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Meet Heather Beck, Owner and Founder of K9 Lifeline and Heather's Heroes. Like many small business owners, the businesses had to shut down when the global pandemic hit, but Heather knew her community needed her. Watch Heather's story and find out how Lendio helped her small business.
"Having funds from Lendio really helped us be able to push out our dog product line."
K9 Lifeline's Story
Heather Beck first started K9 Lifeline to provide a safe place for dogs to socialize and to help their owners create better relationships with their dogs so fewer dogs end up in shelters.
She came to Lendio looking for funds during the pandemic. Business had slowed dramatically, but she knew her community needed the services she offered.
Heather said the process of getting funding through Lendio was really easy with clear communication every step of the process.
"If I could describe Lendio with one word, it would be supportive.... Having those funds available really impacted how big that company is now," said Heather.
Porters Bar & Grill used a loan found through Lendio to solve his business’s cash flow woes and help turn things around.
"I was so happy to be able to do this deal with Lendio; it totally saved my business."
Porters' Story
Located near Boston’s TD Garden, home of the Celtics and Bruins, the 85-seat Porters Bar & Grill fell on hard times in 2017 during the summertime off season.
Scott Nogueira, who opened the pub in 1999 with two business partners, scrambled to come up with the cash to survive, but the business’s debt “hole” continued to grow.
“We’d end up going into debt, and paying it back would take all season, so we couldn’t build up a pile” of savings, Scott says.
Spurned by traditional lenders, including his bank of 17 years, Scott turned to Lendio to solve his cash flow woes and help save his business. After securing financing through Lendio, Porters became positioned to earn over $1 million in annual revenue.
“I was so happy to be able to do this deal with Lendio,” Scott says. “It totally saved my business,”
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Urban Patchwork, which helps schools create spaces that connect kids to nature, faced issues with a different type of green. So its owner sought financing through Lendio.
“Lendio worked with me quickly and allowed us to get funds … and just gave us a buffer through the summer.”
Urban Patchwork's Story
Paige Oliverio started the nonprofit Urban Patchwork in 2009 with the goal of designing and building spaces that incorporate nature. But just like any other business, Paige found she had issues with a different type of green.
“People assume there is a surplus of grant cash just out there waiting to be claimed by nonprofits, but it’s not true,” she says. “It has to be run like a business. And like any business, keeping skilled staff, and the cash on hand to pay them, is hard.”
Paige persisted, eventually starting a for-profit spinoff of Urban Patchwork, working with a number of Austin-area schools to revitalize their campuses. After facing a shortage of working capital, Paige turned to Lendio for financing.
“Lendio worked with me quickly and allowed us to get funds for everything from paying off high-interest debt to hiring a new assistant,” she says, “and just gave us a buffer through the summer.”
Autism House in Texas outgrew its original location, so its owner turned to Lendio’s marketplace for the funds it needed to purchase a larger place to call home.
"[Lendio] kept me in the loop on each step of the process, which is always appreciated!”
Autism House's Story
Jessica Cordova started Autism House in 2011 with a $10,000 loan and a desire to help children with autism and other disabilities.
“When we first began, I borrowed $10,000 from Allegiance Bank and asked friends and family to donate toys and books,” she says. “I shopped garage sales and second-hand stores to stretch our budget. I was able to pay off the loan within the first year.”
Just four years after opening its doors, Cordova found that Autism House’s first location could no longer accommodate its growing community. So she turned to Lendio for a loan that she used to purchase a house on 3.5 acres, where it remains today.
“My passion is really seeing a difference in the children we work with,” Cordova says. “Seeing the progress we can make with them, sometimes in just a few short months, is very rewarding.”
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GKX Martial Arts in Texas received a loan to remodel and grow prior to the pandemic, then swiftly pivoted to remote classes to stay in business. Students have since returned to train in person.
“We’re sticklers for how somebody is treated in a transaction, and our experience with Lendio was phenomenal from the beginning.”
GKX's Story
Don Harris started learning martial arts for a reason many ’90s kids can relate to: “I wanted to be a Ninja Turtle—so I decided I’d do the best I could and train like them.”
When it came time for their oldest son to start training in the martial arts, Don and his partner Serenity Harris, both black belts, couldn’t find a martial arts school that suited their needs. So they opened GKX Martial Arts.
“We’re more about training people to be black belts, not just have black belts,” Serenity says, “to be martial artists and gain the respect and discipline and composure that comes with that.”
Prior to the pandemic, the Harrises applied and received a $50,000 loan through Lendio to remodel and grow the business. After adapting to remote classes, GKX successfully weathered the pandemic and welcomed students back in person.
“Regardless of global pandemic or injury or anything else,” Serenity says, “our doors staying open is success for us.”
"I used Lendio in the past for a P.P.P. Loan during Covid, which was a really scary time for everybody. Their customer service representatives really helped me through the process."
— LYNN SIMPSON, OWNER
"While we did look around, Lendio was our first and then our final stop, we turned away all other companies in the process just because the ease of access, the the amount of offers that were on the table and the specifics about the offers."
— KEVIN RUDNY, OWNER
Today, Jidan Cleaning is a full-service commercial cleaning company that specializes, according to their robust and detailed website, in “promoting healthy, safe, non-toxic work environments”—and what could be more important these days than a healthy and safe workplace?
We sat down recently with Pat to chat about her decision to strike out on her own, the inspiration behind her business, and the relationship she’s built with Lendio that’s helped her to expand Jidan Cleaning into a bustling tri-state business.
Where did the name Jidan Cleaning come from, and where are you based? Tell us a little about your “origin story.”
My daughters’ names are Jillian and Danielle, which is where the business name comes from.
Jidan Cleaning is a New Jersey-based company with a home office here in Medford, New Jersey, an office in Center City, Philadelphia, and one in Baltimore, Maryland.
My story starts with the fact that I'm an immigrant. I was born in Port of Spain, Trinidad, and came to the United States, to Jamaica, Queens, when I was six. The idea of immigrant success in the US, for many people, is owning your own business, so that was always in the back of my brain somewhere. Even when I was 12, I had my first paper route, and I employed my brother—I paid him to take care of part of my paper route and collect the money. The desire to own my own business started there.
I worked first as a pharmaceutical rep, and my physicians would always complain about their cleaning companies being unprofessional and their offices still being dirty. So I said, I'm going to bring professionalism to the cleaning business. That's where the light bulb went off. I started Jidan Cleaning in December of 2005, but I didn't leave my full-time job until May of 2010.
When I first started in South Jersey, we would get a lot of mom-and-pop physician offices or businesses that wanted to get cleaned once every other week, that type of thing. I realized [around 2013] that, if I wanted to increase my revenue, then I needed to be in a city: there are bigger buildings, so I’ll get bigger contracts and put more people to work. That's when I decided that I needed a Philadelphia office. Today, we have 105 employees (not contractors).
How did the pandemic affect Jidan Cleaners?
Overall, COVID has been a blessing for the cleaning industry. We’re now considered essential, so we're finally getting the respect that we deserve. There are two top ways that any business can show employees that it's safe to come back into their building: one is that folks are vaccinated, and two is that the building is clean. And how will you prove that the building's clean? By the folks that you employ to clean the buildings.
Why did you choose to seek out financing through Lendio?
Financing was one of the biggest challenges in starting my business, because most lenders put you in a box…My first business line of credit [from Lendio in 2014] was based on factoring my invoices. My biggest expenditure is always payroll, and the line of credit made that time of the month doubly less stressful. I've also gotten maybe two or three small term loans through Lendio.
Would you start Jidan Cleaners all over again? Is there anything you would change?
Yes, I would do it all over again—and as for what I would change, I would have done it sooner. I'm trying to live my best life, you know, and to help as many people as I can.