In the ideas lab

President Obama has declared this week to be National Small Business Week, but here at Chelleline Cards, it is product development week. After three months of (mainly) filling orders, signing new accounts, and moving, I am eagerly turning to the drawing board again!

This is my newest card, for Father's Day. My mom gave me the idea for the design and I conceptualized it. Celebrating what dads do best: napping! (Available here)

The First Step: 'E' is not for Easy, or, the psychology of selling on Etsy

It seems pretty easy to be a craftsperson these days. Rather than applying for craft fairs, or trying to get your work into stores or galleries, anyone can just sign up for an account with Etsy and start selling there. You've eliminated the middleman, as well as the need for permission to make your work available to customers! And we've all read the success stories on the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal: so-and-so sets up a shop on Etsy, gets overwhelmed with online orders, quits his or her full-time job to pursue their hobby full-time. It must be pretty easy then, right?

Well, yes and no. The easy part: setting up a shop on Etsy. Not easy: getting the sales.

You see, in order to be successful on Etsy, you have to be "discovered" - by Etsy admin, by hordes of Etsy shoppers, or by bloggers (who normally draw the hordes of Etsy shoppers to your shop). And in order to be "discovered", you have to drive traffic to your shop. You can't just list things and expect people to snatch them up without any work on your part. There are approximately 300,000 sellers on Etsy. It'll be pretty hard for people to find you unless you put the work into marketing yourself.

I'm still trying to figure out a successful online marketing plan, and I haven't really put the work into marketing myself online, so I don't have all the answers. But I do know that it can be discouraging to see things sit in your shop for months on end, to watch other peoples' sales grow while yours stagnate. One of my friends told me that she just wanted to close her Etsy shop and stop making stationery because she was getting so few sales. Recently, I spoke to a stationery store owner whose friend had stopped selling on Etsy because it was just too much trouble to keep listing and relisting without anything coming from it.

I know a thing or two about dealing with these feelings, too.

1. Remember why you started making your art. You didn't do it because you wanted to sell it. You did it because you liked it, it was fun, and you enjoyed the process of creation. Don't stop making cards, or totebags, or soap, or scarves just because it isn't selling on Etsy. You didn't start making them so you could sell them, don't stop making them because you can't sell them.
2. Do not depend on Etsy as your sole customer. You should be pursuing other sources - craft fairs, brick and mortar stores) that can bring in more income for your business. My cards have sold far better at craft fairs and in stores than on Etsy, and the latter especially has provided me with a steadier source of income than Etsy. (I'll discuss how to sell at craft fairs and stores in a later column.) However, I still keep my Etsy shop open to reach the one or two customers every couple of months - although, I will be re-evaluating this approach as well.
3. Instead of making excuses for why you don't have time to make Etsy or your hobby/business a priority, start finding excuses for why you should. I've heard so many people lament their slow sales on Etsy and then add, "well, I don't have time anyway because of my job/kid/school, so of course I don't have a lot of sales on Etsy." However, I think it's commendable that someone would pursue a hobby/business on the side *in spite of* their current commitments. And if you look at it that way, you can and will find the time to grow your business!
4. Lastly, for those who are thinking about setting up a shop on Etsy, don't expect to get a sale, or steady sales immediately. I've been on Etsy for four years and I still don't get steady sales! It's hard, as is everything nowadays. But if you remember all these points, they should keep you going through your darkest days! Good luck!

Work in progress

In lieu of the next "First Step" post, I'm posting a picture of my latest work in progress: a Father's Day card. The idea for this design actually came from my mom, who I solicited to help me come up with designs for Chelleline Cards. This is the first one of her suggestions that I'm conceptualizing. I can't decide which color to use for the font, though. Dark or light purple?

We shall see!

The First Step: When to take the plunge?

Sorry it's taken me longer than a week for the next post in my "weekly" series. I had several draft posts ready, but in all honesty, it was very hard for me to follow up the last post with something equally inspiring. "Learning to Love Multiples?" Useful, yes, but eh, maybe for another day. I'm not promising that this one will be, but I will try!

The question I want to tackle this week is: How do you know when you're ready to start a business?

There are two steps involved (although they can be taken at the same time): there's going from idea to reality, and then going from hobby to business.

Going from idea to reality was not that difficult for me: I decided, on a whim, to start listing my newly made greeting cards on Etsy about a month after I'd started making them. However, going from hobby to business was a completely different horse of a completely different color.

For me, it was easy to start selling my cards online, at craft fairs, and at stores. But it was much harder to make the transition to a business. Something in my brain just shut down whenever I heard people telling me the steps I should take to register my business with the State of New York, or whenever I thought of how much it cost me to make each card, or whenever I thought about all those pricing formulas. And based on my background, I'm supposed to be a logical person: I'm a lawyer, as well as a former scientist (well, my bachelor's degree is in molecular & cell biology at least). I took corporations in law school. I know that sole proprietorships and partnerships are personally liable for business expenses, and that filing as an S-corporation will prevent double taxation. But I couldn't apply it to my hobby/quasi-business.

Looking back, this paralysis was caused by conflicting priorities and lack of time, which led to me not feeling ready to turn Chelleline Cards into a business. In fall 2010, I began to feel like I wanted to take steps to turn it into something viable, something full-time, and I got advice from a friend, which I took, but still, I felt impeded by my law school duties. It wasn't until fall of this year when I began thinking about it again. I'd been on three interviews, and had been passed over for all three jobs. I started to worry. What if next fall rolled around and I still couldn't find a job as a lawyer? I decided that I would take a two-prong approach to the job search: I'd spend the next year continuing to look for a job as an attorney, while simultaneously expanding the business, so that if plan A didn't work out, I wouldn't be up the creek. Also, Chelleline Cards was more in tune with my soul, anyway.

Well, if I was going to expand my business, what steps did I need to take? Registering as a business, obviously, but my thinking was not that linear. (Keep in mind that I was working two part-time jobs at this point, as well as working on Chelleline Cards on top of that.) My first thought: I needed more customers. In this line of work, your customers are your stores and individuals (from craft fairs, online stores, etc.). The best way of getting more store customers was to participate in a trade show. But to be in a trade show, I knew that I had to register my business.

And so that's what I did. When one of my part-time jobs ended at Christmas, and I finally had some time to breathe, I looked into filing as a sole proprietorship in North Carolina, and by the end of January, my business had been registered! No more bouts of paralysis, no more spacing out of the mind. I'd now made the leap from hobby to business.

And so the question you're probably asking now is, How do you make the transition from hobby to business? How do you know when you're ready? You can read all the advice out there about what you need to do to turn a hobby into a business, but the truth is, while the advice is good, it is only helpful when you are ready. And only you will know when you're ready. You may know the minute you decide to start selling what you make. Or, like me, you may dally in limbo for several years before circumstances push you into it. But when you know, you'll know.

The First Step : Taking the Plunge

This is the first in a weekly series about small business. I recently filed as a sole proprietorship, after three and a half years of treating the "business" as a hobby. This series will document my journey, aspire to give you all a glimpse into what running a small business is like, and hopefully be of use and inspiration to other aspiring entrepreneurs out there.

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"Whatever you want to do, do it. There are only so many tomorrows." - fortune cookie

After work on Christmas Eve (I know!), my boyfriend and I went to see Iron Giant at the Film Forum and then had dinner at a Chinese restaurant nearby. The quote above was my fortune that evening, and it spoke to me in a way that fortune cookie fortunes rarely do. Later, when I was moving, I lost the fortune, which only elevates its stature in my mind.

I started Chelleline Cards as a hobby the summer before I went to law school. I'd spent years in cerebral hobbies (writing, reading), and I was itching to work with my hands again. I decided to go with greeting cards after I stumbled on a greeting card blog. I had a bunch of catalogs from Book Expo (as a result of my New York Brain Terrain blog), I bought some cardstock from Staples, and in one June afternoon, my first four cards were made. One month later, I began listing my cards on Etsy. And from there, it grew. Kind of. I sold at several craft fairs, and got the occasional sale on Etsy. I began reaching out to stores. But it was all very sporadic.

The thing is, I never really took the plunge with Chelleline Cards the entire time I was in law school. Law school was my priority. I was spending a lot of money on the education, and I didn't want it to go to waste: I wanted to do well in school. Predictably, my "business" suffered as a result. Even though I treated it as a hobby, I still wanted it to do well. I often wished that I'd thought of the idea earlier, say, during the summer of 2006 when I was not sure where I wanted to go with my life.

Fast forward 3 years later: I'd graduated from Fordham with good grades (missing the cutoff for cum laude by thousandths of a decimal point), passed the bar, but found myself without a full-time job due to the economic crisis. And I was now in debt (I had no debt prior to law school). I went on informational interviews, I checked several job boards every day, I applied to every job posting I saw that was related to my skills, including some non-legal jobs, got a few interviews, but no offers. Throughout Fall 2010, I worked at two jobs part-time, which meant I was working every day of the week and which paid me just enough to cover my rent and have $200 extra, and worked on Chelleline Cards in the spare time that I had. I did get a mention in TimeOut New York, which was nice. No, it was more than nice - it was validation. Validation that I was doing something right.

At the end of 2010, I decided that 2011 would be the year when I would try to take my business to the next level - when I would try to make it into a real, legitimate, full-time business. I filed as a sole proprietorship and applied for a selling license (which I received). At my boyfriend's suggestion, I bought a cutting machine to help me cut some of my designs (it has saved me a LOT of time and may have been the best move I've made so far this year. And yes, I know I need to update my website on this fact). I applied for a wholesale account with my cardstock supplier, which has saved me a lot of money on supplies. I continued to strengthen the relationship I had with my current stores, and started to establish relationships with new ones. I am happy to say that as of today, April 28, 2011, I am now in 14 stores - 9 of which are new this year! And I have more plans for expansion, which I will share as this series continues.

Although I've had plans to expand the business since December, the most recent development in my life has strengthened my resolve. My boyfriend and I will be moving to Montreal later this spring, and I won't be able to practice law there - at least not without taking 1-1.5 years of classes first.

A lot of naysayers would say that now is not the best time to start a business. The economy is bad, you're in a lot of debt, starting your own business is risky, etc. And there is some truth to this. But you know what? Those things limit you only if you let them. It's never a good time to start a business. There are only so many tomorrows. You might as well do what you want to do now.

Mother's Day Seals

Hot off the press: my latest Mother's Day/new baby card, featuring a baby Nerpa seal and its mother snuggling together.

We're off to see the Wizard

Here, Dorothy, Toto, Shaggy Man, and Button Bright are about to meet a new friend on their journey through Oz: Polychrome, the daughter of the rainbow. This scene is from "The Road to Oz."

At my boyfriend's suggestion, I've made the image on two cards, so to give the customer visual delight at "putting the pieces of the puzzle together."