Small businesses flourish in Columbia

COLUMBIA — Michelle Baumstark vividly remembers when the company her husband founded had taken the next step.

“The first year when we did our taxes, my husband handed me a shoe box of receipts,” Baumstark said. “As we got bigger, it was a trash bag of receipts.”

Frank Baumstark and his roommate, Matt Tackitt, founded Tiger Turf of Mid-Missouri in 1996, expecting it to be nothing more than a quick source of extra money.

Michelle, then Frank’s girlfriend, said her job was simple. “My job was to role up fliers,” she said with a laugh.

They never imagined it would have turned into a successful small business. Tiger Turf was nominated for Small Business of the Year by the Chamber of Commerce this year. According to the Chamber, 80 percent of its membership consists of small businesses. Tiger Turf is just one example of the prolific small business community. Missouri had 508,900 small businesses in 2006, according to the Small Business Administration.

The chamber nomination, Baumstark said, made her think about the business in a new light. “Where you started, how you got to where you are, and how you utilized the resources that you have.”

Tiger Turf started as a way for the men to make some money while they attended MU. “Then it took off,” said Michelle Baumstark, now wife of Frank and co-owner. “We graduated from MU, bought out my husband’s roommate, and have had it ever since.”

Frank graduated from MU with a degree in nursing. He pursued that career for some time as an ICU nurse before opening his own medical supply company, Midwest Surgical, which he still owns.

“It is a perfect fit for me right now,” Frank said. “It allows me to oversee both businesses.”

Michelle graduated with a degree in journalism. In addition to her work with Tiger Turf, she works in the marketing department for the Columbia School District.

Both agree that they would not have stuck with their small landscaping business if it wasn’t something that they both loved.

Tiger Turf got its start mowing Frank’s fraternity lawn. It advertised the service through fliers and got much of its business from referrals. In the first year, it made around $3,000.

“We had a Hyundai hatchback, a wooden trailer and a really old lawn mower,” Michelle said. “We started really small. Everything was done by hand.”

To start his company, Frank borrowed from his family. That helped solve the problem of borrowing from a bank at his age. He said the hardest part was trying to turn a profit in the first year.

“We graduated and got more serious,” Frank said. “It was hard to find the right people to do the work and who want to be good at it.”

Gone are the days of mowing lawns in between classes. Tiger Turf now serves 250 commercial and residential properties.

Tiger Turf has transformed to a full lawn care service. It now does landscaping, landscape design, and irrigation maintenance and repair, among other things.

“It took a lot of hands on work, doing it yourself, and learning from your mistakes,” Michelle said. “You can read as much as you want out of a book, but that isn’t going to help you in this business.”

Tiger Turf has also become much more efficient in its business operations. All of its finances and scheduling are done on a computer.

“It is much more streamlined and technology based, which you wouldn’t necessarily think of with a lawn service, but it is,” Michelle said.

In addition to their quality of work, the Baumstarks take great pride in the relationships they have built with customers over the years.

“We’ve had good client retention,” Michelle said. “We have a lot of the same clients we had when we first started, which I think there is something to be said for our customer relations.”

Tiger Turf has no doubt established itself in mid-Missouri, but there are many challenges that the Baumstarks still face on a daily basis.

One of the greatest has been employee retention, which comes with the territory in a small business.

“One of the things about this particular business is there is a lot of employee turnover,” Michelle said. “We try to do some extra things to try to retain the employees, such as retirement investments and health care. We offer some of the extra perks that maybe people wouldn’t necessarily get in this type of business.”

Michelle added that there is a seasonal element involved as well. Although Tiger Turf offers commercial snow removal, they have fewer employees on full-time staff in the winter than in the summer.

The Baumstarks employ 12 people, including a general manager. They say they are expanding their business every year.

Although Frank and Michelle both hold other jobs and are busy raising two young children, it is clear that the company they built from scratch is one of their greatest passions.

“We wouldn’t have kept it for as long as we have if we didn’t enjoy doing it.”