What start­ed as food al­ler­gies have not on­ly led to lifestyle changes for Madon­na Roudett but al­so re­sult­ed in a flour­ish­ing busi­ness ven­ture.

Up­on re­turn­ing to T&T af­ter spend­ing about nine years in Mary­land in the US, Roudett en­coun­tered health chal­lenges.

"I knew some­thing was wrong with me, but I couldn't fig­ure it out. I did a lot of changes, di­et-wise. I even be­came con­scious of what I used on my skin," Roudett ex­plained.

She went from sell­ing in­fused oils while abroad to now mak­ing hand-craft­ed soaps, nat­ur­al Castile liq­uid soap, vine­gar and ve­g­an and gluten-free ice-cream for the lo­cal mar­ket.

Roudett even­tu­al­ly dis­cov­ered she was celi­ac, mak­ing her gluten in­tol­er­ant.

Even the smell of flour makes her nau­seous.

"I start­ed mak­ing my own stuff be­cause I want­ed things that I could eat and en­joy eat­ing.

I al­so want­ed things that I could use on my skin with­out en­coun­ter­ing any side ef­fects. This en­abled me to start my own busi­ness," Roudett added.

Hence Niche Traders was born about sev­en years ago but not with­out en­coun­ter­ing chal­lenges.

"Start­ing a mi­crobusi­ness is chal­leng­ing es­pe­cial­ly with­out fi­nan­cial sup­port. It was even dif­fi­cult when sourc­ing in­for­ma­tion to start up and where to get the raw ma­te­r­i­al and even prop­er pack­ag­ing.

"I think get­ting af­ford­able la­belling was one of the biggest chal­lenges," Roudett said.

She said ac­cess­ing raw ma­te­ri­als was an­oth­er im­ped­i­ment.

"Big busi­ness­es want you to buy in bulk...like ten thou­sand or five thou­sand items, but most times all mi­crobusi­ness­es need and could af­ford is about 50 or 100 of the items, so it's a con­stant strug­gle," Roudett ex­plained.

Help­ing oth­ers

En­tre­pre­neurs and ar­ti­sans face loan and oth­er fi­nan­cial con­straints.

In this vein, net­work­ing be­comes crit­i­cal not on­ly for prod­uct pro­mo­tion but for de­vel­op­ing any busi­ness, Roudett not­ed.

In 2015 she found­ed the T&T Nat­ur­al Ar­ti­sans Group which is ad­vo­ca­cy for lo­cal ar­ti­sans, nat­ur­al and or­gan­ic pro­duc­ers on­ly.

"Of­ten, we are too slow to recog­nise how much and in what ways we can as­sist each oth­er through shar­ing such ex­per­tise and knowl­edge.

"The group is fo­cused on sup­port­ing, guid­ing and ed­u­cat­ing mem­bers to suc­cess­ful­ly in­ter­act with and en­gage the lo­cal mar­ket and build­ing long-last­ing re­la­tion­ships to pro­mote mi­crobusi­ness­es and en­sure a green­er T&T," Roudett said.

She al­so co­or­di­nates sev­er­al food fes­ti­vals like the re­cent­ly con­clud­ed Sor­rel Melee Fes­ti­val.

The an­nu­al Man­go Melee Fes­ti­val, an­oth­er pop­u­lar an­nu­al event, is ex­pect­ed to be held in May next year.

Not­ing that the coun­try's food im­port bill re­mains too high, she urged peo­ple to sup­port and buy lo­cal.

"Many of the lo­cal prod­ucts are su­pe­ri­or to im­port­ed prod­ucts and are not full of harm­ful chem­i­cals and preser­v­a­tives," Roudett added.

What is celi­ac?

Celi­ac dis­ease, some­times called celi­ac sprue or gluten-sen­si­tive en­teropa­thy, is an im­mune re­ac­tion to eat­ing gluten, a pro­tein found in wheat, bar­ley and rye.

Eat­ing gluten trig­gers an im­mune re­sponse in the small in­tes­tine and over time, this re­ac­tion dam­ages the small in­tes­tine's lin­ing and pre­vents it from ab­sorb­ing some nu­tri­ents (mal­ab­sorp­tion).

The in­testi­nal dam­age of­ten caus­es di­ar­rhoea, fa­tigue, weight loss, bloat­ing and anaemia, and can lead to se­ri­ous com­pli­ca­tions.

There's no cure for celi­ac dis­ease—but for most peo­ple, fol­low­ing a strict gluten-free di­et can help man­age symp­toms and pro­mote in­testi­nal heal­ing

Tips for start­ing a small busi­ness

1. Be pas­sion­ate

 Make sure you're on the right track by ask­ing your­self whether you feel the ex­cite­ment when you think of the busi­ness, and if it is worth the sac­ri­fice of your time and mon­ey.

2. Start your busi­ness while you're still em­ployed

 Be­ing em­ployed while you're start­ing out means you will have mon­ey in your pock­et to in­vest in the busi­ness, as well as to en­sure you can keep up with your month­ly liv­ing ex­pens­es.

3. Don't do it alone

When you're start­ing a busi­ness, ex­pe­ri­enced guid­ance is the best sup­port sys­tem of all, so find­ing a men­tor in your in­dus­try will al­so al­low you to learn from some­one who has al­ready been through the start­up process.

4. Get clients or cus­tomers first

 Don't wait un­til you've of­fi­cial­ly start­ed your busi­ness to line up clients, as with­out them, your busi­ness will not sur­vive. Spend time in the com­mon­places of a po­ten­tial mar­ket to net­work or con­nect with peo­ple over on­line so­cial plat­forms, such as LinkedIn.

5. Write a busi­ness plan

This is a key step as it pro­vides you with in­valu­able in­for­ma­tion. Cre­at­ing a busi­ness plan will al­low a bet­ter un­der­stand­ing of both op­er­a­tional and fi­nan­cial goals, pro­vid­ing cru­cial bud­get and mar­ket­ing strate­gies.

6. Do your re­search 

When you're start­ing a busi­ness be­come an ex­pert on your in­dus­try, prod­ucts, and ser­vices.

7. Seek pro­fes­sion­al help

If you need to write up a con­tract, and you're not a lawyer, hire one. You will waste more time and pos­si­bly mon­ey, in the long run, try­ing to do things your­self that you are not qual­i­fied to do.

8. Get the mon­ey lined up

Save up first, as well as ap­proach po­ten­tial in­vestors.

9. Be pro­fes­sion­al from the get-go

Every­thing about you and the way you do busi­ness needs to con­vey to oth­ers that you are a pro­fes­sion­al run­ning a se­ri­ous or­gan­i­sa­tion.

10. Get le­gal and tax­es right the first time

Does your busi­ness need to be reg­is­tered? What about VAT?

How will the form of busi­ness own­er­ship you choose to af­fect your le­gal and tax sit­u­a­tion? Make sure you find out all of this.

(www.forbes.com)