During these uncertain times, it seems everything has changed.  From working at home to teaching kids from home to lining up to go to the grocery store and more. It has proved challenging for all businesses as they navigate new safety protocols, hiring or layoffs, or even closures. These past couple months have been quite uncertain for us as well especially as a small business.  

Luckily, we are a business that keeps cash reserves. We have always had wonderful (think holidays and chicks & bunnies) months and sometimes lean months. This means we are frugal. Rents in NYC are extremely high and we try to make sure we always have extra in the bank. Yes, over the years Kim and Bob have floated the business at times, but we have never taken out a loan or raised capital. Our hard work and frugality has kept us going for over 10 years. But never before have we completely closed for so long. And like so many NYC businesses, we are unsure when we will reopen. We kept payroll going with work from home for as long as we could, and we hit some hiccups along the way – with lots of stress and work filling out paperwork that got us nowhere. Here is our journey.

  • March 8th – Last appointment in the studio

  • April 1st – Applied for Alice Business for All Grant – didn’t get it

  • April 3rd  – Applied for Employee Retention Grant Program

  • April 3rd – Applied for Verizon-LISC Recovery Fund – didn’t get it

  • April 3rd – Applied for EIDL loans

  • April 9th – Applied for PPP loan with our bank Chase (we were told at the time that we could only apply with one bank). Chase was super late in getting applications up. We applied the VERY first day. 

  • April 10th – Harmonie is furloughed and files for unemployment. We kept payroll going for a full month but we didn’t want to use every single penny of reserves and not be able to start back up once businesses could re-open.

  • April 15th – We find out the PPP program has run out of money. The first round had starting funding on April 3rd – Our bank had not even started applications. They also gave no status updates online and basically said don’t even bother calling.

  • April 15th – Called to check the status of our EIDL loan application. After 2 hours on hold, we were told we had applied too early, that the application process had changed, and we needed to resubmit. We did. Supposedly, we wouldn’t lose our place in the queue but we were doubtful. Many phone calls later and all we heard was “no information”

  • April 22nd – Got a NYC Employee Retention Grant Program to cover 25% of payroll costs. We thought we might have to give it back since it only covered 25% from the date of receiving the funds and we had already spent much of our reserves on a month of payroll with zero income.  At this point, we were disenchanted by the entire process. We didn’t have enough in the reserves to cover 75% of payroll for 2 more months without any income.

  • April 23rd – The full court press begins! Based on several conversations with friends, bankers, and anyone who would help us we found out that smaller banks were more successful in getting little businesses like ours (the amount we qualified for was TINY since we are 3 employees). And everyone was saying we should apply to other banks. We applied through Paypal and Intuit in addition to our existing application at Chase. We called Chase customer support, and then started calling local branches to try and get in touch with anyone who could help. There was also a potential class action lawsuit against Chase since they supposedly only funded large loans in round 1 leaving the smallest businesses like ours out to dry. Finally after calling 4 branches we got through to the branch on 79th and Broadway (our usual branch is on our corner at 72nd and Amsterdam). And we called every day for a week. We emailed. We had a nice Chase bank employee try and escalate our questions. 

  • April 27th – We hear that second round loans are being funded – we may have a chance!

  • April 28th – We reach out again to Chase seeing if there is any movement on our loan. even though the information on our account online does not show an updated status, the bank employee we have been talking to says that our loan has been sent to the SBA for approval. Once it comes back we will be funded. 

  • April 29th- We get notification that Paypal will fund our loan but for 5k less then Chase. We have more paperwork to fill out. We decide to drag our feet and wait until Friday to see if Chase will come through since 5k is 25% additional funding. 

  • May 1st – Chase funds our loan! We can keep the NYC retention grant and bring everyone back to “work from home”. 

We feel so fortunate for so many reasons. Since the beginning of the Big Apple Portraits, we have been paying ourselves with a payroll company, paying our taxes, and keeping good reports. Many photographers are not incorporated and just pay themselves based on earnings. It’s mostly women, and many times women with families like ours. These photographers have struggled to get loans or apply for unemployment. Our hearts go out to others in our professional community who did not get the support we did. Let’s hope when all turns normal again we will cherish the images that were created before the pandemic and certainly I will even be getting my own girls back into the studio.