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(Brand) Identity Crisis

Aug 25th, 2009
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Last week (well, really last year) I had a little bit of a brand identity crisis.

I’ve had an active lifestyle blog for a while, and then eventually created Gather No Moss as a separate entity and web site. But I began to wonder if perhaps I should focus my efforts and combine the two: a web site that sells the Gather No Moss brand of products and a blog encouraging active lifestyles.

After some back and forth in my mind, and then reaching out to others to ask their opinions, I pulled the trigger and combined them.

But then last week as I was thinking more about my “brand” and what it represents, I came to the conclusion that I really have two separate brands and two separate target customers. I’m now making plans to separate the two again.

Here’s the rationale: Gather No Moss is targeted at people that are already active, and mostly, people that consider themselves to be athletes. To them, I want to be the brand that allows them to show their activeness to others.

My active lifestyle blog is really targeted at people that are either not active, or are looking to become more active, but not necessarily at people that are already athletes. That’s also the audience that I want to speak to and work with, to help them become more active. And I think this business will be my “personal” brand, using my name rather than a funky business name.

Stay tuned!

Brian

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Signs, signs, everwhere a sign

Aug 18th, 2009
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I had a cool experience yesterday. I had to drop off a batch of t-shirts to be printed with my new “triathlete” design. Since I’ll be selling these t-shirts at a triathlon that I’ll be competing in, it was time for me to get a folding table to use. I thought it would also be nice to have a sign for the table.

There is a sign store (a Signs by Tomorrow franchise)  right near one of my retailers, and I’ve driven by it for about 15 years without giving it much thought. So now that I’m in the market for a sign, I stopped by to see what they have available.

Boy, did I hit the jackpot there. I talked to the owner (Julian) himself, and it turns out that he’s a triathlete himself! As such, he’s very aware of what kinds of signs would work well for my business. And since he also has a working relationship with the owner of the running store that sells my shirts, he’s going to work with him to figure out what kind of signage I could use in the store.

And one more cool thing is that the sign store owner helps out new businesses by giving them some freebies, so I’ll probably get a couple small signs for free.

I love working with locally-owned businesses!

Gather no moss!

Brian

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Everything looks like a t-shirt

Aug 8th, 2009
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Have you ever heard the expression “When you’re a hammer, everything looks like a nail?”

I see t-shirts as a vehicle for many business opportunities. Now that I know how to go about getting them from wholesalers and getting them printed, I see that same method as a means for getting “messages” out to others. My Gather No Moss brand is the first one that I’m working on, but I have three other ideas waiting in the wings.

I’m curious: do other entrepreneurs do the same thing? If you’re a successful blogger for a particular topic, but you also have other interests beyond that topic, do you feel compelled (or at least tempted) to start blogs for those other topics too, and to apply your monetization methods to these other areas?

Gather no moss!

Brian

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Guessing game

Aug 8th, 2009
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I’d love to hear how other t-shirt entrepreneurs decide on the many variables in ordering t-shirts: styles, colors, sizes, quantities. So far, I’ve been using educated guesses, knowing that most of my target audience are somewhat fit. I go heavy (pardon the pun) on the large shirts for the men, and on the medium shirts for the women.

My dad was a buyer for an east coast business for most of his career. His focus was on cameras and electronics. I never asked him how he went about deciding on what to buy (from the manufacturers) or how many, but I’m sure that he used a combination of experience and guessing.

I’m ready to get a new batch of t-shirts for my new “triathlete” design. I need some for a couple retail stores, I need some for my own online sales, and especially I got the approval to sell shirts at the triathlon that I’ll be doing at the end of August. For this batch of shirts, I’ve decided to keep it simple: one color for the men’s shirts, one for the women’s shirts, and one for the youth shirts. At this point, I can’t be all things to all people, so I’ll focus on just getting sales.

Gather no moss!

Brian

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Does office color matter?

Aug 6th, 2009
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I just finished painting my home office (I should be in bed). I couldn’t help myself. When I built this office in our basement a couple years ago, I painted the walls a dark brown to have more of a rustic feel. I grew to hate it, and a couple weeks ago I decided to try something different. At first I picked a neutral color, but then thought better of it and decided to follow my heart.

My office is now madarine orange, and I love it! It’s bright, cheery, and (to me) it inspires creativity.

I still have to replace the carpet, but for now I’m happy. I plan to decorate the walls with framed posters of some of my favorite movies (Blues Brothers, Real Genius, maybe Chariots of Fire), and perhaps some of my favorite sports stars (Julius Erving, Karch Kiraly).

Do you have a creativity-inducing office?

Gather no moss!

Brian

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Not enough time!

Aug 6th, 2009
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This post is all about frustration. Frustration over not having enough time to devote to my business. Is this you?

I’ve got my full-time job, my family, my leadership responsibilities at our church, and I’m trying to finish our massive basement (which contains my home office). The time that is left over is what I have to spend on Gather No Moss. Frustrating. Oh yeah, I’m also training for my first triathlon.

I’ve heard from others that tell me that I have to sacrifice to make my business a reality. I agree, and I am sacrificing. But what to sacrifice is something that only the sacrificer can decide on. I can’t cheat my employer, or my family, and we all must have regular exercise (that’s the whole point of my business, after all). I can and do sometimes have to let a task around the house go undone for a while (that why the basement has been a 3-year project). Only I can decide what I’m willing to let go of.

This past winter I made a difficult decision. We live in the country, in the woods. Our house has a wood-burning stove in the basement that is capable of heating the house, and we’re surrounded by trees. That’s free fuel! I love cutting and splitting a fallen tree…it cleans up the landscape and provides heat for the house. And it’s great exercise and wonderful “outside” time. I’ve done this for three winters.

But this takes time–to cut, split, and haul the wood, and then to be attentive to the wood-burner to keep it stoked. As much as I like the feeling of the natural warmth in our house, and love the idea of (partially) living off the land, I had to accept that this was an optional activity. It’s not like we don’t have a furnace and the money to pay for the propane.

I decided that I needed to spend time on my business rather than spending time to heat our home. I had to face the fact that my time was worth more than the money we’d save.

I’m not done. I still have to cut other things out to make more “business” time.

How about you? Are you sacrificing the wrong things? Keep in mind why you’re trying to start a business in the first place. Hopefully, like me, one of your goals is to have more time freedom. Yes we need to sacrifice in the present to achieve for the future, but not at the  total expense of the present. Enjoy the process, don’t just strive for the destination.

Gather no moss!

Brian

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Another retailer

Jul 24th, 2009
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snitgers_logo-animated

I had another success this week. A local, privately-owned bicycle store agreed to sell Gather No Moss t-shirts. So, our “cyclist” t-shirts are now available at Snitger’s Bicycle Store in Beaver, PA.

The process of pitching to retailers has been interesting for me, since I’m really not a salesman. I also don’t like cold calls, so my approach has been to send a 1-page letter to the specific decision maker at the retailer that explains who we are, what we’re trying to do, and that I’ll be contacting them in a couple days. I then follow up with a phone call a few days later, assuming/hoping that they’ve read my letter and that my call isn’t coming from out of the blue.

Also, for the two retailers that I have so far, I’m selling on consignment, so the only thing the retailer really has to do is provide shelf or hanger space, and their own price tags. I only get paid based on what sells, but it’s a no-lose situation for the retailer, and for me it just means that I’m “floating” the money, since I’ve already purchased and printed the shirts. At this point, since I’m still working full time, I can afford to not have good cash flow. I’m more interested in getting the product out.

Gather no moss!

Brian

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On being the tortoise

Jul 24th, 2009
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tortoise_and_hare

I’ve entered Gather No Moss into Startup Nation’s “Home-Based 100″ contest. Not for the sake of winning, but for free publicity. And if we happen to win, it will provide even more publicity.

For the contest, every person (actually, every IP address, I would suppose) can vote once a day until the voting ends, which isn’t until the end of  September or sometime in October. I vote for Gather No Moss every day, as does my wife, her sister, and a number of other friends. I’m not sure how many people are voting, but my “Popularity Meter” is quickly rising into the “hot” range. For this particular contest, our popularity probably isn’t based as much as the number of unique people voting for us, but rather by the tenacious and consistent voting of a rabid few.

I guess that makes me the tortoise. I’ll take it, because in that tale, I know who wins in the end :)

Gather no moss!

Brian

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Mannequins?

Jul 20th, 2009
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mannequin_man mannequin_woman

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As I’m starting to get new shirt colors and designs for Gather No Moss, I really need to be able to take nice pictures of the shirts. Initially, I just had my wife take a picture of me in each shirt, but I’m not happy with that quality. And I’d like to take the pictures myself. I have a friend who does product photography on the side, but I can’t afford to pay him every time I add a new product, which will hopefully be happening very regularly. Remember, I’m bootstrapping as much as I can.

Yesterday I thought about how I could set up a repeatable process for getting good pictures of my products, with good lighting and a nice background. I was going to just set up an area where I could put a shirt on a hanger and get a good picture. Then my wife mentioned getting a mannequin. That thought had never crossed my mind. I spent an hour looking online at mannequins.

Talk about an industry that I had never thought about before! Wow, they have mannequins for everything: male, female, child, adult, size, shape, head, no head, arms, no arms, torso, full body, “busty,” etc. I may still do this without using mannequins, but it’s nice to know that I have options.

Brian

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E-Commerce Solutions

Jun 27th, 2009
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I’m in the process of setting up a new shopping cart for my web site. Up till now, I’ve been selling online through a company that does everything on-demand for me. My current “store” is actually on their site, and when a t-shirt is ordered, they process the payment, print the shirt, ship it, and then provide me with my designated commission. That has worked great for a proof-of-concept test for me, but it’s not very profitable (for me).

So it’s time to start doing more of the physical work myself. I’m now ordering my own shirts and getting them printed locally. I needed to do that anyway in order to get into retail stores. For my online store, since I use GoDaddy for my hosting, I’ve got simple procedures for installing shopping cart programs like osCommerce and Zen-Cart. After doing some research, I chose Zen-Cart, and now I’m working on the customization of it. Once I’m done with that (as if anything is ever really “done”), then I’ll enter my products and be ready to turn it on.

I’ll post again when I’ve got it going, but thought you might like to hear more about the process I’m going through.

Brian

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