ASR Blog

going for broke

soooo this is what going for broke was talking about. . . ..

putting it all in the pot and hoping the pot cooks up some good stew that people will want to consume.

its scary to put everything into one idea, one vision, one company. its scary to sign bank loans and swipe credit cards and write checks knowing that there is always the possibility that you are doing the wrong thing. that you might not have such a great idea after all. that your brilliant plan may not have been quuuiiiittttteee so brilliant.

but i am doing it. i am going for broke. though im too young to be broke. actually, no i take that back, this is the best time to be broke. before i know what fancy wine tastes like, while i still like the taste of ramen noodles, while thrift store couture is totally acceptable.

this is the right time to go for broke. and the pay out that potentially could come to us in the future will more that pay back for the agony i think. the thing is, to create something, to have an idea and see your brains thoughts turn into something people want to give as gifts or put on their kids or see as interesting is such a great feeling and i am really loving it. and i am really suprised that it has happened. seeing punkster in magazines is strange to me, thats my idea! its like having your diary published, only not the sappy stuff. . . actually kind of like this blog. . ..

going for broke is scary, but to me, going for nothing is scarier.

the law of demand. and no supply.

wednesday we found out we might be in people magazine. thursday we found out our shirts were going to be yet another week late from india. our supplier is sick in the hospital. these shirts were supposed to be delivered july 15th. and people have a right, and they use it often, to cancel orders that are late.

so they are. but only some.

we let them know the shirts were late, in true punkster fashion, but the thing is producing thousands of shirts in india for the first time is a big, big deal. huge really. so its no wonder its going right and wrong and every way except the way that leads right into our warehouse.

so yep, people magazine put us in there!!

and yep india got a hefty check today from us.

and yep the shirts still arent in the warehouse.

and yep, we have a trade show starting sunday in which the exact people who ordered last show are going to be asking us where their orders are.

so yep, im nervous.

but the truth of the matter is i feel like we have to be aware that we are, still, as of now, a small business and we can't push ourselves to be larger than life or we will fall harder than we should. so i think instead of being embarassed that we are small and messing up, we just need to be open and let people be aware that they are not dealing with corporate america just yet, they are dealing with two girls figuring things out.

what we have learned in the last three years is immeasurable, where we have come from to where we are going is huge. i can feel it in the air. i can feel it in the magazines, and i hope to someday feel it in the bank.

but for now we are in a situation. orders are coming in and shirts are not. so i did the best i could, i posted a new front page on our website explaining the situation in so many words. which is, we have a lot more orders for shirts than shirts. but luckily this is temporary. i just hope people are patient with us and know who they are dealing with for now. and it sure ain't the costco of baby world!

so to anyone who put an order in with us. thank you! thank you! thank you! and we will get it to you. . . . .soon .. . . promise. . ..

man this small business stuff is intense. i'm starting to see the perks of a job you won't lose your neck over. but for now, we have 25,000 shirts with sheryl crows name on them just waiting to get to us!

the press snowball (or) [sheryl crow is ruining my life]

well, i guess you faithful readers have been wondering where i am. ok, i can only think of one of you, thanks greg! but in case there is more, let me explain why i have had no time for such things as blogging, and say, sleeping. . . .

sheryl crow is ruining my life! ha, or shall i say she is about to be funding my life. since sheryl crow's baby shower was featured in instyle.com, it has also been featured in celebrity baby blog, which we have always wanted to be in, it's great for click to click purchasing.

but it gets better, yesterday. . .shh. . .i got an email from a nice lady at people magazine. yes, people magazine who would like to feature the shirt in this issue coming up in a little piece about sheryl crow's shower.

so now im doing my very best to get the site up to par, at least up to anything it can be. and we are trying to get the shirts that are coming from india here sooner than they were going to be, and we are bracing ourselves for action!

ah, we shall see. . . .keep your eyes open for the new people mag. if you see punkster in there, you pretty much know we will be overwhelmed but cheering for a week straight over here!

WOOHOOOO!!! Sheryl Crow loves Punkster!

WOULD YOU LOOK AT THIS! so my friend sent me this random picture of Sheryl Crow holding punkster and I thought, wow! What a great picture!! Little did I know, it was the only picture INSTYLE.COM published of Sheryl's baby shower!! WOO HOO, now we have to figure out a way for In Style to publish something that says it was PUNKSTER that Sheryl was seen with!

But I checked google and if you type in "I crawl the line" our website comes up so phew!

I just finished sending this press hit out to every store we are in telling them they should probably reorder! Yep, that's right, better reorder before all the country singers swoop 'em up!

Next, I am going to try to figure out how to get more press from this press. . . the wheels are in motion once again.

Course, our problem is our site is so . . . what's the word. . .ghetto now, that I am ashamed to have them link to it. What's a business girl to do? Any suggestions? Should I send out a big release and have people go to our website even though it's a virtual mess!?

punkster acoustic -- it has arrived!

this saturday history was made in long beach, california! punkster turned into a real live baby clothing company! we started a high end, limited edition line of clothing called punkster acoustic for fall and once again, VIOLA! (or is that an instrument?) but what i mean is, PRESTO! a thought in my head, a vision, a pipe dream, has once again taken shape and turned into a reality. a vision i saw now is actually pictured on a baby for the world to see. well, it was a vision of mine, but more like a vision of team work.

i have a friend, we will call her "ohio" who is an amazing designer. top notch. i met her in a former career i had working for a big bad corporate company. she was designing, i was relating to the public. or . .public relations. we hit it off immediately and constantly inspired each other with ideas in every facet of life.

years later we were still talking every once in awhile and still inspiring eachother. she talked about wanting to start a baby line but that the beginning was so hard to get going on, the money to invest, the process of getting a respected name and known in the market, the trade shows, and on and on. she talked about how this was just going to be too much work as she had a full time job and she had a family.

ding ding ding. the bells were going off in my head louder than usual. i have an idea!! i came up with this concept, this proposition to "hire her" without hiring her. see, she had the creative vision, the design know how, the production connections that i didn't have, and even if i did, had no time to pursue. she needed us and we needed her.

we had the name, the market, the customers, the press, the trademark, the tradeshow booths, the capital (kind of!) and she had everything else. i have wanted to take punkster beyond t-shirts for awhile but would not have been able to do it alone.

so we worked out a partnership, i think this is done before, think of it similiar to when stella mccartney did a line for adidas or when luella bartley did a line for target. when small forces team up with big forces, or in our case, other small forces, it can be a great thing!

so made a deal. and so far this couldn't be working better. punkster will put the money in to create the line, we will pay for samples and we will pay for production, "ohio" will create the line, from ideas, concept, whole nine yards (of fabric), everything and i will not be a part of production except to call and say I LOVE IT! when i see pictures. punkster will sell the product under the punkster name (punkster acoustic! get it, limited edition, our unplugged line. . . kind of woodsy) we will do the marketing, the print work we need, everything to get the line sold in stores.

and thats where we are today! this weekend "ohio" produced the first ever punkster acoustic photo shoot shot by lauren avila and i could not be more excited!

How to get cheap labor

the first time we went to a trade show we had about 30 stores that ordered from us. we were thrilled, and then we started to panic. how are we going to fill these? how are we going to get them out in time? how are we going to ship, package, no!!!

so we did what any great small business owner would do! we called our family! we sent them to pittsburgh. we shipped all the shirts, all the bottles and ourselves to pittsburgh, pa and called on the bonds that tie the family, the people who would have the most trouble saying no to helping.

moms, dads, brothers, sisters, sisters husbands, old boyfriends, grandmas, neighbors, neighbors friends, distant relatives, they all came through for us, sat in the dining room for days on end and stamped and stuffed and put on stickers and organized and on and on and on. we couldn't have done anything without the pittsburgh branch, and we are forever indebted. literally!!!

i distinctly remember at one point when Ashleigh yelled "grandma, can't you go any faster!?"

man, good labor is so hard to find these days.

Where it all started

punkster's first warehouse

or

[leanne's loss of sanity. and kitchen.]

this was my kitchen on punkster. now, i can't even find punkster when i need to show someone. you see, we got a warehouse last season. i remember reading this article about a start up business in one of my business magazines that i read like a valley girl reads cosmo, i eat those articles up.

i fully remember reading about a girl that started a small company, i forget what it was, but she had a picture of her on a fork lift in her warehouse! and i remember thinking how huge that is, a warehouse with your creations, thousands of little pieces of your brain all organized in bins and pulled down off the shelves with a forklift, how cool i thought!

and now, we are in that place. we aren't buying forklifts, but i think they use one for us once in awhile. we found this great option, a distributor of sorts i guess. it turns out you dont have to have your own warehouse, there are places and ways to share warehouse space, have a manager in charge of your "stuff" we use a company, "international warehousing solutions" outside of new york, jack is great!

"gidget,

Noted. Lord and Taylor samples sent.

hope all is well.

Ride the curl

Jack

Jack Chiovaro
Operations Manager
International Warehousing Solutions"

he always calls me gidget because he thinks im a surfer cali girl. if he only knew! they handle everything from wine to water to baby clothes!

anyway, well we pay for space in this warehouse and they ship out our shirts for us. they store and ship everything which takes a huge load off our mind, our time and our kitchen storage!

they even stuff all the shirts in the baby bottles which is huge for us, considering if we or our family had to smoosh one more shirt in one more bottle we were going to drown ourselves in milk, it was an amazing solution, and although it decreases our profit per shirt, like everything else, i really feel like it was a great use of money and offers me more time to do the finer things in business life like, create new designs, try for press, write this blog.

Prime plus one, apr, and other gibberish

Yesterday was a big day for the business side of things in the life of Punkster.

We went to the bank. we transferred all our accounts out of California, where I used to live, back to good old new york city, where I used to live too and live again. as steven, the kind man at bank of america helped us out I couldn't stop giggling.

what is your address?
Brooklyn

what is your phone number?
l.a.

where would you like to have your new bank card sent?
well, it depends. . .when will it be there. how about Pittsburgh

what is your income?
yea, uh . .. none.

To all these aloof and strange answers I had to say, look I swear we aren't doing anything shady or illegal, we are just making baby clothes. promise.

We discussed getting extra money. Its time, there comes a time in all great small businesses when you are spending more than you are making. and its scary as anything. some companies tackle this step in the beginning. They get an idea they invest in it, they get backers, people who risk because they believe in it. and they owe more money than they will make in the next five years. That's scary.

Some companies, like us, have been entirely self sufficient since we started. We took one friendly family loan and made money from the beginning. We have grown "organically" slowly and easily until this point. But now the production sizes are going up, the inventory in the warehouse is increasing. We are adding a new line to our brand. And all these things are sucking the money right out of our marrow. But in a good way. . . . I think. . ..

So Steven, the bank guy, gave us the scoop. a "line of credit" is better than a credit card. A credit card should be used for temporary short term investments. Small things. At least this is what I think he said. . .my business partner was involved in listening better than I did. So. . .a line of credit was what we should go for.

We have been debating these issues for months, whats the best form of borrowing or if we even want to do it. Every great company has debt. Thats what we are told. but the thing is, my brain is in civilian world, telling me that debt is a bad bad thing. That you want to be only in the clear. So this whole debt world is scary. But necessary.

Then of course there are investors, but donald trump, the madman, himself told us, (a story for another day) dont give your company away. Keep it all as long as possible. Take loans and give interest, but don't give a percentage. We are still trying to listen to that.

So we said, ok let's try for a line of credit. Steven said we could ask for up to 100,000 dollars and they would counter offer if it was too high.

Let's go for gold I said! and he filled it out. My partner and I got nervous, laughing as we told him our stats, the numbers, the non creative, the numbers that don't really represent the hype or the potential of Punkster. Every number he asked us we looked at each other and laughed. A giggle, a nervous giggle, an it will be alright giggle.

So, I asked, when will we know what they say.

He said, we have a decision for you right now.

AHHH! no joke, Ashleigh and I both screamed on the spot in the bank. I asked if we could leave and come back. Maybe go for a walk, take a breather. I was scared of their decision, thinking they knew what we were worth better than we did.

He smiled and said, congratulations. You have been approved for a line of credit.

And then he told us how much.

We laughed again. a lot. a lot.

And we took it.

So far, so good.
Leanne

punkster. rock the wee world.
www.niceshirtbaby.com

Ladies and Gentlemen: Trade Show World

My small business friend and I were commiserating about the toils of Trade Show World. She told me how she’s cried at every trade show. This is your baby (no pun intended for Punkster), what your selling is yours, out of your brain, your world every day all day. And if you sit at a trade show and they don’t like your goods, if they think you charge too much, if they walk by without looking in your booth, your little heart breaks. At least the business side of it. Punkster has had a great track record, except for Atlanta. The Atlanta Mart is a huge building and I think the biggest market in the country, but everyone warned us, that the South was not our market. Every one said they wouldn’t get us. We didn’t believe them. Maybe we should have. We spent the first day sitting . . ..  . Sitting . . . waiting . . .. looking out for people. . Waiting . . .. Nothing. The mart explained to us that they had switched the dates this year, that buyers had already come and left before we arrived. But it still didn’t help the self-business-esteem. We were personally offended, we were bored, we were over it. So we left. We posted a sign, “Be back in a minute. Call if you need us.” And we left our number, and our line guides and our invoices. And we came back one minute and three days later. It’s funny about trade shows, everyone down the aisles talk about how today is slower than normal, about how tomorrow it’s supposed to pick up, how its everyone else’s fault but theirs. And that’s fine. We will do the same thing. There are techniques to Trade Show World. We have a few popular ones. 1) The EVERYONE LOVES THIS ONE technique: As soon as you tell the buyer that this is the biggest seller at the show, everyone is getting this one, they will get it.  No fail. We thought about trying this out by saying the least popular ones were big sellers, but we can’t bring ourselves to give the customers bad shirts. Honesty, man! 2) The THIS BOOTH IS THE BEST or MOB MENTALITY technique: This one is very interesting, this one involves playing off what we know, which is, people are interested in what other people are interested in, no fail. So when no one is coming into our booth, my partner and I take turns pretending to shop. “Oh this shirt is amazing!” just walk around and such. It works every time, people feel more comfortable liking what they know other people like. It’s pretty funny to see this work! 3) The WE’RE TOO BUSY TO HELP YOU technique: This one is also very strange and the inevitable happens, as soon as you open your lunch, the crowds come. As soon as you are helping another customer, the crowds come in. As soon as you are talking to a store for 20 minutes the press badges pass you by. Always be busy, and you will always stay busy. Try these no fail techniques for success at any trade show, seeing as they are all the same. I can say this about trade show world; it is a great thing for business. I recommend doing trade shows as soon as you have all your production and back end of the business ready to go. Because as soon as you go to a trade show you better be ready to actually make the shirts people order. Many businesses have failed by not being able to fill the orders they get. But my best advice ever came from a friend that sell handbags, “Treesje Handbags” she said go to trade shows. She said you will sell retail online and make double the profit per shirt, but you will never get the bulk you need until you sell to other stores. This has proven to change our company. We did not become a legitimate business until we entered dreaded and exciting Trade Show World.

Our Great (and not so great) Independence

It's Fourth of July. I'm at work, working on Punkster. The rest of the world is off, except, I bet, for the small business owners, they never have off, at least never the normal times. But as I sit here and listen to “America the Beautiful” and get patriotic and start feeling like making presidential speeches to match the likes of the presidential speeches in “Armageddon” or “Men in Black” you know, the ones that really hit home, bring tears to your eyes, want you to go out and get those aliens, I am inspired to do my best speech for the world of small business. “Ladies and Gentlemen, let us appreciate our Independence today, on this fine day of Independence appreciation. Let us appreciate our independence from bosses, our independence from cubicles, from dress codes, from co-workers we can’t stand, from monitored e-mails, from morning commutes, our independence from traffic jams, from long-winded meetings of people trying to sound like they know what they are talking about. But let us also take this moment to also grieve some of our independencies, let us remember in a moment of silence with deep regret, our independence from automatic deposit into our bank accounts, let us take a moment of silence for savings accounts, for the office supply closet, let us take a moment of silence for the loss of the ability to leave your work life at work, let us take this time to remember our heightened solitude and our stress level. But, on this great day of Independence, let us mostly remember that this is what we wanted, this is what we aimed for, and this is what we are doing! We are go-getters, we are going to prevail! We do not need anyone telling us what to do, we are entrepreneurs, we are driven, we are Independents! Now, go out there and celebrate your Independence!” Leanne President (Of Punkster)