CHARLOTTE, N.C. — More money, fewer problems.
For small business owners, this seems to be the motto during these tough COVID-19 times as many struggles to stay afloat. In most cases, this necessary cash flow involves a little extra help from PPP loans and grants.
Puptown Charlotte has called the Queen City home since 2009, but the owner said she never would have imagined celebrating more than a decade in business would also mean trying to overcome the hardships of a pandemic too.
The doggie daycare and boarding facility was forced to shut down for six weeks due to coronavirus stay at home orders.
"While we didn’t have any revenue coming in during that time we still owed money for rent and utilities and other overhead expenses,” said Kristen Hall, owner of Puptown Charlotte
Hall said she thought she was well prepared with the help of her financial safety net.
"When I thought of a small emergency, I never imagined something on the scale of what COVID-19 has meant for the business so the safety net quickly ran out," Hall said.
She then turned to at least eight different PPP loans for some assistance but without much luck.
"I applied at other places that rejected me but didn’t tell me why," Hall said. "I just felt really stuck.”
But finally, after applying through Lendio, she said was matched with a PPP lender in just four days.
But the help didn’t stop there.
Lendio was also accepting applications for their grant contest too.
"The application itself really appealed to me because it wasn’t just filling out a form online," Hall said. "They wanted a video application so it was a chance to tell our story.”
And they did so through a little sing-song show and tell. And as it turns out, their video was good enough to win Puptown Charlotte a $10,000 grant.
"I think I had every response at once. I was laughing, I was crying I was jumping up and down,” Hall said.
For now, Puptown Charlotte is only operating at 50% capacity. To help supplement some of their revenue, they’ve started a jewelry line for pet lovers. You can find them on Instagram here: @pawprinterjewelry.