Catching the Entrepreneurial Bug – Two Sisters from Michigan

My name is Stephanie Tomovska and my business partner/sister’s name is Nancy Tomovska. In 2010, we started our company, Stance LLC, which is a Brand/Product Development Company that creates affordable, high-quality products, made in the USA.

We personally hand pick, everything from beginning to end to ensure our customers get great products. Stance also donates a portion of the proceeds of each product sold to Living Beyond Breast Cancer. We chose this cause because we lost our mother to breast cancer and are actively involved in the fight against Breast Cancer any way we can.

With living busy lives, working full-time in the Medical Device Industry, daily trips to the gym, social life and everything in-between we found that throughout the day we needed something that was quick, easy and travel sized to keep our clothes looking nice all day. When we searched for something like this in a single product, we couldn’t find anything. We would have to buy several different products to do just this. After saying, “we should invent something” countless times, we did just that. We always had a passion of being entrepreneurs and once the idea came to us for Unmarx we hit the ground running. After getting our feet wet with Unmarx we decided to follow another passion of ours, fashion, and came out with a t-shirt line called Trend-T. Now there’s no stopping us; we have the entrepreneurial bug!

What products does your business offer?

Stance currently has its product Unmarx and its brand Trend-T. Unmarx wipes off unwanted clothing marks (body and baby powders, light lint and pet hair, deodorant marks, dried residues, make-up powders, etc) quickly and effortlessly while saving you time, money and frustration. Just fold it up and take it anywhere you go for quick touch-ups. Trend-T is a custom designed ladies fashion t-shirt line. It flaunts the current fashion trends and brings them to life in a way you wouldn’t expect for a look that will last seasons to come at an affordable price.

What are some day to day challenges you face?

Now with 2 products under Stance, we found it difficult to keep track of everything. With Unmarx we need to keep track of not only the number of units but also 12 different color selections.

We ran into the same problem with Trend-T, accounting for all pieces in 2 different designs and 4 different sizes for each. Needless to say it’s a lot of detailed inventory to keep track of. After figuring this out the hard way, we thankfully came across inFlow and since we have incorporated this great inventory software into our daily tasks, it has saved us countless hours! inFlow is user friendly, has a great multi-user mode and, of course, a fantastic reports feature that keeps us up-to-date on everything at all times.

From your experience, what advice could you give to other small businesses?

You can’t be good at everything so use all the resources and people out there that are available to help you start and continue to grow your business. Don’t get discouraged! You will hit many road blocks and feel like giving up, but don’t. All you need to do is regroup and find another way to accomplish what needs to get done.

Anything else to add?

You can check our up and coming Facebook pages, Unmarx by Stance and Trend-T by Stance.