In the air

Tall trees, heavy boulders and anything else dirty and outside was just another a playground for Carey Jennette growing up in northern Michigan.

“I was a bizarre upside-down child,” she says. “I always had reckless abandon for my body and my safety.”

Now 31, the St. Petersburg-based bartender/hopeful entrepreneur aims to trade crazy for stability in a new business. She plans to open a circus arts and aerial silks studio and training facility for kids and adults, from beginners to aspiring professionals. Aerial silks and related exercises, where someone performs aerial acrobatics while hanging from fabric connected to a ceiling, is an up-and-coming purist, projects Jennette. Something like what CrossFit was a decade ago — before it took off. “It's the new yoga,” says Jennette. “Everyone wants to find some form of exercise they can get excited about doing.”

But Jennette, in her quest to open her business, Arise Circus Arts, has been thwarted by many entrepreneurs' biggest roadblock: lack of capital.

Jennette seeks at least $100,000 for Arise Circus Arts, of which about 20% will go toward equipment. The rest is for leasing space, about 2,000 square feet, either in or around downtown St. Petersburg. The space would need to have ceilings at least 25 feet high, with exposed steel beams and the right structure to hold the fabrics. She also wants to have a building with high road visibility, if possible.

“There is a big gap in the marketplace here for this,” says Jennette, “and I want to be part of the growth here.”

Jennette has been into circus training and aerial silks for more than a decade, going back to when she lived in Thailand, teaching English. Her business plan calls for the company to launch in 2017, and be profitable the first year.

Jennette has made several stops on her mission to raise capital for the venture. She looked into micro loans, but most of those programs max out at $50,000. She considered a few potential silent and other venture partners, but passed on those opportunities, mostly due to lack of control. Says Jennette: “I'm leery of giving outsiders a big say in my company.”

The biggest push so far, in an effort going on at least a year, has been to meet with bankers. All of those meetings have ended in rejection.

In late June, Jennette attended the Pinellas County Finance Fair, hosted by the Pinellas County Economic Development Office. The office set up the fair to match startups and entrepreneurs with up to 20 lenders and bankers, in a sort of roving shark tank pitch show.

Jennette made the rounds at the fair, and gave her company's pitch nearly a dozen times over two hours. She met with bankers who handle SBA 7(a) loans, which is the program she targets for the $100,000. A few bankers left her with a maybe, not a straight up no, which gives her hope. While she works on the business, and the hunt for capital by day, Jennette is a bartender at the Drunken Clam on St. Pete Beach at night.

“I'm all about what the next step is,” Jennette says. “I'm not going to give up.”