Tài liệu SCRAPPY STARTUPS HOW 15 ORDINARYWOMEN TURNED THEIR UNIQUE IDEAS INTO PROFITABLE BUSINESSES

SCRAPPY STARTUPS

SCRAPPY STARTUPS

HOW 15 ORDINARY WOMEN

TURNED THEIR UNIQUE IDEAS INTO

PROFITABLE BUSINESSES

MELANIE R. KEVELES

PRAEGER

An Imprint of ABC-CLIO, LLC

Copyright © 2010 by Melanie Keveles

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a

retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic,

mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except for the inclusion of

brief quotations in a review, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Keveles, Melanie R.

Scrappy startups : how 15 ordinary women turned their unique ideas into profitable

businesses/Melanie R. Keveles.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-313-36511-9 (hbk : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-313-36512-6 (e-book)

1. Women-owned business enterprises. 2. New business enterprises.

3. Entrepreneurship. 4. Businesswomen—Case studies.

I. Title.

HD2358.K22 2009

658.1'1–dc22

2009027519

14 13 12 11 10 12345

This book is also available on the World Wide Web as an eBook.

Visit www.abc-clio.com for details.

ABC-CLIO, LLC

130 Cremona Drive, P.O. Box 1911

Santa Barbara, California 93116-1911

This book is printed on acid-free paper

Manufactured in the United States of America

To the ones I love:

Dad, Gary, and Ross

Acknowledgments ix

Introduction xiii

SECTION 1: DREAM 1

1. New Moon Media 5

2. Driving Miss Daisy 23

3. Cherry Brook Kitchen 33

4. No Mondays Clothing Designs 47

5. Apron Elegance 55

Exercising Your Own Dream Magic 67

SECTION 2: COURAGE 75

6. Sounds True 79

7. 29 Gifts 95

8. Tara Spa Therapy 105

9. Taryn Rose 117

CONTENTS

10. Arghand Cooperative 129

Exercising Your Own Courage to Start

and Run a Business 145

SECTION 3: ACTION 151

11. Moxie Trades 153

12. Eco-Me 167

13. Adesso Albums 181

14. Personal Life Media 197

15. Zhena’s Gypsy Tea 209

Moving into Action toward Your Scrappy Startup 219

Appendix: Scrappy Startup Resources 223

Index 231

About the Author 245

VIII CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Scrappy Startups has many mid-wives who have enabled her to be

born and gifted to the world. I am forever grateful to my dear friend,

Martha Finney, who introduced me to my editor, Jeff Olson. Jeff has

been a dream to work with every step of the way as a coach, cheer￾leader, and respectful collaborator. No words can properly thank

Martha, who has been a champion, friend, and sister, as well as a sig￾nificant role model, with so many successful books under her belt

now that I’ve lost count. I would like to gift her with your checking

her out on Amazon and ordering her great reads!

Also significant was the Coaches Training Institute’s Quest pro￾gram and all the many participants I shared my passion with during

that workshop in Washington, D.C., who cheered me on to my life’s

work. That program enabled me to see the connection between this

work and my life mission and so had me go at my proposal to Jeff

with gusto. Special thanks to Jennifer Lee for leading me to several

wonderful women through her Ladies Who Launch connections.

Thanks to fearless leaders Karen Kimsey-House and Art Shirk for

their inspiration.

I also want to shout out to my two coaches, Patricia Kennedy and

Spruce Krause, for the important roles they played in egging me on

and keeping my creative juices flowing at critical points along the

way. Spruce, especially, was instrumental in my finishing my manu￾script on deadline. Patricia had me walk my talk. Also significant is

my coach friend Karen Carr, who shared her enthusiasm for what I

was doing whenever we spoke.

My Co-Active leadership buddies, Meade Dickerson, Jeannie

Campanelli, Marcia Dorfman, and Kathy Curry have been my

weekly foundation as well as sounding boards, not to mention shar￾ing a bit of editing advice and a few wacky ideas for endorsements.

Thanks also to Tammy Gooler-Loeb, who was my partner in gath￾ering early success stories, and to Jean Feraca, host of Here on Earth

on Wisconsin Public Radio who led me to Sarah Chayes.

Important also have been my certification students from the Co￾Active Coach training program who shared their excitement for my

project and coached me well at junctures in our calls when I was the

guinea pig client.

Thanks go to Bill Dueeasse of the Coach Connection for sending

a request for entrepreneurs to his contacts at Make Mine A Million.

I also appreciate Cenmar Fuertes of CoachLink for reading early

chapters and giving me helpful feedback as well as encouragement.

Fellow CTI certification leader Bonnie Hill was generous also with

ideas for interviewees.

How many of my wonderful clients shared their excitement with

me for Scrappy Startups! Thank you one and all for your curiosity,

willingness to read excerpts, and faith in my dreams. You are an

inspiration to me, and I am glad for the role I play in helping you

make your dreams come true.

Thank you coach Jeff Staggs for allowing me to use The Belief

Transformation Matrix in the context of this book. May we spur

many women on to their greatness with this simple tool.

My father, Abraham Shenkman, 98 years young in 2009, has been

a coach in his own way, forever asking me in his endearing style

whether I was going to make my deadline. Thanks Dad—I made it—

and I’m so glad you’re here to celebrate another book I’ve birthed. I

hope you’re proud, even if you have trouble defining just what kind

of work it is that I do.

To my dearest husband Gary, who is the love of my life and my

life-long companion, this book would not be here without your

enduring belief in me. I knew I had something going when you had

positive words about my writing because you don’t give such praise

lightly—professor, you’re a hard marker!

Thanks also to son Ross who cheered me on along the way and

believed in me. I appreciated your helpful suggestions. And thanks to

X ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

my daily companion poodle dog Grace, who allowed me to work in

between games of fetch with her favorite green ball.

I am truly grateful to the wonderful women entrepreneurs who

gave me their time and energy, allowing me to probe and question

their processes of becoming successful business women. I appreciate

what it took for you to return your release forms to me and I apol￾ogize for all my nagging. You are all muses and pioneer mothers for

the scrappy startups soon to be born.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS XI

I have allowed myself to lead this little life when inside me there was

so much more. And it’s all gone unused . . . Why do we get all this life

if we don’t ever use it? Why do we get all these feelings and dreams and

hopes if we don’t ever use them?

Shirley Valentine, character in the movie,

—Shirley Valentine, 1989

When you find a great purpose in life, you’ve got to pursue it.

—Shai Agassi, Silicon Valley millionaire,

Founder of Better Place, an electric grid and car solution

I’m stealing a few minutes away from my coaching practice to write.

I feel like a juggler, keeping many balls in the air, but that’s much like

any entrepreneur worth her salt. It’s all about keeping a perspective

and making the best use of precious moments.

I’m a career and life coach. For those unaware or unclear about

what this is, I am a member of a relatively new profession. Coaches

like me collaborate with people to help them get what they want. As

with the definition of a stage coach, a career and life coach can act as

a vehicle that gets you from where you are to where you want to be.

People hire me to be their collaborator in helping them set a direction,

gain the courage to do what they must to get where they are going,

and get into action. For example, I work with people changing career

INTRODUCTION

direction, people wanting to become published, and entrepreneurs.

You’ll hear more about this later when I describe my specific process.

Scrappy Startups has been calling to me for days now, wanting to

spill out onto these pages. My enthusiasm for getting down to busi￾ness actually started with a session with one of my own coaches. (A

coach can hire a coach to walk her own talk and achieve her own

aspirations.) I brought my anxiety about getting this book to dead￾line to our coaching session, and I emerged with renewed energy and

some great ideas. That’s the power of coaching.

Before I set the stage for this book, I want to provide insight into

my excitement about writing it. You see, I have ALWAYS been

intrigued with how things start—so scrappy startup stories are a per￾fect way to express that interest.

I grew up impressed by the story of how my parents met. Their meet￾ing and my existence were not only unlikely but nearly didn’t occur!

It was right after World War II, and my father had recently

returned to Brooklyn from the Pacific, where he had been assigned

on a navy ship. He was looking for something to do on a Saturday

night and phoned his old friend Oscar to see what he was up to.

Oscar had been invited to an engagement party in Greenpoint,

Brooklyn, and asked my father to tag along. Dad was delighted to

join him, an uninvited guest.

At the other end of the world, in Yonkers, New York, my mother

was preparing to use public transportation—several buses and a

long subway ride—to reach this same party. A friend from her neigh￾borhood was the bride-to-be. Yonkers, located in Westchester, New

York, only 23 miles from Brooklyn as the crow flies, is maybe 40

minutes by car today, but with public transportation in the mid￾1940s the trip took Mom several hours. Upon reaching the bus stop,

she discovered she had forgotten the engagement gift. As she told me

often when I begged to hear the story, she flirted with turning back

and forgetting about going to the party. But something egged her on,

and she retraced her steps, retrieved the gift, and made it to the party.

There she met my father. They courted and married, and I

appeared a year later. The family story of that meeting that started

everything put me on a course to revel in all sorts of startup stories.

I’m forever asking, “How did that start?”

I’m equally enamored of success stories. Years ago when I worked

for a boutique outplacement company that served companies who

were downsizing their employees, I prevailed on the founders to

XIV INTRODUCTION