It’s OK to be jealous.
I’d organize some sort of “guess how many pompoms” contest, but I emphatically do not want to count them.
Author: Kelly
Kelly is a web developer and crafter based in Philadelphia, PA
Getting Legit
Today was spent filling out forms, paying fees, and otherwise transforming Everything Tiny from a fly-by-night sole proprietorship to a legitimate LLC. I’ve waited until this long for a couple reasons…. for one I’m moving to New Jersey on Sunday, and it seemed stupid to set everything up in New York just to have to move it all in a few months. Secondly I wasn’t really sure if the whole thing was going to work, and didn’t want to fork over a ton of time/energy just to have to cancel it all next month. But after processing another wholesale order I figured it was time.
Here’s what I did:
Professional Printing
Up until now I’ve been printing my own packaging. When your packaging design changes every week, it just doesn’t make sense to have hundreds professionally printed. But I’ve finally got something I plan on sticking with for a while, so I went and ordered some nice glossy pre-cut matchbook covers (for the basic Tinysaurs) from overnightprints.com. I’ve heard mixed reviews for them – it sounds like if you use them long enough they’re bound to screw up irreparably – but I’m chancing it for now.
Federal Employee ID Number
I don’t have any employees now, but if things keep going they way they have been (fingers crossed) I’m going to need at least a part-time employee soon. So I went and got myself a FEIN. It took all of 5 minutes on the IRS website.
New Jersey LLC Registration
I’m now an official LLC, and can get a business checking account! The LLC forms were a little more in-depth than the IRS forms, and a little harder to fill out. I think the hardest part was figuring out what industry I’m in. Manufacturing? Arts and entertainment? Retail? Since my plan for this year is to do mostly wholesale and not retail, I went with manufacturing. There were some sub-codes for independent artisans, so I went with that.
UPC Codes
I plan on selling my stuff at some medium-sized retailers, some of whom use barcode scanners with their checkout. To get my stuff to work with their systems I need UPC barcodes on all my stuff, and each one has to be unique per product. I did a whole bunch of research… it’s expensive! You can register with GS1, but it ends up being abour $1000 to start, and then an extra few hundred dollars a year. I’m sure to a major manufacturer that’s nothing, but to me it’s pretty steep, so I decided to purchase barcodes for a reseller for the time being.
There are some drawbacks to purchasing from a reseller. First off, they’re not really your barcodes. They’re someone else’s barcodes, with someone else’s prefix, and they’ve been sold to you. For smaller retailers this isn’t a big deal. If you’re planning to sell your stuff to Wal-Mart or Target, this may cause problems. You also have to do research on your reseller – there was a change in GS1’s policies and only companies who registered with GS1 before August 2002 can resell UPCs. It’s really hard to find objective information because of course all the people providing it want you to buy from them.
Business Cards
So far business cards have been sort of an afterthought. Usually the night before a show I’ll think “Oh shoot, business cards!” and run some off on my home printer. I finally got my act together and had some printed up not only for me but also for my sales rep, Katherine (that’s right, I have a sales rep. You’re jealous).
Overall it was a busy day. I gave my business debit card quite a workout, and my books probably will look a little sadder this month than I thought, but most of it is one-time expenses I won’t have to worry about ever again. I rewarded myself with a bike ride through Liberty State Park with Chris, and we found that the Liberty Science Center is only a 5 minute bike ride away from home! This means we can go see films in IMAX and planetarium shows whenever we want. Now Chris is cooking dinner, I’d say it was a pretty good day.
Managing Wholesale Accounts
Wholesale accounts are great. You move a ton of product with minimal effort compared to retail sales, and if things go well you’ll have a nice steady stream of repeat business. When I first started wholesaling I realized I was going to need a better way of keeping track of orders and payments than just my Paypal account. A spreadsheet will do you allright, but can be a bit of a chore to maintain.
I own a copy of Quickbooks, and actually know how to use it, but I haven’t set it up yet because it’s kind of a chore. And right now I’m working from any of three places, so having my invoicing tied to one machine is kind of a bummer.
Enter Freshbooks. Freshbooks is an online invoicing tool which makes things really easy. You enter your client info, put together an invoice, and send it via email or snailmail. If you send the invoice via email the client will get a link to a login page where they can view the invoice and, if you’ve set it up, pay it. I just got around to configuring mine to work with Paypal / Google Checkout.
It’s made my life a lot easier because I can see at a glance how much wholesale business I’ve done this month and which stores are purchasing the most. And I can track who has paid and who hasn’t easily. You can also get a report of which items are the bestsellers, although it’s a little clunky. But really the best thing about it is that it’s available from anywhere, so even if I’m traveling I can follow up on invoices.
Freshbooks also offers expense and time tracking which I haven’t used, currently I’m using Mint.com for expense tracking until I have the time to spend a morning setting up Quickbooks. You can also have additional accounts for staff members, which I don’t have. The free version lets you have up to 3 clients, after that plans start at $15/month.
Granted, Freshbooks doesn’t do anything you couldn’t do on your own with a little more time and energy, but both of those are a precious commodity for me. So being able to farm it out to someone else is a big plus. And I like that clients can log in and view their accounts at any time, see what’s due, etc. So far I’m happy with them. If you use something else to manage your wholesale clients, tell me about it in the comments!
Spring Bada-Bing Recap
Sara and I got back from Spring Bada-Bing late last night. All in all I’d say it was a good show! We’re a little exhausted, and things didn’t always go quite as smoothly as we’d planned, but we still had a good time and made some good sales.
We couldn’t have asked for a better organized show. First off, the venue was beautiful and perfect for an upscale craft show. Unloading in the morning was a breeze, there were plenty of volunteers who helped lug our stuff to our table. Tables were provided as part of the booth fee, along with two chairs, and it was nice not to have to worry about bringing them down with us.
There aren’t a lot of lunch options near the venue, Plant Zero, but the Richmond Craft Mafia organized an opt-in lunch for vendors. It was delicious, less than $10 for a sandwich/salad/drink, and delivered right to the booth. Not bad at all. This is the 4th year the craft mafia girls have put on the show, and it shows. If anything went wrong at the show I was totally unaware of it.
Attendance seemed a little lower than I was expecting, but I’m not sure how much of that is just my perception. It’s a nice big space and the walkways were pretty generous (way nicer than the alternative), so it takes a lot of people to really look full. The only downside of Plant Zero is that it doesn’t really have much built-in foot traffic since it’s tucked away on the south side, but there was a steady if light stream of customers. It seemed like the ratio of buyers to browsers was pretty high, a lot of the people who stopped by our table ended up buying something. I’m happy to say I don’t have any customer horror stories to report of terrible children or rude adults.
The million dollar question for any show is of course how much did you make versus the cost of the show. We did OK. Sara and I both had busy schedules leading up to the show so we weren’t quite as polished and prepared as we would have liked, and I think it affected sales a little. For us travelling from Philly and New York, it was a decent but not amazing show.
I’m getting pretty picky about my shows in my old age, and I’d definitely do Spring Bada-Bing again next year. But tie it into a mini-vacation in Richmond so I have a little more time to relax and don’t feel like I’m travelling down just for the show. And if you live close enough to Richmond you could do the show as a day trip it’s a no brainer, it’s totally worth the very reasonable booth fee.
I’m so tired I forgot to title this.
I’m not kidding. I originally published this article sans title. This past week has been brutal. I’ve been getting ready for the craft show and my move to Jersey, and it’s been uphill. Things are mostly running smoothly now, but I’m tired. I just saw that it’s 9:45 and thought really? It’s only 9:45? Feels more like 11:45. So it’s gonna be an early night for me. Tomorrow will be spent frantically packing everything up for Richmond, and Saturday I head down to Philly to drive to RVA with Sara aka girlscantell.
I’ll quit whining and share this artist I found through an ad on Indie Craft Shows:
I have to say I really love Etsy seller (and RIT Chemistry student) beadworkbyamanda‘s nerdy jewelry. I’ve seen a lot of circuit board jewelry over the years, but this is the first that’s been nice enough I’d actually want to wear it outside of the hackerspace. She’s also got some rings which look equally awesome. Almost all of her stuff is sub-$20 which is a steal.
Burning Out
A couple years ago I worked at a scooter shop. Not a lame electric wheel-around-the-grocery-store thing, but vintage gas powered two-stroke oil burning Vespas. And among many other things we did there, we held a rally which had a burnout contest.
If you are not familiar with burnouts, its when you manage to keep the bike still while spinning the rear wheel furiously (the front isn’t powered). It makes a lot of noise and smoke and is generally the sort of thing boys like to do.
Some Harley guys came to the rally, they were friends of our Snap-On guy. Snap-On is like an ice cream truck but instead of selling ice cream, he comes by and sells you $30 screwdrivers. They’re very nice screw drivers. Anyway, so Snap-On guy brought his Harley friends with their big snazzy bikes.
In what could only be described as a show of supreme manliness, the 3 or 4 Harleys lined up against the curb and proceeded to do burnouts, producing more smoke and noise and burning rubber smell than any tiny little Vespa engine. And I suppose we were all quite impressed. And then flames started shooting out the tailpipe of one of the bikes. He’d blown a valve. That was the end of the burnout contest, and most of his engine.
That’s how I feel today. I’ve been going and going and going, and sometimes just spinning my wheels without going, and today I’m just burnt out. I’d love to just declare the next few days vacation days, after all I’m my own boss, right? Not so much. Time is my boss, and man is he harsh. I’ve got until Friday to get everything ready for Spring Bada-Bing, a wholesale order I should have gotten out the door today (it’ll go out first thing in the morning, promise!) and another one I need to start on. That’s this week. Next week I have to finish packing up all my belongings and move from Brooklyn to New Jersey. Yeah.
It’s all doable, but I ran too hard to long and now I’ve blown a valve of some sort. The guy with the Harley had to get a friend to come tow his bike home. I’ve got my boyfriend to direct me through the evening: eat, relax, play video games, snack on leftover Easter candy. It’s nice to have someone else to bail you out when all you really feel like doing is pulling the covers over your head and singing lalalalala I can’t hear you to the mountain of work you have to do.
The funniest part about the Harley blow-up to all of us scooter kids was that Harleys are expensive. Blowing up your Harley’s engine is gonna cost a bunch to fix. Old scooters on the other hand are simple; they’re two stroke engines, they don’t really have that many moving parts. You could buy a brand new engine for what the Harley guy probably spent fixing his bike. My business is more like a scooter. It’s not like a web service where you’ve got to maintain 24/7 uptime, and nothing I do is so time sensitive it can’t wait until the morning. So I get away from my burnout-meltdown pretty cheap, and with any luck I’ll be all fixed in the morning.
Top 10 (or 6) Apps for the Tmobile G1
Last week I finally broke down and got a G1. Of course since I ordered it over the phone to get the maximum sweetest discount it had to be shipped, and just got here yesterday.
I spent most of the day playing with it, although I did somehow managed to get 60+ Tinysaurs packed in that time. I searched online for suggestions on good apps to grab, and found the suggestions to be really lacking. Really, gizmodo? An app to locate cab companies is on your top 10? For as often as I need a cab (almost never) I can just google it when the time comes. Really none of the top 10s I was finding had apps I cared about in the least.
So here’s my top ten list of apps to round out the G1.
- Toggle WiFi. It does exactly what its name implies. The WiFi connection can drain the battery a bunch when it’s on and not being used, Toggle WiFi gives you a one-tap option to turn it on/off.
- PDANet. This is a combination G1 app and PC app that makes it stupidly easy to tether your PC to your G1’s tasty 3G connection via USB. You don’t have to root your phone and since it’s USB instead of wifi both your laptop’s and your G1’s battery will be happier on long trips without a power source.
- ConnectBot. SSH client for the G1. SSH everywhere!
- NewsRob syncs up with your Google Reader account (which I’ve just started using in the past couple weeks) and can make articles available for offline reading. So I will finally have something to do on the subway besides play Zuma when I leave my DS at home.
- Twidroid is a twitter client for Android. So I can compulsively check my friends list whenever I want. I set it to update every 30 minutes in an effort to curb my addiction.
- Bubble. It’s a level. For your phone. We seem to have lost all of the actualy water-in-a-tube levels at NYC Resistor, so it’s all iPhones and G1s to align things. Hey, want to climb our homemade stairs to our loft? Oh, why not?
Ok, that’s only 6. I promised a top-10 list, what gives? So far I’ve only got 6 I think are really essential. I’m still looking fora to-do list (TooDo looks a little too bulky and intense for me), a couple decent games, something to handle my google docs elegantly, and some sort of note/doodle pad. Any suggestions?
Nuts Fear Humans
I’ll spare you the business pontification today to share this sign, spotted at a Dunkin Donuts on Willoughby St.
If you can’t read blurrycam (thanks, phone) it reads:
WARNING!
Nuts and Coconuts have serious allergen reaction to some persons
So be considerate of the nuts and coconuts out there and don’t ingest them if you are an irritating person.
You Know What You Should Do…
Lately it seems like the phrase I hear more often than any other is “You know what you should do…” followed by a suggestion for my business. Or one of my friends’ businesses.
I highly discourage anyone from starting a sentence with that phrase, especially when you are talking to a friend who is trying to build a company/product. It’s not that we don’t appreciate the interest, far from it, but 9 times out of 10 it’s something we’ve heard 50 times before. And more than that, telling people what they should do, even when you’re just offering advice, is annoying.
There are a few ways to avoid this and keep yourself on your self-employed friend’s good side. First and foremost is to refrain from offering unsolicited opinions. If they’ve got that glassy-eyed “oh god I’ve been working 60 hours a day and I still have 100 things to do” look, keep your suggestions to yourself. For the sake of peace. Even if it’s a good idea, the thought of adding one more item to the brainpile might just be too much. If you think you’re really onto something, offer to share them when the person feels up to it. Saying “if you’re interested later I’ve got a couple ideas for you” is a lot less imposing than “hey you should make those blue.”
The second option is to keep just change your wording. Don’t say, “you should…” say, “have you considered…” The difference is subtle, but can make the conversation flow a lot smoother.
For example, a lot of people suggest that I should sell my Tinysaurs in natural history museum shops. This is a great idea, albeit not a new one. The thing is there are some high barriers to entry for those shops, and without an in through some social networking they’re pretty much unavailable to me. I’ve spent a while researching it and it’s been pretty frustrating. Changing the sentence to “have you considered selling these in museum shops” makes it much less awkward for me to say “yeah, but it turns out its pretty hard for someone at my level to get their stuff sold there.”
“Have you considered…” or “what if you tried..” is handy even if your suggestions are soilicited. It’s a small change in phrase, but can make a big difference to the ears of an entrepeneur who is swamped with ideas and only has two hands to execute them.
Packing Packing Packing
In a little over three weeks I’ll be moving from my apartment in Brooklyn to Jersey City, NJ. This is relatively new information, until recently I’d planned to move at the beginning of June. But plans change and now I’m moving the last weekend in April. Hooray!
I hate packing. I hate packing a lot. Here is my packing “strategy”:
> 2 weeks from moving day: go through everything carefully, deciding what to keep, what to goodwill, and what to throw away. Organize things into carefully selected boxes of like items. Mark clearly on the side what’s in there “Audio Cables” or “Books.”
> 1 week from moving day: get a little lazier about the whole “like items” thing, packing whatever fits together in the box. Start to see boxes of “Shoes, office supplies, some embroidery floss.” Stop actually checking to see if the box of embroidery floss that’s been sitting on the shelf all year actually contains said floss. At this point I also come across items which got separated from the rest of their bretherin, and sit on my desk until I decide whether or not to open the box they belong in.
Less than one week from moving: Flail arms in frustration as remaining items do not wish to be organized. What category does a crochet Katamari fall under? What about this lego sculpture?! Chuck it all in any box. Who cares what it is or why I own it. I’ll figure it out when I get to the new place and unpack it. 9 times out of 10, this box won’t get unpacked for at least a year, and may never get unpacked.
Since we’re still more than three weeks away from moving, I’m opting for an unlisted option: procrastinate in any way possible. Offer to do favors for people. Have lunch at that really slow place around the corner. Scrub the sink. Catch up on Dollhouse. You know, things I really have to get done today, yup.
I hate packing.