A woman in North Dakota recently launched a new business that offers workshops for women in car and home repair.
The idea for the company, Misfix, was conceived while Amanda McKinnon was at the Women’s Startup Weekend in Fargo last April. An entrepreneur with her own marketing company, she was originally there to discuss her work and inspire other women. Little did she know that inspiration would come to her.
While discussing how her father had taught her plumbing and other handy repair skills, she realized that not many women had been offered the opportunity to learn these things at a young age. It was then that she decided to create a business to help women become self-sufficient in these male-dominated, but entirely necessary, areas.
McKinnon will be offering workshops throughout her community regarding home and auto maintenance and repair. In addition to teaching these skills directly, she also wants to empower women to ask the right questions if they do hire a professional to get the job done. With sufficient knowledge, women will be able to take control over repair and maintenance situations as they present themselves.
“I really want to instill, especially in women, that you can troubleshoot and take care of yourself,” she said.
She has been searching for experts in a variety of trades such as plumbing, carpentry, and electrical to help her teach the workshops, which she plans to start in the fall of 2016. McKinnon also intends to create an app that would provide users with basic step-by-step instructions for certain tasks, such as changing a tire or fixing a hole in the wall.
McKinnon seems confident in her new operation despite the statistic that 25% of businesses fail in their first year. She believes that her service will be an asset to empower mothers and single women in the Fargo, ND, area.