365 Days Around the Sun

On April 7, 2021, we embarked on an adventure of a lifetime. We began our first, of what would be many, business plan classes to determine if a Cerakote Business would be feasible in the Twin Ports area. The class included weekly homework, which included extensive market research. It was through this research that we found that we would be the only Certified Cerakote Applicators within a 2.5-hour radius.  Considering the Twin Ports area and surrounding communities are full of sporting and recreational enthusiasts, we figured a Cerakote business would likely be well received. We decided to move forward with the goal of introducing this new service to the area, our focus on successfully serving our community. 

Our instructors informed us that starting up a business would take extreme commitment and tenacity, and they were right. We found our new adventure would inevitably be a second full-time job. We somehow learned to balance business start-up with our full-time “day jobs” in addition to the other required duties to maintain our household.  Working on business tasks took place during the evenings and weekends. There were sacrifices that had to be made and quite frankly we literally had to learn the skills of an experienced juggler to keep all the balls in the air at the same time. This required us to hone into the skill of balance. We knew our success would ultimately depend on putting in the long hours and hard work. ​

During this first year, we have learned so much. One lesson, we have had to learn patience. We learned that we couldn’t just jump in and begin projects immediately after our Cerakote application training, nor after receiving our small business funding. Being that we would be working inside the walls of Superior Guns and Ammo, another new business in the area, time and energy was required for cleaning, construction, and setting up our workspace. In addition, we needed to order all our supplies and equipment needed to complete a Cerakote project. 
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We had already started many pieces of our marketing campaign through use of social media and webpage, so phone and email inquiries from excited customers were coming in. They were requesting to have work done. Luckily, they were all willing to put their names on our growing waitlist until we could officially begin projects. We have often wondered “Did we begin our marketing too soon?” But we have learned that when starting a business, there will be unanticipated surprises and challenges along the way. With this said, we wouldn’t have changed our timeline. We are glad we began marketing early, as this enabled us to get the word out into our community about the services that would soon be offered.

A year later, 365 days around the sun and we finally did it!  We have started projects and attended our first sporting show and have upcoming events we are scheduled to attend. We continue to be welcomed with open arms by our wonderful community to a degree to which we never would have anticipated! Customers are finding us via word of mouth, through our website and social media pages, as well as on the Cerakote website.

In addition to receiving the anticipated requests to apply Cerakote to sporting and recreational equipment, we have also received several requests from motorcycle and automotive enthusiasts for application of Cerakote’s C-Series High Temperature product to exhaust pipes and various engine components of these vehicles. Though we had a full understanding that the sky is the limit regarding the variety of items that Cerakote can be applied to, we never imagined that we would expand our portfolio so quickly.

We are so thankful for all the support we have received from our family, friends, business partners, customers thus far.  We are thrilled to be serving our community and excited to see what our second year has in store for us.