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A little bit about me. My name is Kate Kennel. I am from the small rural town of Klamath Falls, Oregon. Before starting this business, I was an active 4-H leader and our local small animal superintendent. I am also the secretary for our local travel volleyball club Basin Bombers. I have two teenage daughters that are active in the community with 4H and FFA.  They are both varsity athletes in multiple sports at their local high school. 

The next chapter of my life is this business. This was a full leap of a tall cliff with no guarantee of what was bottom.

My friend and I have been working for a lady here in town (friend of a family member) who said she needed some extra help inputting stuff into QuickBooks. She would give me a list of things that needed to be entered and put in categories and I would file them accordingly. My friend was responsible for other reports at the office. In that time, I really started to love what I was doing. I enrolled in business classes at our local community college and was working full-time and taking classes also. About a year into my schooling, everything that I was doing started to make sense. I started applying things that I was learning to my job. Shortly after that our boss came absolutely unglued on me in the office in front of everybody and berated me. She was having me essentially fake the books so when I started doing them right, she was not happy. She called me names and told me I was f*#cing  stupid.  I had no idea what I had done wrong. That day my friend and I walked out together. 

On the way home as we were trying to figure out what we were going to do, we started talking about our kids' upcoming games and how neither of us had any hoodies with their logo on it, and how outrageous the $60 price tag was. I jokingly said oh hell let's just start a t-shirt business.  Couple days later i was scrolling through craigslist and found a lady selling her apparel decorating business on craigslist.  I contacted the lady just had to sheer curiosity. Not ever thinking that it would be a possibility. 

Then the universe aligned. A family member sold a chunk of property and lent me the $18,000 to buy the business and the equipment. I started with no working capital.  July 17th, 2018. Studio 37 Custom Creations was established. I set out with a goal to make custom fan gear affordable. To be able to have extremely fast turnaround times for the frazzled moms like myself who forgot their kids' game is in 2 days and wanted a hoodie with their team's logo on it.  To give that mom or dad the ability to show decked out in one of a kind fan gear that didn't cost a fortune.  For those families like mine who just dropped $200 in sports fees to the school and have to pay $8 a game to get in to watch and then are asked to pay another $120 for required school warm ups and gear.   It was time to find a solution for all the super fan parents on a budget. 

2018 was our learning year.

2019. We were accelerating quickly. We were growing our clientele and getting our name out there to the community.  We sponsored several organizations and sports teams. Our focus really is our youth and their families. We wanted to make sure that every kid got a spirit pack even if they couldn't afford it. And just as we felt things were starting to take flight to COVID hit and smacked us back down to reality. I remember sitting in my office chair the morning of the shutdown announcement, staring at my computer screen, silently crying thinking to myself, what are we going to do.  How do we survive this. 

 2020 about did us in but I'm too stubborn to back down. I refused to give up. I learned the hard way that merchant loans are not your friend. And if I could give advice to anyone starting a business it would be to never ever ever take out a merchant loan! 

2021 started off rocky but we hung in there. I learned how to design websites and used the down time to come up with new ideas and products.   I was diagnosed with adult ADHD mid 2021. After getting started in a good treatment plan, my creativity and productivity took off! It was a hard thing to come to terms with that a lot of the business's problems where my own doing. Lack or organizations and staying on task was a major problem. 

2022 brought new beginnings, new business opportunities, and new avenues to explore!  Recently we outgrew our old building and have had the blessing to move to a better location. Which has now come up for sale.  There has been a lot of struggles and strife in our first 5 years of business which are typically. As you all know, the hardest year is in business anyway.

I did everything wrong. I started on a whim, I had no business plan, I started with no working capital, I jumped in headfirst eyes closed and it is the best thing that I have ever done.