Silver Linings: Businesses thrive despite--and because of-COVID-19.

• Author: Newman, Amy
• Position: SMALL BUSINESS

The COVID-19 pandemic has been less than kind to small businesses.

The Alaska Small Business Development Center's 2020 Annual Report, which surveyed 550 small business owners across the state, found that 60 percent of businesses experienced decreased revenue in 2020, between 25 percent and 95 percent lower compared to previous years. Fifty percent of businesses surveyed said adapting to COVID was the biggest challenge they faced in 2020.

Despite those challenges, business license applications soared during the pandemic. According to the Alaska Division of Corporations, Business and Professional Licensing, the state issued 25,309 businesses licenses in FY2021, a 79.8 percent increase from the 14,072 licenses it issued in FY2020.

Of course, the number of licenses issued doesn't equal new businesses opening their doors during that period. Some businesses that obtained licenses are still in the planning or construction phases. Others may have found the challenges of operating during a pandemic too overwhelming and either postponed or scrapped plans to launch. Others still shut their doors almost as quickly as they opened.

But there were bright spots, with some small businesses able to establish a foothold in their community and navigate their way to what qualifies as success during a pandemic.

Whether it was the ability to quickly pivot to a new service model, offering a niche product or service uniquely suited to pandemic life, or a combination of both, these businesses managed to succeed--not despite the pandemic, but in some way because of it.

Uprooting Delivery Models

Shutdown orders for non-essential businesses and risk-tolerance levels of owners and customers meant many small businesses had to reevaluate and quickly change how they delivered goods and services.

Sierra Roland owns Twisted Root Market, a small organic grocery store in Wrangell. At the start of the pandemic, she offered residents of Wrangell, Petersburg, and Prince of Wales Island the option to submit wholesale orders

through her network of small suppliers, who weren't initially affected by the same supply issues encountered by Wrangell's larger grocery stores.

When COVID reached Southeast Roland had just learned she was pregnant, and she was unwilling to risk her health or that of her baby. Even though Twisted Root was classified as an essential business, she closed the store to in-person shopping and switched to online ordering only with curbside pick-up and shipping as delivery options.

There was only one catch.

"We did not have a website at all, and we had Facebook and Instagram just for posting our specials," she says. "My husband became a website developer overnight. He...