Michelle's Story: GoCharmz (and Our Very First Giveaway!)

Michelle, of San Ramon, CA, always knew she would be an entrepreneur, selling drawings and Sno-Cones in her neighborhood as a kid. Now she's got two kids of her own, and her product is still focused on the younger crowd in her community. GoCharmz will launch this season and she's already got plenty of buzz behind her product, using a Facebook Page and the kids in her neighborhood as an inventive way to test the market. And what's more,

Michelle is giving away two sets of GoCharmz to one lucky Small Biz Stories reader!

(That's ten GoCharmz in total, which you can use to decorate almost anything!)

To enter the giveaway, leave a comment on this post.
Extra entries are allowed if you:
- Tweet or retweet about this giveaway, including a link (Use the retweet button on the upper right, or copy/paste into a new tweet: http://bit.ly/9CLDth)
- Post about this giveaway on Facebook, including a link
- Post a link to this giveaway on your own blog page
- "Like" GoCharmz and Small Biz Stories on Facebook
- Follow @smallbizstories and @gocharmz on Twitter

If you do any of the above, please post an additional, separate comment to let me know. The giveaway will be open to entries for ten days; a winner will be randomly selected on Monday, May 24, 2010. Thanks, Michelle!

"I guess you could say I've been a persistent serial entrepreneur for as far back as I can remember. Growing up, I used to draw random pictures and go door-to-door selling them, or make Sno-Cones with my Snoopy Sno-Cone Maker and ask the neighbors to pony-up some money for shaved colored ice. It’s funny to think about it now, but many of us back in the day tested our own neighborhoods as a market for kid-driven ideas. I knew that when I grew up I was going to run my own company. Fast forward a couple of years (okay several, several years later) and here I am launching my fourth business idea with even bigger aspirations that the first three combined. Mind you I have done all this (like so many of us) in a moonlighting fashion, keeping my 9-5 job in the background. And since none of the previous three businesses ever took off with great momentum, I was fortunate and darn right lucky I kept my day job - but this project with GoCharmz feels very different. For once, I feel like a kid again, during my days as a 10 year old pushing Sno-Cones. And the ironic thing is that my test market back then is the same today: the kids and parents in my community.

It's been 14 months since I came up with the idea for what eventually became GoCharmz. I had the 'ah-ha moment' while riding to school on my son's scooter, which was slathered with stickers. At the time, I had been laid-off from a popular internet company (one of my day jobs) so I was keen to everything around me, looking for the next idea. All the kids passing by with their scooters couldn't help but look at the scooter decorated with stickers. I thought to myself, 'Scooters are fairly boring and generic - there must be a way to create a product that allows kids to decorate and personalize them.' That was pretty much all it took. Since then, the scope has grown into 'activity toys': not only scooters, but bicycles as well. The main theme of personalizing and decorating them has stayed the same.

It's a simple concept, but even as I write this 14 months later I still don't have a finished product to bring to market. We are close... very close. It may be weeks away, but just to get to this point, it’s taken a mind-numbing amount of money, patience and persistence. I have several contract people working for me to help bring this product to market. Often times, people really 'trip out' (for lack of a better word) when they learn that I am dealing with people on other continents, trusting them with my design and prototyping. Furthermore, all the overseas communications have taken place through instant message and e-mail. That alone is a crazy feat. Who would have thought creating something which seemed so simple in my imagination would take this long to come to fruition? Then again, if it were easy, everyone would be doing it, and I wouldn't be able to appreciate the milestones we've achieved so far.

Since I was laid off from my job, everything I've done to create GoCharmz has had to be fiscally responsible. I sourced out my own manufacturer overseas, filed for a patent and went through countless revisions on my design(s) with quality and budget in mind. I am a mother of two who is also back to work full-time with a day job, so it’s comforting to know I have income to help bolster the project. As the spring months heat up outside, I can feel the heat turning up on GoCharmz. Early on, we created a fan page on Facebook to test-market our designs. This has helped us out immensely. We invested a small budget daily to run ads on Facebook, which has helped increase the fan base prior to our official launch. It's worked out fairly well, and if you have a product that can be targeted to users on Facebook, I would recommend looking into it. Still, the rubber (as they say) has not hit the road. I have more questions than answers on how this will eventually take off, and by the end of June I should have a full-blown website where our customers can search over 100 charm designs that fit onto bicycles, scooters and helmets. That's when phase 2 will begin: marketing and selling what I have created. I have to keep reminding myself that bringing something to market is one thing, but making the market aware of it and encouraging people to spend money on your product is entirely different.

GoCharmz feels so different from the other start-ups I have created. Maybe it's because it involves more people in my family than ever before. Maybe it's because I am gaining fans daily on Facebook and feeling a sense of reinforcement. Maybe it's because I see reactions from kids in the neighborhood who enjoy the prototypes we've been showcasing. At the end of the day, I know that it is all those things. Each positive interaction with the outside world builds my energy and excitement for the next day. I feel like a kid again, and that feeling of joy and unbridled creativity is addictive. I highly recommend it.

I look forward to the 2nd phase of my business plan. I know I have something great, and now it comes down to the choices I make in executing my go-to-market strategy. That's a whole other topic entirely. Thanks for giving this a read, and I hope at a minimum I inspired other moms and early-phased entrepreneurs to pursue their ideas. If nothing else, create that product that once was in your mind, so you can hold it and proclaim, 'I did this!' Be a kid again. No holds barred."

Leslie's Story: KneadALaugh

Today's story comes from Leslie Kahn, of KneadALaugh in Chicago, IL.

Stress is a tough part of day-to-day life, especially at work. Leslie knows all about the damaging effects it can have on employees, so she founded her company, KneadALaugh, with the goal of alleviating stress in office environments. Through massage therapy, humor therapy, and other stress-reducing techniques, KneadALaugh provides a one-of-a-kind service in corporate environments. Just think about it - when was the last time you had a good laugh at work? Didn't you feel great afterwards? Now think about what it would be like to get a professional massage at work - now that's service.

"I guess you could say I have led an unconventional working life. I've lived on a (mostly) self-sufficient organic farming community in West Wales gardening, farming, making pottery, and keeping animals, I've trained on the job as a gemologist for a wholesale diamond company, and most recently I became a licensed massage therapist in Chicago, having attended massage therapy school at age 40.

It has always been a struggle for me to make what most Americans would consider a 'good living', and it's very difficult to be a massage therapist when you are doing all the work yourself. The job is extremely demanding, both physically and emotionally; I recognized that fact very early on in my massage career. My intention has always been to 'run the empire from my penthouse' by owning a company that provides corporate massages, and hiring/managing other therapists rather than doing all the hands-on work. Don't get me wrong - I love giving massages and helping people relax, reduce stress, and become free of pain, but at age 55, after a spinal cord surgery, a broken ankle and an auto-immune disease called sarcoidosis of the lungs, I need to take it easy.

That is why I created my company, KneadALaugh, three years ago. We Americans are under a huge amount of stress to perform at work, and that stress leads to many different conditions ranging from back and neck pain to heart attacks and strokes. Workplace stress leads to ill employees, decreased productivity, absenteeism, increased health care costs and an overall demoralized staff.

While I have been promoting on-site massage therapy all these years, often I would encounter the decision maker at a company who would say to me, 'I just don't like the idea of massage' - and then I would have nothing else to offer. So I decided to try and find other services that would appeal to a larger audience while employing my husband, an actor, at the same time. The 'Laugh' in KneadALaugh refers to a service I created called 'Humor Therapy' - this is where my husband Martin comes in. He's one of those wacky Brits who entertains and informs in a sort of stream-of-consciousness babble. It's very funny and great for stress relief.

I also met a kickboxing instructor and thought that offering kickboxing, TaeKwonDo and personal training at the workplace was a brilliant idea. I'm striving to offer TaiChi and meditation as well, for those who prefer relaxation to aerobics as a way to get rid of stress.

Everybody loves the name of the company, 'KneadALaugh'. Unfortunately, in the current economy, it is a challenge to convince penny-pinching CEO's (who, in some cases, are not even supplying their employees with tissues) that paying for stress relief services actually makes good business sense. I am sure their opinions will turn around with the economic climate."

To learn more about Leslie's company, visit the website at KneadALaugh.com. You'll also find them on Twitter @KneadALaugh and Facebook.com/KneadALaugh.