When does the torture end

On Saturday I was so excited!! 'Finaly, its all coming together,' I thought. I finally understand my target market and yes I am ready to do my demo project in Second Life and get everyone to sign up and go along on the roller coaster. Boy was I wrong, understanding your target market is the first nightmare because you see instantly when they will hate something.

I finally signed up on Second Life and guess wat? It took forever and you need email confirmation and then you need to download software and then you need a tutorial on how to use SL. Its got great stuff going on in the art world and people can tour Estonia from their living rooms but guess wat? After all that hassle I sill dont know how to use Second Life and downloading the free software is great but not if your target audience is using internet cafes to log on in different parts of the globe. And not if it takes you 30 minutes (they are paying by the hour in internet cafes) to finally get into SL with an avatar and also not allow you to keep your name. Then it stops being cool and you have to question if this is your smartest move. I mean if my target market is logging onto the internet via internet cafes and paying by the hour do they really want to waste 30 minutes logging into SL? Even if they own laptops would they rather go to facebook and youtube that are easy to use and require no tutorials? If they cant download the software onto the computer that means they cant log onto SL for the events and then my demo is pointless. I am worried about the time it takes to get all set up on SL cos my audience is busy and I am worried about the need to download software on SL.

The other option is to try and find out if maybe I do have a portion of my target market already on SL and go with that or target the consumers in other parts of the world that have access to laptops and see if they would be willing to sign onto Second Life for the demo.

Aargh!!! Or I could go back to the drawing board and use whatever brain cells, my 15 page strategy paper has not killed, to find an alternate demo that would still make me money. Or I could educate my target market about Second Life before hand?? Some ideas are brilliant and its the execution that fails them and that is what I am faced with today. Execution is the killer of great ideas. Why does reality always bite?

I am now just praying to meet a genius web developer who wants a challenging project and does not care much about the money side. If wishes came true....

girlpreneurs expands!

After a fantastic food and wine filled business plan writing party that included six of our classmates, we've decided to open up the girlpreneur blogspace to include even more Simmons SOM entrepreneurs in the process of birthing their respective businesses. Welcome, ladies! Blog away!

"Meet the Antipreneurs"

So, I think I've found my philosophical home as an entrepreneur. I stumbled on this article in Business Week "Small Business" magazine that highlighted mission-driven, for profit companies for whom their products' sustainable sourcing is the proud core of their respective businesses. These companies included "Moo Shoes", a vegan shoe company started by two sisters that is based in Manhattan; Radioparadise.com, a radio station that shuns corporate advertising influence on radio content; and No Sweat Apparel (nosweatapparel.com), a company that markets apparel made only in unionized factories. A quote from the CEO of No Sweat Apparel, Adam Nieman, sums up the philosophy that these "antipreneurs" espouse: 

"What appeals to people about us is that this is a positive vision of how the marketplace can and should work."

See the article and a video of interviews with the featured antipreneurs at:

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_66/s0806032873701.htm

the necessity of being an "honorary man"

Ha! For class this week we read a research paper that talked about what the common perception is about women entrepreneurs, namely that in order for women entrepreneurs to gain legitimacy, society expects us to act as "honorary men" because, amongst other things, we're afraid of asking for money for our businesses and we don't know how to deal with ambiguity. As our classmate, Martha, would say, that means women entrepreneurs are getting a big "pork sandwich." 

Truthfully, being an entrepreneur as both HJ and Van have said is totally scary and hard. When reading the paper we had to read that talked about how women are perceived as not dreaming big enough or taking enough business risk, I got really angry...but then I realized that I am afraid of dreaming big and my business idea may not be taking all of the risk I'm capable of taking. I think it's kind of like looking at the top of a mountain you plan to climb when you're at the bottom - it may really make you not want to climb it. But if you move step by step and set small goals, it may be much easier to put together all of the steps necessary to get to the top. A tremendous cliche to use a mountain climbing analogy...but on some level, I think the familiar - even numbingly so - is something nice to have on your side when you're doing something completely different than anything you've ever done before.

A popular question among academics is: Can entrepreneurship be taught? Of course, like most things, the answer is yes and no. There are skills that are taught, but the “how to” booklet on the insanity and drive that it actually takes to birth a business as far as I know does not exist. The statistics will show that you have to be even more insane to start a business if you are a woman. I laugh at how the media defines female businesses as “hobbies.” My response to this: some hobby! If only men could have such amazing hobbies…

So what is this insanity about? Well, firstly its about living to defy the odds. As I encounter people who ask me questions like, well, how old are you? And what work experience do you have? I have to laugh. The truth is, perhaps still young enough to go after my dream and to live my life the way I want to. ..and young enough to have the confidence to believe that I in fact, can defy the odds. Besides, high risk, high return- right?

Three days ago I went for an interview at the office of Eillen Fisher. For anyone attempting to launch a business the concept of brand will haunt your thoughts and dreams. For me, creating the brand is the most exciting part of this process. I mean, how amazing to invent a brand? A brand that stands for something? That speaks to people? That’s says- buy me, I represent you? There is something unique embedded in the DNA of the Eileen Fisher brand: and that is the concept of wellness: wellness for its employees worldwide as well as its customers. This will become immediately obvious the second you enter an EF store: the clothing looks as if it will float along the top of your skin. But the office! The interview was held in a small glass room referred to as “the greenhouse (the interview couldn’t be held in the main conference room due to reflexology in session….). The walls of the office are sparse, with corners adorned with white rock gardens. There is soon to be an organic snack and lunch bar, located close by to the yoga room. I mean imagine? One could assume that the “wellness” of the EF surroundings has a profound effect on employees, eventually impacting the bottom line.

After 18 months of MBA drudgery, I am ready to be “well.”

I am scared and excited

So I seem to be having the worst run of luck ever lately. I just wrote a post that got erased by mistake and now I am rewriting something less funny and more annoyed. Judging from the past 1 and a half months that go will down as the worst months of 2008 for me I am starting to question my chances of success as a business woman. I mean many people say part of succeeding as an entrepreneur is good luck and fate and all that and well honestly my luck seems to have run out.

On Sunday (2 days ago) I was excited beyond belief to be doing this but at the moment I am almost in tears cos my business plan is at a stand still and I cant seem to get a web developer or someone with an internet company to talk to me and help me with my numbers and my revenue projections. So, obviously I really jumped at the idea of a blog because I thought there are so many people in cyber space surely someone will read this and be interested enough to want to speak to me. Plus I just read the Alchemist so I am now a full believer in the universe moving everything to help me reach my goals. This is when I ask myself if I am really totally sane? People that know me are not allowed to answer that question.

My focus group basically told me my idea was too radical and that I have to scale back (which kinda dented my enthusiasm cos adjectives like radical when discussing business ideas are the kiss of death) and I feel like I shud do it the way I envisioned it because that is the best way forward but since wat I want has not been done before it is getting mixed reviews and I find myself having to drag every ounce of excitement out of my soul to keep me revitalized. I am so excited about this because every part of my being tells me that I have hit on something big; but.... There is always a but - I really need a web designer and internet strategist to talk to.

Girlpreneur Power!

So, we're three soon-to-be MBA's starting up revolutionary (like, in the socio-political sense of the word) businesses (this kinda makes us feel less like we sold out to "The Man" by coming to business school...at least for HeatherJean and Erin. NOTE: we go to to the only all-women MBA program in the US at Simmons School of Management in Boston, MA...so selling out to "The Man" has some added dread attached to it in our context. But we digress...) 

Anyhoo, we had an exercise in our entrepreneurship class where we had to think about who we were targeting with our business ideas...and Heather Jean and Van both agreed their target markets would totally want to date each other (Erin's target market could as well, but might be too distracted by trying to save the planet.) This got us laughing and chatting and kapow! Girlpreneurs was born. We want to use this page to help Gen X and Gen Yers (our target markets in MBA-speak...we'll try NOT to use a lot of garbage B-school jargon here) connect, learn about our businesses and others that we think are doing really cool stuff and share in the processes of birthing dynamic, women-owned businesses. Welcome to the rollercoaster!