Crafty Fort Worth Entrepreneurs Smashing the Pandemic to Smithereens

While hundreds, if not thousands, of small businesses in Tarrant County have cratered since COVID-19 hit here in February 2020, others have succeeded, and even thrived, because of the pandemic.

Take Piñatagrams, a now million-dollar small business in Fort Worth that sends 12-inch, candy stuffed piñatas to everyone from consumers caught on Facebook to corporate clients Google, consulting firm RSM, and TCU. Founder Nathan Butorac has been on a roller-coaster ride since the pandemic hit, from flailing to rising to pivoting.

“I didn’t think pandemics and piñatas went hand in hand, but they do,” he observes with a laugh. After losing some big corporate orders immediately when the pandemic hit, Butorac returned to his teenage roots as a Southwest High School entrepreneur and began edging yards again to make some money. He noticed the same struggle with people in his apartment complex who were freelancers in the wedding industry. 

Inspiration hit, and he hired the wedding photographers and videographers and other creatives to build a Facebook ad. 

“We bought $3,000 worth of ads in a day,” he says. “High stakes, but high rewards.” The tactic paid off, and Piñatagrams did 75 times previous sales over the next three quarters. “We were on a rocket ship trying to get inventory and fulfillments,” he said.

But at the end of 2020, Butorac found himself competing with election ads on Facebook, so he pivoted again. This time, he went to the B2B market and found companies hungry for “contactless touches” for customer acquisition and employee appreciation, so his focus went to his related company BetterThanALetter. Once again, the orders started rolling in, although this time it was in the hundreds at a time. Piñatagrams turned into a million-dollar business.

Butorac enjoys what his colorful piñatas bring to the world — especially during this time. “The world is in such turmoil and stress,” he says. “We get to inject a bright spot of happiness in a pandemic. It’s very rewarding.”

It’s too soon to say how small business fared during the pandemic, says Cameron Cushman, assistant vice president of Innovative Ecosystems at UNT’s Health Science Center and one of the founders of Sparkyard, a local resource for entrepreneurs created through a consortium of UNTHSC, TCU, and the city of Fort Worth. But Cushman says in 2019 (before the pandemic), new businesses in their first year created more than 30,000 jobs in Tarrant County in a study by Sparkyard.

“During the pandemic, we saw a whole lot of businesses go out of business, but the startup rates went through the roof,” Cushman says. 

In January, the U.S. Census Bureau said that nationally a record 5.4 million new business applications were filed in 2021, outpacing the 4.4 million record set in 2020. 

For college buddies Luke Hejl, Chris Clark, and Alan Dennington, the pandemic timing was just about perfect for their new business, TimelyMD. The Abilene Christian classmates saw a need for telehealth for students in higher education and launched their platform connecting students via their phones or laptops to health professionals in 2018. The company, located in Fort Worth’s Medical District, had slowly built up to around a dozen clients when the pandemic hit.

“We had a team in place and processes in place to scale,” says Hejl, the company’s CEO. “Then the pandemic hit, and schools started to shut down. Many started reaching out to us. Instead of explaining how telehealth can help their students, the schools were asking what’s the best way to implement the system. The conversation changed completely overnight.”

The slow and steady growth suddenly took off. Within the two years of the pandemic, TimelyMD now reaches more than 150 universities, colleges, and community college campuses across the nation and more than 1 million students, providing them with access to medical care at no cost to them. Among the client list are some elite schools such as Johns Hopkins, Duke, Notre Dame, and Georgetown. Others in higher education, like part of the California Community College system, also have come on board. 

The No. 1 use of TimelyMD services by students? Mental health. “Prior to the pandemic, 10% of students used us for mental health. After the pandemic hit, that went up to 70%,” Hejl says. TimelyMD’s Care Team, led by Dennington, a medical doctor, is made up of 500 staff and freelance licensed health care professionals around the country. The service is available 24/7, with mental health issues ranging far beyond overload during exams week. 

“We treat suicidal students every single day, and our outcomes have been positive,” Hejl says. “Our client card sets up protocols they would like us to follow in each case that allows us to communicate with others on campus to provide additional help.”

TimelyMD’s growth was a whopping 1,300% in 2020 because of the pandemic, Hejl says. Last year, growth was 100%, and Hejl sees another year of significant growth this year for the company, which currently employs 117 in addition to their Care Team.