Succeeding in Style

Jessica Mata thinks most people deserve more than a cookie-cutter haircut. So with just three years of hair-cutting experience, the ambitious 24-year-old opened her own hair salon, hoping to bring hip styles to Lubbock.

Opening her own hair salon has been a dream long in the making for the young entrepreneur, but it never would have become a reality without the help of the City of Lubbock Community Development Department.

HUD's CDBG program helped Jessica Mata get her hair salon up and running.

Through the department's Economic Development Loan Program, funded through the HUD's Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) Program, Mata acquired the bulk of the funding she needed, $15,000, to get her business up and running. �It's just hard getting that money,� she said, adding she probably could have done it without the loan, but it would have taken several years.

During the last three years, 14 businesses in Lubbock have been created or expanded through the loan program. More than $517,000 has been loaned, creating or retaining 21 full-time jobs.

Each of the businesses involved is coached through the Small Business Development Center, which is funded in part by the federal Small Business Administration. The coaching is designed to help the small businesses succeed. According to MasterCard, about 60 percent of small businesses fail in the first two years. In 2003, about 573,000 new small businesses opened, while about 555,000 closed, the U.S. Census Bureau reports. Though Mata's salon has only been open a month, she is optimistic about her success.

�It's going great,� she said. �Maybe in two or three years, I'll open a new location. I still have a lot of stuff to accomplish, but I have to do it one by one.�