Tagged with small business …

May 03 2012
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crafters, craftmonkey, inspiration, mailchimp, Seattle

Seattle speed-networking event to connect crafters and buyers

Woman wearing monkey hatLast night I attended a preparatory meeting for what I think is a very innovative way for crafters to connect with local stores who might want to sell their products. Handmade Happy Hour, the brainchild of School House Crafter Andrea Porter and imakecutestuff‘s Marlo Miyashiro, offers crafters the chance to sit down with twenty local vendors to give their pitch and show their wares.

Modeled after the “speed-dating” concept, each presentation will last just two minutes. When their time is up, a bell rings and they move on to the next potential buyer. If all goes well, the crafters will have made some new wholesale customers, and the buyers will be exposed to some great local artists and makers they might not meet otherwise.

Last night’s session was for event organizers to provide tips on presentation and pitches, sort out logistics, and provide a chance for the vendors who will be attending May 29th’s Happy Hour event to ask questions. I was there repping my homemonkeys at MailChimp, a sponsor of the event. After the session, I had the chance to speak with some of the vendors and was impressed both with the products they made and how they approached running their businesses. Some folks were just starting out and had questions about crafting the perfect pitch, or using email marketing and Craftmonkey to help boost sales, while others have been in business for many years. Interested in applying to be a vendor? They are taking vendor applications until May 10th in categories like Children’s Gifts, Edible Goods, and Toys.

One thing was for certain: crafters love a monkey. It was fun to see folks trying on their monkey hats (that’s jewelry-maker Allexa Allamano from FoamyWader giving the famous Freddie wink) and digging the new MailChimp t-shirts (note to self: get a t-shirt cannon!) I met designer Isabelle Grizzard Robertson from Piano Nobile, who kindly offered to give me a tour of her and her husband’s Ballard studio (yes please!) and Kelly Jones, who works in industrial metals. Like I said, quite a variety of talented folks in attendance; here’s a complete list of artists who will be attending the Happy Hour.

Thanks to the Handmade Happy Hour organizers for putting this together and best of luck to all participating sellers. Love to see DIYers shaking up the way to do business!

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Jan 06 2012
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communication, marketing, startup

2-0-1-2 Launch! Tools to Get Your New Biz Going in the New Year

Lights spelling out Happy New Year

It’s a new year and if you’re like me, you’re launching a new business! That’s right, Social Glu is making its first foray into web app building and as you might imagine, it’s plenty hopping busy around here.

While I can’t yet say what the app is, I thought I’d share with you some of the free or low-cost tools that can help you, too, launch your very own shiny new business. Since my focus is on the marketing and communications side of things, that’s primarily what this list includes. Of course, there’s a bunch of other stuff to do too like business licences and tax dudes and dev environments, but we’ll save those for another post (or two).

  • Name: The first thing you’ll need is a name for your product and or business. It’s getting harder and harder to find an available name (especially one that has vowels!) I happen to love naming things and find the best way to come up with them is good old-fashioned brainstorming, a notebook, some friends and maybe a drink or two to get the creative juices flowing. However, if you are stuck, there are sites out there to help like Company Name Generator (which also runs a quick check on if the URL is available), Dot-o-mator (“Web 2.0″-sounding names!) and Crazy Namer (it’s true…they are pretty crazy.)
  • Website: Once you’ve thought of some good names, it’s time to see if they are available. Domain registration sites like GoDaddy, Network Solutions and Pear let you check availability quickly and for free, and their hosting fees are relatively inexpensive. Google being Google, they too offer domain hosting. You might have to be creative with the URL name (adding “app” at the end of your product name for example) but in general, it’s probably best to stick with a .com domain if you can. Other domain names like .biz and .net are fine and usually more readily available, but for now, .com still seems to be the respected industry standard.

    My advice is to buy any available domain you’re even considering, as it is better to own it then not. When you do purchase a domain, consider buying it for two years rather than one — it’s not much more expensive and one less thing you’ll have to worry about just as your new business is taking off.

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