It took Nielah Burnett about a decade to open her first InnerG Juice and Yoga location — but the second could launch in a matter of months.
Burnett said she expects to open one or more of the combination juice bar/yoga studios with in the next two years, while using vending machines to scout the right locations.
The plan for growth comes 17 months after Burnett opened the doors of the first InnerG location at 1807 9th Ave North. In that time, the store has sold more than 5,000 bottles of juice, Burnett said, each filled with three to five pounds of produce.
“It’s been incredible. We started out as a delivery service. … Now that we have a storefront, the growth has been more so in walk-ins and retail sales for juice and in selling juice cleanses, which has been a really amazing experience to watch people transform their bodies and their perspectives on food by juice taking, as we call it, a solid food vacation,” Burnett said.
Those vacations can now be found outside of InnerG’s storefront. Burnett has a juice vending machine at Yay Yay’s cafe on Jefferson Street and is looking for more places, such as hospitals and schools, where people on the go may want a healthy snack.
She also plans to use those vending machines as trial balloons, as she looks for the right location to open her next store.
“We want to target Nashville General [Hospital] for the staff. They’re working late hours and it’s hard to get something healthy after a certain time. It would be really lovely to have a fresh option,” Burnett said. “We’d like to take the vending machines as a way for us to explore where would be a good fit [for expansion.]
InnerG’s road to brick-and-mortar was filled with roadblocks in the form of banks. Not long after moving to Nashville from Atlanta in 2011, Burnett estimated she would need about $75,000 to open an InnerG storefront.
Over the next nine years, Burnett applied for six loans from four banks, ranging from $75,000 to $150,000. She was rejected each time.
Black entrepreneurs have historically had a tougher time getting approved for loans from banks, with Small Business Association lending to Black businesses plummeting 84% from 2008 to 2018.
Burnett finally got a loan through the Bridge Partnership Fund, which partners with The Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee, The Grove Community Development Corp. and Studio Bank, which helps Black small business owners and entrepreneurs who have been denied a bank loan for minor reasons.
To open her next location, Burnett doesn’t want to have to rely on a bank to lend her money, opting for the investor rout instead.
“I would like to raise money. I’ve gotten to that point,” Burnett said. [Before I opened the first location] I was like, ‘Whatever it takes. I’m going to put whatever money I have to put in from my personal [account] and find whoever will support me.’ But even then I wasn’t sure if I wanted angel investors or [venture capital.] I wasn’t sold on the idea of having someone else in control in that way. But over the year I’ve grown to realize that what I’m trying to accomplish has to be bigger than that concern. … That’s the scaling that will make sure that this is successful. So, I’m at the point now where I’m ready to start raising to grow.”
