Seed for Success | Empowering Women Entreprenuers

I met with Fast Pivot, my web development company, yesterday. They shared two new website designs with me. Both look great! I really like their vision. Hopefully we can complete the design process soon and move on to functionality. My coder, who wrote the canvas art designer application, is waiting for the new website so he can start the process of putting the application in it. He needs to make sure it works seamlessly with Yahoo’s merchant solutions. This may take some time and I’m anxious to start the process.

This morning my husband, Davis, and I met with Red Koala’s first mentor, Rosemary Coates from The AKA Group. She is an expert in manufacturing and distribution. She’ll be a great asset for us as we begin selling products. Our current production system hasn’t been tested yet, so I’m sure we’ll have plenty of questions for her as our business grows.

For now, we are focused on packaging and shipping. Our products are ordered one-by-one and are all different shapes and sizes. Rosemary suggested we call the big shipping companies and negotiate a rate. I had no idea you could do this. I always assumed that a shipping rate was a shipping rate, end of story. Our homework is to make those calls and position ourselves as a small business, with great growth potential, that needs a discount to meet budget constraints. We’ll see how that goes, but shipping is something we really do need a good rate on. She also suggested that we call around to local box companies to find the best packaging options. After we complete these two tasks we’ll schedule another meeting to go over next steps.

I have a meeting tomorrow with my primary mentor Christina Blenk of AFS Web and WomenOwned.com. I am very excited to speak with her and get her initial feedback of our company and vision.

Stay tuned!

Yesterday was a great day. I have decided to change the entire look and design of my website! I basically told the Fast Pivot team to re-do it all. I want it to be more interactive and have a simple design with a splash of color and GREAT pictures.

The original design was not what I had envisioned, but I didn’t have the resources to change it. My plan was to get everything up and running and at some point down the road (when I was making some money) redesign it. I now have access to a great group of women at Fast Pivot who are going to put together a new look. I am so excited to see what they come up with! Hopefully I’ll have my first peek next week. The planned launch date for the new site is June 30th, but I am going to do everything I can to push that date up. I am SO ready to sell some art!

Speaking of art, I have been working hard on getting the images ready for the site. We have several artists creating hand-painted images just for us. I take each image and painstakingly extract it from the background and get it prepped to be used in the design process. I need to make sure all the detail of the original is maintained. Technology today is truly amazing. When printed, you seriously can’t tell that the image is a reproduction. You can see each paint stroke. This is very important to me. I want the finished piece to look like an original. All of this takes time.

My husband, Davis, who is also the Chief Operations Officer, has been working on the production process. We hope to get to a point pretty quickly where we can buy our own equipment and manufacture these pieces from start to finish. We currently use a printing vendor and each piece is hand stretched at Davis’ family’s art gallery. Hopefully we’ll get too big for the gallery to handle the load. That would be a great problem. Packaging is another big one for us right now. The canvas’ will all be different sizes, and although not breakable like glass, they can be dented, dimpled, or punctured if not properly protected. Our goal this week is to meet with a couple of packaging manufacturers to figure out the best way to ship our products.

We keep moving forward!

It has already been an incredible trip. The response from friends, family, and strangers has been overwhelming. The best thing so far has been the number of people who have been inspired by my accomplishments. It makes me want to work harder and really succeed, so others know they can too!

Since Monday when the announcement was made, I’ve been busy. All three of my kids had the stomach flu – that was fun. I had two meetings with my web developer and an interview with a local newspaper. I spent chunks of my days trying to respond to the unbelievable number of phone calls and e-mails. In between all of that, I’m working on a detailed 90-day plan. It’s a lot, but I have had a huge smile on my face through most of it. I couldn’t be happier.

I had my first call with Fast Pivot, the company that is going to take my website to the next level. I know they are going to do great things! Keep watching and you’ll see a whole new www.RedKoala.com unfold.

On another website topic, the application that will allow you to design art on my site is almost complete! This has been a long road. I started working on it back in November of 2007. Unfortunately, I was told by a couple of people that they could handle this project. Turns out they couldn’t. I did not count on spending so much time looking for a custom coder. Long story short, I am so happy that this part of my journey is almost complete! The day someone purchases a custom canvas on my website, will be one of the happiest days of my life.

The traffic on my site this past Monday and Tuesday was the highest it has ever been. I was so excited to see how many people visited RedKoala.com after the announcement was made. I hope some of those people come back when I have a product to sell. I added this blog feed and a newsletter sign-up to the site. When we are ready to launch our fully functional site we will send out our first newsletter. Please sign-up at www.RedKoala.com.

I also had an interview with the Wall Street Journal, so look for that article in the beginning of June. I’ll share the exact date as soon as I have it.

I’m looking forward to meeting my mentors over the next couple of weeks. There is so much to do and I’m ready to get started. Thank you to everyone who has sent encouraging words. Each message is very special to me.

I am so excited about this program and the opportunity to share my experiences with you. I live in Woodstock, GA and have three wonderful boys - 6, 4, and almost 2 - plus a VERY supportive husband named Davis. My family is the most important thing in the world to me, but I also strive to be successful, both for myself and as a role model for them.

I’ve worked in Corporate America since the day I walked out of graduate school 10 years ago. I was fortunate to land some exciting jobs in Sports Marketing, but they weren’t enough. I always felt stuck. I wanted to build something from the ground up and make it successful.

After my third child was born, I decided it was time to focus on what I really wanted to do. I wanted a flexible schedule so I could spend more time with my family. That of course means early mornings and late nights, but at least I can go to the school play or take cupcakes on my son’s birthday!

The idea for customizable art came to me one night while sitting on the couch talking to my husband about what I wanted to do. We knew that whatever we did should capitalize on our background. I have a solid marketing and business background while he has an art gallery and frame shop. So we naturally decided to do something with art. But I didn’t want to just sell it. We needed to offer something unique and cutting edge. Then we came up with the idea for customizable canvas-based art. We knew this was “it”.

I started the business plan and found a web developer willing to write the program for a reasonable price. We then looked for talented artists and suppliers. When I applied for this grant, we had already developed a concept and logo, reached out to several suppliers and artists, and the website was under construction. I knew my company would be a perfect fit for this program. Every element they offered, I needed! The web site services provided by Yahoo! Small Business couldn’t have come at a better time. I was in the process of researching my options for product cataloging, merchant solutions, and web hosting. I will now have guidance in all of these areas and even some help with the design. My website is my company, so this element is very important to me. You can visit my site at www.RedKoala.com . It is not fully functional yet, but I hope to have it up and running soon.

I am also very excited about the mentoring. I’ve worked for both big and small companies, but I’ve never been responsible for every aspect of running one. The mentors will be a huge asset as I navigate the ups and downs of building a company. Carolyn Kepcher has done some amazing things in her business career, but I really respect her desire to balance work and family. I think it’s great she wants to help other women find that balance too. It’s not an easy thing to do, but if you work hard at both, you can do it. Bobbi Brown, the CEO of Bobbi Brown Cosmetics, will be a great mentor. She has built a business and watched it flourish. Can I have a better mentor than that? She will understand everything I am going through and have the wisdom to guide me through it. Cathie Black, President of Hearst Magazines, has probably seen it all. She manages some the top magazines in the country. Her experience says it all. She is a very intelligent and capable woman, and I can’t wait to learn great things from her.

The process of winning this grant was amazing. I think I had panic attacks every night after receiving the first e-mail from Yahoo! asking for more information. Every day I felt great about it, and every night I worried about it. I guess that’s part of starting your own business — and not the last time I’ll feel like I’m on a roller coaster ride.

Even though I felt in every ounce of my body that I would win this grant, I’m still slightly in shock that it actually happened. I have worked hard and have had big dreams for this company. Now I’m on the fast track to making my dreams a reality! YAHOO! has been my favorite saying for the past week, and I’m sure that it will continue to be my favorite for a long time!