Advice - take it or leave it!

I am so grateful for the opportunity i had to attempt to build a startup company. I have been taking business classes for over a year now and this course has finally given me the opportunity to put all my knowledge to the test. I encourage anyone who wants to start a business to go for it! I learned 3 important things any wannabe entrepreneur must know! 1st, Organization is everything! We learned how crucial it was to be on-top of our General Ledger. A business owner must know at all times where the money is at and where the money is going. If everything is not organized the business will be in jeopardy of making stupid managerial decisions. 2nd, Marketing is everything, but be careful... Marketing can suck all your money away if you let it. It is important to strategize how we market the company. Do market your product unless you know for sure that this will make an impact; additionally, market to those who you think will have an impact on your business. Marketing to people who wont try and help grow your company is an unsuccessful marketing strategy. 3rd, and lastly, BE PERSISTENT. It is easy to take a break from the business. It is easy to half-ass the work. It is easy to put things off for later. It is, however, hard to work through the slow times. its hard to get creative. its hard to keep going when everyone else says its not worth it. But, when you work hard in the times that require it is when your business will blossom. A true entrepreneur is he who pushes through to the end. 

Okay, this weekend is huge for us! As i mentioned last week, we would be able to put our bows/bowties out for a christmas booth. Well, right now as i type, our bows are on display racking in the $$$$. The christmas booth goes from thursday until tonight at 8:00PM. Since i have to work full-time, my wife went and checked on the booth on Friday mid day and we sold out of half of our bows!!!! we figured there was about 400$ worth of bows on display and we already had to restock. We have not seen how the bows did last night or today(saturday). I estimate that the majority of our sales would be on the weekend days (friday & saturday). It is good to know that I hit my goal of $100.00. I think i am actually going to blow that goal out of the water!!! We have actually signed up now to do a booth in orange county next week too. This craft fair is fairly smaller than the one we're in this weekend but any opportunity to be involved in a craft fair is a good opportunity. I'll keep you posted.

We have some exciting news. Our friends are going to have a booth at a christmas craft boutique in a few weeks, and they said we could sell some of our bows there. We are really looking forward to this exposure and opportunity to share our product with more people. my wife came up with a few more styles specifically for this boutique. We put together a little christmas combination of red green and silver. We sent this to a few bloggers and friends so they can post it on social media. We feel like we got on the market just in time. We were able to work out the bugs in the beginning, now we have the product looking more professional and better packaging. We made some other cards out of cardboard that fit the bows perfectly. We played around with the logo a bit and came up with something new. We made some stickers and put them on the cards. I am really happy with how they turned out. I hope that we will have lots of sales at the boutique. It has been hard getting our name and product out there. I think it would have helped to reach out to the bloggers a little sooner- but once they feature the product, hopefully sales will boom! Below are a few pictures of the new products for the boutique.

Update:

This week was slow as far as sales go- but we worked more on getting some back stock made. I was trying to come up with some ways to get more people interested in the bows/aware of them. We have used social media to try and get the word out, but this week I really tried to push it and see who we could get on board. I followed a bunch of bloggers on instagram that my wife recommended- I was skeptical at first... and didn't want to seem pushy or intrusive or annoying... but I am glad I listened to her advice. We had two bloggers that have a pretty good following that loved our product. I got in touch with them via email and got their addresses. I am going to send them each some product this week- and they are going to feature it on social media and their blogs. This is going to be great for our company. We have reached out to all the people we can think of, but we just need to get to a more broad audience. I think these two bloggers are key! They will be very influential in helping us get a following, and a larger following means more customers! We are going to launch a few more colors this week as well- our selection for the first run was fairly slim, but now we will have a few more colors and combinations to offer. I really look forward to what happens with these girls... until then, I am going to continue to search for some more people with a large following that will be willing to help get the word out!

This little gal is adorable isn't she? Her name is Conley. She is my cousin's little girl. We got some of the fabric headbands made this week and had her be our model. These fabric headbands were the way to go! My wife has a whole box of scraps that she doesn't have a use for anymore. She asked me if he would take it to the trash and luckily I took a look inside the box before I tossed it. She is usually the resourceful one- but this time I said... "wait a second! We can use these scraps for more bows!" And that we did. These "top knot" headbands are apparently all the rage right now. My cousin was freaking out that we were making them. They were very easy and quite the hit. We liked making these much more than the leather ones. Now that we have both types available, we will test the market to see how they do. Our margins on both of them are very well. They each cost less than $0.50 to make I would guess, and we can sell them for $4-8. I love that both of these ideas for bows just came from scraps! We got a bunch of unwanted leather scraps- and good thing I held on to my wife's box of scraps!!

1st SALE!!!!

I'm not sure if I've broken the rules. let me explain. Originally we were given 20 dollars to start the company. this 20 dollars was to cover any overhead and/or inventory. Heres how i broke the rule, let me explain. I decided that we need to just start giving bows away to our close friends and family. Our hope was that our friends would meet people and they would ask "where'd you get that cute bow?" Our strategy worked!My cousin went to a baby shower and like every baby shower there are girls and moms everywhere!  My cousin dressed her little girl in one of our adorable bows and off they went to the baby shower. One of the moms at the baby shower asked where she got her bow! This was the same exact experience my wife had the week earlier- at no other place than a baby shower! She told them about me and how I was making them for a school assignment. So, this mom actually called me and told me she like the bow but that she wanted to get a white bow for a baby blessing. I had no white material! I couldn't turn down the deal. So, off to Joanns I went. I bought some white material and we made a white bow. We sold it to this mom for $8.00. We could have probably made a little more, but it was stressful when she came over. It would have probably been helpful to have everything tagged with a price on it- so we wouldn't be caught in a weird place. I think she would have been willing to pay more- but hey- I am not complaining! That is our first sale! Now, hopefully we can sell more!!!

This week I tried to focus on ramping up production. I worked on getting more leather cut out and getting the fabric organized and cut to size to be sewn. We have given a few prototypes to friends and family and the word is starting to spread. My wife was at a baby shower this week and a total stranger came up to her and asked about the headbands- she just had a grand baby girl and wants to come buy some this week. Word of mouth is going to be huge for this... especially amongst all the Relief Society women. :) We also need to perhaps work on another design for the bow ties. I want to experiment with a few different looks so they are a little more substantial. I got some pictures of the packaging prototypes you can see below- we are still working on some type of cellophane envelope to slide them into once they are on the card. 

This week we worked on packaging options. We tried to come up with something unique and something that would show the product well. We came up with a prototype that can display three of the leather bow headbands and some that will work for leather bow ties. We would like to get some type of plastic covering or bag to put them in. The cloth headbands were a little harder to come up with. The previous prototype didn't work for these.... It just seemed too busy. So we went with a tie on tag option for this. That will allow the customer to touch them and feel the soft fabric.... And even try them on their babe. The branding and packaging are so important. We want something that will look professional and appealing to customers.

We have made good progress this week. We decided to expand our options and also provide leather bow ties for boys too. This will expand our clientele and moms not only can buy headbands for their girls, but also bow ties for their boys. We finally got our logo nailed down. There were many proofs and it got exhausting trying to decide what look we wanted. We went with something that had a bit a juvenile feel to it and I feel like our audience will respond well to that branding. We chose colors that would be gender neutral- to reach moms of not only girls but boys as well. We are working on building inventory and perfecting the process. We hope by the end of the week to have some samples mailed out to friends and family so they can start spreading the world on social media. We are experimenting with some fabric scraps we have already had and makings some headbands with those as well. Once we make enough profit we would like to expand beyond accessories and offer bibs, blankets, and swaddle blankets also. We are going to press forward this week with branding and packaging and hopefully have some customers in the immediate future.

KOKO MADE

Well, I am getting hard at work on my business. Last week i wouldn't tell exactly what it was i was going to be doing but i am now ready to tell. I will be making Hair bows for baby girls. It is really easy to do. As i've previously said, my wife is miss creative and she has showed me how to make the bows. They seriously take no time at all and cost nothing. All it requires is Scissors, Leather, Elastic, and some glue. I was able to get all of these materials at the Fashion District in LA. My cousin makes hand designed custom wedding invitations and when i told her my assignment she was willing to make me a proper label so we can have a name. The label looks awesome. I'll Post it soon. Another one of my cousins works for linkedin and he is a IT guy. I haven't talked to him yet but I'm going to ask him to make us a website. We don't need a fancy website, just something that people can buys bows off of.
This week in my Business Class we were required to read articles and watch videos that will help us with our businesses. Some of the articles and videos talked about branding a business, creating a name, and creating business models. One particular article that really has stuck with me is from President Gordon B. Hinkley at the dedication of the President Hinkley Building at BYU. In this talk he says "

"Now, don't ever do a cheap or a tawdry or a mean or an evil thing, my dear young friends. You don't have to engage in these things. The world is on a slippery slide, it is going downhill and it is going fast. And you are as a beacon on a hill young people of rectitude and virtue and decency and goodness. Remain that way. Do not destroy your effectiveness. Do not become involved in any kind of behavior which would destroy you, injure you, hurt you, debilitate you in any way whatever. You don't have to do those things. You can stand above them. You must stand above them! "

There are alot of companies in the world today who are very successful. What this talk teaches me is to remain honest and humble. Do not try to cheat your company to try and make it successful; it will only hurt the company. i believe that as we do good in our companies that god  will help our company to grow. My father in law employs a lot of struggling people and his work struggles because of this. My father in law always tells me that God will keep the company up and going because he's helping take care of his children. 

Stay tuned next week to see some pics of Bows and our Brand name and logo.

This is the first post on my first blog. At the request of my business teacher we are required to create a business in one semester and that business must profit 100 dollars.  I started brainstorming several ideas but every idea seemed like it would just cost too much money. Karli(my wife) had been bugging me for months asking me if she could start a baby accessory business so when i showed her my assignment and told her I had to create a business that generates $100 she was jumping up and down hoping i would ask for her help. With my business skills and the creative skills of my wife we are going to start taping into the baby accessory business where "baby momas" are already spending millions of dollars to beautify their newborns. So... thanks to this assignment we finally had some real motivation to get us out of our seats and to get us moving to action. Right now i wont reveal exactly what we'll be making but i will say it is a cheap and inexpensive and the demand is high. Stay tuned to hear just exactly which baby accessories we'll be making and also all the ups and downs we'll be running into.
Best,
Joe Ford