Jolene Ali still sometimes struggles to sleep. It does come easier these days than back in 2006, when the first Sweet Momma spa opened. Worrying about her infant venture made shut-eye difficult for Ali, who left a promising career at Lilydale Foods to do an MBA at the University of Alberta and eventually start her own business.
"It was probably 3-1/2 or four years before I could really have a night's sleep," she said. "A business is like a child. When your baby is small, you can't just leave it - you always have to be looking after it. As it gets bigger and time passes, you become more confident and relaxed about it." Ali, 34, usually nods off easier these days - but not always.
"The other night, I barely slept," she said. "My payroll was a mess this week."With the original south-side Sweet Momma generating nearly $1 million in annual revenue and a franchised location in St. Albert, Ali could probably afford the odd daytime nap to recuperate, except she doesn't seem the type to relax while others work.
Yet that idea sits at the heart of her burgeoning business. The Sweet Momma spas cater to pregnant women, offering massage, pedicure, manicure, acupuncture, steam, moisturizing and waxing. Arcane beauty products stock the shelves in the lobby of the south-side store: Wild Lemon Tonique, Persimmon and Cantaloupe Day Cream, Carmel Latte Tinted Moisturizer. Pacifying background music filters through pastel-coloured walls. Several shelves declare the virtues of something called the "100 Mile Baby."
This soft-edged world hardly seems the birthplace of a new commercial kingdom, but Ali dreams of raising her baby to become a giant. Given her progress so far, she might do it sooner rather than later.
Ali, who has no children, developed the idea for a spa aimed at pregnant women while completing an MBA at the University of Alberta.
Like any image-conscious business person, she says the greater good animates her commercial aspirations. "I thought if you can change the way people feel when they're pregnant, that can, in a small way, change the world."
But the jovial Ali, whose parents founded a pair of firms specializing in industrial chrome plating, also admits her ambition to build Sweet Momma into a titan. "I never really thought, 'I'm going to have this little shop and that's it.' If that was the case, I wouldn't have done it. I don't want to be a spa owner, just operating my spa every day. I'd love to make it really big."
Her ambition runs even beyond just starting one successful franchise. "At some point I'm going to exit and find something new. I could do any business. I've got lots of fire in me left."
Ali joined Accelerator, a sort of social club for aspiring tycoons. Run by the Entrepreneurs' Organization, a network of successful small business people, Accelerator aims to help boost a firm's annual revenue over $1 million, giving the entrepreneur an invitation into EO proper.
The program brings 25 entrepreneurs together four times a year for all-day seminars on aspects of business, like marketing or human resources. The program attracted a wide range of local small businesses, from chiropractors to auto mechanics to clothing retailers to spa owners.
On top of the quarterly sessions, the entrepreneurs meet monthly in smaller "accountability groups," where they set goals and keep up on their peers' progress. An EO member presides over each group, offering advice and guiding discussion.
Stephen Petasky serves as the men-tor for Ali's accountability group. The former Sherwood Park Sobeys franchisee now runs Luxus Group, a luxury real estate equity collective with properties in Mexico, Las Vegas and Italy.
He sees big things in the future for Ali. "Having a business model that has continuous demand for it but almost no supply, she's very well-positioned to be extremely successful," he said. "The opportunity now is at her fingertips to grow to whatever size that she wants to."
Petasky met Ali when Accelerator got started in Edmonton back in September. Lloyd Steier, a professor at the University of Alberta School of Business, was a little more skeptical than Petasky on his first encounter with Ali's aspirations. Ali developed the business case that would eventually become Sweet Momma in a class taught by Steier, who says he looks at thousands of business plans.
"My big question for that one when I saw the business plan was 'Does a market exist?' I wasn't absolutely sure."Steier questioned whether robust demand for spa services tailored to expectant mothers could be found in Edmonton.
Even if it could, the transient nature of the customer base - most would only be in the market for Sweet Momma's services for nine months - presented a serious challenge, he thought. Ali got around this by broadening the range of services she offers. Aspiring mothers can receive massages and acupuncture purporting to increase fertility at Sweet Momma, while stretch-mark treatments and nutritional supplements target the newly no-longer pregnant.
These supplements also play to Ali's background in food science. She retains her enthusiasm for the field despite the change of career, rattling off information about nanotechnology in nutrition and alternatives to gelatin-capsule pills with ease.
As for Steier's concern of insufficient demand, Sweet Momma's growth puts it to rest. A second location in St. Albert opened in 2009, and Ali has courted franchisee pitches from across Western Canada and the U.S.
No potential location has hit the sweet spot yet, but Ali thinks she'll know the right choice for a third location when she sees it. "My guess is that the opportunity will present itself and it will just hap-pen."And while fertility rates in Canada and the United States hover around population replacement levels, the practice of producing more people seems unlikely to die out.
"When I walked in the door," said Steier, "that's when I really got it."New babies drive Ali's business, but pregnancy also presents problems at Sweet Momma. As she puts it, "This last year has been crazy because of my seven pregnancies."Not her personal pregnancies, of course, but those of her employees. "Everyone who works here gets pregnant," said Ali.
More than half of the staff at the south-side location went on maternity leave in 2011. This unique spin on the classic Albertan labour shortage results in a labour surplus of another kind. And the annoying particulars of human reproduction don't limit themselves to employees.
A recent franchise pitch came from a Calgary nurse and her husband. Ali expressed interest. Then she found out about the couple's recent bundle of joy. "She's a nurse and everything, but she just had a baby," Ali said. "You can't have a baby and start a business."