ENTREPRENEUR feature: JENNIFER FIORE & NINA LALLI of mondays
Jennifer and Nina met in a Brooklyn pottery class, and decided to work together to build a business. Unlike many who seek WEALF assistance for financing to expand and grow, MONDAYS had a unique problem … demand that they could not fill.
WEALF mentors taught Jennifer and Nina how to record their income and expenses and to better manage their cash flow and profit margins. Both Jennifer and Nina work two jobs to support themselves so mentors helped them with time management. They hired interns and began paying them hourly, allowing them to focus on the more creative aspects of their business like designing higher margin items while assistants mix glazes or roll out clay slabs. Jennifer and Nina supply the dishes for 4 star restaurants like Blue Hill at Stone Barns and trays for the society cater Great Expectations. They also have their designer pieces in select boutiques.
their words:
"We have received three WEALF loans in the past three years--each has come at a pivotal moment in our business and helped us to grow at a rate that would not have been possible without this support. Obviously, the money has been crucial, but it would be meaningless without the mentorship and this network of inspiring women who truly want us to succeed, too. In these three years we’ve doubled our sales.
The tough love and financial advice we have received from Vicki Weiner and our mentor Susan Ulin, helped us to understand how to track our finances so we could determine which aspects of our business were actually profitable. They challenged us to think about our production in ways we hadn’t considered, and consequently we have started to shift into a more high-end market. An ancillary benefit of this is that we are making work that excites us more creatively. The women of WEALF have never tried to change who we are, never made suggestions that would veer us towards a business model that might make more money, but not be true to our passion. They have believed that our unique, handmade work has a market that can support us—and convinced us of that in the moments when we’ve doubted it."