Holly Furgason is motivated by many things, but comfort isn’t one of them. As the owner of Blue Sparrow Pilates, Holly has learned how to overcome major challenges — from dissolving a business partnership to weathering a major financial crisis.Listen as she shares what it takes to keep a business running for over a decade and how to build a loyal audience.Find us on StitcherYou can also read the transcript below:Small Biz Stories is brought to you by Constant Contact. Constant Contact is committed to helping small businesses and nonprofits connect to new and existing customers with email marketing. You can be a marketer, all it takes is Constant Contact. Find out more at ConstantContact.com.Holly: I would say that I’m… first of all, I’m never comfortable. So far, there’s very few time periods, not even a month where I’m like, “Oh, this is so comfortable. I feel really good about where we are.” So I’m always looking at what can I improve.When I travel, when I go places outside of the Bay Area and within the Bay Area, I’m always doing more education for myself. I’m reading books about business. I read online blogs. I’m looking to other masters in the field of Pilates, like what are they doing in their neck of the woods, and how might that influence what I’m doing?Dave: Meet Holly Furgason, owner of Blue Sparrow Pilates in San Francisco, California. Like many of the business owners we’ve spoken with during our first two seasons, Holly is motivated by many things. But comfort isn’t one of them.Today, in our season finale, Holly shares the story of her studio. From the initial inspiration to the trying moments when she wished she could skip town and leave it all behind.More than fifty percent of small businesses fail within the first five years. These are the stories of those who beat the odds. My name is Dave Charest and I’ll be your host as we share the stories of some of the bravest people you’ll ever meet, small business owners. You’ll hear how they got started, their biggest challenges, and their dreams for the future.Dave: Many of us are consumed with the thought of starting our our business. But what’s the difference between people who think about going off on their own and those who actually do it? As Holly describes the days before owning her business, listen for three important things: conviction, creativity, and commitment.Holly: I grew up as an athlete, playing soccer, all kinds of things and then found dance and became really sort of pre-professional dancer and traveled all over to compete in dance-type conventions and competitions. And was convinced that I was gonna move to New York and dance professionally.And somewhere along the way, I found Pilates and Pilates has always been associated with dance because Joseph Pilates’ original studio was really close to Broadway and a lot of dancers found it and realized how much it could benefit their dance career.And so I found Pilates and completely fell in love with it and knew that I needed to become a teacher. And I’ve jumped back and forth across the country several times but came to California to go to grad school for dance at Mills College just here in Oakland and had started a studio.Dave: A dance studio?Holly: Pilates studio, yeah. I did my teacher training in Michigan and when I moved to California, I was already teaching Pilates and I worked for sev...