Sewing Business Blog

Starting A Home Business? Know The Rules.

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We’ve talked many times about starting a home business, and various aspects of doing your own business.  Today I want to mention a few “rules” that may or may not affect you in trying to start your own home business.

** Regulations.  If you live in a subdivision that has homeowner policies and regulations, you will definitely need to read the rules to see if you are allowed to have a home business in your home.  For a sewing or alteration type of business you may have many customers coming and going which could cause problems with parking in addition to the hours you may want to be “open” which could be a problem in the area.  Keep in mind that if you are running an internet or mail order only business there would not be any additional traffic, other than your own vehicles coming and going.

** Insurance.  Check with your homeowner insurance company to see what they will and will not cover on the contents of your business office furniture and supplies.  You will probably need to extend the coverage to be sure the computer systems, furniture and office materials are covered.

** Assess What Your Needs Are.  This is very important because if you’re wanting to set up a home business to do sewing or alterations and you have neither a garage or any work area that’s open enough for your business, it will be next to impossible for you to even begin.  You MUST have an area that is totally dedicated to the business and nothing else.  In other words you simply can’t work “off your kitchen table”, even though articles and stories in years past tell about people doing their business “off the kitchen table”.  If you have a family of any size at all, how do you plan to get any work done if the kids are constantly at the table for snacks or your “3 meals a day” at the table, etc.  My house is big enough that I have a spare bedroom for my actual office and a large workroom for all my sewing and craft projects.

** Location.  Think about whether you’ll need a space for office equipment in a location that you’ll easily be able to install a separate telephone and fax line and perhaps cable for a tv if you like to watch tv while working.  I’ve always liked a space where I can hear what’s going on in the rest of the house, but still have my own private area where kids aren’t allowed to come in to play or eat/drink, etc.

The main point is to check out the various areas that COULD become problems later after the business is open.  When you are actually open for business, you certainly don’t want the president of the homeowner association coming to your door and demanding that you close the business, etc.  Plan ahead to make sure you have all your ducks in a row before opening your “business” door.

Downsizing Inspires Siblings To Launch Eco-Friendly Clothing Line

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photoWhen one door closes, as the old optimistic saying goes, another one opens. At least, so one hopes.


But sometimes it just doesn’t happen that way. And if another door doesn’t appear on the horizon, you might have to take a page from Christine Marchuska’s notepad and build one yourself.


When the economy took a serious downturn last winter, Marchuska, 28, became one more Wall Street casualty. Back in February, the rumors started rolling at Morgan Stanley, the investment banking firm where she was employed in New York City. By May, the rumors were becoming reality.


“They treated us like cattle,” Marchuska said. “You’d get a call and go into a conference room, and then they would escort you from the building.” She has one word to sum up what happened: “bloody.”


Start-up from a letdown


Losing a cushy job in the finance sector was a blow not just to Marchuska’s ego but to her pocketbook, too. With an Upper East Side apartment and a lifestyle to match, Marchuska needed to get back to work. “Just about nobody sees a recovery for about two years — it’s bad out there,” she says of the job scenario for someone like herself, a Cornell graduate with a corporate background.


The Endicott native, who comes from a family of entrepreneurs, owners of apartment houses and an automobile dealership, chose to view her predicament as an opportunity.


“I decided to build a business, with my brother Justin as a partner, from scratch,” she said.


Small biz trend


Marchuska is not alone. There are quite a few brave souls who are taking the plunge and starting a business after getting pink-slipped. Three out of four adults said they have considered starting a business, according to the Yahoo Small Business poll in April. But in an economy racked with fears of a recession, entrepreneurs need to be cautious with launching new ventures, said Howard Van Auken, a management professor at Iowa State University.


His advice: Develop a financial plan for the business that includes a cash budget, and don’t invest excessively.


That is what the siblings have done, starting an online T-shirt company with $5,000 in seed money. “Eventually, we will look for some venture capital,” Christine Marchuska said.


Marchuska’s first order of business was educating herself about the fashion world. She took a course in Manhattan, taught by a woman with 30 years in the garment industry. “It was called ‘Stitch and B—h, and we learned basic sewing. I felt, if I was going to run a clothing business, I needed to know how clothes are made.”


Keep it local


Next, she set about developing the business plan, and when she did, Marchuska looked homeward, to the Southern Tier.


“My brother and I have a lot of hometown pride, since we grew up here” she said. So the models they used, the Web designer, the product designer and the advertisement team were all local.


“Our tag will say ‘designed in Upstate New York.'”


Green dream


The siblings also wanted a business that was politically correct. They created shirts that had “green” or organically produced fibers; they created ads and packaging that came from recycled materials. And, most important, they say they “were not comfortable with the company structure until we could find a way to give back to different charities and organizations we support,” Marchuska said.


They decided that 5 percent of all revenues would be donated to Safe Horizon, an organization that works to aid victims of violence; Streetwise Partners, a non-profit that links low-income individuals to volunteer professionals to help build workplace skills; and the Red Cross Society of China, where the shirts will be manufactured.


This summer the fitted silhouette tees, in black and white (more colors to come) with trendy epaulettes went on sale on the Web site, www.marchuska.com, for $39. A business was born: Marchuska, LLC.


The siblings, who started with an inventory of 2,000 shirts, also plan to sell their product at street fairs in New York City and at their 326 Airport Road, Endicott, office.


What’s next?


“I am still going on finance interviews, just to keep my contacts,” Marchuska said, “but I wanted to get this Internet-based business rolling now. This is my dream.”


It is a green dream, she says. It is a local dream, about employing local talent and keeping as many jobs as she and her brother, who runs a construction business with their other brother, can create in the community. Eventually, they want to move the actual manufacturing and sewing aspect of their business, stateside, too, to Greater Binghamton.


Being downsized, it turns out, doesn’t have to mean the end of something, said Marchuska, “It is a beginning, just a beginning, of something new. We had our launch party in the Hamptons! It is so exciting.” 

Read more about this story at Binghamtom Press Connects.