Woman, 43, makes nearly $1million in less than a year after emptying savings

Jenny Nguyen, 43, has brought in nearly $1million in less than a year after using her life savings to open an innovative sports bar.

Last month, she celebrated the first-year anniversary of opening the first-of-its-kind establishment in Portland, Oregon.

The Sports Bra is a bar dedicated to only showing sports events where women are playing in them.

Even with inflation at record highs in the last 12 months, the venue has been widely successful.

According to financial records viewed by CNBC Make It, Ms Nguyen’s bar earned around $944,000 (£757,396.40) in the eight months it was open last year.

The entrepreneur shared with CNBC that the Sports Bra had become profitable within its first year of operations.

She explained: “It turns out, it’s pretty universal — that feeling of being a women’s sports fan and going into a public place, like a sports bar, and having a difficult time finding a place to show a [women’s] game, especially when there are other men’s sports playing.”

Despite being “very cautious, risk-averse”, the businesswoman recognised there was room in the market for a sports bar geared towards women.

To make this idea turn into a reality, she used the entirety of her life savings, about $27,000 (£21,662.82) to fund her venture.

As well as this, Ms Nguyen had $40,000 (£32,130.80) worth of loans from family and friends to keep the business up and running for the first few months.

Last February, she launched a Kickstarter campaign which was initially set to raise $48,000 (£38,556.96) but instead brought in $105,000 (£84,343.35).

At this point, the budding entrepreneur became confident that “this [business] might work”.

Willing to take the risk, Ms Nguyen said: “Me, personally, I thought the idea was brilliant and that [it was] what the world needs.

“But I had no idea that the world would want it. I just wanted to give it a shot.”

The basketball fan used to play sports at Clark College in Vancouver, Washington before she suffered an injury.

Prior to opening the Sports Bra, she had worked within the restaurant sector, including as an executive chef.

While out with friends in 2018, her group has to convince the patron of an empty sports bar to switch over the television screens to play a women’s basketball championship game.

After watching “one of the best games I’ve ever seen”, Ms Nguyen wished there was a better place for them to watch and decide to brainstorm ideas.

She came up with starting her own sports bra and soon settled on the name that would eventually be used.

The bar owner added: ″[We’d] gotten so used to watching a game like that in the way that we did.

“The very first thing that came into my mind was The Sports Bra. And once I thought it, I couldn’t un-think it, you know? It was catchy. I thought it was hilarious.”

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