Happy Hedgehog hoping to help small businesses grow in Pontiac – Pontiac Daily Leader

Marlon Eilts said that he was getting tired of hearing people follow the complaint narrative of Pontiac; the “there’s nothing to do,” or “there aren’t any jobs” and “there aren’t any decent restaurants.” Blah, blah, blah.
He decided to something about it, which was to begin a new venture called Happy Hedgehog to serve as a business incubator.
“It’s more of a passion project than anything else,” Eilts said. “We talked about it forever. With COVID, you had more time to sit around and think too much, so we just sort of did it.”
So, along with his wife, Stacy, and third member of the organization, Julie McCabe, Eilts opened the first office at the southwest corner of Ladd and Washington. The current location is across Ladd, at 741 W. Washington St. The complex consists of two buildings with approximately 8,000 square feet of space.
The question of what to do with all that space has been answered with a few already established businesses and a community Wi-Fi place called the Break Room.
The organization is currently spending most of its time on Anna Hoerner’s restaurant, Lola’s Homestyle Filipino Cooking, which has been in business at the Hedgehog location since March 2022.
“Without Marlon and Stacy, I wouldn’t have this,” Hoerner said. “I would probably still be working at other restaurants in town. I owe everything to them. They have been the best mentors and the best examples.”
It was a query made by Marlon Eilts that got Lola’s rolling. Hoerner was working at Acres Inn when she did a pop up of her Filipino cooking in March 2020, a week before everything shut down due to COVID.
Eilts asked about starting her own business and that Hedgehog could help.
“They made me come up with a business plan,” Hoerner said. “Stacy does all my books and Marlon is the big picture guy. He is who I talk to when I want to try something.”
“Without Hedgehog, she couldn’t really do what she could do,” Eilts said. “We created that space for restaurants in general. Hopefully, she is the first of many.”
Eilts said they have a five-year program to help teach business owners how to create and maintain a successful restaurant. The hope is that at the end of that five-year period, Hoerner will be able to find a new place and expand the business.
Eilts, who studied small business management and entrepreneurship in college, said he has already met with about dozen people regarding starting up a business.
“Two or three have kind of took it and ran with it,” Eilts said. “The rest are in shock and it’s like, ‘nope, thank you.’”
Why shock? Eilts said Hedgehog provides and outline of sorts on what to do to get started. He suggests the potential businessperson do research on the profession, including how much will it take to start up.
“A lot of people are skilled at what they do but are very intimidated on the business side,” Eilts said. “We try to remove those fears. It’s not all about the money, it’s the time you put into it. We can help you with the marketing part of it, we can help you with the bookwork part of it when the time comes for that.”
Hoerner was put through a gauntlet of tasks. Hedgehog had her cater an event, then there were pop ups to see how well received her food was. Once housing was taken care of, Hoerner had to come up with a menu, an operations manual and an employee handbook.
So, where does Happy Hedgehog come in?
“We help out with the branding, the social media, the advertisements, trying to help them do sponsorships,” McCabe said, describing her specialty. “Then creating a logo, a theme. We start from that and build from there. There’s a lot of little projects.”
The end goal for the organization is clear: make small businesses in Pontiac stronger.
“A lot of people are approaching us about business ideas that we get to have a little bit of input and guidance to, we get to give them a little push,” Marlon Eilts said. “This grows if Pontiac grows.”
Happy hedgehog is looking to grow a bit in its effort to help small businesses. One avenue is through video. McCabe is getting involved with this with the help of her husband, Mike, as learns the production aspect.
“It’s a lot, but that’s what’s nice about Happy Hedgehog because we can be completely creative,” McCabe said. “Here, we can do whatever we want. We come up with ideas and roll with it.”
That’s the whole idea of Happy Hedgehog, Marlon Eilts said. Being able to help people develop their ideas is what it is all about.

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