September 2025 Startup Grant Awarded to SparkFR LLC

Video Transcript

Marcia: Today I’m speaking with Heather Stewart of SparkFR who is our startup grant winner for September 2025. The startup winner is someone who has a business that is in development, startup phase, or that is up and running but hasn’t yet earned $10,000. I’m Marcia Layton Turner, one of several advisory board members, and I get the chance to learn about our fantastic winners. So, thank you so much for giving me your time. 

Heather, would you share a little bit about your company, where the idea came from, and how it’s been going so far. 

Heather: Well, my business is SparkFR and it’s for flame-resistant (FR) clothing for women. The idea came from my 20 years in the utility and construction industries. 

I know that it’s really difficult to find women’s FR clothing and just PPE in general. So, I started researching online, I started reading reviews and it’s a bigger problem than I thought. So, I thought, “Why can’t I be the one to change that?” I started looking into it. 

I’ve been thinking about it for quite a few years now, but I just didn’t know where to start. And I talked to a coworker recently, and they were talking about their business and they said, “You have to dive in headfirst.” So, I decided, “I guess I’m going to do it.” So, that night I came home and I filed for an LLC, and here we are.

Marcia: Amazing. Way to go. And, Heather, I didn’t ask before, where is SparkFR based?

Heather: It is based in Sacramento, California.

Marcia: Were there any resources that you found helpful in moving your business forward? 

Heather: I’ve done a lot of things the hard way, and I’m self-taught mostly. But reading a lot of the customer reviews has been really helpful to me, trying to get women’s opinions on what they need and want, and then getting credibility and legitimacy through certifications like the WBENC or WOSB. I think those were really helpful because people don’t really take you seriously until you have something to show for it, especially when you’re a new startup. And then just being persistent. That’s my biggest resource right now.

Marcia: Excellent. That’s really smart, looking over customer reviews. That’s a good market research technique, which we will talk about next. Were there any particular marketing strategies or tactics that you’ve used that you found have worked really well for your business? 

Heather: I think that trust and community or connection are the two biggest things for me. When you work in the trades, you have to be able to rely on the people you work with because a lot of the industries are very dangerous. You also have to rely on your PPE to make sure that it’s going to protect you. So, I want to build good relationships with the women who are going to wear the product. 

In the past, I have gone through the PG&E PowerPathway program hosted by Tradeswomen, Inc. out of Oakland. And they I think would be a really good resource. So, I’m creating surveys to put out to have women respond so we can get really good feedback from them.

And then the thing that I’m most excited about is that I’m going to be creating a mobile trailer that’s a fitting unit so I can take it to job sites. And once I have my gear, I can put it in the trailer, and we can do events or go to safety days and just get it out there, because one of the other biggest issues with FR clothing is the long lead times. So, when you place an order, it could be weeks, months before you get it, and then you get the wrong size and have to go through the process again. So, I feel like if we can have it available and ready for women to try on in the field, that they can get it faster, and then word of mouth from there, and just seeing the logo on the trailer would be helpful. So, that’s my biggest thing.

Marcia: That’s smart, and it reminds me of the Snap-on tool business model of bringing the tools to the mechanics. 

Heather: Actually, my dad, he’s a mechanic, so he always had the Snap-on truck come to our house when we were kids, and they would bring us candy. So, we would always get really excited about that. My dad would love going in there and shopping, and it’s a different experience when it comes to you, you know?

Marcia: Genius. Way to go. So let’s wrap up with one quick question about what our community, the WomensNet community, can do to show support for your business? 

Heather: Help us with getting visibility, just getting us out there. So, that would be the biggest for me.

I do have Instagram. I’m still building it. I just made it recently and then I have a website. It’s under development, but you can go to it and kind of check it out. But just getting our name out there and what we’re doing and that we’re trying to build this with women and not just for them.

Marcia: Amazing. Well, thank you so much for sharing your stories with us, and congratulations again on being our September grant winners.