August 2025 Startup Grant Awarded to MHS Glass Polishing

Video Transcript

Marcia: We have the pleasure of speaking with the August 2025 Startup grant winner, Nicole Melton of MHS Glass Polishing, today. I’m Marcia Layton Turner, and I’m one of several WomensNet advisory board members. 

Tell us about your business and how it came to be, Nicole.

Nicole: So I’m very new here. The idea for my glass polishing company was based on a personal need. My husband has an up-and-coming home services construction business, and as part of his work, there was a door panel that was scratched [that needed to be fixed]. However, he was so busy that this job kind of just fell behind. It hadn’t been completed. So, in my free time, I researched things to try to help get the scratches out of the glass. There was a toothpaste home remedy that I tried that didn’t work, but I kept researching. I happen to be determined when I set my mind to something.

Then I saw some videos and learned there’s a toolkit and a glass polishing restoration kit available. There are quite a few out there, but I did a little research and selected one by GT Glass. I decided to just try it, to give it a shot. 

It just happened to be that, in our local area, there’s not a small business that offers these [glass resurfacing] services on a small scale. There are commercial businesses that offer glass restoration and polishing, graffiti removal, but on more of a commercialized industrial basis; they wouldn’t come out to do a small job, such as what we needed.

Although I’m still doing a lot of research and would love to sign up for the class that GT Glass offers to get a certification in the glass polishing, because there’s a lot of little tips and tricks, but I had some practice glass here that I put some scratches on and was able to polish them out. I discovered I have a natural skill for it. And I feel that with the need in this local community that this is a business that I can build gradually, and I can expand it once I have more time and experience with it. I don’t think it will be too difficult to expand this. 

There’s so much more that can be offered, but right now, since my skill level is beginner, it’s going to be a small startup. It’ll grow as my skill grows and as I’m capable of serving the community that we live in.

Marcia: And so, Nicole, as you’re talking about polishing, I’m picturing a clear glass shower door that has scratches in it. Would that be an example of a project?

Nicole: Yes. The door that I was talking about was a pocket door for an interior room, with a glass panel. This was in a den, and in order to let some natural light in, it had a large glass panel with a film on it. But when the glass was delivered, it was brand new, delivered from the company, it came with scratches.

And we tried to get the company to fix or replace the glass, but they said that they all have those little scratches, and they’re not really noticeable until you put the privacy film on them, and that’s when they become very apparent. But with the glass polishing and restoration services that I’d like to offer, I’d like to be able to do things like removing hard water stains from exterior home windows, shower doors, and also stove tops. Glass stove tops sometimes can get scratches on them. And these are repairs that can be done fairly quickly and really cost-effectively as compared to purchasing a whole new appliance or glass panel.

Marcia: That’s excellent. Are there any particular resources that you found useful that you might recommend?

Nicole: I can’t say that I have enough exposure or experience in that field to say that I have any good recommendations. I would recommend trusting yourself to make your dream happen.

Marcia: What have you done marketing-wise that has worked?

Nicole: I have so many ideas, but not things that I’ve already done. But this is a little bit of a niche, and it’s going to be marketed more towards Realtors, property managers—people who are in home construction, and people who do home repairs. It’s not necessarily a service that people are on the lookout for. It’s not something that your everyday average Americans types into their Google search and says, “I need to get my glass polished.”

The marketing I’m looking into is going to be a tri-county mailer in a home improvement catalog, and then mostly word of mouth. It’s a small community. We already know quite a few people in the home construction side of things here, so just anyone who we already know, word-of-mouth there, and then just looking into other advertising for the services that I’d like to offer that are actually services that people might need that they don’t even know that there is a service for.

Marcia: I would think that a problem occurs, and then they go looking for you.

Nicole: Right. It is born of need. Absolutely.

Marcia: What’s one thing our community can do to support you?

Nicole: I think just this conversation was helpful, just because of how new I am to starting a business. I haven’t started a business before. So just listening to other people’s stories of the trials that they went through and how they got through them, processes, you know, the first steps here, yeah, this is helpful.