FOUR AMBITIOUS FORT MYERS ENTREPRENEURS TACKLE NEW BUSINESS IN STRUGGLING ECONOMIC TIMES ... THEY'RE RISKINGITALL

Courage and necessity are often the parents of commercial adventure (or any other kind of adventure), which must explain why some people in Lee County continue to ignore the experts.

FLORIDA WEEKLY PHOTOS These four individuals are not disheartened by a weak real-estate market or reams of ugly economic statistics. They've started new businesses here in Lee County. From top left to right, Gail Day, Randy Dusharm, Patti Price and Sherry Simes.

The experts, after all, prefer action based on good numbers and promising statistics, rather than on mere courage and necessity. They caution that now would not be a real good time to open a new business.

Since the beginning of 2006, the market has plunged like a downhill skier who can't turn - straight into unexpected changes, struggling lifestyles and new careers for many, all of which can seem perilously close to the rocks.

So why now stake savings, credit and reputation on a new business, especially one that offers products people might not buy in these pinched economic times?

FLORIDA WEEKLY PHOTO Patti Price is banking that Kara Mai will be a hit in downtown Fort Myers.

Here, we visit four individuals who can answer that question, at least for themselves. (Florida Weekly has carried a particular affection for this spirit of commercial adventure since printing its first issue, on April 5, last year.)

Meanwhile, the stats aren't pretty. The number of practicing Realtors in Lee County has dropped by almost a third in two years, to less than 5,000; sales-tax receipts have dropped almost 10 percent in a year, suggesting that people are spending significantly less; and unemployment in the county has leaped from a one-time low of about 2.8 percent to well over 5 percent, almost a full percentage point higher than the state or national averages. (Those end-of-year numbers come from Realtors' associations, individual Realtors, economists, and state statistics reported in the daily newspaper.)

In other words, money is tighter than a plugged drain in August.

So why buy massively into lifestyle luxuries in a struggling downtown, then throw open the doors of your new shop and restaurant, and invite big spenders?

FLORIDA WEEKLY PHOTO Gail Day opened Gail's Family Hairstyling in Buckingham at the height of the slowdown.

Why open a hairstyling shop, after spending thousands on the requisite real estate and equipment, when you could work for somebody else who takes the risks?

Why invent and then start building and marketing something right out of your living room, when you could just go to work at Lowe's or Home Depot, like so many others?

Most breathtaking of all, perhaps, is the person who embraces the residential real estate business. She abandons a secure career, earns a license as a Realtor just when the market crashes, then sticks with it. Sounds crazy, doesn't it?

But across Lee County some people possess the sangfroid to keep their own counsel and ignore the experts. They have opened inventive, energetic new businesses in a down market. And - so far, anyway - they are making those businesses work.

What becomes evident in each of their stories is a simple maxim, one often applied to old age, but just as true in new business: It's no place for the faint of heart.

FLORIDA WEEKLY PHOTO Sherry Simes said it's tough selling real estate in this market but she's determined.

These entrepreneurs, instead, are the full of heart.

Patti Price, Kara Mai Lifestyles, Fort Myers

 

At 52, Patti Price is poised and confident in her sprawling object-as-art concession downtown on Bay Street, where 2,300-square feet of new space is pregnant with the good things in life.

She's surrounded by Alexandria flamefree oil lamps with stone wicks, Mitchell Clay Pottery, the only line of Barefoot Dreams clothing in Southwest Florida, Swarovski fashion jewelry in 22 karat gold and rhodium (all of it hypo-allergenic and nickel free), along with natural turquoise and blue opals, and the exuberant French line of dishes and accessories, Comptoir de Famille. That's just to name a few.

But dressed in a cream pantsuit with burgundy blouse, and serving chocolatecovered strawberries and champagne or wine to her patrons on Valentine's Day, she is not so confident that she doesn't keep positive-thinking books turned upside down beside her cash register, so she can read them when no customers appear.

FLORIDA WEEKLY PHOTO Randy Dusharm with one of the Utilacarts he manufactures in Cape Coral.

And frequently since she opened the doors of Kara Mai Lifestyles in May (named for her three-year-old granddaughter), no customers have appeared.

That initial dry well sprang not only from the economy but from the lengthy streetscaping downtown, where officials closed and dug up Bay Street about the time she opened.

"Everything doesn't always go right," she notes philosophically. "I'm not without fear, but you have to have determination, to go on with it, in spite of it. Every day brings something new. I'd be stupid if I didn't say I wasn't afraid of the economy - I am.

"But I really believe in downtown. We started planning this about two years before we opened, and my husband and I did our homework, we saw what was happening. Maybe it will take longer than predicted, but it will happen. These condos will be filled, this city will be abustle again, just like it was a long, long time ago."

Beside the think-positive books she uses for inspiration stand photos of her mother. Artfully Done frames, handmade by the artist, enclose the black-and-white image of a pretty woman on a working-class street in Chicago in the mid-1950s, wearing a calf-length fur coat, high heels, a fine hat, and pushing a baby carriage containing a tiny baby-boomer.

Her mother taught that baby-boomer to seek what she wanted, Patti says, and the baby-boomer in question is now fully engaged in her first great business venture, after spending 25 years working in medical administration.

Together with her husband, podiatrist Dr. Michael Price, and their son Corry, she has opened not only Kara Mai, but purchased the comfortably upscale and cheerful Morgan House restaurant on First Street, where Corry is the general manager. A buzzing, robust lunch crowd at midweek bodes well; but the night business lags behind, she says.

It's a huge venture. And the market is not the only difficulty she's faced. In addition to the streetscaping, she's restricted to minimalist signage.

Her landlord, however, has proven kindly, she says, allowing her to pay what she can now, until she can pay what he asks, later. And Patti Price aims to turn the south end of her shop, outside, into a deli and courtyard retreat, with a fountain.

"We have the plans; it's going to be beautiful," she says.

While she chats, shoppers suddenly arrive. The women apparently are startled by the banquet of the fabulous they've just stumbled upon.

"Wow," says one, eyeballing the long shop and its glittering wares, then moving eagerly into it, to finger and hold various items.

"You just have to love what you do, and I do," Patti explains, aside. "You just do the best you can. And that's all you can do. Tomorrow is going to be tomorrow."

Gail Day, Gail's Family Hairstyling, Buckingham

 

Gail Day's brand new shop lies a few hundred yards east of the Buckingham Road intersection with State Road 80, right on the highway, just before the country traveler comes to River Hall and Ritchey's Fresh Produce.

At 1,300 square feet, it's big and light and spacious - so friendly and accommodating that you can't help but think the building, in a small plaza with lots of parking, must be an extension of Gail's personality and spirit.

Which can be bold when it has to, as it did before Christmas.

It was then that she jumped out of her nearly 20-year employment with her friend and colleague, John Yeomans, almost at the speed of light, when he retired from the business.

At 41, a doting grandmother and the mother of three grown daughters, Gail is now a business owner, pure and simple. The sign on her window says, GAIL'S Family Hair Styling, something so novel she says it's almost hard to get used to.

It also reads, "Men, Women and Children. Taper, fades, razor cuts, flat tops, perms, colors. 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Mondays through Fridays. 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturdays. Evenings by appointment."

What the sign doesn't say is good cheer, devoted attention and skill, wide-ranging conversation (the distinctive mark of any great barber shop), gentle teasing, and frequent kindness.

That's business, the way Gail Day does it.

Stress is business, too, no matter who is doing it.

"What's different about doing it this way or working for John is that there's more stress involved, since I have to pay the bills," she says, while curling the hair of an older woman on a recent weekday afternoon. Many of her customers have known her for years, and probably wouldn't go anywhere else. New ones are filtering in all the time, too, along with the new anxiety that chases any start-up business owner.

There is no complaint in Gail about any of that, though.

"Once the rent's paid ($18 a square foot, which includes the common-area fee) and once the mortgage on my house is paid, I feel okay," she explains.

Then she thinks about her two employees, and suddenly she feels the stress again. They're hairstylists who came with her from John's, because they like her so much, they say: Richard Johns and Maureen Wall. Now she feels responsible for what happens to them, too.

"They're independent contractors so I don't have to pay health insurance, or give vacations or retirement. But I wish I could, for them," Gail observes. "I would love to be able to offer that."

Instead, she tries to make sure they have plenty of work.

This is a shop where the employees help each other, instead of shouldering each other aside for more business.

Financing it all came as a bit of a shock, Gail says. "The tough part's been money, of course, and I've been doing it step by step. I won't make an improvement unless I have the money. All I need is a bunch of credit card bills and no money to pay them."

Been there, done that, isn't going to happen, she says.

While she works hair, she also confers with a contractor who shows her plans for a wall that will give her an office space in the shop, which is now wide open.

On the walls and shelves appear fly rods and reels, spinning rods and reels (Gail loves to fish, with her boyfriend Gil Whitmore), artifacts from Florida Marlins baseball, Florida Firecats football, Buccaneers football, 'Gators football, and the ALVA ALL STARS. The blue Belmont barber chairs came from John's. On a shelf behind one stands a bottle of coke with the name, Paul "Bear" Bryant on the label, above explanatory words: "The winningest football coach in collegiate history…Coke and the "Bear," a winning pair."

The hair she cuts falls in thick banks, like clouds, around each chair - on carpet, which is rare. When she can, the carpet will come up and tile will go down, she says. Meanwhile, she brought her vacuum from home, an industrial strength version which does just fine in the shop.

It's business on a shoe-string, but these are tough times.

Never mind that. "I have a five-year lease here - or is it three?" Gail asks, chuckling. "I don't know. I'm so happy here. I'm here for 30 years."

Sherry Simes,Realtor, Access Realty, Lehigh Acres

 

Real Estate ain't nothin' but a hound dog these days, Elvis might have said. Not Sherry Simes, though. It's not the real estate, it's the agent who might take advantage of people, encouraging them to buy a house they can't afford.

There's your hound dog, and that's partly how the bottom dropped out of the market, in her opinion.

"Sometimes I come across agents who are not properly representing clients, and it makes me angry," Sherry says. "This is how the economy got into trouble: Greed. I know of a Realtor who contacted my buyer - which is against our code of ethics - and tried to get them to take a property asis, without a home inspection. It was only a two-year-old house, but you don't spend $160,000 without inspecting it.

"So that keeps me going in this business. I want to show people that there are honest Realtors. We're not all just used car salesmen. I could put people into houses that don't really, truly fit their budget, and some Realtors do. But no, I'm not like that. So we go to a lower price range. As heart- breaking as that seems at the time, and it's an emotional process, you feel good when they come back and tell you they're glad they didn't break their budgets."

That attitude means she won't get rich quickly, especially representing working class people, which is her niche.

But, strange as it may seem, she isn't worried about getting rich.

Born in Miami and raised mostly in Lee County, at 38 Sherri is a veteran of the U.S. Army, a graduate of Edison College, a woman who spent 15 years working as a legal assistant for a real estate attorney, and a mother and wife - which is her biggest concern.

"I'm lucky to be able to do this, because it means more time with my family," she explains.

Part of the reason she left an established career to earn her Realtor's license - which she accepted on Dec. 29, 2006, probably the worst possible time, economically speaking - is to give her more time to spend with her son, Chance, volunteering in his kindergarten classroom and picking him up from school most days of the week.

She also works part-time jobs around her primary business when she has to, and worries about layoffs at the county, where her husband, Randy Simes, is a building plans examiner.

"At first, I thought this would be a piece of cake," she recalls. She went to work for Century 21 right off the bat, and she made a first big sale, but then it got tough. Century 21 offered what she felt was a poor commission split (it should be at least 70 percent, she says), so she moved to Exit, which went out of business, and then to Access Realty.

In effect, she has now been her own boss for about 14 months. In five years, Sherri says, she aims to be a broker with a staff - to be somebody else's boss, and to teach them to do it right.

"Now, even though I'm versed in real estate, and I have a lot of knowledge, it's scary," she explains. "But I'm going to hang in there. This year is turning out to be a better year, since buyers are just now starting to look around to see what they can get.

"As a buyer, you can get a good awesome deal, now. As a seller, I wouldn't encourage you to sell quickly."

There's an honest opinion from an honest - and independent - real estate agent, down market or not.

Randy Dusharm, Owner, The Cape Coral Cart Company (www.Utilacart.com)

 

At 49, Randy Dusharm still rises only 5 feet 3 inches off the ground - physically, that is. But the finish-carpenter, a Vermont Yankee born and raised, has plans to grow his life into the stratosphere, at least economically.

Being a pragmatist, he hasn't just planned or dreamed, either. He's executed, too, right in his living room in the Yacht Basin section of the Cape.

Now, he hunkers over a sewing machine (he has two in the living room) stitching the rugged canvas, or moves to his garage to bend the strong aluminum tubing he uses in his invention, the Utilacart. Last week, he sold his first, for about $180, to a lady in Toronto, whose husband in Orlando saw the new website and suggested she order it for her parents, in Brandenton, where Randy shipped it.

Now he figures he's $20,000 of investment and six months of time into the operation, for which he has recruited help from a marketing planner, a patent attorney, a web designer, and his next door neighbor, Gary Gittler, also known as Captain Canvas.

"This thing might really take off," he says. "I'm looking for a bigger space, a commercial space - the city of Cape Coral gives you a year to figure it out, which I think is generous of them. I'd like to do 50 or 60 a week."

Here's how it happened.

"My wife, JoAnn, and I moved here in November of 2006, and I did a couple of jobs through a contractor, but work dried up. So I went to the beach. It amazes me how many people are there lugging stuff to beach.

"I see people using dollies, strapping stuff on that. Or you go out on a pier, and these guys are pulling suitcases with little wheels, and the top cut off. Then you see those wire baskets with two wheels. My first intro with those was, my grandparents used to use them. Whoever makes those things, you got to tip your hat to them."

Aesthetically, of course, the basket invention is a crime, unlike the Utilacart, which is colorful and even stylish in a variety of bright canvas hues.

"So last April we went on a cruise, and Roseanne, a friend of mine, said, 'Well, what are you gonna do for work'?

"And I had the idea. I can remember telling her, 'When I get back, I'm going to build a beach cart.'"

He's been making carts since August, he says, building up an inventory, although he just began to market them in recent days.

He now has a couple of hundred carts ready to go, but there are some questions the new entrepreneur can't answer.

"How many can I produce in a week or a day? I don't know the answers. This is one of those garage deals, where you figure it out in the garage and go from there. Once we start to grow, I can upgrade on the tooling and increase the productivity."

The cart is a strong, light (12 pound) invention with substantial wheels that can probably be used in a lot of ways, and in a variety of conditions. He and his neighbor designed it, but Captain Canvas bowed out of the operation after a handshake deal.

The two friends agreed that if the business takes off and the product is successfully patented, and if Randy sells it, he'll give his neighbor a share of the proceeds.

"It's a gentleman's agreement, that's the way we left it," Randy says.

Which is how he sold his house in an expensive section of Burlington, Vt., too - by taking the promise of a man who wanted it on a handshake, and waiting for a few weeks while other potential buyers came and went.

"Our lawyer said we couldn't do that, but I knew we were right, so we did it," he says.

Randy is inspired in part, he admits, by another couple of entrepreneurs from his hometown - Ben and Jerry, Burlington boys who turned designer ice cream into great wealth.

Which brings up a story with a moral, one not lost on a smart carpenter from Vermont.

"I know a guy names Jim Barrett up there, he's a friend of mine, owns Barrett Trucking. He said that years ago, when the Barretts milled the lake for ice and Ben and Jerry first started in business, they said, 'Hey, you supply us the ice and we'll give you 10 percent, from the ice cream.'"

Randy pauses, and offers a carpe diem grin.

"The Barretts declined, didn't want to do it. I can picture Jim Barrett - he's Lebanese - throwing up his hands, and saying, 'I can't believe I said, No, I can't BELIEVE I said, No.'"

But it's hard to picture Randy Dusharm throwing up his hands, and saying anything other than, Yes.