Entrepreneurs

5 Essential Tips For Small Business Startups

February 6, 2012 By Twila Van Leer

Any small business starts with a good idea. But pampering it along until the good idea bears fruit is tricky.

Paul Wheeler of Manchester, Vt., who with a partner made Life Is Crap a successful business that markets millions of dollars worth of merchandise, shares some pointers on how to negotiate the rapids of getting started until you come to more peaceful waters.

Tip #1 – Ask Experts For Assistance

Before you launch your small business, be absolutely certain you have your idea firmly in your grasp. False starts make expensive lessons. Focus on what it is you want to do. Research to learn what is available that will move you toward your goals. Find out what the competition is likely to be. Be certain before you begin that you and those you may be working with have the skills necessary to achieve your goals. If there seem to be gaps, look for advice. Communicate with others who have experience in the area you are looking at. There is much available just through a search of websites that represent people who have ideas similar to yours. Borrow from them, but be wary of such things as copyright, intellectual ownership and other legal realities that could land you in hot water. Many businessmen who are dealing with the same kinds of things you want to do are often willing to give you a little of their time. Ask. Wheeler advises that “The ability to recognize what you don’t know is first and foremost.”

“You don’t personally have to have expertise in everything,” he adds. “Look for the best help you can get.” In his case, that involved gathering a small group that represented artists (they sell clothing and other items printed with “Life is Crap” messages) and others with business and marketing experience, Their business is based on humor, so it was essential that the creative element share that sense of humor. If you find yourself mismatched with any of those you will be working with, remedy it sooner than later. Too many points of disagreement can be fatal to even the best ideas. When you are sure you have found the right combination, let others do their jobs. “Let them flourish,” Wheeler says.

Tip #2 – Be Consistent

Stay consistent. If you are discouraged too soon, your business will be affected. Look ahead to plot where you are going. Set achievable short-term goals and stay committed to them. Make adjustments when you need to, but don’t jump from one thing to another. “Do it without losing sight of the underpinnings of your business,” the Vermont small business owner advises.

Tip #3 – Have Faith That Things Will Work Out

Wheeler acknowledges that a bit of luck now and then helps. One of the new twists for “Life is Crap” involves putting designs on Life Is Crap checks. And that little venture was pure serendipity, he says. He was attending a trade show and chanced to meet someone in the check printing business. A little casual conversation and voila! But the key element here is that Wheeler was in a place and at a time when other creative people were gathered. Even serendipity needs a hand sometimes.

Tip #4 – Have Empathy For Your Customers and Employees

He lists a number of qualities that he believes will help people starting a business: Have empathy for employees and customers. Identify with people. Hone your analytical skills and if you feel you are lacking, find someone who can do the job for you. Be able to laugh at yourself. Learn to really listen to others. Recognize that they may have something important to offer. Cultivate humility and patience. Try to stay fresh and open to innovation because things change. .

Tip #5 – Love What You Do

Most of all, you “need to really love what you’re doing and come to understand it thoroughly. If you are ready to “work morning to night,” he says, “You’ll probably make it. But people who have great ideas go bankrupt every day.”

Life Is Crap? Entrepreneur Capitalizes On The Fact

December 30, 2011 By Twila Van Leer

Everyone who is actually inhaling and exhaling on a regular basis knows it. Life is crap. Sometimes, despite our best efforts, we end up in the soup. Anyone over two has already learned to expect the unexpected. (Actually, it starts long before you reach two, but Mom takes care of it. It’s part of her crappy life.)

So, what’s a person to do? Paul Wheeler believes the only answer is laughter. The whole focus of his company — predictably named Life is Crap — is to take the inevitable, put it up front and visible and laugh it off. “It’s our mission,” says Wheeler of his Manchester, Vt., company. Together with his partner, Ken Lefevre, they have successful brought the company to the marketplace.

“Everything we do revolves around the idea that crap happens and that laughter is the cure.”

That means the message shows up on T-shirts, caps —anywhere an individual can make a statement on the way things are in this troubled world. The company is now expanding into cheap checks that give folks a frequent opportunity to reflect on the vagaries of life and apply their sense of humor. “We’ve seen what works, now we’re scaling up. We’re always looking for ways to expand.” Always within the boundaries of the basic concept, he adds. That careful attention to sticking to initial principles has turned Life is Crap into a $10 million dollar enterprise.

If you ended up with a bad split in the bowling alley, there it is—a shirt showing the ball rolling easily between the two widely separated pins. Out of wine? Lament the fact with a public display of the empty glass. The bicycle depicted crashing into the pile of dirt at the bottom of the hill? It has happened to all of us. Wheeler and crew simply take the universal hazards of everyday living and put them out there where everyone can laugh along. The company customizes such items as magnets, books, calendars, shirt, caps, towels, hoodies, key rings, shot glasses, beer steins, decals, greeting cards, page a day calendars items— any desired surface that will accommodate an image.

Looking at the irritations of life might seem like a negative approach, but those who retail his products don’t seem to mind, Wheeler has found. No one has ever complained. Of course, that means finding the best outlets for Life is Crap merchandise. Someone lacking the sense of humor to appreciate the products, obviously, isn’t the one to present them to his purchasing public, Wheeler has found. The bah-humbuggers who refuse to find humor in life are to be avoided. And there are, believe it or not, some “crap” areas that don’t translate well to the buying public.

There have been some bombs along the learning curve. The company thought that politics was a logical target for its kind of humor and found that, in fact, no serious person of any political persuasion wanted anyone publicly poking fun at their well-known areas of crap. That venture was a failed effort that cost time and money, he said.

Another spot too sensitive to subject it to humor, the company found, is the current economy. No merchant wanted his customers reminded that times are tough. The popular idea of what’s funny changes with time and events, Life is Crap has found, but there is always plenty of grist for its mill in just the ongoing, everlasting irritations that humans endure. The company expects to continue to thrive on items that make the enduring easier.

The whole road to success, Wheeler said, has been a process of trial and error. When the group started, they were up against the same basic questions each new small business faces. How to put their ideas into concrete products. How to find the best business model to meet their goals. How to allocate the existing resources most effectively. Where to find the most effective market outlets. They spent a year in development.

To date, the company has developed some 500 images, licensed them and marketed through over 1100 stores. As the small business got a toe hold in the market, the next logical step was putting the goods online, he said. “We buy back product from the manufacturer and sell it online. We’ve done well and have seen it grow. Now we are focused on getting traffic to our site.”

The basic concept for Life is Crap requires employees who are in tune, he said. The group is small—just five employees—but they comprise the gamut of artistic and business savvy that is making Life is Crap a growing concern. Being constantly alert to possibilities has contributed to the growing of the company’s product lines. Pure serendipity, in fact, had a hand in bringing designer checks into the fold. Wheeler, et al, met the owner of Carousel Checks during a trade show. There was an exchange of ideas and voila! Another licensing arrangement was born.

Life Is Crap T-Shirts — Fun T-Shirts By Life Is Crap

In 2012, the company will be focused in building and expanding our direct to consumer internet business. New products to be launched include several other related sub-brands: Life is Poop — for infants, Life is Ruff for dog lovers, Old Life is Crap for Senior Citizens, College Life is Crap for College Students and Life is Beer — for BEER LOVERS.

The fact that life is crappy is not likely to end soon. There is always the bird overhead looking for a place to unload. That bodes well for Wheeler and Life is Crap as they look for new targets for their brand of humor.

Quickbooks Merchant Services Developer Earns Reward

October 16, 2011 By Sherry Tingley

Quickbooks Merchant Services Inventor — Hugh Molotsi of Intuit, receives an award of $1 million dollars.

On August 31, 2011, Hugh Molotsi received the “Founders Innovation Award,” for his role in the development of Quickbooks Merchant Services. An employee of Intuit for many years, Hugh discovered a business problem by talking to business owners about why they weren’t use credit card processing and the most frequent response he got was that they didn’t know how to do it.

Quickbooks Merchant Services Impact

Providing a solution to that problem was the beginning of the creation of Quickbooks Merchant Services which Hugh was instrumental in developing. It was released in 1999. Within two months, the business was profitable. Within the first year, they had 3,000 customers. The next year, business tripled to 10,000 customers and revenue tripled as well. Intuit’s future businesses were built on the fundamentals that the Quickbooks Merchant Services had. Now most of their customers, revenues and profits are from Quickbooks Merchant Services customers. Most of the Intuit businesses today and most of them for tomorrow are because of Quickbooks Merchant Services.

Through Hugh’s leadership he has earned two leadership in excellence awards and four of Intuit’s Innovation Awards. According to Intuit founder, Scott Cook, he is a classic leader and teacher. He is a continuous learner and focuses on self-improvement. He received Intuit’s special recognition, special access to Intuit events, and a financial reward of $1,000,000.00.

Intuit Company Development

Intuit has produced the popular accounting software, Quicken for personal finance, Quickbooks, and Turbo Tax. Intuit is a financial services company founded in 1983 by Scott Cook, former employee of Proctor & Gamble and Tom Proulx, a computer programmer studying at Stanford University. These two brilliant people worked together to help make people’s lives easier by creating the first software accounting program for families and businesses.

Intuit now has a revenue of $3.9 billion dollars, was ranked #44 by CNN as one of the top companies to work for and was ranked in Forbes magazine as one of the top 100 most inventive companies. Their mission statement is to remain “driven by our passion for inventing solutions to solve important problems, perfecting those solutions and delighting our customers.” Intuit makes a practice of rewarding their innovative employees by giving them special recognition and handsomely rewarding them financially. Intuit has become a success story inspiring people from all walks of life.

Founder of Intuit

Scott Cook co-founded Intuit Inc. in 1983 and now serves as the chairman of the Executive Committee. He earned an MBA from Harvard University and received a bachelor’s degree in economics and mathematics from the University of Southern California. Cook is a member of the board of directors of eBay; Procter & Gamble; the Asia Foundation; the Harvard Business School Dean’s Advisory Board; the Center for Brand and Product Management at the University of Wisconsin; and the Intuit Scholarship Foundation.
Quickbooks Checks

Young Entrepreneurs Paint The Walls

April 11, 2011 By Sherry Tingley

Young Entrepreneurs Created Idea Paint — IdeaPaint can cover an entire wall.

Business Week magazine reported that over the last ten years, the highest rate of entrepreneurial activity belongs to the 55-64 age group of people. Since some of these people have had to reinvent their careers because of job loss or lack of being prepared for retirement, that makes sense. However, the under thirty group seems to be making some significant contributions.

The 2008 invention of erasable paint was the brainchild of three college roommates. John Goscha, Jeff Avallon and Morgan Newman, all graduates of Babson College, ranked #1 among all business schools for entrepreneurship, got together and developed this product.

Class instructors at Babson College often require students to brainstorm with each other to find the best solutions to problems. When John Goscha, Jeff Avallon and Morgan Newman became frustrated with the small area of white board they used to write down their own brainstorming ideas, they wondered if they would have a more productive session if they had a bigger space to write on. After hanging paper all over the walls to help them have a bigger writing area, they came up with the innovative idea of using a paint that would act as a whiteboard. These three men believed that if you could land a rocket ship on the moon, then certainly you could create a paint with an erasable surface.

Their plan to create a unique paint presented many challenges. They worked with two different labs to create the paint. Paint samples, when applied to a wall, produced an unappealing crackling effect, giving the wall the appearance of a shattered window. Other paint samples would dry and start to sag and droop. Finally, the chemists at both labs claimed the job was impossible. At this point the three were in debt and without a product.

Following in Thomas Edison’s footsteps, they continued on, despite failing results. Persisting in following through with their product plans, the entrepreneurs contacted CAS-MI laboratories in Michigan. CAS-MI, a firm that specializes in coatings and paint testing, has a friendly company motto that says “problems in – solutions out.” Within a short period of time, the formula for erasable paint was created. After testing the paint and finding that the erasing was flawless, the three men were pleased. They launched their new erasable paint product in June of 2008.

At a national trade show, they covered a 3,000 square foot wall with the erasable paint. It wasn’t long before people were impressed with the new paint and could envision using the paint on all kinds of surfaces. The paint appealed to cash strapped schools who couldn’t afford to invest in white boards. Customers for the new paint included businesses, schools, universities, and government agencies. Companies and businesses like Nike, Microsoft and MIT quickly became advocates of the new erasable paint.

The new erasable paint became so successful it began to change the business of white boards. In 2009, company sales reached up to $2 million. In 2010, sales were close to $12 million. Sales for 2012 are projected to reach $250 million and the reinvented paint is now sold in twenty different countries.

John Goscha, Jeff Avallon and Morgan Newman ranked number 13, 14, and 15 respectively in Inc. magazines’ “30 under 30” – America’s coolest young entrepreneurs.

Small business owners prepare for financial success by ordering business checks online. Checks are up to 50% off regular bank prices.

Do Small Business Start Up Strategies Work?

February 7, 2011 By Sherry Tingley

Small business start ups can help you to take back control of your financial future. Developing a small business is not only possible, but is an excellent strategy to use in 2011. Having your small business become successful is not beyond your reach. There are people doing it all the time.

Backcountry.com, a strong, successful company based in Utah, began in 1996 by two-time Olympic Nordic ski jumper Jim Holland, and writer-entrepreneur John Bresee.

They started their business in their garage, with $2,000, a website and no inventory. Now the company sells premium outdoor gear online and has become a major player in the outdoor gear niche. Today they have over 700 employees and sell products from over 1,000 different brands.

Jill Layfield, the new CEO of Backcountry.com reports that growth in their business has gone from a high of 3,000 orders in a day to new high of 40,000 orders in a day. Her advice to business startups is to stay hungry and stay nimble.

Starting a new business is not without struggles, challenges and hurdles. Amy Cosper, editor in chief for Entrepreneur.com says that the biggest mistake small business start ups make is not financially planning properly. Funding the startup business is one of the biggest hurdles you will have. Lines of credit are disappearing. Banks are not loaning money. However, if you do have a good business plan and can communicate it effectively, the money is there and you can find it.

The second mistake is not having a clear picture of what your business really is. “If you cannot tell me your business idea in two sentences or less, you really have to rethink it.”

Cosper’s best advice is to really know the market you are going into and understand the competitive landscape and the financial modeling. “The biggest pieces of advice I have to give you is to never take no for an answer and follow your gut. It’s more gut than it is spreadsheet.”

Entrepreneurs need to realize that there really is no ceiling on the amount of money they can make. Income ceilings exist in salaried jobs, but entrepreneurial risk takers enjoy the sweetness of life without the politics of others “opinions” about your job performance.