A whole year!?

That's right, it has been a whole year since I decided to try this whole "business" thing. It has been better than expected. Shall we reflect?

So, I decided it was time to start this whole thing. I had a passion burning inside me that needed to get out. I was tired of building other peoples dreams and not my own. Well, I still am building other peoples "dreams" that probably don't support me building my own, but that is a whole different story. Anyway, it was time to do something for myself. If you have gathered I am a person who makes other peoples success and failures, fuel my fire. Not saying that I feel like I need to feel superior or like to watch people fail, but I do watch what is successful for them or may not be successful for them and apply it to myself. A live and learn situation. So I started, but didn't bust out until Watertower Festival. 

"...We had heard about your business, LC Design, that will be debuting at Watertower Festival, we would like to do a feature article on you, if that is something you'd be interested in..." Those were the words left as a message for me on my voicemail as I was going into work June 8th. How do I remember? Because I still have the voicemail, haha! Who would have thought that the word would have found it's way around town in that short of time and I hadn't even sold a single thing to the general public yet?! I still have people to this day come up to me at my normal day job saying they saw me in the paper. Maybe they should do a follow up? 

Then came Watertower Festival. People still barely knew we existed. Like 200 Facebook likes if we were lucky. It was pretty successful for a first show and we had a lot of people coming to stop and chat about pieces, the paper feature, and being new(er) residents of Pipestone. Still, I wanted/needed more. I made a point that every season we would have at least one sale, boy is that changing. 

Kind words continued to flood in from community members, complete strangers, near and far fans, and business people. We even started doing window displays at one of my favorite places, Reggie Gorter Performing Arts Studio. We have taken a break with the cold season and sealing the windows up. But hopefully get something in there again soon. 

Our next big sale was Luverne's Winterfest. It was great! Just like every show we have found out there is dead points, but people were just hauling our stuff out and by the afternoon we were looking pretty sparse. We have also found out that after every show for about a month we are swamped with orders. We. love. it! 

The Christmas season was sooooooooo good to us! People were ordering gifts non-stop. I am glad we were stocked up. Nothing makes our hearts warm and asking ourselves what is the next big thing, like that. We always want to push ourselves to give everyone something cooler than last time.  What were the most popular, trees and pillows. We sold more pillows than imaginable. We now have a huge pile in our guest room closet just to stay on top of it. We also started shipping stuff! If that isn't crazy?! We had an order from New York City going to the Twin Cities, order going to California, lots going to the Twin Cities, and recently Texas has been very good to us. This. is unbelievable. There are some people who don't enjoy the whole online shopping experience because it takes away from the "shopping local" aspect. Trust me, this is just as great. You are helping an extremely small business who isn't in a brick and mortar hopefully get to that point. You are doing great things by ordering from us.  

The end of the "year" came, so here came taxes. It was kind of nerve wracking to say the least. We knew we sold a lot, but we also know to start selling 6 months prior that we had a lot of expenses that we were probably far in the hole. A lot of business don't expect to take any money home in the first year, or second, or fifth, maybe even tenth. Well, we did! Though it wasn't a whole heck of a lot I felt good about it. With having to buy less tools and less "supplies" it should make out for an even better year. We have no one else to thank besides everyone who has made us a successful, small, home based business owners, than y'all! 

We then started stock piling for the next shows ahead of us. In the meantime, I weighed the pros and cons of becoming a Pipestone Chamber Member. I felt it might be weird to become a chamber member only being a home-based business and only doing shows or selling through Facebook. So far Erica and Tom have been great getting the word out there that we exist. We attended the annual Chamber Banquet and being the new kids on the block was pretty awkward, but as we sat in the corner, by ourselves, we watched people mingle in their groups of friends and knew at that point that these are the people to reach out to and to hold ourselves up to. Don't get me wrong, we were frightened to talk to people who are old enough to be our parents or our grandparents, that we didn't really put ourselves out there and welcome ourselves into their groups to chat. So thank you to the few people that did talk to us, haha. Im sure it was just as awkward talking to people your children's age as it was for us to sit there as the new comers. In the end, we looked at it as these people are business people of Pipestone and so are we. We thought to ourselves if we went around the room asking each person what they were doing at our age they probably wouldn't be saying sitting at a Chamber banquet as a member or even having a business. It also helped that Patri, my boss at AcV2, saying "I would've sat with you. I would've been beating people to be at your table. Don't give up. You got this!" Sometimes you need that reminder that people do believe in you when you feel like the out of place new kid. I bet this experience will only go up from here! 

Any who! The next show was this month, April. It was in our own town so we decided to only bring our top selling items and the new creations. We did great! The show was kind of slow, but people were just dragging stuff out and leaving us big holes and big impressions! It was great hearing everyone so excited to come out and see us or say they were only coming because they heard we would be there. I am sure my big smiles freaked people out, but my heart was so full. Not to mention I got to (re)meet a fabulous woman who dropped off some of her junk on my porch this past summer and made us have the biggest looked at Facebook post for us, ever. Our yoke light reached 1.543 people...we don't even have that many Facebook friends! Because word was getting out, our next post with a peek at what things we are bringing to the Spring Fling: 3,867 people reached! That is cruising up to the population of this town! 

So now what is next? This is where I said "each season having a show" is changing. This summer we are so busy. We know for sure three shows we will be in, contemplating two others. Summer is the key time to hit these shows. Our customer base expands, as it should, every show so it just keep getting better. Also, we have been considering opening an Etsy shop this summer for our smaller, popular items. We are still hoping to see the building we have our eye on, to open up. I say to myself everyday "Why can't I just have a shop?" I know that in time it will tell and we will open outside of shows and our basement. It has to be the right time and the right place. Currently, we have 485 likes on Facebook and growing literally everyday. Everyday we are doing a new project just to keep up or to keep a stock pile for the next show. We are living and learning this and totally loving it. Spring is now upon us and we are about to hit the planting season so things will be slowing down in one area and picking up in the other. It will be a two-ish- three week of idea turning and figuring out what is the next "thing." As I scroll through these photos and this post I cannot believe how far we have come from just a wild idea to a real fan base and requests for new pieces. We have reoccurring customers from near and far. We couldn't be happier with where this adventure is taking us. 

Next show: Buffalo Days in Luverne. See ya there! 

Entrepreneurship:If It's Both Terrifying & Amazing You Should Definitely Pursue It!

entrepreneur noun -[ahn-truh-pruh-nur] 

1. a person who organizes and manages any enterprise, especially business, usually with considerable initiative and risk.

2. an employer of productive labor; contractor

When I was a senior in college, I remember sitting in Julie Bell's office, she was my advisor the last 4 years, she asked if I wanted to get an emphasis in Entrepreneurship. I couldn't get a minor or a major so I stopped listening after that. It also wouldn't really count towards much, but taking more of my money. I remember thinking to myself I will NEVER own my own business, like ever. Little did I know... I also had to take so many credits in Business, why the f did I care? Still, never going to own my own business. I took a few that were awful and made no sense. How could organization and management be hard, I am the queen of organizing? Well, it was and it was awful and anyone can attest to how awful it was. Luckily, for me, my husband had to take quite a lot of business classes to get an Animal Science Business major. Let me tell you, he is the only person I know that manages money like a boss. I know no adult who is financial established and savvy like this man and like I said, I am damn lucky for him. 

Now to the answer of "Why do I want to be an entrepreneur?"

My summer spent with ACV2 architecture I got to watch a woman go from her basement office and getting her foot into the door to being one exclusive woman who is busy with her family and the office. How could I not be inspired to be something or someone? It will forever stick in my mind that they predicted my future after I left - - and it is exactly what I am doing now. 

Some say being so busy and making the sound of being exhausted from hustling [for your business] is a bad thing, we are putting that look on a per say pedestal. I am not the person to say that to. I work three jobs, one being my own business that I have built myself, I have a beautiful gray highlight coming in I am learning to embrace and a lot of insomnia (that's the thing about creative people, we never seem to sleep). But I am not just a number, not just 1 of 4,157 people just "living" in Pipestone. I do not want to just be a number. I am 25 year old, educated, woman that has an upcoming, successful business and nothing is more invigorating as that. I think we need to step back and look at what it takes to get what you want; that you may need to run on fumes and have sleepless nights to succeed and build your dreams. You cannot sit on the sideline and watch it slip through the cracks. In college we were getting time management pounded into our brains, but still, if you didn't have sleepless where you felt at your wits end you wouldn't find yourself walking down at commencement. Moral of the story; I wanted to work hard and knew I had to become an Entrepreneur. 

I moved to a new town with a fresh face, a fresh look, and a fresh mind; I had to put it to work. I am passionate about what I do and it is important for me to push myself to the limits to make it successful. I went from being no one here to a familiar face, I had a name, and I was impacting my community in some way. I don't ever want to be in big box stores, I don't want mass production; but I do want to be a part of my community, I do want to be entrepreneur who built her own business, who can do a little relaxing because she worked her tail off to get where she wanted to be, and be a Pipestone area household name.  In less than three years, I was featured on two blogs for two different topics, I was featured in the newspaper, I became a role model to my beautiful, young kids at the dance studio, I became a face at a local retail store that is greeted with smiles and stories about the grandkids, I redesigned one of the places Pipestone prides itself on, I became a Chamber member, I've sold products from one coast to the other, and I became more than "that Prunty Farm's girl." Moral of this story: I am becoming more than just someone, I have become an Entrepreneur. 

Soooooo, what is the big answer? 

I love the sense of accomplishment when someone says to me that they couldn't wait to see what I had come up with and take it home with them. I love being my own boss and the freedom of being able to be creative how I want to be and on my time. I love the excitement I feel every time we make something unreal and it becomes a hit. I love that I can be completely nuts, entrepreneurs are some of the biggest risk takers, we pretty much sit there with a handful of cash and lay it all on the line without knowing what could happen. I am always learning, always researching, and always on the look out for things to fill my brain with, to see what could be next thing. I love being able to work with clients/customers that share the same love for things. The list could go on, but that is why I wanted to be an entrepreneur. 


With all that said! 

This last week we had a sale, it went absolutely great for us! We hear the buzz around town that people heard about us, their friend told them about our products, they saw it on Facebook, they came just for LC Design; what a great feeling! As always, we are still making custom orders and requests for people after the show. It happens every time and we love it! Tonight we have the Chamber banquet and this was a great day to reflect on all the why's of what we do.
Also, we went from 380-sh likes on Facebook last week to 426 this week. That's kind of a big deal. And one of our posts reached over 1,500 people....also a pretty big deal for being a non-brick and mortar business that started less than a year ago. We already have plans shows this summer, details to come as they near. 

xoxo