Starting a Children's Clothing Line & Apparel Manufacturing Business

I'm back to posting here....

2012-07-04T10:08:00.000-07:00

It all got to be too much to maintain and I lost the startupkidsline.com domain. This is a big bad thing that happened on my part, but it's been crazymaking around here.

We're making it through the recession by the hair of our chinny-chin-chins. I'm determined to keep Baby Fabulous going, so I've also been working full-time from home as a Senior Technical Writer.
I have learned so much in the last almost SIX years since we first launched and I'm completely 100% committed to growing this business baby step by baby step from here on out.

We finally have the new personalized blanket designer in the works and I have an entirely new vision for our company. Or maybe it was the vision I originally had and I just went astray.

Why aren't we madly booming by this time? Because starting a business has been like going to school for me. I have had so much to learn. I was so confident in so many ways when we launched, but it was a naive confidence. Now I have a seasoned confidence, or I feel I do anyway. I feel big things on the horizon and I'm back to sharing all the good, the bad, and the completely fabulous with you.

So who is out there and what are you doing? Starting your own business? Going to fashion design school? Learning about manufacturing and product development? Tell me, tell me, tell me!! I would love to hear your stories....

Posting on Start Up Kids Line Blog

2006-11-27T08:47:00.000-08:00

I've started posting on my new blog at: http://www.startupkidsline.com. I'll update the email subscriptions in the next week or so.

:-)

A few fashion design questions, can I possibly help??

2006-11-06T22:37:00.000-08:00

I've been asked a few questions lately that I've been meaning to answer. I've just been too tired at night to do it. It's nice to have Kathleen Fasanella comment on my blog because I admire her; and Kathleen, I want you to know that I find your blog and your book invaluable. I think that I would have more to link to if I wasn't so in the midst of marketing, advertising, sales, and creating a buzz right now. I recommend your book to everyone I can! :-) Everyone - visit www.fashion-incubator.com for information on the logistics of producing a line!!

I had a question about press kits and what was included. Here is what I included in my first press kit:

sample blanket packaged in our signature gift wrap
retail brochure (we also have a wholesale brochure; both of which, of course, I've hated since just one measely day after I loved them and was satisfied with them).
business card
letter to the editor

I've recently read that you're supposed to add a well-written press release to your press kits, but this seems weird to me. I think I'm still happier with a personal letter. We've received favorable press now, so maybe there is a way to high-light that in our next press kit. I feel like I'm finally seeing through some of the fog,and I have to remind myself that I'm in this business because I believe my style is different and unique. And this is a good thing - so my press kits can be different too.

You get so caught up in the learning experience and "how is this done, how is that done?", that you forget - it's better to think out-of-the-box in this biz. Basically remind yourself that you don't have to do what everybody else does - you only have to do what you love. Watch The Apprentice and see how they craft unique catalogs and ads and think that way. And think about what kind of information you would want to see if you were going to place an order from a company. With a press kit - think of a WOW factor. You need to stand out.

That being said, I can also share what type of media I've recieved both as boutique owner and a manufacturer:

Some fabric vendors send simple cards with their logo in the top and tiny swatches of fabric. I have considered doing this for our blanket line sheets.
(line sheet is a page with technical sketch, item number, product description, and contact information. Your price sheet is a seperate document that lists prices by item number.)
I've received everything from a simple postcard to the whole kit: price list, catalog, line sheets, swatches, etc.
When I was an Arts & Entertainment editor I would receive everything from cds and bumper stickers to head shots and entire flashy kits of movies (often with sneak preview tickets - so there's an idea worth incorporating).

I'll try to get our line sheets uploaded to our site so I can link to them. Once I finally finished those suckers, I realized that I had been making it more complicated than necessary. But man, did I take forever to buckle down and get those done.

I have some production questions that I'll tackle tomorrow. Have a good night everyone. I wanted to write about "support", but again, too tired. It's good to have a few topics to look forward to though I guess...

Have to get into the marketing & advertising

2006-10-29T15:32:00.000-08:00

It seems like one thing leads to another. Our feature in Tot Trends Weekly has led to at least SOME more attention - we've had another request from media, so we're flattered and just going to keep going with it.

The next thing is that this blog leads to another: http://www.startupkidsline.com. As if there isn't enough managing of this and that for b*Fab, we're going to switch this blog over to the new blog in the next couple of days. I will write a post on how to update your email subscriptions and anything else that might be useful the day we finally officially move.

Now, advertising is rearing it's (ugly? exciting? overwhelming?) BIG (yes! that's it) head. Our feature also brought us attention as a company who might want to spend money on advertising (imagine that). I like all of the opportunities and wish we could jump on them - but we can't. The good thing to consider is that those that are out of our budget would probably bring us more exposure than we can handle right off the bat (I love wishful thinking). So, we have to be selective and pick a couple of things we think will be the most targeted.

I'm really leaning first towards a magazine that's distributed to OBGYN offices in the mom-to-be bags which are distributed in the San Diego area. The San Diego guide goes out in January - and if that works, we see a good ROI, we can target select areas of the country as the year goes on. So that one is really enticing. The one I wish I could do is New York Magazine's Gift Guide. Slick quarter page ad - good stable readership of higher income parents and grand-parents. Both are comparable in price. I'd like to get something out for the gift season.

Decisions, decisions, decisions.

Up to the textile show this week, I'm excited, but we've had so much schedule juggling to do it's crazy. My husband has to appear in court as a witness one of these days (could be monday, could be tues, and so on) - so I'm trying to work the LA trip out around that and his afternoon volleyball practices. We have Halloween with the kids, so need to get costumes finalized for that. And I have a sales trip at the end of the week.

But life is always this crazy, isn't it?

Our Personalized Blankets are Featured in Tot Trends Weekly

2006-10-24T00:55:00.000-07:00

Today has been an exciting day because we learned that our Name in Brights blankets were selected as a featured item in the "Get Personalized" edition of Tot Trends Weekly.

Read the Baby Fabulous blog post about it here.

I'll provide more of an update, or more likely, request help with something soon. For now, it is very late and I must rest my eyes before my little angels rise...

The mistakes I made my first attempt at boutique sales

2006-10-19T22:39:00.000-07:00

I've been re-hashing my boutique visits and re-playing the whole thing in my head. I'm happy to have the first couple of visits over with, which was the whole reason I just went for it. I see I could've been more prepared, but I've also learned a lot about sales already.

Here's what I think I need to improve upon, which really boils down to my "don't say that again" list. First, I'd like to qualify that I DID know NOT to say some of the stuff I did, but for some reason I wasn't able to stop myself before the words came out of my mouth. Hindsight is Spectacular Vision, so I'm hoping my hindsight might save somebody from the same mistakes. Maybe someone out there will open up and share a couple of the things they'll never say again (anyone??):

No matter how many boutiques your products are or aren't in, act like they're selling hot and are in only the best boutiques.
Show confidence in your product and price point. I think that agreeing (yes I really did this) that the price was on the high-side, probably makes you look like you don't have confidence in your products. It's this mistake that's made me hash out a presentation - made me practice answers in my head...but most importantly, made me focus and gain some self-confidence again.
Ask more questions than I'm answering. I finally GET why it's important to find out what your customer's problems are and then immediately position your product as their solution. The only thing I said wrong in this situation was too much, but still - I do think that it went well overall.
Have all of your materials REALLY ready and with you. For some reason, I thought that the brochure would be enough, I could have potentially written a sale if I had our Terms & Conditions, and a few order forms with me.

Writing all of those out makes me feel like they were dumb mistakes. And I've read some things that warned me against all of the above, but the real-deal experience is different. I only now realize how much there is to learn here. Mainly, how to acquire someone else as a sales rep. :-) In the merry meantime, I'm just going to have to continue to pound the pavement with a more confident smile on my face.

I feel ready again, I feel much more prepared this time around. :-) I'm off to LA tomorrow morning (I think I've been completely blocking this from my mind), I'll meet with some sales reps of other brands (to carry them online) and visit some suppliers in the fabric district. I need to source some thick terry cloth, and I'm hoping that I'll be able to get some samples. Need a velcro supplier too. The trips to LA are a drag...the traffic is miserable. I hope the trip is successful.

Sweating the Small Stuff

2006-10-18T15:25:00.000-07:00

Every time another "small thing" pops up, I hear my uncle in my head, telling me"the hidden costs of being in business are unbelievable". Like a postage scale, shipping labels, gift packaging, etc.

Then, when it all magically comes together, I hear "priceless" in my head. I thought we had the whole shipping thing figured out awhile ago, it's just now ironed out. Down to clear packaging for our items. Well, see, now, even as I write "I'm done", I remember 1 more little piece - a notification that plastic bags are not a toy, do not leave around children. I guess it's always something.

Today's free gift with purchase (we do this as a surprise for our valued customers) turned out really cute. A little black baby personalized baby hat. Giving the free gift gives us loyalty and enables us to work out kinks in product development. Now I'll make one for pictures and that's an easy product to launch. Easy because: Embroidery design is finalized and computerized; we source the hats from another manufacturer; and the embroidery happens in-house.

Our online shop is posting sales and we're just starting our marketing campaigns. So that's encouraging. Which is the next pile of to-do's on our list. Banner ads of various sizes; standard email templates for our customer emails and newsletters. And while none of this has to do with actually designing children's clothing, it does have to do with design.

We're building a brand, so consistency in our message, across all of our mediums, is crucial. I think I spend too much time getting the email template JUST RIGHT, but in the end, I know that the ROI will be good because I'll use it over and over again. And, I spent enough time on it that I'm proud to send it out. I need to remember to enjoy the designing aspect of all of the business materials, instead of letting myself get so stressed out by it.

Speaking of stress, I have to stop now or I'll give myself a head ache thinking about all the other little things I need to tackle. I'm just going to go back up to the top and start there. Learning to focus is always a challenge of mine.

I also have to go to a parent meeting this afternoon. A 3 hour meeting - with both of the kids!!

Starting with the Small Stuff

2006-10-13T15:53:00.000-07:00

A trend I'm noticing NOW that we're finally offering small stuff is that it catches customers for you. By small stuff, I mean items like our hip, trendy bibs. These things are a relatively "safe" way for new customers to try out our brand. And we'll take it. Once we've got them hooked, we'll kill them with kindness, and hope to have them hooked for life. I wish that I had realized this from the get-go, because I would have just kept selling the small stuff all along. I started with these little to-die-for flower head bands, which we'll be introducing soon.

Wish I had kept selling them all along. That's just hind-sight and optimistic hind-sight at that. The reality is that, in order to learn how to do this manufacturing business right, I HAD to stop and learn all the steps, identify resources, test the processes, and most importantly develop high-quality, high-style products that I'm PROUD are made by Baby Fabulous and are Made in the USA.

Plus, I must admit, that I originally quit the small stuff because for some reason, I got it in my head that the whole b*Fab thing needed to be bigger. I think it's part of a designer's complex, to want to WOW with everything, and for something to feel "old" and over-done before time would even come to launch. I even had to tell myself the other day, "just because you're sick of this doesn't mean it won't be a seller - you've seen it too much, your customers haven't even seen it yet."

I guess I wouldn't have taken the time to learn everything I have learned if I didn't get the idea to make it bigger in the first place. Like I said, optimistic hind-sight. Stop beating yourself for the coulda, shoulda, woulda, and just move on. Be happy to have come full-circle, to have confidence in the small stuff on up...

If I had a penny for all the blog posts I've written on the importance of reeling myself in...I'd go buy myself a large coffee (mmmm yuuuuummy). If I had a penny for every time a Fergie song makes me want to cringe, I'd be riiiiiiich. I can't decide which is worse - london bridge or ferglicious - iiiiiiiii!!! Can you tell what's torturing me in the background right now?

Defining your niche market - what's your style?

2006-10-11T19:52:00.000-07:00

Baby Fabulous is a trend-setting company. We target parents, aunts, grandparents, any baby gift givers who want to be the first to have something, who don't want to own the same thing that everyone else has, and who aren't afraid to take a risk on something new.

Many new companies are trend-setting companies by default. They target the trend setter crowd because it's important to stand out as a new brand, and you have to have some outside-of-the-box designs in order to stand out. You can be a trend-setting brand even if you just utilize color or graphics in a new, fresh way.

If you are targeting trend-followers, then you are targeting those consumers who go out and buy the fashions only after they see others wearing them, not until they've seen them in the magazines; basically not until these styles have fairly saturated the market. Trend-following companies (there is a large consumer base here) hope to be good at predicting which trend-setting styles from the current (or previous) season will stick long enough to entice the trend-followers into a purchase, and creating the perfect blend of style, color, and price to make the most of the trend.

As a trend-setting company, you should be happy to see your styles (or styles you like) gain a mainstream following...your styles should be well beyond that one by now any way. I believe trend-setting companies can have styles that they use for a few seasons, maybe refreshing just the length or the textiles, but in general, trend-setting companies must be constantly issuing fresh ideas, colors, and designs. It's the only way to keep your customers coming back...because your customers won't be happy to see everyone else wearing the same thing they are...

When Cold Calling on the Boutiques Doesn't Work

2006-10-09T06:37:00.000-07:00

Well, yesterday was a wash. I was even pretty sure that I'd meet the owner at the first boutique, because I was told that was when she was in and that was when I should come back. But she hadn't even opened her store by 45 minutes past opening time, so I bailed. Couldn't even locate the second one, which was just as good because I probably wasn't in the best sales mood at that point.

I also have not heard back from the buyer I did talk to last week, the one who said she'd give us a shot. Why not? Here's the part where I realize how much I have to learn about sales. I am not all that comfortable bragging about my stuff, but that's what you have to do. I've done fine walking right in and talking, now I have to work on my phone spiel, so I can land appointments and not waste my time like I did yesterday. I need to ask more questions and listen better.

I can't wait until we can get a sales rep. Feel strongly we need a boutique, and I feel very strongly about selling my own stuff right now. Today is our goal for soft launch, we'll actually announce to friends, family, and existing customers that the web site is up. The only thing is that this would be our 3rd email like that - so this one will just announce our new bibs. I feel better than saying "check out our awesome bibs" than "Look, WOW, we finally got a shop to function." Even though that's what I'm saying - "WOW we have a functioning shop!!"

Happy Monday. We're off and running, much to do before my daughter has school. I hear everyone else stirring in their beds, this means I have just a couple of minutes to get my head on straight, take a couple of deep breaths, and brace myself for today's business.

Our blog is helping our online shop move up in search results

2006-10-06T20:51:00.000-07:00

Since there are so many aspects to fashion design and selling your own clothing, I thought I'd share something is really helping us out with our online marketing and ranking in natural search results. This means where our site ranks in search results without paying for sponsored ads.

babyfabulous.com is a very new website and we already show up on page three of google for the search term "personalized baby clothes". That's huge. That means that once we're rolling and we really have a lot of blog posts, we have a real chance at making page one sooner rather than later.

I attribute this to the blog we have for our online baby shop. Besides using the blog to add a personal story to our site, and to build solid relationships with our customers, I use the blog to add relevant keywords and content to our site. I'm getting better at this and it's paying off.

The key is to focus on your keywords. When you create a new post, use it to reach out to your customers, to provide news and feedback, & to share, but also make sure you're keyword dropping in your posts. It helps to have a permalink functionality, which enables you to add keywords to the URL for each blog post you create. Feel free to ask me any specific questions you might have...

The web really levels the playing field, even start ups have a fighting chance to be seen.

Breaking out of my comfort zone and into boutiques

2006-10-04T16:21:00.000-07:00

I have done it - I've gone to my first boutiques. And it went well. I got one of the 2 and even the first is interested, but the owner wasn't in. I'll work on getting mailers out and following up with phone calls, but I just needed to GO. They LOVE the personalized blankets. They LOVE that they could offer a personalized service through their boutique; they just DON'T LOVE the price point.

All of which gave me major food for thought on my way home. I think that I wouldn't have cared if I had success or not, today was just about breaking out of my comfort zone and making myself make that big step. This is HUGE for me. HUGE HUGE HUGE.

I have to tweak a couple of things with the options we have and some of our order forms and price lists, but the boutique that agreed to give us a shot is the one I really wanted. I still can't believe I went to them on the first day, but a little voice in my head kept telling me to do it.

I got some excellent advice from a friend who is a sales rep for another children's brand. I will ask for her permission to post that information here - it's incredibly helpful.

I want a sales rep and a sales room and all that, but I also really wanted to get some of the experience myself and hear some of the feedback on our products first-hand, so this is how I do that, by making myself our first sales rep.

Make copies of your patterns, technical sketches; everything!!

2006-09-30T21:54:00.000-07:00

What I learned today about starting a clothing line - okay, about work or any business - make copies of your stuff. I went and lost the bib pattern that took me so long to perfect. I'm convinced it walked away. I have all the other drafts and made note of my last tweak BUT this is a huge mistake to make. Time consuming and just a dumb mistake.

Painful experiences really drive the lessons home. I will forever make numerous copies of all the important stuff I need. So, this is just a friendly reminder, but it's also just a vent because I don't need to have to re-do work I already did, especially right now when there are so many other priorities. Oh, not to mention the time I wasted looking for the darn thing.

I'm positive that I put that bib pattern somewhere "safe". Oh, it's safe all right, it's even safe from me.

My Squidoo Lens on Fashion Design

2006-09-29T19:52:00.000-07:00

I've started a squidoo lens on fashion design. For all of you unfamiliar with up-n-coming Squidoo, it's a place where you create a "lens" which is a page where you can share all the useful links on a topic, suggest books and write whatever you want about your chosen topic.

I foresee people searching squidoo before google not too far in the future. Why? Because a lens is basically created by an "expert" on a topic and, ideally, contains links and books and references on the topic you're searching. They've done all the legwork for you and say "this information will help you". Or you can do the search on google and weed through the links yourself and then figure out if they are good or not.

So, I've just started this one and am open to feedback or anyone sharing good resources they've found on fashion design. There is a guestbook at the bottom of the lens for comments. I will also add this link to my link list.

http://www.squidoo.com/fashiondesign

I should also point out that creating a lens is a great way to promote yourself as an expert, promote your business, and create incoming links to your site.

Enjoy!

Starting to tackle the boutique sales

2006-09-29T17:59:00.000-07:00

We made it through another week, and I got the package shipped to the online magazine. I also placed a huge order for gift packaging and shipping supplies. Needed nice simple plastic bags to ship our products in and keep them from potential damage in the shipping process. BUT, still need to have the "bag is not a toy" warning on the packaging somehow. It's always something.

Today we started contacting boutiques about carrying our personalized blankets. HUGE. Just time to go for it and face the fact that we're going to have to learn as we go. A co-worker mentioned to me about a year ago that I'm the type who will test forever until I'm satisfied something is good. That comment has stuck with me and I am forcing myself to just go, even though I don't feel everything is perfect. It's not perfect, but I am very confident in quality and style and uniqueness of our blankets. Once someone sees them, they want one, so getting them into boutiques where customers can touch and feel and be truly WOWed by the blankets is a big deal for us.

It's our daughter's 4th birthday this weekend, and weekends are usually good work time because my husband and I are both home...but the forced breaks are good for the soul too.

Shipping and Packaging are Part of a Clothing Line Too

2006-09-25T20:23:00.000-07:00

I'm busy trying to create an informational brochure for our personalized blankets. What a pain. It's simple enough, or so I thought. Print it and the first issue is that the print margins are cutting off some of our beautiful pictures. Get that all settled, some final tweaks, and then print it on the brochure paper -and all the colors are off, resolution is horrible, and the whole thing looks washed out. BLECK!!

Still, I'm determined to get our personalized blanket package shipped to the onling mag tomorrow, which means the whole darn package must be complete tonight. Slowly but surely we're piecing this business together. The shipping pieces are the latest difficulty, from simple plastic cover-all bags to the shipping labels. We need a shipping scale and postage meter. I placed an order today that should have us covered, bought a tagging gun for fine fabrics - that will help. Bought a few blank garment tags, gift boxes for the baby pillows that will accompany our personalized blankets, and a few other odds & needs I had never even considered needing.

I'm trying hard to set realistic goals for each day. School has started up. Our children are only in pre-school, but it's amazing how time-consuming it is. I'm so happy that they go, it makes a difference, but it makes it harder and harder to schedule work around life. I'm doing this whole thing so that I CAN schedule my work around my life. I have a good routine for the evenings, when my husband is working, I just feel like I don't have enough time to get done everything I need to for Baby Fabulous. Every single morning I wake wishing I had pushed harder the night before, wishing I had not let sleep take over so early. I need to work on balance and cutting myself off and feeling ok with what HAS been accomplished. Need to work on taking mind breaks before my mind breaks. :-)

But RIGHT now, the kids are being tucked in by their grandma and I'm off to print a 2nd draft of a letter that needs to go out with tomorrow's package. And that's not even getting the whole UPS account setup finalized and a means to print shipping labels, etc. Sometimes I can't believe how much there is to do - that's when you put blinders on and just chip away at items 1 & 2...

Link to great fashion blog series on marketing, advertising, and PR

2006-09-24T06:24:00.000-07:00

Well, another reason I'll be leaving blogger is that it doesn't support trackbacks!? I wanted to link a great post on www.fashion-incubator.com regarding advertising, marketing, and PR. Andrea, a guest contributor will be posting a series directed at Design Entrepreneur's (DEs).

Here's the link to her first post: http://www.fashion-incubator.com/mt/mt331/mt-tb.cgi/705.

This is an area that I feel I could use as much as help as possible in - all of it, from how to reach the market, what messages to send (for some reason I find identifying benefits vs. product details a difficult thing), to how to deal with the budget.

With our shop finally up and running again, we're ready to re-start the marketing and PR campaigns. I want them to be as effective as possible, but also don't want to go over-board and not be able to fulfill too many order requests. Don't want to stretch us too thin. HA HA Now I'm probably just wishing for too much - we'll be lucky if people start noticing us!!

Going to have a cutting experience

2006-09-22T23:39:00.000-07:00

Ooo - my contract applique seamstress is going to take me to her shop and show me her cutting machine and how to use it (is that scary or what?). I like to get the hands on experience. I like to know how things are done, what equipment is used - so this is exciting to me. I'll ask if she minds if I take pictures. She has fairly warned me that the risk is mine. I just want to try it for some of our simple blanket patterns.

Otherwise, we've been referred to a contract cutter by our contract sewer (who was referred by our contract pattern maker). They all take great pride in their work, and they are all happy to work together. I think this is huge. My contract sewer will pick up our fabrics from the cutter, and they are familiar / happy with each other's work. So far, I'm happy this way, oddly enough, I feel more control by not having the entire design / developement process under one house. Maybe I feel I have more of a chance of catching a mistake between phases instead of at the end.

Here's a picture of our sweet little pillow "gift" certificates. Each little pillow matches the blanket's print / plush combination, gives boutique customers a gift to leave with & the ability to purchase one of our blankets even if they don't know the baby's name yet. Each pillow comes with a drop-in-the-mail order form/gift certificate. Fill out baby's name and shipping address, blanket comes 3 - 4 weeks later. It's THAT easy. ha ha - that's why it's taken me almost two years to completely figure out the manufacturing process and locate someone with the right experience & skills, who is willing to produce one-offs (each name requires a different placement on the blanket, each blanket is dropped into the production cycle separately) and wholesale labor rates.

BTW - it's so nice to be meeting other people in the children's industry. I was hoping this blog would help me there, and slowly but surely I'm finding people who are going through the same thing. This is very exciting to me! :-)

We have to put out a fall 07 line or else

2006-09-22T00:07:00.000-07:00

OK - so the fall '07 season is going to be our first official baby clothing market. It has to be. Part of my intentions when I started this blog was to capture some of the real life experiences I've had to maybe help others tread the murky waters of the apparel industry, especially when you're an outsider wading your way in backwards. At least it feels that way. I'm switching to www.startupkidsline.com soon because I can categorize my posts there, which will be especially useful as we set to launch at least some clothing by February. And I hope to capture a full season from beginning to end. I hope I can keep up with it.

My eyes are tired from working on our brochure for our blankets, I need it to ship with the press kit tomorrow. The amount of work on our plate right now is mind-boggling, but it's awesome to see things get checked off each day.

Also been working a lot on my mental game this week. Changing messages I'm sending myself. I think this is important, we've got a shop launched, I need to be excited that we've really got a business. So my mantra is now "I've got a GREAT business, I've got a GREAT business, I've got a GREAT business."

We have a Baby Shop!!!

2006-09-20T23:42:00.000-07:00

Well, we finally have a baby shop online. This is a HUGE milestone for us, it's really a re-milestone, but who's counting the months it took to get our shop back online??!! I'm happy with it as far as it being sufficient to launch with - but oh my gosh, we have so much content and pictures to load, more products that need to be created.

But this is a great big deal for us. And we did it ourselves. We've lost so much money paying designers for nothing, and we've got a shop up and running in 2 weeks. Two weeks from when we realized we would have to identify a solution for ourselves. Granted, we've had to greatly lower our expectations on the design side, but having something functioning is the most important.

The biggest deal is that we identified the right solution, it has all of the bells and whistles we need, like the ability to offer products to wholesalers in addition to our direct sales to the public. All sorts of things that you think are standard with all online shops, like gift certificates and the ability to offer product options (yes, like sizes), even just multiple images of your products, are just not standard. So, we've identified one that has all of that stuff out-of-the-box. And we can have a shop running while we decide how much we want to invest in custom ecommerce design.

Now, we can just keep improving it everyday. But I can finally tell people to check out our site, that they can "find it on babyfabulous.com"!!! YES!!!!!!!!

And, another good thing today was getting back the sample for our press kit today. It's beautiful!!! Shooting to send that out by Monday, have some marketing materials to wrap up tomorrow. Who's kidding who, there is SO much to do tomorrow.

The Web Business Roller Coaster

2006-09-15T16:56:00.000-07:00

I woke up feeling very positive this morning. I checked a lot off of our today list last night and I see hope on the horizon. Hope of getting this business off the ground. I'm calling it a startup now, instead of saying "I'm starting a business". I need to believe through-n-through that this thing is rolling, getting a solid push off of the starting line.

Then I logged into my email and got errors and everything was crashed and my stress levels escalated and I was sent scurrying to fix all these fires that I had intentionally made time for this weekend. So, one day early, but I wasn't in that same organized place I would have been if I had sat down to intentionally change all our domain nameservers and re-create all of our email addresses and somehow get past a "server not found" error on our home page.

Now, the Friday work day is coming to an end, the kids are rustling and getting up from their naps, so it's break time. Oddly, because of all the craziness with the websites, I feel ahead of plans. Didn't need the surge in blood pressure necessarily, but the after effect is ok. Sometimes we just have to be forced to deal with things. Why I love deadlines. Pressure not looming, I won't put the finishing touches on anything. :-)

Now, the crazy thing is that the website seems up, but I think it hasn't completely resolved to our new hosting, because it seems too good to be true that we would have loaded all the files on the new server right the first time.

All these fires and I'm still making my first boutique sales calls on Monday. Need to get excited about that, so they can hear the "smile" in my voice. right?

Push aside the bad, roll up our sleeves, and get to work

2006-09-14T22:55:00.000-07:00

Fall down 7 times and pick yourself up 8. Does it count if it feels like you've fallen 10, 20, maybe 100s of times? Yup, as long as the picking up side is heavier than the falling down side. I wrote a post who-knows-how-many-months-ago about uploading products to our online store.

I could just copy that post here because I'm back in the same position. Only, this time, it's truly on the up and up and I feel confident about this - that we're going to have something to launch with soon. OOOO - I can't say "soon"; our con-artist developers kept saying that - and 5 months later they didn't get us anywhere near "soon". What I meant by "soon" was "next week". Seriously. Even have the hosting re-figured out and mostly re-configured.

We've identified a new ecommerce solution and my husband has taken on the implementation, what design tweaks we can do, and I'm uploading products and creating the online content. We're going function before form. Not entirely true. I should say "we almost drowned ourselves by going form before function, but we've seen the light". The bitch of it is that it's only been two weeks since we discovered the project was a total fraud and we're leaps and bounds ahead of where they were. Oh the pain of the wasted time. and money. and time. and money.

Having our store crashed out for SO long has us in this panic state, and we're accomplishing great things under the weight of fear. I even have a press kit almost complete. This is a WOW thing - A) to actually have buckled down and did the writing and desktop publishing necessary to solidify a "look book", line sheets, price sheets, order forms - apparel merchandising materials, etc. - and - B) to actually have PRESS who has requested a press kit for our personalized blankets. That's a WOW and a WOO-HOO!!

Just the small amount of motivation I needed to push me onwards.

The time keeps ticking and we need to keep moving

2006-09-11T16:24:00.000-07:00

Oh man. What a week it's been. We've got to scrap our hopes of our designers being able to accomplish even the simplist task for an online shop. So, we've had to scurry for a new solution, a quick solution. It's incredibly difficult to love to design and have to just accept that the web design will have to come after the functionality, because we need something working. If I have to tell one more prospect the reason they can't access our shop I'm going to pull my hair out.

We've been contacted for an online magazine's "personalization" issue, and this is big because it's free publicity on a pretty popular site - but any idea how painful it was to open the email that said "one of our writers recommended your site but I can't see how to purchase your products."? These motivational events kick us into gear though. We're going to make it, we're not going to miss this opportunity. Funny to say something kicks us into gear when I feel like we've been working non-stop forever. But it's true, we've kicked it up a notch.

I'm supposed to be going to boutiques this week. My big big chicken self just has to get over this. I don't know what it is, I can talk about things I've been afraid of in the past and I always say "it's so much easier than you think it will be, it's just taking the step." I'm just usually talking someone else into something when those words come out of my mouth. I'm going going going this week. I need to hold myself to that. Samples came in, line sheets are THIS close to complete, pillow gift-certificate is designed, no excuses left to drain...

Really, what I need to accept is that it is not going to be perfect from the get go. We've just got to get moving though, and learn as we go, roll with the punches, but just do anything to get this off the ground. We're selling, and consistently, so this momentum is at least a little motivating. It's still scary as hell to be trying to get to survival by the time our business loans run out :-)

Our personalized baby blanket sales samples are set to arrive

2006-09-06T23:30:00.000-07:00

Keep moving on. I think we have to cut our losses on the website (ouch), but I feel better about it to just be moving on. I pick up the official sales samples from our contractor tomorrow. YES!!! Once I have these, I have the ticket to boutique sales of our custom blankets. I just have to finalize our line sheet and start pounding the pavement.

My daughter started pre-school today, so that throws a new curve into our schedules. I think we had JUST settled into a routine and everything is switched up now. But it's a great thing for her, and I enjoy seeing how she is in a classroom environment. The worst impact on my working schedule will be the mandatory parent meetings 2 nights a month for 3 hours each! That's almost an entire work day for me, which is HUGE.

On a Project Runway trailer, you hear one of the contestants talk about how she had wanted to make a big career change, now she just feels it's too exhausting. Made me think of the years I've put into this and how much hands on work it takes to develop your own products and then build a business around those products. Throw in that you have to keep revising and introducing new products- at least 6 times a year (this is a goal, a pipe dream for us still) and it sounds incredibly exhausting. But I get a thrill out of every aspect of it. My latest thrill is the salesman samples coming back tomorrow. My latest pain is that my machine is on the fritz. There has been this grey cloud just hovering the last few weeks and I need to shake it from over our heads. Enough already. Can't all that hard work start to pay off enough for us to survive? Please, please, please.

Actions speak louder than words. Tomorrow's actions have to include the ironing out of more details. It's like planning a wedding and when you first look at it, you think ok, flowers, music, food. Then you get into it and you realize it doesn't end up until the moment you say "I do", all sorts of crap you didn't even think of....

Oh, the cloud could be breaking up because I did get a referral to some seamstresses that can help with our personalized blankets. More seamstresses for the wrap up, who are closer than previous contractor, which is crucial because these are custom made-to-order blankets. Rambling tonight somehow makes me feel a little better. Which is good because I'm also feeling bad about not accomplishing much tonight. Just didn't feel like doing anything but vegging on the couch. Really an indulgance I can't afford.

There is so much beyond manufacturing the apparel

2006-09-04T14:09:00.000-07:00

Starting a clothing line means opening a business. There is so much to running a business that is beyond just manufacturing the apparel. I'm just learning more and more and more how to manage our business. It's so crazy sometimes. Little fires come up everyday that take you away from your priorities.

We have a huge fire right now, having invested 5 months in getting our ecommerce site designed. The worst is that it was up and running when we hired new developers to "improve" our site. So, we're here, fighting for our deposit, no where near where we were with the store 5 months ago. I can't believe I let it string out that long. Lessons learned. Happy to learn them earlier in the game. You can bet that everyone we work with in the future is going to get the 3rd degree. So, on the bright side, I'm going to be better at my business for having gone through this. On the other side, I just want to pull my hair out.

Work arounds, work arounds, work arounds. Jump start our other sales channels earlier than planned and start looking into new ideas. We're listening to everyone we can on this one, and just shooting for anything that will get us a store, an ordering point for our direct customers. We have product to sell, we're just sitting on this inventory. Luckily, we've intentionally purchased season-less products, so I know they will sell whenever we can manage to launch a simple store. And really, is that so much to ask?

If anyone has any GREAT web designers to recommend, we're all ears. Preferably with online apparel retail experience. We're 0 for 2 at this point, so incredibly disappointing. And so paintful to have to start over again, with the specs; to have to re-invest in getting BACK the functionality our old shop had before this latest group took over the project.

And this fire has to be dealt with around product development, ordering supplies, and packaging. Partner is all over product photography and marketing material development, not to mention product development, inventory, and his other job.

There are so many different things to learn about running your own business, no matter how much management or project management experience you have. But I guess it's part of what keeps the whole thing exciting.