It's been an interesting week - two radio interviews with the last one being yesterday. I think it went pretty well but as usual afterwards I thought of 1001 other things I could have said. Hopefully it'll edit well. Then I'm meeting with a potential new sales rep today at 11am and on Sunday I'm having dinner with a friend to discuss our potential new "hobby" business. And I'm packing up - once again - for yet another trade show. Thankfully it's the last one of the year because I'm sick of traveling!
In other news - I found, via NYTimes Small Business Section, the following website. I haven't looked at it in-depth yet but it could prove to be interesting for entrepreneurs or wanna-be entrepreneurs: http://www.startupnation.com/. At first glance it looks a little elementary and doesn't necessarily provide in-depth details about starting and running your own business but it could provide some good high-leve information.
Friday, September 28, 2007
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
If at first you don't succeed
There's a piece of equipment I want (one of many) that in theory would make the production of my product significantly easier. But it costs upwards of $10k not to mention how much space it would take up in my production space so it's really not a realistic option at this point.
In a moment of what I considered - at the time - pure genius - I found an $18 machine that would, I thought, mimic what the $10K machine would do so I could at least see if said machine would, in threory, work. I figured it would speed up production slightly but it would also give me insight into whether - when and if - I had a spare $10K laying around, the big beautiful machine would be a smart investment.
So I got the $18 machine and set it up in my kitchen yesterday figuring that if it went haywire the kitchen would be the easiest place to clean up. Rather than using the "typical" raw material I use, I decided to first test it out on some "other" raw material I had bought some time ago but hadn't exactly worked the way I needed it to.
I don't know why I thought that if it didn't work the first time it would miraculously work the second time with this brand-spanking new $18 machine but I thought it did. Let's just say the only smart part of this plan was the fact that the kitchen is, in hindsight, the easiest room in the house to clean up.
So after trial run #1 I took the dogs for a run (which is like tying two screaming banshees onto your waist and letting them go wild) and figured:
1. My husband was going to be working late that night and
2. The housecleaner is coming next week
Which in my mind meant that yesterday evening was the perfect time to try again.
So once again I went through the process of preparing the raw material (this time using the "real" raw material and praying that it worked otherwise I'd just lost a fair amount of expensive raw material) and getting it into the machine. To my surprise and amazement it actually worked! And I was right, it does cut down production time a surprising amount. In fact the $18 machine works so well for my current purposes that I may just hold onto that extra $10K when I happen to find it!
Lesson learned - sometimes thinking outside the box can lead to a giant mess. But sometimes being stubborn enough to not let the idea go means you may actually find success!
In a moment of what I considered - at the time - pure genius - I found an $18 machine that would, I thought, mimic what the $10K machine would do so I could at least see if said machine would, in threory, work. I figured it would speed up production slightly but it would also give me insight into whether - when and if - I had a spare $10K laying around, the big beautiful machine would be a smart investment.
So I got the $18 machine and set it up in my kitchen yesterday figuring that if it went haywire the kitchen would be the easiest place to clean up. Rather than using the "typical" raw material I use, I decided to first test it out on some "other" raw material I had bought some time ago but hadn't exactly worked the way I needed it to.
I don't know why I thought that if it didn't work the first time it would miraculously work the second time with this brand-spanking new $18 machine but I thought it did. Let's just say the only smart part of this plan was the fact that the kitchen is, in hindsight, the easiest room in the house to clean up.
So after trial run #1 I took the dogs for a run (which is like tying two screaming banshees onto your waist and letting them go wild) and figured:
1. My husband was going to be working late that night and
2. The housecleaner is coming next week
Which in my mind meant that yesterday evening was the perfect time to try again.
So once again I went through the process of preparing the raw material (this time using the "real" raw material and praying that it worked otherwise I'd just lost a fair amount of expensive raw material) and getting it into the machine. To my surprise and amazement it actually worked! And I was right, it does cut down production time a surprising amount. In fact the $18 machine works so well for my current purposes that I may just hold onto that extra $10K when I happen to find it!
Lesson learned - sometimes thinking outside the box can lead to a giant mess. But sometimes being stubborn enough to not let the idea go means you may actually find success!
Monday, September 24, 2007
Today's Tips for Business Success
As I was getting ready to get out of the "home office" and into my other office I had the Today Show on and they happened to do a piece on entrepreneurship. The piece was mainly geared towards women and entrepreneurship but I think the advice they offered can - for the most part - be applied to anyone. Here's what they recommended (I've added my own thoughts in italics):
1. Build your cash reserve - save up enough money to live without an income for two years. They basically said to figure out how much you'd need and then double it. Also take into account if you're going to have to pay for your own health insurance and other costly expenditures.
2. Strive for a FICO credit score of 750 or better to help get approved for business loans.
3. Know your financial risk - how much of your money are you willing to risk in the new venture if it doesn't work out. Keep in mind that most small businesses fail due to lack of capital, experience, and planning.
4. Don't be afraid of debt - initially use personal assets and then seek funding from institutional investors.
5. Seperate personal and business accounts
6. Base your business on what you know (this one I think is really critical. The office space I work in has other entrepreneurs in it and I see a lot of people who just thought that to open a business in that niche would be "fun" but don't have real experience in it and don't realize how hard it really is. The best story I ever heard was of a MBA grad who was working for McKinsey Consulting and had a very healthy salary. However, she really wanted to open up a clothing boutique so she quit her job and went to work at a clothing boutique with an hourly wage. If I remember the story correctly she spent a year there learning every single aspect of the business and then left to open up her own boutique in a different city. She has done exceedingly well and credits it with the fact that she went in with her eyes open after having worked in the industry for some time.)
7. Create a business plan - you have to make sure you understand your market completely (this one is also really important and it's worth remembering that the business plan shouldn't be something that's simply locked into a drawer after it's done but needs to be a "living" document. I desperately need to update my business plan since the business has shifted its strategy and am hoping to to it after the last tradeshow next month.)
8. Develop an exit strategy in case things don't go well
9. Be flexible about your idea
Resources:
Local Chamber of Commerce
Small Business Association - SBA.gov
National Association of Women Business Owners - NAWBO.org
Saturday, September 22, 2007
Uh Oh Radio
Wohoo! Look at me adding photos to the blog. It's only taken me - what - almost a year to figure out how to do it. :)
So why a photo of a radio? Because this is apparently radio week for my little company. I got a call yesterday afternoon from a retailer who purchased my product for the first time at the Las Vegas show wanting to know if I'd be willing to come onto their Saturday radio show and talk about the product. Of course I jumped on the opportunity - despite it meaning I had to call in at 8am my time - and think that I came off sounding relatively intelligent. The great this is that after the tradeshow I'm in good shape with the "marketing sphell" for my product/company after talking about it for the past week. So I think it went well and I wasn't too nervous about it being a live call-in show.
And then on Thursday I have an appointment with a local am station to go in and do a "CEO Spotlight" interview with them (which just ought to show how desperate my city must be for new CEO's other than the "big" guys everyone knows). I think that it's a recorded interview which makes me a little more comfortable knowing that they can cut and edit my sphell into something brillant. I hope it also goes as well!
Friday, September 21, 2007
Vegas Rundown
I've got to keep this relatively quick as I'm in the Las Vegas airport waiting for my flight to board which ought to happen momentarily. Very excited to get home!
The show itself ended yesterday and all in all I think it was a pretty successful show. We ended up essentially covering booth costs via the orders that were written at the show but from vendors I've talked to who have been at the show in past years all say that they get many more orders post-show from retailers who were there. Our first day was actually stupendous and I barely had a moment to breath. We wrote more orders that day then we have on any other day at any other show and handed out so many brochures I worried that we'd run out.
However, the second and third days were a little slower with not quite as many orders written which is too bad as otherwise we'd have been on track for a new record. I do need to go back through my records though as we may have hit a record with the sales from this show (I can't quite tell if we did better at this show then we did at San Francisco in February). Given how many brochures we handed out though - and we only handed them out to people who specifically asked and showed interest - I'm hoping that we'll get a lot of followup orders that will make this the most successful show to date.
Interestly there weren't any sales reps walking the floor - or at least none that I saw - so I wasn't able to get contacts for sales reps which had been one of my goals at this show. If I remember correctly, the show I'm going to in October did have reps last year so hopefully that will be the case again this year.
Well, they're calling my flight so I ought to shut down. I'm definitely ready to get home!
The show itself ended yesterday and all in all I think it was a pretty successful show. We ended up essentially covering booth costs via the orders that were written at the show but from vendors I've talked to who have been at the show in past years all say that they get many more orders post-show from retailers who were there. Our first day was actually stupendous and I barely had a moment to breath. We wrote more orders that day then we have on any other day at any other show and handed out so many brochures I worried that we'd run out.
However, the second and third days were a little slower with not quite as many orders written which is too bad as otherwise we'd have been on track for a new record. I do need to go back through my records though as we may have hit a record with the sales from this show (I can't quite tell if we did better at this show then we did at San Francisco in February). Given how many brochures we handed out though - and we only handed them out to people who specifically asked and showed interest - I'm hoping that we'll get a lot of followup orders that will make this the most successful show to date.
Interestly there weren't any sales reps walking the floor - or at least none that I saw - so I wasn't able to get contacts for sales reps which had been one of my goals at this show. If I remember correctly, the show I'm going to in October did have reps last year so hopefully that will be the case again this year.
Well, they're calling my flight so I ought to shut down. I'm definitely ready to get home!
Friday, September 14, 2007
Thinking Like Ace
Last night in my hotel room I got caught up watching Ace of Cakes on the Food Network. I don't know if you've ever seen it but it's probably one of my favorite shows and I highly recommend it if you enjoy watching shows about food (trust me - it's not your typical cooking show).
For those who may not have seen the series - it's about a cake shop called Charm City Cakes based in Baltimore MD that specializes in really off the wall celebration/wedding cakes. The type of stuff they make is probably more a feat of engineering as opposed to baking and always ends up looking phenominal. The staff is really a bunch of characters many of whom would probably not do well in any other work setting but thrive in the environment at Charm City Cakes and they're a blast to watch.
So how does this relate to entrepreneurship? Well it got me thinking about how the owner - Duff - always looks like he's having fun. Even when things go wrong - and they sometimes do - he never seems to get completely down about it and rather just approaches it with a "well, let's fix it and move on" mentality and that's what he and the staff does. Now granted, I know they also take a week's worth of footage and melt it down to one 30 minute show so there quite possibly is a lot that I'm missing but the sense is that the owner is having fun and, subsequently, so is the staff.
I think somewhere in the past couple of months I've forgotten the "have fun" aspect of entrepreneurship. Yes, it's very stressful to be working to build the company and knowing that any money you make this year is strictly based on what the company earns (and doesn't get thrown back into the company coffers) - but at the basis I started this company because I truly believed two things 1. there was a market opportunity for this type of product and 2. I thought I could do it better then most and have fun doing it. I still do believe those two things but somehow the "fun" aspect has fallen by the wayside.
So what I need to do over the next few days is reprioritize my short and long term goals and incorporate fun back into the business. Because if I'm not having fun then I may as well go work for someone else and get paid!
For those who may not have seen the series - it's about a cake shop called Charm City Cakes based in Baltimore MD that specializes in really off the wall celebration/wedding cakes. The type of stuff they make is probably more a feat of engineering as opposed to baking and always ends up looking phenominal. The staff is really a bunch of characters many of whom would probably not do well in any other work setting but thrive in the environment at Charm City Cakes and they're a blast to watch.
So how does this relate to entrepreneurship? Well it got me thinking about how the owner - Duff - always looks like he's having fun. Even when things go wrong - and they sometimes do - he never seems to get completely down about it and rather just approaches it with a "well, let's fix it and move on" mentality and that's what he and the staff does. Now granted, I know they also take a week's worth of footage and melt it down to one 30 minute show so there quite possibly is a lot that I'm missing but the sense is that the owner is having fun and, subsequently, so is the staff.
I think somewhere in the past couple of months I've forgotten the "have fun" aspect of entrepreneurship. Yes, it's very stressful to be working to build the company and knowing that any money you make this year is strictly based on what the company earns (and doesn't get thrown back into the company coffers) - but at the basis I started this company because I truly believed two things 1. there was a market opportunity for this type of product and 2. I thought I could do it better then most and have fun doing it. I still do believe those two things but somehow the "fun" aspect has fallen by the wayside.
So what I need to do over the next few days is reprioritize my short and long term goals and incorporate fun back into the business. Because if I'm not having fun then I may as well go work for someone else and get paid!
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Heading out again
I'm in the final phases of getting everything organized (and then hopefully the house cleaned up) before leaving tomorrow for a quick weekend away and then more or less straight onto the tradeshow next week. I've gone through the list of things I'm meaning to bring 101 times and I think I have everything - but yet doesn't it always seem like something is missing? And at this point I feel like I've done everything humanly possible to make this show successful so keep your fingers crossed.
As for my main goals from this show - I want to pick up some sales reps for what I consider to be my "high profile" parts of the country which is a radical shift in business strategy from this time last year. And I'd ideally like to make 2x more then spent on this show. Well, in truth I'd like to make 3x more but by then we'll be hitting the very bottom of my inventory and I have another show to travel to in three weeks.
Wish me luck and I'll let you know how I did when I get back...
As for my main goals from this show - I want to pick up some sales reps for what I consider to be my "high profile" parts of the country which is a radical shift in business strategy from this time last year. And I'd ideally like to make 2x more then spent on this show. Well, in truth I'd like to make 3x more but by then we'll be hitting the very bottom of my inventory and I have another show to travel to in three weeks.
Wish me luck and I'll let you know how I did when I get back...
Saturday, September 8, 2007
WSJ & the Coolness Factor
Two quick thoughts before getting on with my weekend:
1. The Wall Street Journal has an updated, new and improved, star-studded Entrepreneur Section (used to be called Startup.com). It can be found at the WSJ via this link: http://online.wsj.com/small-business/main?mod=4_1101
I checked it out this morning and it had some interesting web networking ideas some of which are applicable and some of which aren't at this point. Interesting nonetheless and definitely worth considering. I'm hoping this turns out to be as good as the New York Times Small Business Section so I'll have two new places to procrastinate at.
2. My dogs have officially joined Dogster (the friendster for dogs - www.dogster.com). Given that I don't have a Friendster or MySpace page it means that my dogs are now more hip then I am. As such, I've promoted them both to Director of Internet Marketing.
1. The Wall Street Journal has an updated, new and improved, star-studded Entrepreneur Section (used to be called Startup.com). It can be found at the WSJ via this link: http://online.wsj.com/small-business/main?mod=4_1101
I checked it out this morning and it had some interesting web networking ideas some of which are applicable and some of which aren't at this point. Interesting nonetheless and definitely worth considering. I'm hoping this turns out to be as good as the New York Times Small Business Section so I'll have two new places to procrastinate at.
2. My dogs have officially joined Dogster (the friendster for dogs - www.dogster.com). Given that I don't have a Friendster or MySpace page it means that my dogs are now more hip then I am. As such, I've promoted them both to Director of Internet Marketing.
Thursday, September 6, 2007
He's Done
I think my husband may be done with me. Not in a "call the lawyers it's time to seperate the assets" type of way - more along the lines of shaking his head and wondering what exactly he married in to (while knowing full well he went in with his eyes open).
Last night, right before bed, I asked him what he would think if I went into (another) business with a friend of ours. To his credit he didn't say NO right away and gave the brief outline I presented him with as much thought as anyone can while getting ready for bed, but I have a feeling that he was just shaking his head.
I'm actually not talking about starting up another "real" business - more along the lines of starting up a "hobby" business that could potentially bring in a little bit of mad-money for this friend and I to have while we continue to funnel money into our respective real businesses (she also owns a business). I also think it's one of those one-hit-wonder type of ideas that I could see doing well for a max of 24 months and then it's time to shut up shop. Obviously there are pros and cons with this new idea which I'm just starting to work through and no business idea is foolproof so there's always the chance that money can be lost...but it's an interesting idea nonetheless and I think this other gal and I have a good grouping of mixed skills and experience that could help make it work.
In the "real" business world - my funk has lifted and I'm back on track getting ready for an upcoming tradeshow. I'm pretty excited that the show is in Las Vegas only because I haven't been there since I was 20 (yes, too young to go to the casino's) and want to get a sense for it - though in truth I'm not much of a gambler (outside of starting up businesses). I'm also excited because I got the list of confirmed attendees for this show and it's a really good mix. There are certainly those who are outside of my business niche (reptile retailers...yick!) but there appears to be a good number who do fall into my classification so we'll see how it goes.
Last night, right before bed, I asked him what he would think if I went into (another) business with a friend of ours. To his credit he didn't say NO right away and gave the brief outline I presented him with as much thought as anyone can while getting ready for bed, but I have a feeling that he was just shaking his head.
I'm actually not talking about starting up another "real" business - more along the lines of starting up a "hobby" business that could potentially bring in a little bit of mad-money for this friend and I to have while we continue to funnel money into our respective real businesses (she also owns a business). I also think it's one of those one-hit-wonder type of ideas that I could see doing well for a max of 24 months and then it's time to shut up shop. Obviously there are pros and cons with this new idea which I'm just starting to work through and no business idea is foolproof so there's always the chance that money can be lost...but it's an interesting idea nonetheless and I think this other gal and I have a good grouping of mixed skills and experience that could help make it work.
In the "real" business world - my funk has lifted and I'm back on track getting ready for an upcoming tradeshow. I'm pretty excited that the show is in Las Vegas only because I haven't been there since I was 20 (yes, too young to go to the casino's) and want to get a sense for it - though in truth I'm not much of a gambler (outside of starting up businesses). I'm also excited because I got the list of confirmed attendees for this show and it's a really good mix. There are certainly those who are outside of my business niche (reptile retailers...yick!) but there appears to be a good number who do fall into my classification so we'll see how it goes.
Tuesday, September 4, 2007
One of those moments
I'm sitting here waiting out the feeling like I've totally gotten myself in over my head. Nothing in particular set it off and the day was going along pretty well but all of the sudden I got one of those overwhelming rushes that was saying I'm totally out of my element and somewhat directionless. As to whether the feeling was refering to directionless with regards to life or the business I don't necessarily know - but I'm thinking (hoping) it was about the business.
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