Every year, on New Years Eve I sit back and mull over every life event that took place that year. So much can happen in 1 year, this year was no exception.
I went into 2010 with completely different plans than I came out with. Just goes to show, one can never plan :) (You'd think I would have learned this lesson by now? Cough *twins* cough...)
We took some huge risks this year, some out of necessity, some not. Some were just a gamble.
When we decided to take on this project, we had no idea what the outcome would be. We didn't know if we would be able to keep our house, our cars, life as we knew it was hanging by a thread. One wrong move, one slip and everything would change. We both promised each other that we were going to work as hard as we could to keep our heads above water, and work we did.
For months, we would work well into the night. We didn't stop. KSS completely consumed everything we did. Every spare moment was spent drumming up new ideas, talking strategy and of course, money money money. We nickled and dimed everything. We ate a lot of Kraft dinner. I even learned how absolutely wonderful the Dollar Store can be for ... everything.
We were determined to make this happen.
Fast forward only a few short months, we had been picked up by 5 new stores. Word of our line was spreading quickly, and our sales were increasing by the day. Kurt and I felt like we could breathe again. But it didn't stop us. We took any financial wiggle room we had and used it to bring our new ideas to life. We entered (and are now hooked) the trade show circuit. This was huge for us, as we were able to reach tens of thousands of people in a few short days. We pushed and pushed and pushed, and now, on New Years eve 2010 I can happily say that we are more than satisfied with the success we've created this year.
We've come together as a couple. I have been able to see every new step my babies take, because I'm here with them. Our business is thriving and our home.. is ours.
As tough, and emotionally challenging as 2010 was, I can definitely say it was a defining year in my life. I am so proud of all we have accomplished, not only with the business, but as a family.
I can't wait to see what this new year will bring. I am ready.
We wish all of you a very happy & fruitful 2011.
Life is good!
Documenting the struggles and triumphs of a husband and wife team as they try to grow their home based business.
Friday, December 31, 2010
Friday, November 19, 2010
We did it!!!
It has been one week since we've finished the Babytime Show, and it's taken me this long to sit down and blog about it. What a week it has been!
We (I.. sorry Kurt.) first thought about doing the Babytime Show years ago, when we attended it as consumers. We were so impressed with the vendors, and the exposure! At that point we were just starting out, and didn't really have a business plan. We were just there, letting the tee's do their own selling. It was a long term goal, something we ended up sitting on for a few years.
This year we really started focusing on growth. Which has been interesting to say the least. Kurt and I as a business duo could not be more miss-matched. But we make it work. He is extremely careful, calculated and responsible. I on the other hand, have my head in the clouds, and I think big. Sometimes way too big. World domination by way of t shirts? That seems do-able to me.
I mentioned doing the show to him, he didn't think it was a good idea He wasn't sure we were ready, with good reason. To date, our most public display was our Facebook page. Which I still have trouble accessing.
It was a huge expense, money we weren't sure we would make back.
I somehow convinced him.. or just kind of went ahead and signed up without telling him. One or the other, I really can't remember.
Much stress, running around and a lot of late nights later, we were ready!
Kurt and I arrived on the Thursday night. We rolled in (all fly in Dad's Caravan) and dragged an entire booths worth of crap across what seemed like the length of a football field. Got to our booth (#119!!) and spent a few hours setting up. Then we went for Sushi. After our bellies were full, I kissed my man goodbye. It was go time.
My childhood friend Monica was kind enough to let me stay at her place, 1 block away from the MTCC, for the weekend. She also stayed up until 1am with me folding and rolling our new line of receiving blankets, thank you Monica!
The next morning my cousin Tori arrived, and she stayed with me the entire day to help run the booth. She was amazing! I stood back half of the day and let her do the talking, she seemed to know my product better than I did! Thank you Tori!
We ended up selling out of one of our tee's, I called home to Kurt and he stayed up late screen printing a second batch of tees. My girlfriend Jenn, who was coming up to manage the booth with me the next day, went over to help Kurt. She brought the entire stock with her the following morning. Awesome friend.
Saturday was by far our best sales day. Jenn and I thought we were all ready, equipped with lattes and outfits. We totally looked the part. Then, came the madness. There was a crowd around our booth, people waiting to come in! Monica stopped by for a visit, noticed that Jenn and I were completely overwhelmed, and threw herself right into action. Thank you Jenn, and again to Monica!! We ended up selling out AGAIN! Kurt had to scrap together whatever stock he could at home, and re-print. His mom and dad came over that night to watch the kids, they also helped fold and box what they could. Thank you mom & dad!
I had a moment that night with my girlfriends, the success of the day was so overwhelming.
I always question what we're doing. I can't help it. As a parent, with a house, and bills, I wouldn't be right in the head if I didn't question this. Sometimes I wonder if we're making the right decision? Should I just get over this and go get a "real" job?
Saturday, was the kick in the head I needed. Or I guess you could call it a boost.. if you prefer. We made so many business connections, chatted with return customers, and new clients who raved about what we were doing. That, combined with a months worth of sales in one day, and our friends and family holding our hands without thought, I felt like I was floating. I will hold on to that forever. We are beyond blessed.
Sunday morning Kurt and I got there early to stock, fold and tidy up from Saturdays chaos. We did really well Sunday too! But by Sunday afternoon we were so burnt out, and our stock was low. We were ready to go home. 6pm rolled around, the show closed, and Kurt and I packed up the van. Well... Kurt did. I just stood there and complained about my feet. Side note: my big toe is still numb. A week later. Thank you Kurt !!
We did it. We frigging did it. I am so proud of us, and so.. so tired.
There have been many high fives this week, as the after effects of the show are still going strong. It's official.. K Sera Sera is on the map.
And to Kurt... I told you so.
We (I.. sorry Kurt.) first thought about doing the Babytime Show years ago, when we attended it as consumers. We were so impressed with the vendors, and the exposure! At that point we were just starting out, and didn't really have a business plan. We were just there, letting the tee's do their own selling. It was a long term goal, something we ended up sitting on for a few years.
This year we really started focusing on growth. Which has been interesting to say the least. Kurt and I as a business duo could not be more miss-matched. But we make it work. He is extremely careful, calculated and responsible. I on the other hand, have my head in the clouds, and I think big. Sometimes way too big. World domination by way of t shirts? That seems do-able to me.
I mentioned doing the show to him, he didn't think it was a good idea He wasn't sure we were ready, with good reason. To date, our most public display was our Facebook page. Which I still have trouble accessing.
It was a huge expense, money we weren't sure we would make back.
I somehow convinced him.. or just kind of went ahead and signed up without telling him. One or the other, I really can't remember.
Much stress, running around and a lot of late nights later, we were ready!
Kurt and I arrived on the Thursday night. We rolled in (all fly in Dad's Caravan) and dragged an entire booths worth of crap across what seemed like the length of a football field. Got to our booth (#119!!) and spent a few hours setting up. Then we went for Sushi. After our bellies were full, I kissed my man goodbye. It was go time.
My childhood friend Monica was kind enough to let me stay at her place, 1 block away from the MTCC, for the weekend. She also stayed up until 1am with me folding and rolling our new line of receiving blankets, thank you Monica!
The next morning my cousin Tori arrived, and she stayed with me the entire day to help run the booth. She was amazing! I stood back half of the day and let her do the talking, she seemed to know my product better than I did! Thank you Tori!
We ended up selling out of one of our tee's, I called home to Kurt and he stayed up late screen printing a second batch of tees. My girlfriend Jenn, who was coming up to manage the booth with me the next day, went over to help Kurt. She brought the entire stock with her the following morning. Awesome friend.
Saturday was by far our best sales day. Jenn and I thought we were all ready, equipped with lattes and outfits. We totally looked the part. Then, came the madness. There was a crowd around our booth, people waiting to come in! Monica stopped by for a visit, noticed that Jenn and I were completely overwhelmed, and threw herself right into action. Thank you Jenn, and again to Monica!! We ended up selling out AGAIN! Kurt had to scrap together whatever stock he could at home, and re-print. His mom and dad came over that night to watch the kids, they also helped fold and box what they could. Thank you mom & dad!
I had a moment that night with my girlfriends, the success of the day was so overwhelming.
I always question what we're doing. I can't help it. As a parent, with a house, and bills, I wouldn't be right in the head if I didn't question this. Sometimes I wonder if we're making the right decision? Should I just get over this and go get a "real" job?
Saturday, was the kick in the head I needed. Or I guess you could call it a boost.. if you prefer. We made so many business connections, chatted with return customers, and new clients who raved about what we were doing. That, combined with a months worth of sales in one day, and our friends and family holding our hands without thought, I felt like I was floating. I will hold on to that forever. We are beyond blessed.
Sunday morning Kurt and I got there early to stock, fold and tidy up from Saturdays chaos. We did really well Sunday too! But by Sunday afternoon we were so burnt out, and our stock was low. We were ready to go home. 6pm rolled around, the show closed, and Kurt and I packed up the van. Well... Kurt did. I just stood there and complained about my feet. Side note: my big toe is still numb. A week later. Thank you Kurt !!
We did it. We frigging did it. I am so proud of us, and so.. so tired.
There have been many high fives this week, as the after effects of the show are still going strong. It's official.. K Sera Sera is on the map.
And to Kurt... I told you so.
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
This is why we LOVE what we do!
What a nice surprise. We love customer feedback, and we love working with blogs, but this was unexpected and so sweet. Laura, of Laura Evans Photography wrote this post about us.
I have so much fun chatting with clients, all things baby-related. Pregnancy is a fun, scary, sweet spot in life, that we love being a part of.
Thank you to Laura, and all of our clients for their wonderful feedback.
I have so much fun chatting with clients, all things baby-related. Pregnancy is a fun, scary, sweet spot in life, that we love being a part of.
Thank you to Laura, and all of our clients for their wonderful feedback.
Friday, October 22, 2010
Guess who's birthday it is...
Why it's Kurtis's birthday!
Happy birthday to the love of my life, my partner in crime.
Now get back to work.
xx
S
Happy birthday to the love of my life, my partner in crime.
Now get back to work.
xx
S
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Whatever, it's fine.. pfff, I'm fine.
Hello blogosphere! Yes it's been a few minutes since my last post, I apologize.
You see, apparently, here at KSS, we think we're rock stars. We take on all of these projects, thinking we're so fabulous that they'll just work on them selves. We can handle anything here. Right?
So, so wrong.
Ok let me rephrase that. Yes we can handle anything. Can we do it without heart palpitations, fighting, dizziness, alcohol, crying, hugging, high fiving, jumping, cheering, realizing we missed something and repeating the same cycle?
No. Most of the time no. Kurt and I work so well together when we are doing the day to day KSS activities. Throw something new in there, and we are beside ourselves.
Hence the reason for my lack of blogging. Last month (last minute, of course) we decided we would enter a trade show. Not just any trade show, the Babytime show. This is a major industry event, with every brand name and who's who in the trendy child rearing game. With names like Playtex (two booths down from us..holla), Quinny, Britax, Honda, Dr. Browns, Babies 'R' us .. the list goes on and on... then there's little teeny tiny KSS Maternity. The new kids in town, trying to make a splash amongst tidal waves.
We have spent the last month completely revamping our company. Our website is being rebuilt & will function much better. Our business accounts are fully functional (why yes we take Visa..) and ready to roll. We designed new tags for three of the 4 lines. Held photo shoots to get new product lines up and running. We have moved over to a new book keeping system. No more small beans Excel, we're on Quickbooks now, homie.
Quickbooks. Ha.
Yes our experience today with Quickbooks and Iillustrator, are two perfect examples of classic Kurt and Sarah dysfunction.
I am a creature of habit. So is Kurtis. I have been using excel for a while now, and I'm comfortable entering my items manually. Enter Quickbooks. It throws it's little digitized hand up in my face, and says ".. you're gonna do it my way now." Hours went by. I entered items, re-entered items.. re-re-entered items.. grunted.. banged my head against the keyboard, yelled at my computer, begged my friends for help (thanks by the way!) and eventually I had successfully entered 4 separate items in inventory. Yep, 4.
Gave that up and moved over to our bags. We need retail bags for the show, as we are selling to live humans now and not their computers. Gotta get fancy like that, right?
I wasted two hours sizing, and resizing images to fit into this lame template that didn't load properly on our computer because we DON'T HAVE MICROSOFT WORKS (cough.. Kurt... cough..) just to make stickers. To stick on paper bags. 500 paper bags to be exact. They are made of recycled materials, and are themselves fully recyclable. Just in case you were wondering. Don't even get me started on the bag selection process.
I know, I need to cut us some slack. We are learning as we go. We are by no means seasoned business vets. We take it one step at a time, and hope for the best. Sure, our "one step" always tends to be a giant leap that may be a bit too much for us, but we always manage to bring it together in the end.
Come visit us at the Babytime Show if you get the chance! November 12-14 2010 at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, booth 119.
If you buy something, I'll give you one of these 500 jerky bags. Yeah I said it.
You see, apparently, here at KSS, we think we're rock stars. We take on all of these projects, thinking we're so fabulous that they'll just work on them selves. We can handle anything here. Right?
So, so wrong.
Ok let me rephrase that. Yes we can handle anything. Can we do it without heart palpitations, fighting, dizziness, alcohol, crying, hugging, high fiving, jumping, cheering, realizing we missed something and repeating the same cycle?
No. Most of the time no. Kurt and I work so well together when we are doing the day to day KSS activities. Throw something new in there, and we are beside ourselves.
Hence the reason for my lack of blogging. Last month (last minute, of course) we decided we would enter a trade show. Not just any trade show, the Babytime show. This is a major industry event, with every brand name and who's who in the trendy child rearing game. With names like Playtex (two booths down from us..holla), Quinny, Britax, Honda, Dr. Browns, Babies 'R' us .. the list goes on and on... then there's little teeny tiny KSS Maternity. The new kids in town, trying to make a splash amongst tidal waves.
We have spent the last month completely revamping our company. Our website is being rebuilt & will function much better. Our business accounts are fully functional (why yes we take Visa..) and ready to roll. We designed new tags for three of the 4 lines. Held photo shoots to get new product lines up and running. We have moved over to a new book keeping system. No more small beans Excel, we're on Quickbooks now, homie.
Quickbooks. Ha.
Yes our experience today with Quickbooks and Iillustrator, are two perfect examples of classic Kurt and Sarah dysfunction.
I am a creature of habit. So is Kurtis. I have been using excel for a while now, and I'm comfortable entering my items manually. Enter Quickbooks. It throws it's little digitized hand up in my face, and says ".. you're gonna do it my way now." Hours went by. I entered items, re-entered items.. re-re-entered items.. grunted.. banged my head against the keyboard, yelled at my computer, begged my friends for help (thanks by the way!) and eventually I had successfully entered 4 separate items in inventory. Yep, 4.
Gave that up and moved over to our bags. We need retail bags for the show, as we are selling to live humans now and not their computers. Gotta get fancy like that, right?
I wasted two hours sizing, and resizing images to fit into this lame template that didn't load properly on our computer because we DON'T HAVE MICROSOFT WORKS (cough.. Kurt... cough..) just to make stickers. To stick on paper bags. 500 paper bags to be exact. They are made of recycled materials, and are themselves fully recyclable. Just in case you were wondering. Don't even get me started on the bag selection process.
I know, I need to cut us some slack. We are learning as we go. We are by no means seasoned business vets. We take it one step at a time, and hope for the best. Sure, our "one step" always tends to be a giant leap that may be a bit too much for us, but we always manage to bring it together in the end.
Come visit us at the Babytime Show if you get the chance! November 12-14 2010 at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, booth 119.
If you buy something, I'll give you one of these 500 jerky bags. Yeah I said it.
Saturday, September 4, 2010
Greenbox shoot, part 1
Yesterday I had the privilege of shooting some of our kids tees with a good friend of mine, Miss Angela Smith. Check her out @ http://www.angelasmithphotography.ca/ - That shot of the lovely blue eyed baby, that's my boy Max. The other two boys couldn't be bothered with the camera, despite Angela's efforts. Max tried to poke his little head into every shot. Mama's boy.
Ange is a trooper! Anyone knows coming into this house, professionalism flies out the window, and we have to make due with our surroundings. This is her second time shooting with us, she is a glutton for punishment!
Lessons she may have learned:
1. I have no idea what I'm doing. I just pretend I do.
2. My children are a permanent fixture on my leg. More like a growth. We learn to work with it.
3. The little ones like to break things, pad your photography equipment.
4. Don't offer to help, because I will take you up on it.
All that said, she did great. And she didn't slam the door on the way out, so I think we're still friends.
Ah, we have so much to do! We were able to shoot half of the collection, the other half is still in production.
Kurt and I need to stop designing, and cap off so we can get the full shoot over with. Christmas is coming, and we need to be ready.
In the next week or two, we will be doing the outdoor shoot, with the kids in the tee's. **Remember to pack the duct tape.**
Ange is a trooper! Anyone knows coming into this house, professionalism flies out the window, and we have to make due with our surroundings. This is her second time shooting with us, she is a glutton for punishment!
Lessons she may have learned:
1. I have no idea what I'm doing. I just pretend I do.
2. My children are a permanent fixture on my leg. More like a growth. We learn to work with it.
3. The little ones like to break things, pad your photography equipment.
4. Don't offer to help, because I will take you up on it.
All that said, she did great. And she didn't slam the door on the way out, so I think we're still friends.
Ah, we have so much to do! We were able to shoot half of the collection, the other half is still in production.
Kurt and I need to stop designing, and cap off so we can get the full shoot over with. Christmas is coming, and we need to be ready.
In the next week or two, we will be doing the outdoor shoot, with the kids in the tee's. **Remember to pack the duct tape.**
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Hey HTML - you're kind of a jerk.
We are building our website. Well, we're supposed to be building our website.
We registered our domain name long ago, thinking we were rock stars. Realizing that neither one of us had the time, or any idea what to do with it, we found a friend of a friend, that knew some guy somewhere, who happened to be a web designer, on the side. He wasn't charging much.
What he sent back to us wasn't terrible, but it wasn't the gem I was hoping for. We sat with it for a while and focused on our seller sites ebay & etsy.
Fast forward.
2 babies, a few birthdays and a recession later, Kurt and I decide that now is the time to focus on our website sales, we are getting absolutely pillaged by our seller sites and their hidden fees.
Kurt tries to get ahold of our web designer, who has apparently vanished. No biggie, right? I can handle this. I will build it.
I type in www.kssmaternity.com. I click a button here and there, nothing is happening.
S: Kurt is there like a.. thing.. where you can log in?
K: A thing?
S: Ya, like on Facebook where you just, log in, and all your stuff is there.
K: You're kidding right?
S: ...Yes?
So it is slightly possible that I don't know what I'm doing. But I can figure it out. Gotta keep the bills down.
Kurt, noticing I'm starting to sweat, tells me about bigcartel.com, a really cool site building tool specifically for online stores. I signed up. Diamond package, naturally.
Hoping this is going to solve all of my problems, I sign in. There is a big, blank, empty page with very few directions. It's asking me to type in shapes, and lines, and headers, and footers.. what the h*** is a footer? Is that even a word? Do I want to know what it is?
It's HTML. It's a foreign language that computers and a select group of superhumans understand. I am pretty convinced that I fall in the superhuman category, so I give it a shot.
20 minutes later, I managed to come up with one pretty sweet letter/number/symbol combo. Clearly, I'm a genius. I upload it to our bigcartel site.
S: I knew I could figure it out, I can figure out pretty much anything.
K: Let me see it!
As it turns out, I loaded one gigantic picture, of a t shirt. All of my words and header footers just disappeared into thin air. (Check it out for yourself www.kssmaternity.bigcartel.com)
K: Babe, sometimes it's better to admit that you don't know what you're doing, and forward it to someone that does.
S: (defeated) You're right.
Currently, we have one unfinished website under our registered domain, and one giant picture of a t shirt on our second domain. We are back at square one, looking for a web designer.
html : 1
Sarah: 0
The battle isn't over.
We registered our domain name long ago, thinking we were rock stars. Realizing that neither one of us had the time, or any idea what to do with it, we found a friend of a friend, that knew some guy somewhere, who happened to be a web designer, on the side. He wasn't charging much.
What he sent back to us wasn't terrible, but it wasn't the gem I was hoping for. We sat with it for a while and focused on our seller sites ebay & etsy.
Fast forward.
2 babies, a few birthdays and a recession later, Kurt and I decide that now is the time to focus on our website sales, we are getting absolutely pillaged by our seller sites and their hidden fees.
Kurt tries to get ahold of our web designer, who has apparently vanished. No biggie, right? I can handle this. I will build it.
I type in www.kssmaternity.com. I click a button here and there, nothing is happening.
S: Kurt is there like a.. thing.. where you can log in?
K: A thing?
S: Ya, like on Facebook where you just, log in, and all your stuff is there.
K: You're kidding right?
S: ...Yes?
So it is slightly possible that I don't know what I'm doing. But I can figure it out. Gotta keep the bills down.
Kurt, noticing I'm starting to sweat, tells me about bigcartel.com, a really cool site building tool specifically for online stores. I signed up. Diamond package, naturally.
Hoping this is going to solve all of my problems, I sign in. There is a big, blank, empty page with very few directions. It's asking me to type in shapes, and lines, and headers, and footers.. what the h*** is a footer? Is that even a word? Do I want to know what it is?
It's HTML. It's a foreign language that computers and a select group of superhumans understand. I am pretty convinced that I fall in the superhuman category, so I give it a shot.
20 minutes later, I managed to come up with one pretty sweet letter/number/symbol combo. Clearly, I'm a genius. I upload it to our bigcartel site.
S: I knew I could figure it out, I can figure out pretty much anything.
K: Let me see it!
As it turns out, I loaded one gigantic picture, of a t shirt. All of my words and header footers just disappeared into thin air. (Check it out for yourself www.kssmaternity.bigcartel.com)
K: Babe, sometimes it's better to admit that you don't know what you're doing, and forward it to someone that does.
S: (defeated) You're right.
Currently, we have one unfinished website under our registered domain, and one giant picture of a t shirt on our second domain. We are back at square one, looking for a web designer.
html : 1
Sarah: 0
The battle isn't over.
Monday, August 30, 2010
A little about us.
I am Sarah. My husband is Kurtis, lets call him Kurt. We have 3 wonderful boys, ages 5 and 2.5 (twins!). Kurt and I have been married a little over 6 years now. We are stubborn, quirky, small town people, with big city dreams. Oh, and we're completely in love! Kurtis has been working in the screen printing and garment industry for over 14 years. I have a background in art and design. About four years ago Kurt came up with this brilliant idea, to sell men's tshirts on ebay. He quit his day job and threw himself into ebay sales. He did very well! A year later I was pregnant, very, very pregnant. "Twins" they said! I almost hit the floor. Expletives flew out of Kurt's mouth. Somehow, we made it out of the ultrasound technicians office, and into our car. We sat there in shock for an hour.
K:"How are we going to do this?"
S: "I don't know."
K:"We can't afford this!"
S: "I know."
K:"$@#&!!!"
S: "Agreed."
Months went by, Kurt worked like a dog, I blew up like a balloon. As the miracle of twins set in, and we planned a little more, we were ready for the challenge. At that point I was a stay at home mom. To save some cash, Kurt moved his screen printing business home, to our basement. We had the perfect set up. I needed ice cream, I just hollered downstairs. OK so I had the perfect set up.
Around 4 months in, I started noticing that my freakishly large twin belly was outgrowing my cute little maternity shirts. I wasn't even half way through, and I was already in the tent shirt stage. Gross. I refused to get ugly pregnant, that early in the game.
I complained about it. A lot.
Probably too much. Enough for Kurt to want to shut me up.
We went to a local seamstress and took some of the shirts I liked that no longer covered my belly. We tweaked them a bit, and had them cut longer. They fit so well, I was cute again!
Kurt took them down to the screen press, I chose a few designs we had kicking around and we screened them on the belly. I loved them. Everyone loved them.
"You should sell these!"
"Even with my single pregnancy, shirts didn't cover my belly."
Light bulb!! Ding ding ding!
K: "We should be selling these!"
So here we are. It's been 2 1/2 years since the twins were born. We have been working on this product, selling on etsy.com and ebay.com.
We have re-vamped our style, what we offer, and we are ready to take this from an online side project to a full blown home based business. We have had excellent reviews, and requests that were beyond our means. Sometimes it takes a huge push from your customers, to realize that you've got a fantastic product.
In this blog I will cover the ups and downs of business building. All of my crazy over-the-top ideas. Working from home. Working with your spouse (yeesh). And hopefully a little bit of success.
Here we go.
K:"How are we going to do this?"
S: "I don't know."
K:"We can't afford this!"
S: "I know."
K:"$@#&!!!"
S: "Agreed."
Months went by, Kurt worked like a dog, I blew up like a balloon. As the miracle of twins set in, and we planned a little more, we were ready for the challenge. At that point I was a stay at home mom. To save some cash, Kurt moved his screen printing business home, to our basement. We had the perfect set up. I needed ice cream, I just hollered downstairs. OK so I had the perfect set up.
Around 4 months in, I started noticing that my freakishly large twin belly was outgrowing my cute little maternity shirts. I wasn't even half way through, and I was already in the tent shirt stage. Gross. I refused to get ugly pregnant, that early in the game.
I complained about it. A lot.
Probably too much. Enough for Kurt to want to shut me up.
We went to a local seamstress and took some of the shirts I liked that no longer covered my belly. We tweaked them a bit, and had them cut longer. They fit so well, I was cute again!
Kurt took them down to the screen press, I chose a few designs we had kicking around and we screened them on the belly. I loved them. Everyone loved them.
"You should sell these!"
"Even with my single pregnancy, shirts didn't cover my belly."
Light bulb!! Ding ding ding!
K: "We should be selling these!"
So here we are. It's been 2 1/2 years since the twins were born. We have been working on this product, selling on etsy.com and ebay.com.
We have re-vamped our style, what we offer, and we are ready to take this from an online side project to a full blown home based business. We have had excellent reviews, and requests that were beyond our means. Sometimes it takes a huge push from your customers, to realize that you've got a fantastic product.
In this blog I will cover the ups and downs of business building. All of my crazy over-the-top ideas. Working from home. Working with your spouse (yeesh). And hopefully a little bit of success.
Here we go.
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