Entrepreneurs in a Box – 4 Creative Businesses Doing More with Less

If you ever want to see a microcosm of humanity, try working in self storage.

Our units are rented by people in all walks of life, many of whom are creatively making their way in the world using the resources that they have — no matter how minimal those resources might be.

I am especially amazed by people who are nearly out of money, who have nothing but a few scant possessions and a set of skills, who nevertheless see no reason why they should not go ahead and start their own businesses.

I was skeptical at first, but I’ve learned that I need to be more openminded. Statistics from the Small Business Administration say that about half of all new small businesses fail within the first five years.

That might be true for small businesses, but I am not convinced that it is true for tiny businesses, businesses that fit inside a self storage unit — businesses in a box, I always call them. The entrepreneurs who start tiny businesses with just what they have are simply too good at keeping their overhead down and riding out the dry spells. You can do that when you don’t need much to begin with.

What are these tiny businesses? Some of them are Craig’s List- or eBay-based retailers, or other online businesses. But I have to admit that the businesses that really go to my heart are not the online businesses but the truly creative ones.

Here are a few examples:

• Green cleaning: One of my tenants had started a working part-time cleaning houses. But the chemicals that she used were exacerbating her asthma. She decided to get her green cleaning certification. But that meant changing out the equipment and supplies that she kept in her unit. She uses a lot of steam cleaning equipment now, and she replaced her old chemicals with cleaners that are approved by the EPA as green. To finance the change, she decided to sell her cleaning van, which had been brand new. I was surprised — I think most small business owners would decide that this was a calculated risk, and would take out a loan and go into debt. Not this tenant. She told me, “No way — I would be a slave to that debt for the rest of my life!” She decided to rent a truck twice a week from the storage facility instead. That way, she saved money on the insurance, and she simply made a point to schedule all her cleaning appointments on the same two days. I know she schedules her appointments in the same part of town on the same day to save money for gas and the truck rental, but I think it’s awesome that in the process of doing that, she also reduces her business’ carbon footprint by reducing her emissions from transportation.

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• An old-fashioned trading post: This example may really be one of a kind. I traveled to a small town near Fairbanks, Alaska, to help open a new storage facility. I was fascinated to find that one young entrepreneur, a 19-year-old fur trapper, chose to share a storage unit with his grandmother, an elderly Athabascan woman who made a living skin sewing (making mukluk boots, hats, mittens, and in some cases ruffs for parka hoods, out of moose skin and bits of fur from rabbits, wolves, wolverines, foxes, and the like). People heard about the couple through word of mouth and would come to buy furs or mukluks, or to trade with them, much in the style of trading posts in the Old West, which still seem to exist in Alaska in some places. I was fascinated to see barter still being used in a business context (one fellow brought them a freezer full of frozen salmon and traded it for mukluks for his three children for the winter). This wasn’t the world’s most lucrative business, and it will never be a Fortune 500 company, but it doesn’t have to be — it’s supporting the people who depend on it.

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• Leatherworkers: At the same facility, a leatherworker opened a workshop. He didn’t opt for a very big space. “I don’t need it,” he told me. While in the Southwest and Southeast I often saw leatherworkers (sometimes in self storage units) making custom handmade chaps to use for horseback riding, here in Alaska this leatherworker was concentrating on sheaths for large buck knives (used for gutting and cleaning an animal during a hunting trip, I’m told), scabbards for rifles, and even pouches to hold things like shot shells or cartridges. In that small space, this highly skilled worker looked as though he would be in business for a long time to come — he was booking custom leatherworking assignments six months in advance. A waiting list like that is almost like having money in the bank.

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• Jewelrymaking: At the other end of the country, the Southwest, I met an Arizona jewelry maker one day. He did not do much work on the jewelry itself in his unit — he had a lot of equipment in his garage at home, he told me, and he usually needed a torch, which would be a fire hazard in a self storage unit. “For the longest time,” he told me, “I only made a few pieces of jewelry at a time — just what I could fit inside my little safe in my house.” He didn’t feel that his garage was a secure place to keep valuable jewelry or the gems that he was planning to work with. When a self storage facility opened up near his home, he came over and checked the security very carefully. Once he was satisfied, he rented our smallest unit — it is just five feet square — and he uses it to store finished pieces of jewelry, along with gems and materials that he was planning to use to make other items. He also kept a traveling jewelry case there. Every so often, he would go to visit jewelry stores and sell a few of his pieces, which were very original. Sometimes he took his jewelry to arts and craft fairs, or drove to visit people who had called him to ask about having a piece custom made. When he was done for the day, he would come back and stow everything securely. “It’s a weight off my shoulders not to have to worry, especially about the more expensive pieces,” he told me. “I certainly didn’t have the money to open a store and install an alarm system!”

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What fascinates me is that many of these entrepreneurs are making a living out of skills that I did not know were salable: skin sewing, hunting and trapping, decorating artistic leather cases. I would have called those things hobbies. These entrepreneurs didn’t need capital (aka debt) to start their businesses. All they needed was one passion — one hobby or art that they were good at, a little creativity, and a space the size of a closet. That’s ingenuity for you!

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About the Author: Art Gould is a division manager with Self Storage Company, which operates a group of websites, including a California self-storage locator. Though busy, Art enjoys meeting new people and clients when traveling to sites, like San Francisco or the Los Angeles self-storage center.

Photo Credit: getinet

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