August 2, 2007

Escape the cubicle
How to be your own boss
By Lisa Brown lbrown@hippopress.com

For Jill Robbins, the turning point came in the form of a peach muffin.

The mother of a toddler with severe food allergies, Robbins started her own food business so that her son could eat tasty treats with his friends.

For Walter and Chris Chapin of Concord, the drive to work independently led away from corporate computer land and into a high-end interior design business.

For Manchester mom Becky O’Neil, business success came almost incidentally, as she tagged along to some house parties and showed off her one-of-a-kind handbags.

And for Deborah Osgood, who once managed investment portfolios averaging $175 million for a New Hampshire firm, and husband Dr. William Osgood, who worked at the Federal Reserve Bank in Boston, perhaps the greatest satisfaction came from starting a business that helps other people start businesses.

Long hours, no pay but no boss
What all these Granite Staters share is the guts to be on their own. The reasons people have for starting their own business are all different — some people want to control their own destiny, others want to stay home with their kids, and some are simply tired of kissing up to a boss.

But not everyone is suited to be on their own. Business consultants say that to be successful you must have certain personality characteristics. People who can’t make decisions, who have problems organizing their time or who don’t enjoy working long hours — especially without pay — need not apply.

To be in business for yourself, you need to know your strengths and weaknesses and where to fill in the gaps. And, as Jill Robbins said, you also had better love what you’re doing.

BUZGate
Google “starting your own business” and you will get 147 million responses. So that you don’t have to click through them all, Deborah and William Osgood have created a sort of Cliff’s Notes of resources. The Knowledge Institute is a national “virtual resource portal” that connects people to thousands of public and private assistance programs and services related to business development. BUZGate.org (Business Utility Zone Gate) is the nonprofit component of the institute and is free to all users. By signing in with a name and zip code, people can click their way through the process of making their entrepreneurial dreams a reality.

“We don’t know of any other tool that can go right through [from the business idea] to launch on solid footing,” said Deborah Osgood. “It’s not just BUZGate.org, it’s also the compilation of the people using it.”

BUZGate.org is supported by corporate sponsors who meet the Osgoods’ criteria for excellence. At BUZGate you can navigate through the network of business resources without having to log in and out of each site. Access, use and networking are anonymous and free.

“Remember in our parents’ day, the neighborhood and people in it helped each other. The community doctor made house calls and you could go next door and borrow a cup of sugar,” Osgood said. “BUZGate.org creates this same collaborative infrastructure virtually to support small business.”

Think of BUZGate.org as a giant tent filled with every public service agency, federal assistance program, every grant application ever printed.

“These are agencies that our tax dollars help pay for, they are supposed to help people, and yet they have limited marketing skills and resources to reach out to people. That is why BUZGate.org was created,” Osgood said.

BUZGate.org also offers interactive educational courses designed to help people with their business development and growth objectives. Again, this is all free for the clicking. There is a 10-step program called “Thinking About It,” which takes the user through the pros and cons of starting a business. People can share their ideas with a counselor who will “hold their hand” through the business planning process at no charge. Counselors on BUZGate.org are usually affiliated with a nonprofit or government resource agency, such as MicroCredit-NH or SCORE.

MicroCredit-NH is a program and registered trademark of the New Hampshire Community Loan Fund, a New Hampshire nonprofit corporation that provides small business entrepreneurs with access to training, loans and networking. SCORE is a nonprofit organization of more than 10,500 business counselors with 389 chapters and operates under the umbrella of the U.S. Small Business Administration. SCORE counselors are volunteers who have been in the business sector and are willing to provide free and confidential business advice to people looking to succeed in business. In New Hampshire, SCORE is headquartered in Manchester and has branches in Concord, Keene, Lebanon, Portsmouth and Nashua. The New Hampshire chapter is made up of more than 50 professional men and women, many still in business, who have a wide variety of experience.

MicroCredit-NH and SCORE are just two examples of the thousands of free business assistance programs accessible through BUZGate.org. Time saved by going to BUZGate.org is time available to move ideas to market.

Gak’s Snacks
Jill Robbins, creator of Gak’s Snacks, had a first career as a psychologist before she took on the challenges of parenting a toddler with major food allergies.

“As a mom, I was watching my son at school when kids had birthday parties, and watching him feel left out,” Robbins said. “Kids like my son, who can’t have eggs, dairy, or things that have nuts, they watch [other kids] from the outside, and somehow, they feel it is about them.”

One day after baking an allergen-free peach muffin that her son said actually tasted like a peach muffin, she was invigorated. Gak’s Snacks was born, as Robbins began to sell her muffins at a local health food store, but the return on investment was practically nil. That’s when she began researching the idea for a cookbook. She went from Web site to Web site looking for ingredients she could trust.

“I had to make sure ingredients didn’t come from facilities where nuts were processed. It took me six months ... sometimes calling companies five or six times,” Robbins said.

“I got in touch with SCORE and met a wonderful gentleman who was so enthusiastic and encouraging, and he got me started with the business end,” Robbins said. “He told me where to go for trade information, and each person I consulted with gave me names and numbers of other people to consult with.”

Eventually Robbins had her first cookbook, a Web site, a line of safe ingredients and a few baked goods to sell in local stores. Soon it became clear she needed a commercial kitchen and a little financial help. While there are several ways to go about getting loans, especially those geared to women-owned businesses, Robbins went the traditional route with her local bank and built her kitchen.

Building Gak’s Snacks has been all-consuming, with little time left for marketing, but Robbins plans to become more public. For now, baking is all she has time for, though she will break to offer one piece of advice: “You’d better love what you’re doing.”

“You might work 50 hours a week. I work way more than that. I had no idea of everything that is involved. You have to be totally committed and have passion so that you love spending all of those hours working,” Robbins said.

“I did this because it was needed ... too many kids like my own were being left out,” Robinson said. “I get paid every day by the e-mail and phone calls and letters I get … it is what gives me the passion and motivation to do this. When I hear stories about the difference these simple things — just cookies — make in people’s lives, that is my pay.”

Gak’s Snacks is now going into its third year of business and growing. Look for Gak’s Snacks in health food stores, grocery stores, camps and even some area schools.

Company C
“We started in our garage…. The first couple of years we had the UPS truck backing up to the garage at our house on Auburn Street in Concord,” said Walter Chapin, co-founder, with his wife Chris, of Company C, a high-end home decor company specializing in bold-colored hand-woven rugs.

“I knew since I was in high school that working for someone else was going to be temporary for me ... it’s the sense of ownership,” Chapin said. “If I’m going to be working 10 hours a day for 20 years, I want to be building on something greater every day than just taking home a paycheck.”

Chapin knew his days would be numbered when he took a job in the early 1990s with a computer company in New London. At the time, his wife, Chris, had her own manufacturer’s rep business and traveled throughout New England selling textiles. Life was good for the Chapins and was about to become better, when they learned Chris was expecting their first child. There was just one hitch: Chris wanted to stay home with her baby. Walter didn’t want to keep commuting to New London. And neither wanted to give up the small business Chris had cultivated in the textile industry.

“I was afraid to quit my job, but the idea of having our own business was exciting; the risks were higher, but the rewards could be greater,” Chapin said. “I do credit my wife Chris for kicking me; she said it’s never going to get easier, just do it. She pushed me.”

Chapin joined his wife’s business, took over her territory and learned all he could about textiles and the business of interior design.

“My goal was to educate myself, to immerse myself in the industry and do lots of trade shows,” Chapin said. “It didn’t take long to uncover some unmet needs.”

Chapin began representing several rug manufacturing companies that offered good products but came up short when dealing with picky interior designers. Chapin, who has a business degree from UNH, saw an opportunity.

“Most rug companies had terrible customer service and old, stodgy traditional designs with no contemporary thought or color in them ... yet they were successful in spite of themselves,” Chapin said. “The one thing we knew we could do is provide better service than anybody, return phone calls and exceed people’s expectations.” Chapin made a deal with a rug manufacturer to handle the customer service side of the business as well as the selling, and for a few years that worked out fine, but then Chris got restless. An artist at heart, she believed she could design a better, bolder and more luxurious rug. She started drawing.

“We didn’t think we would conquer the world overnight. We knew there was an identifiable niche big enough to carve out a space for ourselves. We focused on original designs and bold colors,” Chapin said.

With a briefcase full of Chris’s designs and $500 in his pocket, Chapin flew to India and found a rug maker. Soon Company C was born and two big companies placed orders with the new firm: Garnet Hill (a catalog company) and Pompanoosuc Mills, a Vermont furniture design company.

“There was always this sense of how do we make ends meet ... it was really tight, but we both have this survival instinct,” Chapin said.

A small bank loan of about $14,000 financed the first shipment, half of which was sold before it even arriving in the States.

“If not daily, than certainly weekly, it was taking constant leaps of faith ... we kept thinking if we were willing to try something, it would work out ... we began to show we had performance. I had gone to business school and knew that part of it, we had the income statements, cash flow, we could project out and meet and beat the projections,” Chapin said.

The Company C rug collection, with bold colors and modern designs, was a far cry from what one might expect to find in New England, but that didn’t deter the Chapins.

“New England was a strong area for us, there’s a niche market, and pockets where 10 to 15 percent of the population really relates to the product, and that was OK with us. Our attitude was we could co-exist with the traditional design.”

Slowly, the company began to grow. Though headquartered in Concord, the Chapins saw the entire country as their market. In a strategic move, Company C began to look and play like they had been in the home decor space for decades.

“Somewhere along the way we took another huge leap and signed a lease for a showroom space in Atlanta, I think it was January 1997.... We wanted to be perceived as a substantial company right from the start,” Chapin said. With 25 designs and four rug sizes, Company C blew the buyers away. It wasn’t long before Company C expanded its product lines to include bedding, decorative pillows and throws. Today, Company C has more than 1,200 active dealers nationwide and services numerous mail order catalogs. Company C has two brand retail stores, in Portland, Maine, and Concord.

Looking back on the 14-year magic carpet ride, Walter Chapin admits the journey has been full of challenges and uncertainty. But owning his own business has been worth it.

“My advice to anyone is to focus on a niche ... you need to know something about the business — if not, go work for someone in the business,” Chapin said. “We know decorating, and we know that as companies get larger they tend to leave pieces of the business behind ... and move on to something else ... so that opens up opportunities. Look around. You have to have an eye for opportunity.”

Becky Oh!
Becky O’Neil is making a name for herself in the designer handbag industry.

“About four years ago ... when my kids were at an age where I could think about re-entering the workforce, I started thinking about my love of sewing, sculpture and fabric and just started doing it,” said O’Neil, entrepreneur and owner of Becky Oh! handbags.

O’Neil studied sculpture and textile arts at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, where she learned to love working with fabric. Her Becky Oh! handbags are funky, colorful and made from a wide variety of fabrics. Each bag is sewn by hand.

O’Neil began selling her bags by tagging along to home shows with her sister Lynda, who sells her own line of costume jewelry.

“I just started making a handbag for myself and I liked doing it, so I had a bunch of them, and one day I said to myself, ‘Hey, I’ve produced a line here,’” O’Neil said. “My sister is a full-time teacher who makes jewelry on the side and she had been doing home parties for friends ... I went with her as a traveling boutique ... and it was a great response.”

Once O’Neil began to realize her bags were selling out, she decided to aim for a national audience by opening an online boutique. She turned to local resources for business advice and marketing skills.

“I joined MicroCredit-NH and they have been fabulous ... we get these amazing tutorials ... if you complete all these chapters you would have the most complete business plan to bring to the bank,” O’Neil said. Because O’Neil works out of her home, she doesn’t need retail space, nor does she need financing. What she does need, however, is the support of others trying to make it on their own.

“With MicroCredit, I’ve been able to network with others who were coming to the meeting and learning just like me ... you couldn’t cast a more different group,” O’Neil said.

The Becky Oh! line includes items from small zippered wristlet bags to overnight bags in prices ranging from $20 to $95 or more.

“It’s the combination of materials. I have an interesting color sense and pattern sense and people really appreciate that. My bags are not cookie cutter, they are angular and curvy, not boxes or rectangles,” O’Neil said.

While O’Neil has spent most of her time building her online store, she has been able to supply some local specialty boutiques with handbags. Look for Becky Oh! bags at the Currier Museum gift shop and at Jewell & The Beanstalk on Somerville Street in Manchester. Recently a boutique in Japan started selling the bags.

O’Neil admits her success has come more quickly than she anticipated.

“I think it was last year and I was going through pictures of the work I’ve done and I sat down and started ticking them off, and I thought, ‘Wow, I can’t believe I did this, I’m not a businesswoman — well, I guess I am now.’ It was really funny,” O’Neil said.

O’Neil’s advice is to stick with what you know, but “Think big and start big ... some days I’ve sold absolutely nothing and given away a lot of [business] cards and that’s fine,” O’Neil said. “It’s not a big race is what I am saying.”