Dragons Den, Babytime Round Two and more!

Hi all!

Once again it's taken me far too long to update on our progress, and the exciting happenings of the last few months! Every time I flake out on my blog, I promise I'll do better. This time I won't promise that, I'll just put it out there that I'm going under water, and probably won't come up for air for a long while.

I shouldn't even be blogging right now! We have SO much to do, and no time to do it in! I'll get to that in a minute though.

First exciting bit of news - we auditioned for "The Dragons Den"!

It was an interesting day to say the least. We showed up at the Barrie, Ontario audition at around 10-ish in the morning. We were greeted by some friends that had travelled all the way from Toronto and London Ontario, to model our tees.

I went up and registered, "Sarah Olson for K Sera Sera", which was pretty cool in itself.
We were 24th in line, which ended up being a long wait. Each pitcher takes a good 10-20 minutes to give their full presentation. We did a lot of sitting.

Getting bored..

We got to listen to loads of new businesses, and all of their fantastic money making ideas. Some were great, some were downright awful.

We ended up pitching around 3pm. I got up there, my pregnant (some were pretending to be pregnant) models stood behind me, all bellies looked wonderful!

Handing in my application

The "KSS belly crew"



Nervous!

 I was ultra prepared,  and had an answer for every question they could throw my way. Then something weird clicked in me - and I became a nervous wreck! My voice was shaking, I was tense, and light headed.

I answered all of their questions very thoroughly - I wouldn't change anything about that. But the nervousness? Come on!

I don't know what happened?! This is so out of character for me! The only thing I can chalk it up to - how important this audition is to us as a company. Which again, I'll get to in a minute.

All in all, it was a great day! I'm so thankful to those that came out to support us!



KSS Belly Crew! From left to right: Allison, Carrie, Keri, Courtney and Jenny

 Special thank you to Angela Smith - http://www.angelasmithphotography.ca/ for documenting the day!

The producers said "if" they liked us, we will get a phone call sometime in April, inviting us to the show.

After watching some of the pitches, it seemed like they were looking for "bad" businesses. You know - the ones we all laugh at when we watch. They were impressed with us, but didn't seem to take too much time with us. All we can do is hope! It would be an amazing opportunity for us, as we NEED the investment!

Which brings me back to those "I'll get to that later's".

We have seen an incredible amount of growth this past year. Which is fantastic! We have a product that woman love! But financially, we are watching our money go out the door as quickly as it came in.

Having more customers means putting more money out for stock. Trying to grow your company also means spending, insane amounts of money. Tens of thousands of dollars, just so you know we're here!

The old saying goes "you have to spend money to make money", and it's so stinking true.

We're at a bit of a crossroads. We need money to enter the trade shows and launch proper marketing campaigns, but all of our money seems to be getting sucked back into buying more stock.

We're rationing as much as we can, setting aside as much as we can, to make sure we can enter at least a few shows this year and put a few small ad's up where the budget allows, but it's not enough. We need to go all out, "strike while the iron is hot" - so to say.

It's a struggle! More so when - I know - given a healthy budget - I could blow this mother outta the water.

We need investors! Come on Dragons Den.. call us back! We would love nothing more than to become "K Sera Sera, Inc."!

All money grubbing aside, we are sweating buckets - prepping for our second go at the Babytime Show!

We're really excited to be participating again. We did so well last year. We made loads of connections, great sales and have had lots of happy return customers. Come visit us - April 15-17 at the International Centre, Toronto, Ontario - booth 546.

We're also doing another smaller show in London Ontario, called the "Babies, Tots and You!" show. This is a huge step for us as well because it will be the first time ever that I will be letting go of the reigns! I won't be at the show myself, one of our sales representatives - Carrie McKichan - will be hosting the KSS booth. She's done such great work for the company, we're very lucky to have her! We know she'll do a fantastic job! Come visit us in London - April 10 2011, 11-4pm at the Lamplighter Inn.

Alright, now that you're all updated, time for me to get back to the grind. I have about 1000 shirts to fold and tag. Not complaining - although I'd be less stressed in doing so if I had Dragon backing...