When the opportunity came for Sveta Yakubovich to open her own massage therapy business, seven years after immigrating to the United States from Russia, the believer in hard work and saving money took a pragmatic approach to starting out on her own.
“I might as well fail at 28 than fail later,” she remembers.
But growing Sveta’s Skin and Body Therapy from one massage room to many more in the northeast corner of Wichita’s Bradley Fair for 24 years hasn’t been about low expectations.
“I think I’m a hard worker,” said Yakubovich, a WBJ Women in Business Awards honoree in 2012 who this month was inducted into the Women in Business Hall of Fame. “I love this country because I truly believe if you work hard, especially in the Midwest, people are incredibly kind. I met so many kind people and the older I get, I realize it even more.
“If you’re a hard worker, people in Wichita will help you.”
Working as a massage therapist in a salon at the Wichita Country Club, Yakubovich began compiling a client list of Wichita business leaders. That included developer George Laham, who worked with Yakubovich on opening her own store in what was then a still-growing Bradley Fair at 21st Street and Rock Road.
“This was her leap from working for somebody to go out now, and we figured it out,” Laham said.
Yakubovich’s early expectations were modest: “If nobody ever works for me and I work by myself, I can afford the rent and I’ll be OK.”
Laham, in fact, remembers Yakubovich asking only for minimal space for her business, which opened in September 2000. But a local massage therapy business like Yakubovich’s was a good fit for the high-end Bradley Fair.
“This is what really separates us from a lot of centers in the country,” Laham said. “We’re very, very proud of our local tenants and we’ve had very little turnover of our local tenants because we have people that are passionate about what they do and they are tenacious.”
Tenacious and savvy are two words Laham uses to describe Yakubovich, who he called one of the most organized business startup partners he’s dealt with.
There have been challenges, such as when Covid-19 arrived in Kansas and Yakubovich let go of most of her staff. But a year later, the employee count was back up as Wichitans who missed massages were deprived of touch, she said.
Yakubovich, 52, has no plans to slow down.
“This business allows me a great life,” she said. “I have time to travel, I have time to work out, I have time to spend with my friends and family. I love coming to work every day, so it’s my definition of success.”
— Kirk Seminoff