Today we’d like to introduce you to Svetlana Podgayskiy and Stephanie Liles.
Hi Svetlana and Stephanie, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Stephanie Liles and I (Svetlana Podgayskiy) started our window tinting business ‘Blue Ridge Tint’ 4 years ago. Both of us have a very entrepreneurial spirit and have been brainstorming a business idea for a while because we felt stuck in the routine day-to-day jobs with no flexible hours. I’ve been pondering on the idea of window tinting because we needed something that would be in high demand in Morganton and while Stephanie was working at Morganton Honda, she realized that more and more people were asking about window tint. We knew that this is what we needed to pursue. Being a graphic designer helped a lot because I was able to design the logo, website, business cards, flyers, etc., and get things up and running. We immediately started looking for shops and within a week or so found a shop that suited our needs and was affordable. The shop definitely needed some love, but both of us love to do physical work, especially knowing that this is going to be our future! The results fired the passion in us even more, and we kept going. The funny part was that we had so much faith we would succeed in this business that we finished renovating the shop before we even learned how to tint! Being resourceful is very important in business. YouTube was our best friend, along with various window tinting forums that we joined. There were hundreds of dollars of wasted film, of course, because we needed to master the art of tinting. Both of us are very meticulous and can be perfectionists, which is a blessing and a curse. We put a lot of emphasis on the quality and didn’t worry about how long it took us at first. We knew that word of mouth is one of the best marketing techniques, especially in a small town, and we kept on tinting. Both of us have always had a lot of interest in cars and Stephanie had a lot of experience working on motorcycles so that benefited us a lot when it came to removing particular parts that would affect our quality. With each car, we gained more and more experience. There were some struggles along the way, but the thought of giving up never crossed our minds. We love what we do, and every day we realize how blessed we are for this opportunity! Feeling the freedom of making your own schedule is indescribable.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
This business definitely had its struggles. Learning and perfecting the different techniques took A LOT of patience and perseverance. We put a big emphasis on quality and making sure that our customers are completely satisfied, and in the beginning, had to redo the windows a few times before we were happy with the result. Learning how to navigate the ‘behind the scenes’ of owning a business and running it efficiently was also very important, considering that we were very new at this… We’re typically very organized people, so that helped a lot. Another struggle was getting the word out faster, even though we had the website up and running, had social media platforms, and ran many advertisements. We also had to put in a lot of hours of work, in the beginning, to get more experience and be able to support ourselves. In the beginning, we would work up to 100+ hour weeks, but we knew it would all be worth it in the end.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
We specialize in applying window tint on cars and buildings. One thing that sets us apart from others is our quality and dedication to this job. We also don’t work traditional hours because we try to work around our customer’s schedules. We try to treat people the way we want to be treated by a business. Being responsible is also something that sets us apart because we’re always on top of getting back to customers in a timely manner; we try to make sure we have everything in stock, we keep our premises clean, inviting, and looking professional. We are very proud of what we represent in the window tinting business. We built our brand on quality over quantity and standing by the quality of our product. We also regularly research new industry standards and methods to keep improving.
Any big plans?
We have a lot of big plans for the future! As soon as we find a reliable manager for our shop in Morganton, we’re hoping to get another shop in a bigger city that has multiple bays. We’re also looking into adding services to our business, like applying paint protection films…
Contact Info:
- Website: Blueridgetint.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/blueridgetint/
- Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/p/100064156237488/
