Messenger to Owner

If Cruea today radiates an air of confidence, she didn't start out knowing what direction to take. As a high school senior, she wrote a humorous column that won a state competition and made her think she would do something with writing. Not in a position to attend a 4-year college, she earned an Associate of Arts degree in English from Bellevue (Washington) Community College in 1982.

Within 3 years, Cruea found herself managing the messenger and mailroom department of a large law firm in downtown Seattle. She ran on foot all over the city, delivering documents and filing them at the courthouse. She enjoyed good pay and benefits, a professional environment, and a chance to be outdoors. Then fate stepped in.

In 1989, after her grandmother's husband had a stroke, she called Cruea for help in taking care of him. Cruea took a leave of absence and went to assist her in Florida. While there, her "hip and cool" grandmother said, "I want you to go see my massage therapist." This was no ordinary command to take a relaxation break. Cruea needed regular maintenance of her neck and back after a serious accident when she was 16 years old. Someone had landed on her head while she was in a pool and left her paralyzed for 12 hours, feeling nothing in her fingers. Western medical treatment consisted of a cervical collar and Valium, which did nothing for her.

Then Cruea tried natural health measures with a naturopathic doctor and a chiropractor. Because her bones felt "all twisted," she got adjustments three times a week for a couple of weeks. She was soon able to drop the collar and the drugs. Surprisingly, no one had suggested massage therapy as part of Cruea's self-care until her grandmother sent her once a week to a tennis club in Florida, where Wanda Nicholsen, "a strong and athletic woman," Cruea recalls, gave her a deep massage.

As she got more and more massage, Cruea thought about her life and started imagining herself working like Nicholsen, who told her, "If you get into massage, it will change your life." Nothing could have been closer to the truth.

While Cruea was still in Florida, she had her mother research massage schools in Seattle. She even did her entrance review with Seattle Massage School by telephone. By the end of 1989, when her grandmother and her husband fared better, Cruea was able to return home. She started classes in March 1990, attending nights and weekends while continuing at her law firm job to support herself and pay tuition. One year and 518 credit hours later, she graduated.

Massage Bar Born

"We wanted to get people during the lunch break," Cruea explains. But she and her partner didn't have enough money to buy new massage chairs. Instead, they built a shelf against the wall in the treatment room and put four face rests on it. Then Cruea found four bar stools on sale. For the grand opening, they covered Seattle with flyers announcing free 15-minute massages. But the weekend before the clinic opened, Cruea hurt her left thumb when she suddenly had to stop short on her motorcycle; she couldn't do hands-on work on the big day. "So, I shmoozed," she says. "I walked in and said, "Belly up to the bar.'" A woman turned around and added, "The Massage Bar." Cruea says, "I jumped all over that clever name."

And she kept it, even after the partnership broke up 6 months later because they had different ideas about how to run a business. "I was clueless when I opened the clinic with him," she says. "We didn't have a partnership agreement on paper." But they did have a legal dissolution. "In our business divorce, he got custody of the clinic and I got custody of the name," says Cruea.

She is able to laugh about her learning-as-I-go style and her lack of marketing background. But she has an open mind and the guts to take chances. "Mistakes-R-Me," she jests. "I knew at some point I'd do something with the name." To further the bar concept, she later added Single Shot¨ (15 minutes for $15), Double Shot¨ (30 minutes for $28), and $1 off for a Happy Hour of massage. She also offers discount cards for regular customers--ten sessions for a hundred and twenty dollars.

"In business school, you learn formulas--thinking in the box," she says. "I took my creative energy and wrote a new business idea from the inside out."

In the interim, Cruea got a small place in Fremont, slightly north of Seattle, and put together a private practice for 1.5 years. With regular referrals from chiropractors, M.D.s, and attorneys, her work was primarily personal-injury cases with insurance billing. She also was reworking the Massage Bar concept.

"I knew I needed visibility, better exposure, and a better bar," Cruea says. Instead of using portable chairs, she created a square kiosk with face rests attached to the central structure. At first, because she knew and felt comfortable in downtown Seattle--because of her previous law firm job--she targeted office buildings and set up in the lobbies. And she hit the major department stores that have salons, such as Nordstrom's, and also explored Westlake, a downtown shopping mall with three levels--all to no avail. "I had so many doors slammed in my face by landlords," she recalls.

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