Business owners and would-be entrepreneurs from across Cayman learned some crucial business lessons on Wednesday night thanks to the Cayman Islands Chamber of Commerce and business mentor and author Linval Johnson.
Johnson was speaking at the first event in the three-part Small Biz Bootcamp series run by the Chamber of Commerce in collaboration with SheTrades Caribbean and the Caribbean Development Bank, which focuses on empowering women-led businesses.
Business bootcamp
Attendees at Wednesday’s session on “Financing Your Business for Growth” learned about accessing business capital through grants, loans and angel investors, how to budget and create a business plan as well as how to build creditworthiness and prepare financial statements.
Before and after Johnson’s talk, there was the opportunity for women to network with other business owners and share tips and contacts for business success.
Originally launched in 2016, the Cayman Islands Small Biz Bootcamps has helped hundreds of local entrepreneurs tackle real-world challenges through practical, hands-on training.
Now, with a renewed focus on women in business, the relaunched programme draws on the international SheTrades network to help entrepreneurs make their business dreams come true.
“The Cayman Islands is an extremely entrepreneurial place to be,” said Chamber Chief Executive Officer Wil Pineau at the event. “I don’t think people really understand how many new ideas are introduced in Cayman and how ideas come from trailblazers like some of these women that were in today’s workshop. They’re introducing ideas that aren’t really in the marketplace, and that brings energy into the market.”
This year’s bootcamp is aimed at fostering inclusive economic growth and gender-responsive business development across the Cayman Islands, explained Pineau, who said this kind of event gave him “a lot of optimism for the future.”
Sharing challenges
“In the age where everything is online, sometimes it’s nicer to have the interaction person to person,” he said, “and it allows people to see that some of the struggles that some entrepreneurs are facing, are the same struggles that others are. When they come together, they can share those good practices and the challenges and hopefully they’ll learn from those experiences, so that they become better entrepreneurs and businesspeople.”
He encouraged current and future entrepreneurs to sign up to the SheTrades Caribbean network and interact with other entrepreneurs from around the world. “You never know what good ideas can come from.”
Speaking to the Compass after his presentation, speaker Linval Johnson said that his one key piece of advice to entrepreneurs was, “Don’t try and do everything yourself. If there’s something you need to do, but can’t or don’t want to do it yourself, then find someone who can do it for you.”
Budding entrepreneurs
After running her photography business as a hobby in her spare time, Yanet Swaby Ebanks left her full-time job in April to focus exclusively on growing her photography business, Yani’s Photography345. She has now opened a studio on West Bay and is hard at work providing passport photos and photography for family portraits, weddings, maternity and special occasions.
“It was kind of shaky at the start, making that big step, but after that, I felt like it’s OK, I can do this,” she said. “Working for myself feels amazing.”
Ebanks had been doing photography for 10 years before taking the plunge, so what made her decide to go for it?
“I was getting a lot of requests,” she said, “and I wasn’t able to meet that because of my full-time job. So that’s when I decided to take the step and I could see that it would be financially viable.”
She attended the Chamber event to make sure that she was doing everything she should be.
“There’s a lot of things that I’ve been doing already,” she said, “so it kind of gave me confirmation I was doing it the right way. There was also some great advice, such as having a fund for emergencies. But overall, it gave me the confidence to just keep on going and don’t look back.”
Museum plans
Fellow attendee Judy Patrick was at the event to pick up some tips on setting up her business from scratch, as she plans to open a museum of Cayman history in West Bay.
She said: “My husband has a lot of antique items and we have the perfect location in my parent’s house which has been there for around 80-90 years, so it’s one of the oldest houses in the area.”
As well as the museum, which will be called Pearl’s Place, Patrick plans to run a souvenir shop selling locally made items and plans to open the museum and shop by the end of the year.
Having had to retire earlier than expected from her corporate job last year due to a heart attack, Patrick is looking forward to getting stuck into her new project.
“I’ve never run a business before, so I’m just getting some information,” she said. “I retired for a while, but it wasn’t something I’d planned and I realised that I’m not good at just doing nothing.”
After the second session, ‘Marketing and Branding in the Digital Age’, on Thursday, 7 August, the SmallBiz Bootcamp series concludes on Friday, 8 August with ‘Managing Operations and Preparing for Export’.
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