Mary Jane Nesbitt, 51, opened her consignment clothing shop,
Nine Lives, in Los Gatos, an upscale community in California's
Silicon Valley, in February 1993. Before opening the shop, Nesbitt
had worked for many years in the legal department of a commercial
real estate brokerage. Her decision to leap from employee to
entrepreneur came during a soul-searching walk with her husband,
David Butcher.
"I was unhappy and frustrated," Nesbitt recalls.
"We had talked about the possibility of my opening a
consignment shop for maybe six months. We got to this end of town,
and my husband pointed across the park and said, `Look, that space
is for rent. This is it. You're doing it.' "
The storefront to which Butcher pointed is ideal for a
consignment shop, Nesbitt says, because there's plenty of
regular foot traffic. The next-door neighbors are a bakery and a
dry cleaner. Down the block is a U.S. Post Office, and across the
street is a park where community functions are held.
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Nesbitt started the business by taking $17,000 out of her
retirement plan to cover initial lease costs, racks, hangers,
shelves, bags, printing costs, lighting and other necessities. Her
husband, a Webmaster for a large networking company, wrote the
shop's custom financial and inventory management software.
Nine Lives grossed $180,000 last year. More important, Nesbitt
is doing something she loves: "My satisfaction in life is so
much greater."
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