Ground Floor: Entrepreneurs’ boot camp inspires business

FAIRFAX - Jodi Manternach credits a women's entrepreneurship group for giving her the nudge she needed to become a business owner.

While working in the supply chain and transportation industries for 17 years, the Fairfax woman dreamed of being her own boss. Manternach enjoyed cleaning, painting and interior design and thought about offering one or all of those services to the public.

'I just decided to go for it and make a business out of it,” Manternach said. 'I'm not getting any younger.”

While searching online in March, Manternach came across the website for Ascent, a non-profit organization that assists women who want to start or purchase a business. She joined the organization and signed up for a four-day startup business boot camp held over two weekends in March.

Manternach said brainstorming with other women entrepreneurs helped her refine her business focus.

'They encouraged me to go with what I know, which is painting,” she said.

After the Ascent boot camp, as Manternach was finalizing her business plan, her sister-in-law referred her to a contractor who was looking for a painting subcontractor. That resulted in the first job for Manternach's business, Beyond Painting.

'I quit my job on July 25,” she said. 'That next Monday I was busy working.”

Manternach has been painting and wallpapering since she helped her grandmother and aunt with their projects as a teenager. Later, she enjoyed experimenting with different painting techniques on the walls of her own home and, at one point, took a part-time job at Home Depot teaching those techniques to other do-it-yourselfers.

'I practiced during the week and held class on Sunday,” she recalled.

Beyond Painting provides residential and commercial interior and exterior painting, faux finishing, staining and varnishing, wallpaper application and removal, and deck and fence staining.

In her first three months of business, Manternach's jobs have ranged from basic painting and wallpapering to applying a faux wood finish to steel doors to designing and building a custom interior barn door. She also will assist clients in selecting color schemes, furniture and accessories.

'Paint is cheap,” she said. 'You can transform a room into a whole new room for just the cost of paint.”

Manternach would like to grow her business enough to hire one or two employees down the road, but said she has no interest in getting too big.

'I always want to have that personal connection,” she said.