is billed as being “like your own personal assistant.” Access ready-to-use templates (invoices, contracts, proposals, brochures, etc.), manage your bookkeeping, build out automated workflow actions, track your time, and generate reports and charts that give you a bird’s eye of your client leads, projects, bookings, and financial performance. HoneyBook isn’t cheap—it costs $40 monthly, or $400 for an annual plan. But it’s a great app to add some professional polish to your documents and client management, which can also free you up to focus on what you’re getting paid to do.

Trello (trello.com)

Project management app Trello is organized around the creation of “boards,” “lists,” and “cards” that help teams work more collaboratively and productively, from start to finish. Start your project on Trello by creating a “board”—similar to a visualization or mood board, but for team project management. Next, add “structure” to the board by creating lists, what Trello also refers to as a “collection of cards” that organizes ideas, tasks, or updates. Based on the cards you’ve created, you’ll fill in the content. For example, if one of the cards is titled Key Dates, you’ll add those key dates for everyone to follow. Add more detail to the cards with functionalities that allow you to add files, checklists, due dates, comments, and more. Trello might not put an end to the unproductive “this-could-have-just-been-an-email” meetings, but it’s a start.

GSuite (gsuite.google.com)

GSuite just makes communication and collaboration easier, inherently boosting productivity. GSuite offers different features depending on the level of service needed—$6 per user per month for its basic plan, $12 per user for business, and $25 per user for enterprise-grade. With each plan, GSuite offers additional layers of customization, storage, security, and admin controls with its lineup of communication, collaboration and task management apps, like Gmail, Docs, Sheets, Slides, Drive, Photos, Calendar, and Keep that will help you get work done. If you need it just for yourself as a freelancer or solopreneur, tap into many of these same Google apps for free to collaborate with clients, vendors, or colleagues.

Todoist (todoist.com)

Are you still keeping tabs on your to-do list with post-its or desk blotters? Time to check out Todoist. Amazon, Facebook, Disney and WeWork use the task manager app, a 2019 Editor’s Choice by Google. Todoist lets you assign tasks and due dates, set priority levels and reminders, and sync up other apps like Google Calendar, Slack, Workflow, and Dropbox, among numerous other features, all in the name of helping you keep track of what you need to do to move a project forward. At the end of the day, check the Your Productivity view, which gives you a satisfying (that is, if you actually got work done) infographic on your task completion and productivity levels. Todoist is free for starters, $3 per month for pros, and moves up to $5 per month for business teams.

Asana (asana.com)

Asana’s tagline: “Make more time for the work that matters most.” Workflow management platform Asana has productivity written all over it—companies like Airbnb, NASA, and The New York Times use it. Asana offers free and paid plans—basic is free, premium is $10.99 per user monthly, while business-grade is $24.99 per user monthly. (Asana also offers an enterprise-level subscription, which, presumably, comes with a higher price tag.) To get started, users can create project plans on which to collaborate using an array of templates, from content calendars and event planning sketches to product marketing launches and RFPs. And from there, the customization is seemingly endless. Overall, Asana’s goal is to help you manage and monitor daily tasks and to-dos, project plans, deadlines, and team collabs and assignments, from strategy to execution at-a-glance, so you can more effectively and efficiently reach your business goals and avoid sitting through yet another needless update meeting.

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C-BIZ

Tried and true: CIC volunteers translate programs for Eastern Europe

Nancy Schiller

Since they moved to Bulgaria nearly four years ago, 5,000 miles have separated Nancy and Victor Schiller from their former home in Charlottesville. But some of their work in their adopted country looks remarkably similar to what they did as volunteers with the local Community Investment Collaborative. Through the America for Bulgaria Foundation, the couple has transplanted key ideas from the CIC to a new and very different setting.

At the CIC, where the couple served various roles including mentor and board member, the Schillers felt they were witnessing truly effective programs. The CIC offers entrepreneurship workshops, mentoring, financing, and co-working space. “This was really changing people’s lives profoundly for the good,” says Victor, remembering the fledgling companies that got their start through the CIC. “These were real businesses that would build up, continue, and sustain.”

The Schillers had long been part of the business world. Victor worked in high-tech entrepreneurship in the U.S., while Nancy had worked with the Bulgarian-American Enterprise Fund Bulgaria since shortly after the fall of communism. When they relocated in 2016 and Nancy became the CEO of the America for Bulgaria Foundation, they brought their professional experience as well as their belief that the CIC offered viable models for small-business development.

“When we looked at what was going on in Bulgaria, particularly in small communities, there was such a need for this kind of training,” says Nancy. “The program we adapted and adopted here in Bulgaria, it’s very comparable; the businesses are almost mirror images of what’s done in Charlottesville.”

Through the Foundation, which was established in 2009 with a $400 million endowment, aspiring entrepreneurs in eight Bulgarian communities enter a 13-week training course, build a community with other businesspeople and mentors, and gain access to financing.

“Eighty-five percent are women,” explains Nancy, “because we work in smaller communities where the men do mining and metal work and things like that. The women are mostly homebound, and they’re looking to start businesses”—ranging from bakeries to small hotels to tech companies. “They have great ideas and skills; they just need to understand how the finances work.”

Although the legacy of communism in Eastern Europe, as well as legal differences country to country, have meant that CIC-style programs need some adaptation for the new location, the Schillers see the same dynamics among Bulgarian clients and volunteers that they remember from their Charlottesville days. “It’s the community-driven aspect that makes it really click, in Charlottesville and here,” says Victor. “Everybody realizes it’s transformational for individuals and families; that’s why people stay excited.”

Adds Nancy, “Business is business no matter where you are.”

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Found niche: A family-run market carves a place for itself in the local food scene

Found Market owners (and family members) Cindy, Elliott, and Kelsey Gillan. (Photo: John Robinson)

Found Market is in its slow season.

The bakery, eatery, and marketplace started as a basement-based shortbread outlet, and its giftable goods and sundry stock make it a natural stop for holiday shoppers. Over the last several months, Found has been going all out, not looking at the forest for fear the trees would fall on them.

“The holidays are our crazy season,” says Elliott Gillan, who owns the market with his mom, Cindy, and sister, Kelsey. “But it’s given us a good chance to figure out what is truly our max capacity. Now that we can gather ourselves, we have an opportunity to regroup.”

While they regroup, the Gillans have thought a lot about what their close-knit business is exactly. The answer? “Complex.”

The family still sells its shortbread—flavors include classic honey, pecan button, salted rosemary, almond espresso, and many more—items that go well with shortbread, and other baked goods. But Found is also a sandwich joint, gourmet grocery, and gift shop.

Oh, and they’ve got plants. Lots of plants.

“The common thread is basically what we have done our whole life,” Elliott Gillan says. “I grew up on an organic farm where we raised our own herbs and had plants all around the house, so it’s not weird to incorporate them. We see this place as a reflection of us.”

The organic-farming Gillans started baking for crowds about seven years ago as The Bees Knees Kitchen. Their shortbread caught on, and the family ran a home oven 24/7 to keep up with demand between catering gigs. Three years ago, they opened their brick-and-mortar spot in the former C’ville Market location, with mom Cindy creating recipes while handling the bookkeeping, sister Kelsey overseeing marketing and online orders, and brother Elliott running the kitchen day-to-day.

The Gillan’s current 3,000 square foot space, tucked into a Carlton Road strip mall, is 10 times bigger than their previous bakehouse. But the spacious new digs come at a cost. Found doesn’t get the foot traffic other lunch locations enjoy. So the Gillans have tried to make themselves a destination marketplace.

“We wanted to create an environment…a communal space. Trying to find that on the Downtown Mall would be a million dollars a month,” Elliott Gillan says. “I always say we’re like a feeling, a space where people want to just be for different reasons.”

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Secret sauce: Take It Away sticks with its bread and butter—and the house dressing

Tom Bowe, owner of Take It Away, says the beloved sandwich shop “always focused on the house dressing from day one.” (Photo: Amy and Jackson Smith)

Take It Away will open a new location in the Dairy Market food hall this summer, but the beloved sandwich shop won’t break with tradition, according to founder and owner Tom Bowe. Bowe says he and his team will roll out the recipe that’s made his restaurant a Corner institution for more than 27 years.

But what, exactly, is that recipe? One condiment, says Bowe. We “always focused on the house dressing from day one.”

Take It Away’s dressing is a simple combination of mayonnaise, whole grain mustard, herbs, and spices. But the sauce’s uncanny ability to liven up sandwiches has anchored a menu that’s changed little over the years. From traditional turkey and ham to signature sandwiches like the Wertland Italian—genoa salami, swiss cheese, banana peppers, roasted tomatoes, and red onion—Take It Away’s handhelds are made with all-natural meats and cheeses, served on fresh bread and garnished with veggies like sprouts, cucumbers, arugula, and romaine lettuce.

In addition to excellent eats, Bowe says he’d also like folks to take a feeling away from his deli, the feeling that they’re part of a community.

“We don’t make people stand in line and treat our customers like livestock,” Bowe says. “We like to provide a party atmosphere, let people mill about the store, and hang out till their name is called.”

Bowe believes his signature sauce and Take It Away’s atmosphere set the place apart from other Corner sandwich shops and “gourmet” sub slingers. But of course not everyone agrees. The shop’s small interior can fill up quickly, and the party atmosphere can verge on chaotic. Plus, can you really keep crafting sandwiches for nearly 30 years without making a few changes?

Years ago, Bowe considered tinkering with his house dressing. Could he make his mayonnaise in-house? Maybe a different store-bought mayo could save him a few bucks and still cut the mustard?

The answer was “no” on both counts. The sauce’s cream base, which Bowe won’t name, had to stay the same. “We use a different blend than you find in supermarkets, with higher egg content that holds together better,” Bowe says. “I’ve never been able to find another one that’s good.”

Bowe says his new location will feature minor tweaks. He’ll update his color scheme to be more contemporary, and expand his hot sandwich offerings. Think pastrami reubens with Take It Away’s signature dressing and a “good Cuban.”

Bowe hopes the outpost will attract clientele who shy away from the student-heavy Corner location. Still, he isn’t trying to forget on which side his bread is buttered.

“Students are a huge part of our identity,” Bowe says. “I’m wired differently. I like the crowded streets when the students are here. It adds a certain excitement and vibe, and it’s kept me in business.”

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C-BIZ

47 Years of Spudnuts

Photo Courtesy of Steve Trumbull / CVILLEIMAGES.COM

THEN: Spudnut Coffee Shop, opened 1969; closed December 2016.

NOW: Quality Pie, opened July 2018.

It’s fair to say Spudnut Coffee Shop, formerly located at 309 Avon St. in Belmont, was a C’ville institution. And when the owners announced its closure in late 2016, it was a sad day for potato flour donut lovers everywhere.

The original Spudnuts was founded more than 2,000 miles away in Salt Lake City in 1940 by brothers Al and Bob Pelton. In 1946, the pair started franchising locations nationwide.

Richard Wingfield and his wife Fay opened Charlottesville’s branch in 1969—his daughter Lori Fitzgerald and husband Mike would keep the legacy going when they took over the shop in 2005. While Lori said the donut bakery was still doing well as a business as of late 2016, she expressed a desire to move on. “Sometimes you feel like it’s time to do something else,” she told C-VILLE Weekly.

Before Spudnuts, in the early 20th century, a dwelling occupied the site where the current one-story commercial building sits, according to city records. The “utilitarian” but still iconic white concrete block and brick structure that we see now was built around 1961, after the Belmont Bridge was completed.

Quality Pie, purveyors of baked goods, sandwiches, and small plates (and sometimes donut-shaped beignets—#spiritofspudnuts), took over the old Spudnuts space in summer 2018, led by chef Tomas Rahal, formerly of Mas Tapas.

Spudnuts had more than 600 outlets in North America across its lifespan. But when the Charlottesville shop closed, it was one of the brand’s last remaining locations on the East Coast.

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Leaving the ladder down: New nonprofit reaches youth through social entrepreneurship

Photo Courtesy of Conscious Capitalist Group Foundation

Many organizations—for-profit and not-for-profit—get their start out of a desire to seize a market opportunity or fulfill an unmet need. Similarly, the Charlottesville-based Conscious Capitalist Group Foundation launched because no other organization was providing what it does—entrepreneurship, community engagement, and career readiness training that young people need to not only prosper in life and work, but develop a spirit of “giving back.”

Robert Gray and Derek Rush, both Albemarle County natives, founded Conscious Capitalist Group in October 2019 as a way to lift “opportunity youth” out of poverty and help them become not only productive citizens, but business leaders and change agents who then learn to pay it forward in the future. (“Opportunity youth” is defined as people 16 to 24 who are in the transitional years of their life but aren’t enrolled in school or participating in the workforce. According to the Aspen Institute Forum for Community Solutions, approximately one in nine Americans in this age group falls into that category.)

“I think we need more young people in entrepreneurship at an early age because the skill sets that come with entrepreneurship are critical thinking skills,” says Gray—like making good decisions, being good leaders and team members, and other skills that impact everyday life. Social entrepreneurship specifically, he adds, teaches young people how to make the world a better place to live, and “leave their community in a better place than it was before.”

Both Gray and Rush grew up in the Esmont area, an impoverished pocket of generally well-off Albemarle County, where Gray says the poverty rate is notably above the average for Virginia, so he understands the importance of having better resources in place to help young people.

“We’re both entrepreneurs, and we know what entrepreneurship did for us, what type of skill sets it equipped us with, and so we want to use those skill sets to basically reach back and leave a ladder for other people coming from similar situations as us,” adds Gray, who is a first-generation college graduate—he graduated from Saint Augustine’s University, earning a degree in political science. More recently, before co-founding Conscious Capitalist Group, he was a pathway coach at City of Promise in Charlottesville, where he created and led a youth social entrepreneurship training camp in the Westhaven neighborhood.

The programmatic pillars of the Conscious Capitalist Group—its Youth Social Entrepreneurship Leadership Academy and Beyond the Bars Re-Entrepreneur Leadership Academy—are built around providing leadership, financial literacy, career and business development, and social entrepreneurship training. Y.S.E.L.A. runs in classrooms, after-school programs, youth camps, college campuses, and community centers, and partners with other nonprofits, like the Cherry Avenue Boys & Girls Club and Charlottesville Abundant Life Ministries, while the Beyond the Bars program partners with facilities like the Blue Ridge Juvenile Detention. Youth interested in participating can also apply at consciouscapitalistgroup.org.

Over the course of the academy, Y.S.E.L.A. participants get matched with internships, help transitioning to post-secondary education or into a job opportunity, and gain access to guest speakers, workshops, visits to area businesses, and one-on-one consultations with business professionals. At the end of the program, they also get to partake in a pitch competition, with the winner receiving seed money for his or her business idea.

Gray and Rush, both alumni of the Community Investment Collaborative entrepreneurship workshop and members of the Charlottesville Regional Chamber of Commerce’s Leadership Charlottesville initiative (Class of 2020), see social entrepreneurship and “compassionate capitalism” as a vehicle for building a stronger community and helping young people reach their full potential in the workforce and life after school, especially if they aren’t on the traditional four-year college or university track or need assistance in establishing a career or business.

“We just added the social element because we’re living in a time where I feel like every company, every business, should have some type of social responsibility,” Gray adds.