Today's Entrepreneurial Musings

This morning's (very early morning!) shift at my part-time job provided some interesting thoughts:

1. I found out that another local entrepreneur is shutting up business after only 5 months of being on her own. It's unknown whether she was pushed out by her investor or simply decided to leave on her own, but one portion of the business is being shut down completely and another will continue to limp along - albeit without it's local celebrity (the entrepreneur - very well known and respected in the community). I was talking with another part-timer who is in the process of writing her own business plan about this turn of events and both of us are shocked that after such a short period of time they're willing to call it a day. Word on the street is that the business wasn't providing the returns that were expected, but I'm shocked that anyone would think a new business would be providing returns in such a short period of time. Perhaps they mean that the business was far off the financial projections, but even then, can't you just rework your projections, perhaps revise your strategy, and see if you can make a go of it for a few more months. All in all, I find it pretty sad.

2. In my part-time position I'm working for another entrepreneur who just opened up shop. It's sounding like she wasn't totally prepared for what she got herself in for as today she was home sick with utter exhaustion. When asked if she knew how much time and energy she'd have to devote to this endeavor if she would become an entrepreneur all over again she said no...that's a rough statement when she's less then a month into this. Granted, she didn't necessarily have experience in this specific industry before jumping into it so I can see how she would have a romaticized idea of what running this type of business would be - but isn't that what due diligence is all about?

Speaking of being tired, I'm also exhausted. Between the part-time job, last week's travel, and now trying to get all the new orders out tomorrow morning and then start returning calls from prospective sales reps, work on marketing, etc, etc, etc. I'm really tired. Someone I met at the recent tradeshow accurately called this stage of building a business the "slog phase." It's when you pour your blood, sweat, and tears into the business and don't necessarily see much, if any, of the return. He promised me though that at some point, if worked correctly, the whole process starts to snowball and all of the sudden you don't necessarily have to work so darn hard for every order and every single dollar. In the meantime though, it's a rough, dark slogging phase. But slogging builds character, right?

And so with that, I'm off to bed with the hopes of getting up with the sun this morning (which really isn't too early since it's winter and the sun doesn't rise until around 6:15am) and getting the rest of my new orders packaged and off to USPS. Anyone else have any slogging stories? Or any other news from the world of the small time entrepreneur?

Getting By With A Little Help from my Friends

Right now, aside from the two dogs (my vps), I not only work for myself but I am also the sole employee. I'm hoping to change that at some point by both bringing on someone to help with new business and then once things get busy enough hire one or more folks to help out with the actual product production. For now though, it's just me.

Well, that's not entirely true. I may be the only employee, but there are a whole host of folks who have helped and continue to help me get where I am/where I want to go. I've had friends and family work for me at tradeshows, bunked for free at friends houses when I travel, and received many useful thoughts and feedback about the product/strategy/etc.

Just goes to show that no matter how small your company, there's always a host of folks behind the scenes helping you out.

A Few Days Out

I've been trying to dig out from under the tons of emails that came in while I was at the trade show, start in on the orders I received, etc etc...but I have had a few minutes to rethink the trade show and I'm starting to realize that it went better then I initially thought.

I just ran the numbers and realized that I made more money off of this show (so far) then off of the one I went to in October. The problem I think is that I went into this show with higher expectations so I don't necessarily feel like I did as well as I had hoped. I think the biggest difference between this show and the one in October is that there is no "Christmas Holiday" bearing down on retailers that forced them to put in orders ASAP at the October show and over the past two days I've gotten additional orders via fax so I'm hoping that as people have time to go through all the stuff they accumulated from this show they'll send in some more orders. We actually ran out of all 115 brochures we brought to this show versus not even using all 100 I brought to the October show.

I left the show thinking that I wouldn't return next year because the cost-benefit tradeoff wasn't right, but now I'm taking a "let's see what the next six months bring in terms of ROI" before I make a final decision on the show. We haven't yet broken even on this show once you figure in all the marketing and travel costs, but we're getting closer and hopefully with a little hard work and a lot of luck one of those big leads will pan out into something really substantial.

Trade Show Results

This was my second trade show and, like any newbie, I learned a tremendous amount. I obviously learned a lot of stuff simply from watching buyers and other exhibitors, but what most impressed me is how willing the other exhibitors are to help me and answer my questions. I definitely came away with some substantial information that should help me in my next trade show and hopefully also help my business grow in the meantime.

As for the actual fiscal results themselves, it was a rough show. There just weren't the number of buyers who had been there in the past and most of the buyers seemed hesitant to pluck down money right then and there. We did run out of brochures and had to reprint them twice so hopefully some of those will come back to me as orders (each brochure had a price and order form enclosed) and I can make a little more actual cash off of the show.

The highlight though was definitely a few key contacts I made. There was one buyer in particular who could turn into a huge client if I play my cards right and there were several exhibitors with whom I hope to collaborate/share information so that in the end we all win. The biggest score though was an interview with the city's biggest newspaper and I got a great writeup - company name and all - in a nice large article with pictures. Press is always wonderful so here's hoping that it continues (and brings with it new business)!

Heading to the Trade Show

I'm packed and waiting in the airport...the product is packed and on airplane (or so I hope!)...I think we have everything we need. I'm hoping for the best with this show and am really excited about the possibilities this may open up for us. On the other hand, I'm terribly nervous that the product will get damaged during the flight...or worse yet, won't show up and then what will I do?

It's going to be a long long weekend but my fingers are crossed as are my toes. If you find yourself with a spare moment, I'd appreciate it if you'd cross your fingers for us too. :)

Back from Vacation With a Bang

I took a brief hiatus from posting while enjoying a little sun, sand, and relaxation on Maui this past week. The trip itself was fantastic but I was reminded that as an entrepreneur you don't really get time off as I spent part of the trip dealing with a government agency and even took an order for a new retailer while I was away. Course at the same time my significant other was also spending a fair amount of time on his blackberry so perhaps the days of the true get-away vacation simply no longer exist.

Vacation has ended with a bang though and it's now back to work. Not only am I leaving for a big tradeshow later this week (and have yet to finalize everything for that) but I am also starting another type of work tomorrow morning - at 4am!

As I mentioned before, this blog is about the uber-small business that doesn’t have any venture funding behind it. Despite the fact that I learned in my Entrepreneurial Finance class that an entrepreneur should take a salary from Day 1 – that’s mighty hard to do when the business is self-funded. I mean, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to cash out assets, plow them into the business and then give yourself part of it back in the form of a salary (not to mention the fact that you’ll be getting taxed twice on that money).

While one day I hope to take a salary or at the very least, take a bonus based on annual profits, we’re not at the “profits” stage yet. So what’s a gal to do?

Turns out that I’m getting myself a part-time job. The part-time job is not glamorous and the hours are crack-of-dawn and the pay pales in comparison to what my bschool colleagues are making, but it is doing something I enjoy, have experience in, and am good at. Plus, best of all, the part-time job employers know that I too am running my own small business full-time so respect the fact that I am only looking to work several hours a week and are scheduling those hours so that they don’t conflict with the typical operating hours of my business (like I said, these part-time hours are darn early). They also don’t have a problem with the fact that there are certain weeks that I’ll be out of town for my business and that I refuse to work weekends simply because I want to actually spend time with my significant other (to be frank, given my list of requirements I was shocked they offered me the job!).

Why am I doing this? I believe that every entrepreneur goes through a suffer phase at one point or another (perhaps more than once?) when the business is nascent and cash is tight. For many successful entrepreneurs we’ve all heard about, this is the time when they run up all their credit cards to make it through. That I believe is sacrifice because you’re at the point where you don’t know whether the business will make it but regardless you’re going to be paying off those bills for a long time to come (baring bankruptcy of course).

Unfortunately I’m not wired like that. My banking father drilled into me the importance of not running up credit card debt to the point where I simply cannot do it without having a nervous breakdown. So since my sacrifice can’t come in the form of credit card debt, I figure it should come in the form of a part-time job.

I’m not expecting to make a ton of cash with this part-time gig, but I’m hoping it will be enough to keep me from stressing about the fact that my bank account is hitting rock bottom and give me a little extra spending cash to buy that occasional coffee (I am in the Northwest so drinking coffee is almost a residency requirement) or even take my significant other out for the dinner I so owe him!