New rankings showed Nashville has the second highest rate of millennial-owned businesses in the country.
Shopping at Bella Bridesmaids in Green Hills is not your typical shopping experience.
“Did you have a preference on fabric, if it was tulle versus chiffon?” an employee asked a bride and two of her bridesmaids while flipping through a binder of fabrics Friday afternoon.
Brides have typically made appointments with the store to look at swatches and try on styles tailored to them.
“We really get to sit down with their bridal party and make it their vision,” said store owner Allison Taylor.
Taylor has owned the store since 2011. She was just 27 at the time and she remembers the challenges of an early business.
“One of my biggest obstacles was meeting with the banks and trying to prove I was worth giving a small business loan,” she said.
The store has been just one of the businesses included in a recent report by the Kauffman Foundation. It showed Nashville is second in the nation for percentage of millennial-owned businesses (defined as ages 20-34 in the study). It ranked third for businesses owned by women. (Click here to view the report.)
“Business diversity is important for any economy,” said Chamber of Commerce spokesperson Mark Drury.
Drury said he wasn't surprised by the recent rankings. He said different classes, networking and mentoring options make Nashville very small-business friendly and even credited the diversity of businesses with helping pull Nashville out of the recession.
“Nashville probably didn’t sink as low as a lot of other markets around the country, and part of the reason for that is we have a very diverse business eco-system here,” he said.
Taylor has been part of a business networking group for women. She said that’s been a big help to navigate her store's growth.
“It’s nice to have a different perspective, an outside perspective, on maybe certain decisions to make financially or from the accounting world or advertising,” she said. “It’s just nice to kind of have other people who know what you're going through.”
One issue for business owners: while Metro grows so do rent prices.
But Taylor said the city has been attracting her key demographic: 18 to 35-year-olds. And she said it's good to feel like she's part of what’s happening here.
“We can definitely feel the growth of the city through our business, so that's awesome,” she said.
