Beat the Recession with Multiple Streams of Income

For Christmas I traveled south of the border, to Bogotá, Colombia. This Central American city has become quite Americanized -- Dunkin' Donuts and TGI Friday's have set up shop, and in the malls, Zara, Louis Vuitton and Paul & Shark share space with local retailers (click here to see all the photos I took).

I was there to visit my good friend Claudia, whom I've known since the mid 80's when I worked with her husband Rodrigo in Wall Street. Rodrigo is a serial entrepreneur with a passion for business, and it was fascinating to hear about his latest venture and how he got it off the ground.

From stocks to steak
In 1988, after 4 years in New York, the couple decided to move back home, where Rodrigo had plans to open his own brokerage business. His office started out with 5 people in a small room, and today it's grown to 350 employees with 8 lines of businesses. Four years ago he branched out into dining, launching a sushi restaurant at a time when raw fish was still a novelty in Bogotá. His first foray into the culinary world ended in disaster, but not one to quit easily, he took the lessons he learned and opened a steak house instead, "La Biferia" along with other investors. Bogotanos love beef but there were very few dining options to chose from, so Rodrigo and his partners came up with a totally new concept: a mid priced steak house with a modern, minimalist decor, and serving 12 different cuts of prime beef. It was a hit from the very start, and now it's grown to 3 branches.

Colombia gets "Cool"
To expand his knowledge of the wines offered at his eatery, Rodrigo took a university course on wine, and one of his instructors was Colombian oenophile Hugo Sabogal. The two became friends and Hugo later invited Rodrigo to Mendoza, the wine making region of Argentina, to the extreme west of the capital city of Buenos Aires. While there, at a wine tasting event, they came across Domaine Jean Bousquet, a 12 year old winery owned by a 3rd generation French wine maker. Frustrated with the humidity in France, Jean went in search of more ideal soil and climate conditions and finally found it in Tupungato, at the foothills of the Andes. The steady temperatures and lack of rain are perfect for growing the organic grapes they produce.

When Rodrigo visited the vineyard he was mesmerized by the crisp, clean air and beautiful countryside, as well as by the smooth, distinct flavor of the local Malbec and Torrontes grapes, along with the Cabernet Sauvignons and Merlots, which are all produced by the winery. That's where he conceived the idea for Cool Wines Global, the company he launched to distribute the Cameleon and Jean Bousquet brands. He was going from dining to wining - it was a natural extension of his restaurant. So again he found some partners, and chose a very sleek and sexy look for the website and logo, to make the wines "friendlier" and less intimidating to their target market. He sells them at his restaurants as well as retail, and sales are growing steadily. In the future he plans to expand into wines of other regions. They have started hosting wine tastings at his restaurants, a great way to cross-promote both businesses.

Colombians take a liking to wine
Until recently the most popular alcoholic drinks in Colombia were beer and "aguardiente", a strong local beverage made of sugar, but that has changed dramatically in the last few decades. According to a 2007 GAIN Report, wine consumption in Colombia has tripled in the last 5 years due to increased demand, while Old World countries like France and Italy have actually seen declines. And local wine enthusiasts are starting to congregate in Facebook, with the "Bogotá Wine Club" page attracting 791 members, "Club del Vino" 1316 and "Buenvivir" 1013. These are great places to announce events and promotions.

Wine on YouTube
I couldn't resist showing Rodrigo one of my favorite video channels, Gary Vaynerchuck's WineLibrary TV which he loved. He says he'll definitely look for ways to incorporate video into his new site.



Rodrigo watches the Wine Spectator channel which has better production values but gets much less traffic (go figure - which one do you like best?).





This empresario isn't stopping there - he has investments in other businesses as well and is looking to add more to his "portfolio". When I asked him how he's able to juggle so many balls in the air, he credits the book Rich Dad Poor Dad, which he read years ago. The economic environment may be different now from when the book first came out, but the major theme still applies and is more pressing than ever: save money and invest it in productive assets that generate income so you can get out of the "rat race", where you only work to pay your bills. Time to dust it off from my book shelf and re-read it!

Another book he recommends is Blue Ocean Strategy, which describes companies that take an existing product or service and revolutionize it by making it bigger/better/different, like Starbucks did, and Cirque de Soleil, and is what he did with his steak house.

Rodrigo saw the trend towards more wine consumption in Colombia and decided to capitalize on it. If you'd like to read more about what areas are hot here in the US, check out Entrepreneur Magazine's 2009 Trends To Watch piece, definitely a must-read.

Outlook for Startups in NYC

Last night I attended another great meeting put together by the folks at the NY Software Industry Association (NYSIA). I'm a total new media geek and software is what it's all about, so I've gone to a few of their events and I usually come out with good contacts and new ideas. It was held was the posh Park Avenue offices of JP Morgan/Chase, who generously donated the space and I believe were also responsible for the yummy sandwiches and soft drinks. After a bit of nibbling and networking we all sat down inside a comfy auditorium (left) and Howard Greenstein, the evening's host, gave the introduction. The four panelists participating in the discussion (below right) were all venture capitalists and angel investors, and the topic of the evening was "Running a Tech Business in NY: Challenges & Payoffs".

When Howard asked about the downsides of NYC, Jason Olim, founder of CDNow broke the ice and said that finding entrepreneurs to co-venture with is hard in the city. "New York doesn't have the startup optimism you see elsewhere. The "gold rush" mentality that allows people to walk away from great salaries to join startups isn't present here. There's an optimism deficit," he added.

He also pointed out that NY is all about media, advertising, and financial services, but there's no real tech culture. "There's no MIT or big name tech school here. Unless that happens you won't see it."

Roger Krakoff of Boston and California-based venture capital firm Sigma Partners thinks there is a lack of support networks here so lawyers end up taking a bigger piece of the pie.

Hank Williams, Founder and CEO, Kloudshare, remarked that if you're willing to go across the Hudson, the number of engineers expands substantially. For many tech startups the question is, is it worth it to set up a development office outside of NYC? Taking it a bit further, Jeffrey Stewart, Founder of Mimeo.com said that he has recruited people from Ohio and other places, including outside the US, like China and Argentina.

On the plus side, Roger added that there is a growing number of entrepreneurs supporting the community now and that ideas coming out of New York are amazing. "If you're going to be in the marketing business you need to be in New York."

The focus then moved to "hot" industries. For Roger it depends on the time frame. He likes green technology, though that may take longer than 6 - 12 months to take hold. Other areas he sees becoming popular are things having to do with re-inventing data centers, like virtualization and green data centers. Precision marketing and social media were also on his list. Hank thinks interdisciplinary stuff will start picking up steam, like taking software to non-digital spaces. Jeffery believes that there is an overcapacity of technology out there that hasn't been product-ized, so he's keen on companies that can do this.

Then came the question on everyone's mind: how will an economic slowdown affect new companies? The panel seemed very upbeat about the prospects. Jason indicated that if this environment creates job seekers it's great for startups. If you're in a high growth business, a bad economy will help you gather your resources, according to him. Hank explained that when you're a small company going from $0 to $500K, macro economic trends won't affect you, except if you're raising money. For Roger the question is, how do you create the highest demand for your product? He sees ad markets getting bumpy during these hard times. Jeffrey thinks a slowdown is the best time to start a business.

I guess that's good news for those of us starting out! Have you been affected by the economic downturn? How are you coping? Please send in your thoughts!

Interview with Web Entrepreneur Michelle Madhok

When Michelle Madhok, founder of shefinds.com, pitched her idea for an online shopping site to AOL, Lucky and Shop Etc. back in 2004, she got shot down by all three of them. At the time she had just ended a 5 year stint at AOL, where she spent 5 years overseeing women’s content. “AOL was a great place to find out what women wanted, with 35 million subscribers, 52% of which are women, says Michelle, who is also founder of Momfinds.com.

For Michelle, the online shopping bug started out as a pastime, doing personal shopping for colleagues and co-workers when they didn’t have time, or didn’t know what to buy. Then she graduated on to sending links of shopping sites to her friends. That’s when she got the idea to do it on a larger scale. But none of the established internet sites she contacted seemed interested, so she decided to do it on her own.

“On Craigslist I found a crazy Ukrainian to build the site. I bought the domain name “shefinds.com” from a porn site that wasn’t using it anymore (love it). AOL had given me a severance so I was bootstrapping, working out of my home with one full-time person, putting together an email newsletter and a blog. It slowly started picking up steam. We got requests from people who wanted to write for us. The more money we'd make the more people I would hire (she now has 40 writers). I then hired an editor and a web designer to produce the newsletters.”

Michelle looked for sponsors right away. She joined affiliate programs like Linkshare and cj.com. Then Bare Necessities offered to sponsor her newsletters and paid her $200 the first time - she was thrilled!

About three months later, smaller businesses like jewelry designers and handbag designers that couldn’t afford to advertise on sites with big female audiences like iVillage contacted her directly and asked to place ads.

When I asked how she promoted her site, Michelle said that she hired someone to help with SEO (search engine optimization), but word about her shopping site spread virally. Now they do weekly “ad swapping” with other sites, and they have deals with MSN, Yahoo!, Real Simple and Lifetime to syndicate their content.

Michelle started out by investing $20,000 of her own money in 2004, and last year made $400,000 in revenues. “I worked hard for it”, she says. “I wrote 600 invoices last year! But it’s nice to work for myself.”

Right now her margins are over 30% but her goal is to increase them to 55%. “We’re still ramping up to get there. I don’t go out trying to sell ads - people come to us, so I need to hire an ad sales person.”

I asked her what advice she had for others that are starting out and here’s what she had to say: “At the beginning I did everything really cheap. I didn’t touch my savings very much. Your first attempt should be a test. Try to find inexpensive legal advice. Always barter or negotiate on price – I got my head shots for free because I exchanged them for free ads.”

She also believes in making your mistakes on someone else’s time/dime. Michelle found consulting gigs through The Hired Guns at first (they place people in specialty positions). She worked on an email marketing campaign for Pfizer which really helped her with her own business.
In addition to her two sites, she's got more in the works. “We want one for brides and then one for the home, and one for food. We want to be the hip consumer reports for shopping online in different vertical markets,” explains Michelle.

That's me and Michelle chatting at a recent Forrester networking event for the new book, Groundswell (a great read for anyone interested in social media). More pictures in my Facebook page.

What's your widget strategy?

Dan Greenfield of the "Bearnaise Source" wrote a post recently (Putting a Face on Social Networks: Corporate Facebook Pages) about how major corporations are using widgets especially made for Facebook to send traffic back to their own sites. Blockbuster lets Facebook users create their movie "wish list" and get updates on upcoming films; with Verizon they can download music videos to their cellphone and send them to their friends; Sprite lets them create a character, add features to it and interact with others. Why are all these companies jumping into the widget bandwagon, and more importantly, should you also jump in?

First of all, widgets are not thinga-ma-gigs, doo-hickeys, or chachkas, as my friend Andrew suggested when I brought up the topic. They are mini applications that allow users to do a particular thing. Also known as gadgets, add ons or plugins, they are short pieces of HTML code (relax...it's not as geeky as it sounds!) that you can easily add to your website. With blogging software like the one I use you just cut and paste the code into a page element and presto! It appears as if by magic (and if I can do it so can you!).

Back in October I briefly touched on how startups are using widgets to drive traffic to their sites (Startup Camp and Conference) but it's definitely worth revisiting because these little "apps" have big benefits. They make your website "stickier" by making it more dynamic and interactive. Widgets can be entertaining, informative or engaging (or all of the above) but the bottom line is they give your readers a little somethin'-somethin' for spending time on your site.

While I'm still searching for that "killer app" that's going to shoot my page views into the stratosphere, I've slowly been adding a few here and there. If you scroll down my sidebar you'll see them: "Subscribe to this blog", "Subscribe to my RSS feed", "Latest News: WomenEntrepreneur.com", "Search This Blog", "Mogulific Books", "Amazon Deals" and the "Meetup Link" - those are all widgets. And I'm no web developer...

But please be warned: Some widgets are addictive! I could have easily spent the afternoon on Widgetbox's Take A Shark Break, where you get to choose from four different sharks and four different ocean environments. The shark will follow your mouse as if it were its next meal - I could play shark & mouse forever! And that's great news if you want visitors to spend more time on your site.

Here's a few websites that have plenty of widgets to choose from, and they even allow you to customize them. By the way, they're all free:
Google Gadgets
Widgetbox
Yahoo Widgets

Do you have any favorite widgets you'd like to share with us? Please do!

Small Business Summit Recap

It was the bright orange suede vest that first caught my eye, among a sea of entrepreneurs in corporate attire at the recent Small Business Summit in New York. Then came the bright blue striped bell bottomed pants. Who was the funky mama among all the "suits"? When I finally saw her face I felt a tinge of recognition. It was Laurel Touby - one of my role models, a huge inspiration to me, the type of fempreneur that I aspire to be (for more on Laurel see my post: "Mediabistro: Timeline to Success"). She looked like a hippie bohemian artist that somehow got lost on her way to Soho or the West Village and mistakenly landed instead at a conference for entrepreneurs.

There was no question - I had to go up to her and say "hi". Any shyness that I might have felt went completely out the window as I stretched out my hand and introduced myself. She was very friendly and approachable, listening as I told her about my blog, among expressive gushes of admiration. The petite blond multi-millionaire later spoke at one of the panel presentations (she's the one that stands out with the funky, boho-chic outfit above on the right) about her company's rise to success and gave a few insights as to how she made her business grow.

"Listen to your clients", was one of the first things Laurel said, which was made easier for her since she started out by giving cocktail parties for journalists. Every month she had a steady stream of followers that were very willing to tell her what they needed. They were the ones she listened to when she received her first infusion of venture capital money and was deciding how to spend it. And it worked - she sold her company for a cool $23 mil last year. That's one piece of advice I definitely will follow.

Among the familiar faces I bumped into at the show were Laura Allen from 15secondpitch who participated at one of the panels, Lena West, who writes the TechForward blog I mentioned on my last post, Stephanie Cockerl who does wonderful things to optimize blogs (www.nextsteph.com), Kevin Kennedy of Webgrrls and of Ulas Neftci of Baruch's Small Business Development Center. All in all it was a fabulous day of schmoozing, networking, meeting fantastic people and picking up a few new best practices. I was even able to get a picture with my idol!

Update: Nelly Yusupova of Webgrrls wrote a great summary of the panel entitled: “How to transform your business in 40 minutes”. Visit her blog to get all the details.

Making Sales with Facebook and Flickr

Isn't it great when things just happen unexpectedly in your favor? That's exactly what Janice Cusano (that's her on the right), recently experienced. This former professor, who left academia last year to pursue her passion for designing jewelry, ended up selling one of her pieces on none other than Facebook, the subject of my past few posts (I swear guys, I'm not getting a penny from them! I wish!). Her story had a few good tidbits, so I thought I'd share the serendipitous series of events that led to the sale.

A couple of weeks ago, Janice was looking to revamp the photos on her site (see it on Etsy). Her friend Kathleen offered to take new pictures for her, which she then posted on her Flickr account because it was easier than sending them by email (the files were pretty big). She also placed one of the pictures on her Facebook page, (the turquoise and coral piece on the left).

Later that same night, an old friend of Kathleen's from college (who wouldn't have been in contact with her if she hadn't found her on Facebook) saw the necklace and sent her a message saying she'd love to buy it, so Kathleen sent her the link to Janice's Etsy shop, and bingo--she made a sale (she bought the earrings below on the right).

Janice also noticed that there were 48 page views of the photo within an hour of Kathleen posting it on Flickr and Facebook. Pretty good exposure!

The funny thing is, Janice doesn't even have a Facebook page for herself (but thank God her friends do!). Because of her former life as a professor, Janice has had a long-standing bias against Facebook. When the site first started out it was only open to students, so there was a stigma attached to it for those in the academic field. Last year when she was still in her teaching position she did a search and found only one other professor that had a public Facebook page. In her profession, Facebook was a non-no because that's where all the students are, and "poking" wasn't exactly conducive to a professional relationship. Plus Janice likes to keep her personal life separate from her students (now former). However, she's slowly warming up to the idea, as more professionals join every day. She also sees how traffic has increased on her Etsy site because of Flickr and Facebook. (On Etsy you can check to see how many people are viewing each page and where they come from).

Janice finds other benefits from online social networks. "Not only has (Flickr) distributed my work far and wide, I have been able to build community in more specific ways that I hadn't by blog hopping. For example, I am a color fiend and symbols are important in my work. I joined the group 'Blue and Green' and met some incredibly like-minded artists who I connect with on many levels. I actually connected with one contact I had met at a show last September! Every time this happens, I feel a little less out in the cold."

That chance encounter online gave Janice the inspiration for a series of posts related to large jewelry on her Goddess Findings blog. The picture of her contact on Flickr showed her wearing a chunky necklace that Janice liked, so when she reached out to say "hi" she also complimented her on it and asked her to submit a photo and talk about what that piece means to her.

Janice adds that artists can put pictures of their studios, their work-in-progress or things that inspire them, which gives buyers a better sense of who they are. "On Esty you see what they have for sale, but the visual images on Flickr are stronger", she says. By showing people another facet of your life, you create more of a connection.

How are you using new media in your business? Please share your story with us!

Mediabistro: Time Line to Success

I've been running around left and right trying to get my little operation into high gear and as usual fretting about the future, until I read an article (The Accidental Entrepreneur) in this month's New York Enterprise Report. It was about how Laurel Touby sold her company, Mediabistro, for $23 million this past July. It took her just 13 years...but she didn't make a profit for the first 9 of them, and she didn't generate any money for the first two. That really helps to put things in perspective!

I remember going to a few of her events and have seen her company grow right before my very eyes. Her story is so inspiring to me that I wanted to piece together all the details of how she did it, so I looked up a few other articles on the sale and put together a time line:

1994 - Laurel, a struggling freelance writer, starts organizing after-work cocktail parties for journalists - 10 people showed up at the first one but within months that turns into one hundred (FYI...today that database is about 700,000) - however, she wasn't making money from it

1996 - Started an email newsletter with job listings (still no money)

1999 - Started charging HR people $100/month to post jobs - got 8 checks the first month, then 16, then 25, 35, 45 (ka-ching!) - that's when she ditched her freelance writing and decided to make this a business

2001 - Received $1 million in funding in March (a big ka-ching), then 9/11 hit (took back some of that ka-ching - read Laurel's account of how they managed to pull through after the terrorist attacks:
The Strength to Lead in the Face of Crisis, from The Huffington Post)

2002 - Laurel follows a colleague's suggestion to add courses for journalists to her list of services, and later that year launches a premium content subscription membership (ka-ching, ka-ching)

2003 - Became profitable

2006 - Got approached by buyers

2007 - Sold Mediabistro to Jupitermedia in July for $23 million, pocketing $12.4 million (she owned 62% of the company's stock) (a really big ka-ching)

Here's more related articles on the story:

-Village Voice: The $23 million Boa

-NYC TV's NYC 360 (video): Interview with Laurel Touby

-Washington Post: Journalism Morsels Make for Profitable Dish at This Bistro

As senior vice president, Laurel will still oversee Mediabistro but now she will also report to her new bosses at Jupitermeda. NY Enterprise Report asked if her life has changed now she's wealthy and her answer was "no, I still take the subway. Maybe I’m eating out a little more often. The one thing I’m going to spend the money on is a gigantic loft apartment so I can have all my journalist friends over for dinner." Sometimes the more things changes the more they stay the same...

My take home message out of this? Create a community of like-minded souls, find out what they need, and deliver it to them. It's that simple. Do that long enough and eventually the money will come.

Recap of the NY XPO for Business

One of the things I admire about multi-millionaires like Donny Deutsch, the advertising tycoon turned TV personality, is that they may have pot loads of money in the bank (he sold his advertising company for close to $300 million bucks) but yet they still go to work every day. As host of The Big Idea on CNBC, Donny helps others make millions too. It's "must see TV" for budding Mogulettes.

Donny was keynote speaker at the NY XPO for Business luncheon at the Jacob Javits Center this week and he stood in front of a dining room the size of a football field to give the audience a few golden nuggets of wisdom in his own charming, irreverent way.

One of the first things he said was make failure your friend, which I loved to hear because I have such fear of not doing things perfectly with my business. The biggest growth, he added, comes when we fail - we grow from the stupid things we do - it's a mathematical certainty. If you're afraid to fail you can't be great. You have to know that your product or service may bomb...but if it does, so what? He likened it to dating - if you get shot down once you go on to the next. (This month's Entrepreneur Magazine has two stories on finding success after failure: click here for more)

More of Donny's tips:
Surround yourself with people that are smarter than you are. Many entrepreneurs hire people that maybe have 5% of their own qualities. He suggests finding partners and giving them a portion of your business - as long as you keep 51% of it. Small business owners usually hang on tight to their companies - we need to let go!

About success he says do what you love. If you're passionate about what you do then it's not work. If you're not passionate about your work, then find something else!

Do it differently - if your product or service isn't unique, you can't win.

Put your money where your mouth is - show customers that you believe in yourself. People love underdogs.

Show your employees you care for them, for their success. If you root for them they'll root for you!

And finally, hate is good. You need an enemy. When you pitch to a client, tell them how you hate their competitors!

When he finished his speech I made a b-line to the front of the room to get a chance to introduce myself. Dressed in blue jeans and a sweater, Donny looked like the average (but really cute!) guy next door as he graciously listened to a long line of fans wanting to shake his hand. I literally had about 15 seconds to tell him who I was and what I did in a compelling way, and I think I did an o-k good job but there's definitely room for improvement. That's when I wished I had rehearsed Laura Allen's 15secondpitch a little more.

Laura was also at the conference (check out her batch of pictures here) giving a talk on how you can use her pitching methodology not only to introduce yourself but also when you develop your web copy. The same principles apply there as well: don't give them a laundry list - be short and to the point!

On my way out I bumped into an old colleague from my days at CNNfn, Pat Kiernan. He was making a special appearance for NY1, our local cable all-news station, where he is a familiar face every morning, delivering the morning news in his signature deadpan way. It was a thrill to see him and catch up on what some of our co-workers are doing since CNN's financial network shut down 3 years ago. (That's me next to Pat, and behind us, no - you're not seeing double - it's his life sized replica!)

Laura Allen and the 15 Second Pitch

Inspiration for a business can come from very unusual places. For Laura Allen (that's her below on the right) , co-founder of "The 15secondpitch", it came from a friend looking to meet date-worthy women. She turned her knack for connecting people into a profession. How'd she do it? Read on!

During the dot-com boom Laura worked at Cheetahmail.com, which somehow managed to survive the bust and was acquired by Experian in 2004. She'd been the first hire there so she was given a lot of freedom at the company, but eventually she got bored with the corporate structure and the rules, so in 2000 she left. Just as Laura was figuring out what to do next with her life, 9/11 happened. The internet industry was devastated, leaving behind a trail of laid-off techies. Looking for ideas on what to do next, Laura and her partner, Jim, who is a database programmer, attended a networking event in Los Angeles. It was there that they met their friend David, a good looking, single, MBA grad and fellow job seeker, who asked Laura to give him a hand meeting cute, single women at the conference. He found he got a much better response when Laura introduced him, and Laura had a ball "pitching" him to the ladies.

Jim, on the other hand, was not having much luck at networking and was thinking there had to be a better way to make connections, and when the two exchanged stories, they stumbled upon the idea for a 15-second pitch.

When they got back home they immediately checked the domain name, and finding it still available, they registered it that night.

Another problem with networking events is that you end up with a bunch of business cards, and afterwards you can't remember who most of those people are. So, they thought, why not create a card that contains a pitch which explains what their company is about? They went to work to turn the idea into a business, and spent the first two years building a website where people could create 15secondpitch cards.

Then in 2003 they decided Laura would teach a workshop on how to create a 15secondpitch. A friend in New York let her use her conference room, and she advertised her 2-hour course on a forum she found in Fast Company called "Company of Friends", that reached a few thousand people just in NY and NJ.

The event was free and about 15-20 people showed up. They each told their story and one guy shared that he'd been trying to get in touch with a VP of Coca-Cola for the past two years. Then another guy said his uncle worked there, and that he'd connect him. That's when Laura saw the power of what she calls the "third party pitch."

Heather is another of Laura's "third party pitch" success stories. She was a reporter who had perfected her "I'm a journalist" pitch, but there was only one problem - she no longer wanted to be a reporter. Her dream was to become a wedding planner. Laura advised her to keep her day job and start moonlighting on the side. They created a wedding planner pitch that same day, which she later shared with her husband. He in turn started telling his colleagues about her, and one of them had just gotten engaged, so he asked Heather to plan his wedding. Three weeks after creating the 15-second pitch Heather landed her first job through a "third party pitch"!

The other thing that worked for Heather was creating an image when describing her services. She went from saying "I'm a reporter but I want to be a wedding planner", to "I have an eye for detail so I'm starting a wedding planning business." Painting a picture in people's minds helps them understand what you do, especially with tech jobs - it's easier for people to buy into an idea if you make your pitch descriptive, giving examples, telling stories, making it rich with details.

Anyway, back to the workshops. In 2005 Laura decided to start charging for her seminars, but she needed money for marketing, so she went back into the corporate world, saving the money coming in from her day job and from teaching the seminars at night. After about a year she got laid off, with 2 weeks severance pay, plus unemployment benefits. Laura was thrilled. With the money she had put away she started marketing her monthly workshop, and shifted her business model more towards corporate clients like Merrill Lynch and non-profits like Cine Women.

The website has now gone through three major revisions, and they added a pitch wizard a year ago to automate the process of printing the pitch cards. Laura just re-launched her blog last week to focus on how to put together a killer 15secondpitch, and how to use it after you create it. In January they'll be unveiling their latest product (you heard it here first!), an e-learning platform that allows people to sign up for classes and follow at their own pace. Users will be able to create a 15secondpitch plus other related content using a tool that's partly automated and partly customized by Laura.

The 15secondpitch is used by lawyers, VC's , real estate brokers, freelancers - it's especially good for freelancers because their existence hinges on how well they can pitch, and they need to be constantly pitching new business. Marketing consultants, career coaches, college grads, financial planners - they can all benefit from it.

Here are 4 things Laura says an effective 15secondpitch should include:

1. Who you are - Tell then your name AND the name of your company!
   
   
2. What you do - avoid the "kitchen sink" pitch - don't tell your entire career history - focus on one thing and be specific. She's suggests preparing a separate pitch for everything you do.
   
   
3. Why you're the best at what you do.
   
   
4. A call to action - the crown jewel.

Ready to give it a try? Visit www.15secondpitch.com to compose your perfect pitch!

Facebook Basics

This week I finally forced myself to sit down and learn how to use Facebook. For months I've been receiving emails from my friends asking me to join their list, and I had accumulated about 36 contacts but had no idea what to do with them. So after putting it off for forever, I finally to bite the bullet.

Why am I so interested? Well I spend a lot of time networking and making contacts, so anything that lets me do this more efficiently I'll definitely be interested in. What I found is that Facebook is like networking but on steroids.

So the first thing to do when you open an account is to invite your friends, which is easy - you can import your email addresses from whatever email provider you use – they’ll receive an invitation, and once they accept they'll be on your list. Another option is to click on "Find Friends", and enter your email address and password, then you'll get a list of all the contacts you have in Outlook or Yahoo and you can simply checkmark the ones you'd like to invite.

To check on your progress you can click on the "friends" tab and you'll instantly see how many people are connected to you. When you click on your friend's profile – presto! Instant access to all their friends. You'll see where they went to school, where they’re working, where they used to work… etc.

Say you’re looking to target a specific company for business; you can look through all your friend’s and family’s contacts to see if there’s anyone connected to that company, or industry. If you want to get in touch with your friend’s friends, you can ask for an introduction or directly request to be their friend.

Facebook has something called a poke which you can send - and they're intentionally vague on its definition of this so that you can make it whatever you want it to be. Or you can send them a message. By default anyone can message anyone, but depending on your preferences you can adjust your privacy settings so that only your friends can see your profile, or only your family, or both, or you can leave it open to the Facebook universe.

On the main section of your personal page you'll find a news feed – and no, it's not world news - it's actually a constantly updating list of updates on your friends' activities on Facebook. So if they've added pictures, or joined a group, or added a new friend, it'll show up. On the right hand side you'll see birthdays, notifications, upcoming events or friend requests.

You can also put up a "wall", which is where people can randomly leave comments…if it’s your birthday your friends can leave you a little note, or if you’re sick they can leave a 'get well soon' message…or, for businesses, you could ask people to leave a testimonial for a product or service you’ve provided. (There’s also a super wall and a fun wall, which allow for added functionalities.)

If you're a small business, freelancer or solo practitioner you'll want to check out their classified section, called “marketplace”, where you can post your services or browse through "for sale" items. On a recent visit I found ads for a jazz piano teacher and a ride to Yankee stadium.

You can post an event or browse events - and check out what events your friends post or are attending.

You can post a Facebook Flyer announcing something special going on with your business. They start at $5 to display your Flyer 2,500 times and go up as you increase the run times. It will appear in your homepage but you can also post it on specific networks.

There's also a tool to create polls, and you can target Facebook users based on gender, age, school, location, or profile keyword. This is especially useful if you need to compile market data/research on a product or service.

You can join groups, or create one if you don’t find what you’re looking for (stay tuned for the Mogulette Facebook group, coming soon!). Members can add videos or pictures to the home page, and easily interact with the whole group through the group discussion forums, where you can ask the group questions and have ongoing dialogues.

For book lovers there's the virtual bookshelf where you can let people know what books you’re reading and find out their favorites.

There’s still a lot more that I need to look into, but at least this will get us started…

Here's some related articles I found on using Facebook:

12 Ways to Use Facebook Professionally

How to Use Facebook to Promote Your Business or Blog

How to Use Facebook Without Losing Your Job

How To Use Facebook Flyers To Get Amazing Free Demographic Information

How are you using Facebook? Please let us know!

Successful Female Entrepreneur Tells Her Story

How can a company with no business plan, no offices, and no track record become a multi-million dollar business? That's exactly what I asked Rosalind Resnick, who took her company, NetCreations, from a two-person home based startup in 1995 to a public company generating $58 million in sales. She recently addressed a group of internet entrepreneurs at an iBreakfast meeting I attended. After listening to the program director, Alan Brody, give a short introduction about her, I knew I needed to find out more, so I asked her for an interview. She graciously accepted, and I've posted the details below.

Where did you get the idea to start an email marketing company?

NetCreations started out as a Web design firm in 1995. Pretty quickly, we began to see that our clients needed more than just cool Web sites – they needed a way to get people there. We pioneered opt-in email marketing as a way to connect marketers with the consumers and business people who wanted more information about their products and services but didn’t want to waste time surfing the Web trying to find them.

Did you have a business plan?

No. We didn’t have a formal business plan until our company went public.

How much money did you start out with, and where did it come from?

We started with $1,000. My partner and I contributed the capital.

What did you use the money for?

The money was just to open our bank account. My partner was a Web designer and programmer who worked at our local ISP [internet service provider] so he had the technical skills that we needed. I was a journalist who had just written a book about doing business on the Internet so I did the sales and p.r. and brought in the clients.

What happened after that? How did the company get sooo successful in such a short time? Did you ever imagine it would grow as much as it did?

Our big break came when a circulation manager from Ziff-Davis tested our lists in the fall of 1996 and got a response far better than anything he’d ever achieved through postal mail or telemarketing. Once we realized that we were in the direct marketing business and that companies like Ziff-Davis needed to be able to mail to millions of names in thousands of different categories, we started putting together a partner network of high-traffic Web sites to build our database.

What were the most crucial factors that helped your company achieve success?

Building a partner network of Web sites that sent email addresses to our database and partnering with list brokers, ad agencies and resellers to market our lists to Fortune 1000 clients

What mistakes do you see startups making the most?

Failure to plan. While some companies fail because they lack capital, many more startups go under because their founders lack management experience or because their business models don’t add up.

What advice do you give your startup clients?

Don’t be afraid to try new things and make mistakes. As long as you learn from your mistakes, you’ll be all right.

It's interesting to see how by building a partner network you can grow your company faster and larger than just by yourself. That's definitely something that Mogulettes-in-the-making need to think about: who can refer clients to me that isn't in direct competition with me? Pet care providers can team up with pet stores, life coaches with career counselors, children's entertainers with babysitters, I could go on and on.

Rosalind is now using the valuable knowledge she gained from her experience to help small businesses become successful through her company, Axxess Business Consulting. She's also one the experts "on call" at Entrepreneur.com, where she and a handful of others answer questions related to startups. And as if that weren't enough, on top of that she writes a blog, Vest Pocket Consultant, with more information on small business. Thanks Rosalind!

Springboard Luncheon with Christie Hefner

Did you know that 3 out of 4 companies are started by women, but only 10% of venture capital funding goes to women-owned businesses? That's pretty sad. Here's another one: women own more than 50% of the wealth in the U.S., but only 8% of those funds are allocated to investing in start-up companies. If you're a small business looking for alternative ways to finance your growth, funding from private investors, aka angel investors or venture capitalists, could be an option for you.

Traditionally this segment of the market has been dominated by men, but an organization called Springboard Enterprises is changing that. For eight years this nonprofit, which was founded by Kay Koplovitz, has been helping female entrepreneurs get access to money through the equity markets, while at the same time encouraging women to invest in women-led companies.

I was lucky to have been invited to a recent luncheon sponsored by Springboard, and the key note speaker was Christie Hefner, CEO of Playboy Enterprises (below left), who gave us a fascinating account of how she got started in business. She studied law and journalism in college back in the 60's when it was all about anti-establishment, so the last thing on her mind was going into the corporate world. However, after working as a journalist for some time her dad, Hugh Hefner, urged her to move to Chicago and join his company, where she would start from the ground up. There were a great many high caliber journalists that contributed to Playboy, and the young Ms. Hefner was very much attracted to the intellectual challenges the magazine presented, so she signed on.

A few years later, during the 80's, Playboy went into financial trouble, and after a management shake-up Ms. Hefner, then just 29 years old, suggested she become president and work alongside the CEO, whom she admired greatly. Soon after taking the post, they started dumping losing lines of business and focusing on "managing for cash", keeping track of cash on a weekly basis, as opposed to quarterly as had been done in the past.

Some time later she got a call from Michael Milken, the "junk bond king", who invited her to meet with him in his offices. After asking her a few questions about the magazine, he announced he could raise half a million dollars from her. Ms. Hefner was dubious at first, concerned about taking on a heavy debt load, and not knowing exactly what to do with all that money. Milken's response: "First raise the money, then figure out what to do with it!"

That she did, first of all by seizing an opportunity in cable TV, realizing that channels could become a destination in and of themselves, as opposed to just tuning in to watch a particular show. To this day Playboy TV, which she says is targeted to couples, is in 100 million homes and is their biggest profit center. Ms. Hefner pointed out that magazines need brands and content that live beyond its pages, and they have been one of the few able to successfully take a brand into a whole new medium. Case in point: they have Playboy the magazine and Playboy the channel, unlike Time Magazine and CNN.

In 1992-93 she met Jim Clark, who had created Mosaic, which would later evolve into Netscape. Those were the early days of new media and Ms. Hefner was trying to figure out what the world wide web meant for Playboy, so she asked Jim for help. He suggested she build a site and put Playboy on the web. Playboy.com is now their fastest growing profit center, and where they monetize traffic in a variety of ways: e-commerce, international deals, social networking, etc. The internet, she says, is a transformative technology, and she quoted a few stats: 15% of newlyweds met online, and more text messages are sent and received every day than there are people on the planet.

For the future? She sees a move toward more user-generated content, which is why they've launched PlayboyU, a college-only, no nudity social network.

It was quite insightful to see how Ms. Hefner, by asking experts for help, was able to take her company to places she might not have ever envisioned. That's a big lesson for someone like me, who often thinks I can do everything myself!

That help is what Springboard's founder, Kay Koplovitz (that's me next to her on the right), offers. By putting together a team of investors for female-owned startups, Ms. Koplovitz, along with the company's president Amy Millman, has made many a dream come true for women launching their own businesses. Sounds like a familiar theme - I definitely want to follow in their mogul-ific footsteps!

Startup Camp and UnConference

I just came back from two days of intense information swapping with a couple of hundred other internet startups and I have to say I felt as if instead of New York I was actually somewhere in Silicon Valley. Labeled the "Start-up Camp: An Un-Conference" by its organizers, the event was unique in that the participants decided what topics to cover in many of the break-out sessions, as opposed to having an agenda forced upon you. Those that had a subject they wanted to discuss (me!) went to the front of the room, announced the title of the issue they wanted to cover and posted it on a large board. Anyone interested in joining the discussion would gather around at a designated area. We spent the whole afternoon going from table to table, and conversation to conversation, to chat with other business owners, and figure out solutions together.

I like this format because, in launching their own businesses, entrepreneurs usually accumulate a ton of information on various topics, so in a sense we become experts ourselves, and that allows for a very useful - and lively - exchange.

My big question was how to use online social networks (blogs, Facebook, LinkedIn or others) to market our businesses. I found out that companies online are coming up with applications, or software, they can customize to attract potential clients. One startup called 8 Coupons is looking to devise a widget that people will place on their Facebook page to let their friends and contacts know what discount coupons they're using in their neighborhood, and in that way drive traffic to their site, which offers the coupons themselves. (For more on how to use Facebook for business see Marci Alboher's recent post, and check out the November issue of Inc. Magazine to see how 5 companies are using widgets as a marketing tool - unfortunately the article isn't available online as of yet.)

Another way to use social networks is to have people leave testimonials about you on LinkedIn, or, you can respond to questions that people pose in the "Answers" section - you'll get top billing as an "expert" if you reply to enough of them. This is one subject that's evolving as we speak and it's definitely peaked my interest, so stayed tuned for updates.

From there we went on to something called "speed-geeking", which is similar to speed-dating but instead of potential partners showcasing their romantic talents, entrepreneurs tried to get 3-4 participants to "fall in love" with their business ideas for 7 minutes, at which point a horn would blow and the crew would move on to the next startup-in-waiting. I was able to see first hand which pitches worked and which didn't, and to realize that I have some work to do with regards to my own pitch...(yikes!).

There were almost two dozen hopefuls vying for the Best Startup prize, with some very innovative ideas. The winner? A company called UpNext.com (that's the creator on the left) who offers 3-D mapping of Manhattan with a social networking component. The 2nd place prize went to BricaBox.com, makers of website building software, and a company called BeenVerified, which verifies that you are who you say you are online, won 3rd place.

As I walked out I stopped by to chat for a few minutes with John Havens from BlogTalkRadio and gave him my quick thoughts on the event (click here if you'd like to listen to the 7-min. podcast).

I got home exhausted but with my head full of ideas. Get ready for Mogulette Camp!

Using blogging software to build a website

I've had a great experience using Blogger to create my blog, so when I found out I could also use this type of software to build a website, my ears pricked up. Nowadays it seems like everyone has to have their own site, so companies are scrambling to come up with ways to make programming more user-friendly, and that's good news for solopreneurs, freelancers and small business startups like us.

One of the companies my business counselor, Karen-Michelle Mirko, from the Lower Manhattan Business Solutions Center suggested I check out is SquareSpace. They have various packages to choose from but the basic one starts at 7$/month and you get a wide variety of layouts, hosting, visitor stats, and the ability to place ads with Google Adsense, so you can make money. The business packages start at $25 and also include domain mapping (that way your url will show your own domain name), polls, and a FAQ page, among other things. The only problem is tech support...they're only accessible through email - no live assistance - which might become a problem in an emergency, if people can't download your site for some reason.

Another blogging software company to consider is WordPress. It's very similar to Blogger except that they allow you to add additional pages, which Blogger doesn't at the moment. You can get your site started for free but in order to use your own domain name it's $10/ year, which is nothing. Unfortunately they too only offer email support, and they don't allow you to place ads, although they're apparently working on a premium upgrade to bypass this.

Other companies to look into: TypePad, SiteRubix and Microsoft Office Live. One caveat is that this type of software is best for service firms that are interested in generating leads. If what you want is to sell products you'll need e-commerce functionality, which is more complicated. For that you can try GoDaddy, Kingdom 247, Template Monster, or 1&1.com.

So here's a list of things I look for when deciding which programming software to choose from:

• do I like the templates they offer? can they be customized? can I change the color on their fonts and backgrounds, etc.?
  
  
• how many pages can I add?
  
  
• how many email addresses will I get? (you'll want to set up different ones to target different types of clients)
  
  
• can I place ads with Google Adsense?
  
  
• what kind of customer support do they have?
  
  
• can I use my own domain name?
  
  
• what plugins/widgets are available?
  
  
• do they offer down-loadable file backup so that I have copies of all my files?

Do you have any experience - good or bad - using website development software? Please chime in!

Branding Strategies for Your Business

Here's a question every inquiring Mogulette mind wants to know: How do I make my product or service stand out? Well, according to branding expert Romana Mirza, it all begins with you (that's her in the pictures, giving the Mogulettes a presentation). She says that a company's image is a reflection of it's owner, so one way to start is by asking yourself, what words describe me, and my business?

Take a look at Target, for example. Webster's definition of the word is "something aimed or fired at" or, "a desired goal". Brilliant! When I go shopping, I want to be able to find what I'm looking for, or "target" the products I want. The metaphor of the red bull's eye is also pretty effective, and quite unforgettable. I guess that's what branding is to me, having my product or service leave a lasting impression. Remember the old Blackglama fur ads? Glamorous women like Liz Taylor, Jane Fonda, and Carol Channing - naked, except for the black mink coat - with a caption that read "What makes a legend most?". Sexy, and fabulous. In the same way, the "Got milk" ads made drinking milk sexy, and Nike's "Just do it" made sweating sexy, and definitely unforgettable.

But for our brands to become this memorable, it takes some deep soul searching along with a heavy dose of investigative work. That's what Romana does at her recently launched brand strategy firm, Studio Pinpoint - help clients bring out what's unique about their company. She suggests focusing on three areas:

First, your work. Ask yourself: What do you do differently? What do you offer that others don't? What is your personal and unique contribution to your work? What do you want your company to stand for?

Then, your clients. Ask them: What do you think I'm about? What special qualities do I bring to the process/outcome? What did you like about our experience together?

And finally, research your competition: What's their brand positioning? Key messages? Product presentation?

Armed with this information you can then pass it along to those helping you with your marketing: logo designer, copywriter, web designer, so they can come up with a message that clearly and accurately portrays you and your product/service - to make it....memorable!

Digital Resources for Entrepreneurs

Need a little hand-holding to narrow down your target market? Are you finding it difficult to get information on your competition? You can now book a half-hour one-on-one session with a librarian at the Science Industry and Business library (remember "SIBL"? see related post), for free of course, and they'll help you with the above plus: business leads, industry research, marketing strategies, potential client lists, vendor lists, etc., etc., etc. I've already set my appointment for next week!

Also new at the library (or at least new to me!): business eBooks and audiobooks which you can download from their website and read from your computer or iPod. Here's some I found interesting:

Basic Black, The Essential Guide for Getting Ahead at Work (and In Life!) (audiotape), by Cathie Black, who, as current president of Hearst Magazines, persuaded Oprah to launch a magazine.

Avon, Building the World's Premier Company for Women (eBook), about how this direct sales company, which you never seem to see anywhere, just keeps growing and growing.

The Big Book of Small Business, You Don't Have to Run Your Business By The Seat of Your Pants

Blog Marketing (eBook), by Jeremy Wright

And I only got through the "B's"!

Moving on to video, Cornell University has compiled an extensive list of video clips with entrepreneurs which is available to the public on a wide variety of topics. There's 1310 clips just on startup business planning! What's also great is they have it listed by business name and category, so you can actually choose a company in your industry and hear how they got their start, or what resources they used to get off the ground.

I read the print version of these two fascinating articles by NY Sun writer Liz Peek about women entrepreneurs but they are also happily available digitally:

Natori Celebrates 30 years at Breakneck Speed profiles Josie Natori, who started trading stocks at 22 and went on to build a fashion empire that generates $150 million in retail sales a year (one day that could be us!!)

Lulu Wang Throttles Back is a about a self made millionairess who went from rags to riches and is now cutting back on her corporate duties to follow her passion for vintage race driving.

That's it for this digital tour. 'Til soon!

Would $50,000 be enough to get you started?

How does $50,000 sound to get you off the ground? That's what Mirassou Winery is offering women entrepreneurs if their business plan wins the "Make Your Dreams Come True" contest they're sponsoring. That could buy all the things on my wish list: laptop, printer, virtual assistant, personal masseuse (just kidding, unfortunately)...plus much more. The trick is you have to submit a rockin' business plan by December 15th, so that was incentive enough to get me (and a handful of the Mogulettes!) to sign up to Baruch College's 4-week Bootcamp on how to write them.

Elissa Grossman (that's her in the blue jacket next to yours truly) teaches courses on business management for college students that typically span a whole semester but she's doing an abbreviated version for entrepreneurs, starting with the elements of a business plan, which she covered in the first session, along with great examples of what an executive smmary should and shouldn't look like.

The second class was focused on the marketing plan, which is all about information gathering - where to get data about your target market, what the benefits and limitations are to different types of research, how to conduct surveys (one place to try out is surveymonkey.com, where you get the first 10 questions in a survey free), how to scope out your competition. Then she moved on to narrowing down your target market and selecting a marketing mix to reach them.

The third class centered around money - how much you need vs how much you want. This part was cool - Elissa recommends shutting your eyes and imagining the process that's involved in making a sale. Then make an outline of that in order to come up with a list of costs, like how much will the virtual assistant cost, plus the web developer, plus the computer, the desk and the chair, the masseuse (no...just kidding again) and so on, for each task. How much will be variable, or fixed? All this will help in coming up with a price for your goods and services. But that's not all that determines price - there's the perceived value (you can charge a premium for goods that are new in the market, or are complex, or where price comparisons are difficult). Competition also plays a role, as does strategy, like special pricing promotions that you might do.

The second half of the class was about sales forecasting and breakeven analysis, which I won't even attempt to summarize. But she made it interesting by giving lots of real life examples of how companies used these numbers to make adjustments and run their operations more efficiently.

BTW, Elissa's available if you'd like feedback on your business plan, as are other counselors on staff at Baruch's Field Center. These services are offered for free.

So, sharpen up your pencils and put your fabulous ideas on paper...you could win 50,000 big ones! Like they say: you gotta be in it to win it...

Next week I'll be away on a short vacation to Paris, yes, the "city of lights"! My friend invited me to stay with her and I'm using my miles to get there, so it's a great deal. Stay tuned for my report on how the French do business - I expect to be doing heavy duty research into their chocolate industry. Au revoir!

Market your Business with Email Newsletters

Aside from emails sent by friends and family, my favorites things in my inbox are newsletters - and I get quite a few of them. There's one from NYremezla with updates on Latino artist events around town, Duct Tape Marketing usually has interesting ways to promote your business, and The Spacialist doles out a weekly tip on getting rid of clutter. Oh and I forgot, there's dating advice from my friend Melissa's Love Notes (I need all the help I can get!).

Newsletters are a great way to stay in touch with your community and your clients, to give them a little something for free and let them know you're thinking about them. This week Maisha Walker of Message Medium spoke at length about newsletters in her internet marketing class, which is being held at NYANA, a business center that provides training and micro loans to entrepreneurs (that's Maisha, left, with Maria Paulino of NYANA on the right). I know many of the Mogulettes are interested in newsletters, so I'm including some of the highlights of what she said.

One of the most widely used newsletter providers is Constant Contact, who starts out charging $15.00 a month for 500 emails and then goes up from there. The big downside with them is they place their own ads at the bottom of the newsletters, which isn't great. Feedblitz offers a free version but again, you'll have to allow them to place 3rd party ads on your emails. Luckily there's many other ad-free options at comparable prices, and I researched them all for you!

iContact - starts at $9.95/mo. for 500 emails with a $12 discount if you sign up for a year (first 15 days are free)
AWeber - $19.95/mo. for up to 70,000 emails
Campaigner - $25/mo. for up to 2500 emails
Vertical Response - $15/mo. for up to 2500 emails (first 25 emails are free)
MyEmma - $30/mo. for up to 1000 emails plus $250.00 for a template
SwiftPage - $14.95/mo. for up to 250 emails; $30/mo. for up to 1000; 15% discount if you sign up for a year
StreamSend - $5.95/mo. for up to 500 emails; $9.95/mo. for up to 2000 (first 30 days are free)
PatronMail - call for quotes
Benchmark Email - $9.95/mo. for up to 600; 10% discount if paid annually and the 13th month is free (plus first 30 days are free)

Maisha's Tips

• Avoid 3rd party advertising (unless you're getting paid for it!).
  
  
• What people look at first before opening an email is who it's coming from, so don't use a generic address. Instead, segment your list and use a different address for each group you send the newsletter to.
  
  
• Define your purpose - is it for reading or for selling products?
  
  
• Keep the layout consistent - if you have four pictures on the first one do the same for all the rest.
  
  
• Decide on timing - how often will you send it? (Maisha suggests to start slow - quarterly)
  
  
• Link your images and text to relevant pages on your site, or create landing pages.
  
  
• Create compelling subject lines to get your emails opened - focus on what the benefits are to your readers.

My next big task is to chose one of those providers above and then, start composing! If you have experience with newsletters and would like to share it with us, please do!

Mogulette to launch bookstore in East Harlem

I just love hearing success stories from fellow Mogulettes-in-the-making!

When I first met Aurora Anaya-Cerda at a Latina writer's group at the beginning of this year, I was instantly captivated by her business idea: to launch a bookstore in East Harlem, a predominantly Latino neighborhood in Manhattan which currently doesn't have one but is sorely in need of one. Back then she was still very much in the planning stages of her concept, but aided by a boundless amount of enthusiasm and motivation.

Fast forward a few months to last week, when I caught up with her at an internet marketing class. With a big smile on her face she shared her exciting news: "La Casa Azul", the name she's given the store (it's named after Mexican artist Frida Kahlo's home in Mexico City and it means "blue house") will be launching in the Fall!

Aurora grew up in a place similar to East Harlem (also known as "El Barrio"), an immigrant neighborhood lacking businesses, programs and services that benefit the community, and instead where countless liquor stores, dilapidated buildings, drugs and gangs abound. Her belief is that El Barrio needs a store like La Casa Azul Bookstore - a place of knowledge and culture, where the community can come together to enjoy activities such as author signings, art receptions, educational workshops, not to mention the best organic coffee and Mexican hot chocolate in the neighborhood!

This enterprising "chica" first got the idea of owning a bookstore during her junior year in college. After working at an independent bookstore in California she knew that I one day she'd have to open one of her own. But it wasn't until many years later when she arrived to New York that she was able to reawaken that dream that had been dormant for years! In the Spring of 2006 she came across the East Harlem Business Capital Corporation, a neighborhood organization that helps entrepreneurs, and took the first of many courses on business. These classes served as the catalyst for more opportunities, including access to more resources, advice on financing, leads to support groups (like the Mogulettes!) and the push she needed to move into the world of bookselling.

Two years ago Aurora didn't know the first thing about a business plan but now she has a firm grasp of the whole start-up process. She has an investor who believes in her vision, and is awaiting funding for the remainder of the start up costs. Below is her mission statement and goals:

La Casa Azul will be an independent bookstore/café, offering new and used books in English and Spanish. The store will offer a wide range of books and music from the United States, México, Latin America and the Caribbean. La Casa Azul will also carry Mexican jewelry, art and clothing. Our mission is to provide the community with contemporary bilingual literature, featuring works by Latino authors.

Our goals are:

• To provide culturally relevant books and events.
• To heighten community awareness and political consciousness regarding issues that affect East Harlem residents.

For more information about the store's grand opening, email: lacasaazulbookstore@gmail.com.

About Aurora:
Aurora Anaya-Cerda acquired experience in the daily operations of a bookstore during her employment at two independent bookstores. A graduate of UCLA, Aurora has a double Bachelor’s degree in History and Chicana/o Studies and a minor in Education. She taught middle school for 2 years and had been in the education field for the last 6 years. Since her arrival to New York in July 2005, she has been an active member of the East Harlem community as a participant and supporter of cultural and educational events.

Aurora is definitely on her way to becoming a full-fledged Mogulette, and I'm looking forward to attending her launch party!

If your business has experienced success or reached a highly anticipated milestone, let me know! Your stories inspire all of us, so please share them!!