the hundred dollar business

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Image courtesy of Tina Raval.

I know, it’s crazy. It seems like it was last week that I packed my stuff out of the mall and swore I’d take a break from entrepreneurship for a while. Sigh.

Anyway, project # 4– I actually started it last Saturday, and have already made some progress, so I thought I might as well get around to blogging on it.

By the way, Project #3, Human Census, “finished” its 30-day trial period last week, and is a project I’ll be continuing for a year total. There’s excellent momentum on the site, and we usually get between 5-9 responses every day to the question, which is great.

And Project #2 (The Entrepreneur Story) is sloooooowly being edited. I am determined to finish that project, and I’ll be really glad to have it finished, but it’s revised on an “as I have time” basis.

The Skinny On Project #4

Okay– so this new project is called The Cozy Home Spa.

Basically, I’m trying my hand at retail again, this time with an emphasis on developing a product, working with online shopping carts, online orders, shipping, product branding, etc.

The product is home spa kits. I love going to the spa, but it’s so expensive, so I don’t go too often. My assumption is that many women would also like to have that “spa experience” more often, but I don’t see spas charging less anytime soon.

So basically, there are three aspects to the products I’m putting together:

a) Selling products I create from basic natural ingredients.

b) Selling inexpensive “accessories” kits (socks, bath pillow, candles, hand towels, water, mint or caramel chocolate pieces, etc.) that are part of the spa experience.

c) Offering a “do-it-yourself” experience where I stock bulk quantities of spa ingredients (dead sea salt, cane sugar, honey, almond, grapeseed, olive, coconut oil, scents, oatmeal, etc.) that people can come over and combine themselves or possibly order various combinations online.

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The progress made so far:

1. Last Saturday I got the idea, made a list, & bought a bunch of product ingredients & accessories.

(By the way– disclaimer– this project has exceeded the “$100″ budget. But, considering I only spent $18.40 combined on the last two projects, I’m okay with that.

All things told, I think I’ve spent ~$300 on the products, packaging, branding materials, domain names, etc. I expect to get much of these startup costs back quickly from aggressively selling & marketing. This is also an assumption. )

2. Saturday/Sunday I made a lot of the product combinations. I also made a list of all the products purchased, their cost per total unit, and cost per ounce/individual item, so after I made a particular product, I can ascertain the costs & subsequent pricing more realistically.

3. Monday I wrote down market assumptions, & realized the products needed to be packaged well.

So I purchased different types of boxes, ribbons, clear bags, bags with handles, etc. as well as some items to create branding tags with “The Cozy Home Spa” on it. Then I went home and bundled up different kits, and then packaged them in different combinations.

I also sat down and determined what the cost of each kit was, based on its individual components. At first, I determined to double the cost in order to get the final price. Then I realized that would never make money, so I’m tripling it.

On some of the less expensive items, this is a terrific strategy. But on the “higher end” combinations, I will probably have somewhat less of a margin since I’m intent that my products be affordable.

Oh, I also set up my website on Monday night. (Yeah, I was up pretty late…!) I added a Google Checkout account– hey, it’s free to run orders through December—! So there’s a sample product where you can actually go through the purchase process.

4. Today I kind of slacked. That is to say, I mainly did some organizing of the products & supplies (you should see my living room!).

I also signed up to have a booth at a local county fair next week– I feel pretty good about the products at this stage, so the most important thing is to start selling. :)

There are two other local fairs in the next month, so if all goes well, I’ll aim to have a booth at those also.
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The Sum-Up

I’m having fun with this project. I think that’s because it’s something I do anyway, try to concoct various spa ingredients. I love cooking, so this is cooking with no consequences as far as the actual taste of the product.

Although, the products do have to be effective & smell good. Sigh.

Next up on my to-do list:

• Get the product tags/branding created
• Take photos of the products & upload them with price & description to the site w/ Google Checkout buttons
• Prep for the fair next week
• Do a facebook flyer for the local university student market
• Find bulk suppliers of the ingredients & accessories where I can purchase products for less.

Any suggestions?