How To Turn Art Into Business

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http://www.yourmemorylane.com/

With the holidays coming, artists at Your Memory Lane are gearing up for a busy season of making individualized works of art for gift giving. The company, run by two brothers, makes one-of-a-kind art prints depicting a street scene interwoven with symbols of a person's milestones, memories and life history.

The personalized gifts business got its start several years ago when Bob McLean and his brother Don designed and printed a city building reflecting different aspects of a friend's life and gave it to him "as a goofy gift." The print was an immediate hit and people who saw it wanted one for their friends.

"Within a few months we were getting daily calls," said McLean, of Atlanta.

Just a year later, in 2004, the brothers, one a graphic designer and the other an artists' representative, decided to see if they could turn their sideline into a business, and they ventured into their first retail enterprise.

The Web was a natural for their business, McLean said, because customers could see the prints, read about the process and make their orders in one step.

McLean started by securing the domain name and then taught himself FrontPage and built the site himself. He says it took him about a month to get the site looking and working the way he wanted it.

To get Your Memory Lane included in search engines he programmed the meta-tags and hired someone to help with the rest of the process. McLean also researched shopping sites where he could list the Web site. Because of the nature of the business, which is more service-related as opposed to selling an inventory of products, he needed to list with shopping sites that would link back to the site.

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The brothers listed the site with several gift-shopping channels, including Gift.com, Present Picker, The Ultimate.com, FindGift.com and Surprise.com. The Web shop owners are happy with the traffic they get from these sites, which makes up about 40 percent of their sales. Still, most of their business comes from word-of-mouth, McLean said.

Your Memory Lane has become popular for all sorts of celebrations: birthdays, anniversaries, retirements, and of course, Christmas. When they started out, the company was selling about five prints a month. This year, they're up to about 30 a month, and during the holiday rush they typically see about a 30-percent increase in sales, McLean said.

"What separates us is the uniqueness of the gift," he said. "It's obvious that someone really thought about the gift, and it reflects that work."

Each print features between three and eight buildings on a street. Customers tell the brothers the story of the person they want to honor and they incorporate those memories in signs on the buildings, in the objects on the street and in other details.

"We try to make them as personal as possible," McLean said. He loves talking to customers about their piece because he loves the stories they tell. "We could fill a book with the life stories we've heard," he said.

The brothers take those life stories and define them down to their simplest terms — a golf bag leaning against a building, for example, speaks volumes to the person it's meant for, he says. Prints start at $345 and are guaranteed, as there is an approval process in which customers preview the prints. Customers are notified by e-mail when their proof is posted to the Web site for review. Attached to the proof announcement e-mail is a "proof corrections" form that is completed and returned.

For those who want to discuss the review process, there is a toll-free number prominently listed to ensure that there is no confusion about the policy. Likewise, the company is up-front about the time it takes to create unique prints, and explains clearly at its site that it may take up to 20 days from the order-date to receive the artwork, though a "Rush" delivery is available for an extra fee.

It seems, though, that for gift-givers who want to send a present that is more intimate than most, that timing isn't always the top priority. This year there is an increase of gift requests for and by people serving in the military in Iraq, Mclean said, and they've even had a request from Somalia (they changed the structures in the print to look more like buildings you'd see in that East African country).

"When people are so far from each other," McLean said, "they really want to do something special for the person they're missing."
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Mompreneurs® Still Going Strong—10 Years and Counting

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February, 2007 - It was just over 10 years ago, in September of 1996, that authors Ellen Parlapiano and Patricia Cobe released their first Mompreneurs® book—catapulting work-at-home mothers into the spotlight, and coining and trademarking the catchy word “mompreneurs” to describe entrepreneurial moms. As work-at-home moms themselves (both were home-based writers/consultants raising young children), Parlapiano and Cobe decided to pen the book when they couldn’t find anything on the market addressing the special needs of mothers running businesses from home. “Wherever we went—whether to the playground or the supermarket—other moms would ask how we did it,” says Parlapiano. “So we decided to write our own how-to book about starting and running a business from a mother’s perspective.”

That first book, Mompreneurs®: A Mother’s Practical, Step-by-Step Guide to Work-at-Home Success (Perigee, 1996), caught the attention of the media, landing the authors on Oprah, Good Morning America and several other national shows. It also led to follow-up books and a five-year stint as featured Mompreneurs® experts on iVillage.com, where the authors dispensed home business advice.

Today, Cobe and Parlapiano offer support and advice at their own website, MompreneursOnline.com (www.mompreneursonline.com), which features message boards, articles, and a unique Mompreneurs® Marketplace showcasing mom-owned businesses. They are recognized by the media as the go-to experts when the topic is work-from-home moms. Last month, Parlapiano offered tips on The CBS Early Show’s three-part series about women entrepreneurs, which also highlighted two MompreneursOnline community members, Ester LaPollo of MamaAfrika (www.mamaafrika.com) and Kathie Papera of Lilypad Baby (www.lilypadbaby.com).

Mompreneur® Trends 2007

With their fingers on the pulse of the mompreneur® movement, the authors have noticed many exciting trends that will make it easier for today’s mothers to launch their own enterprises:

?Technology makes working from home easier than ever! “The Web provides a gateway to careers that were practically unheard of when we wrote our first book,” says Cobe, citing examples like e-tailing, personal coaching, online tutoring and virtual assistants (who provide office support services via the Web). Even lawyers, bankers, nurses, teachers and other professionals—who would have been hard-pressed to find work-at-home jobs in their specialties 10 years ago—are carving out all kinds of interesting career niches, without having to switch professions. Attorneys are running advocacy websites for special-ed students, travel specialists launch online agencies, former Spanish teachers help preschoolers become bilingual, and public policy experts run thriving consulting businesses. With high-tech tools like blogs and podcasts, mompreneurs are able to reach a wider audience without leaving the comfort of their homes.

?Mothers of invention are creating new niches. Today’s creative moms are inventing gadgets and safety products that solve problems they’ve discovered in their own family lives. For example, after running out of space to display her children’s artwork, Suzy Fanning, of Plymouth, Michigan, created MacKenzie Kids Art Files (www.mackenziekids.net), a smart storage and display system. The designer of the Stowers Swaddler swaddling blanket (www.stowersswaddler.com), was inspired by her own experience as a mom and a labor-delivery nurse to create a swaddling blanket with a pocket and Velcro closures. The Web makes it easy for enterprising moms to research patents, trademarks and other legalities with the click of a mouse.

?Moms want to make a difference. “We are seeing a big increase in cause-related companies—businesses with a social conscience,” says Parlapiano. For example, Mama Afrika (www.mamaafrika.com) is an online business that benefits African women and children. It was founded by Ester LaPollo, a Lompac, California mom who sells African crafts and specialties on her site, and donates a portion of her proceeds back to the African countries.

?Funding is easier to find. Though mompreneurs® still tend to rely on savings accounts and credit cards for start-up expenses, grants and low-interest loans are more accessible, if you know where to look. Great resources include: Count Me In (www.count-me-in.org) and Accion USA (www.accionusa.com). Also check local small business development centers and women’s networking groups to see if they can recommend potential lenders. The Make Mine a $Million Business® contest, sponsored by Count-Me-In and American Express Open helps moms grow their businesses through monetary support, mentoring, marketing and technology tools. (Enter at www.makemineamillion.org). One of the 2006 winners was Renee Wood, founder of The Comfort Company (www.thecomfortcompany.net), an online retailer of condolence gifts, and a charter member of MompreneursOnline.com. “It was so gratifying to watch Renee get the opportunity to take her business to that million dollar level,” says Cobe, who was in the audience cheering when Renee won.

?Work-from-home moms are now getting the respect they deserve! With about half a million moms running their own businesses, entrepreneurial mothers are finally being taken seriously by the “traditional” work world. Corporations often hire work-from-home moms as consultants, and mompreneurs® find they no longer have to keep motherhood a secret. Moms are on a mission to attain more family flexibility and have proven that they can successfully run a business and family under the same roof. They are confident and capable. “It’s not about opting out, it’s about creating new options,” says Parlapiano.

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Age proves no limit for maritime inventor

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If it's in your blood, you're never too old to be an inventor.

Just ask Norton Shores' Larry Gray. He's 77 and in the middle of a relatively successful launch of a new sailing product.

Gray, with his wife, Judy, have created, produced and marketed the TideMinder through their company Go With the Flow Solution LLC of Muskegon.

The TideMinder protects boat dock lines from chaffing due to tide or wave action. A series of balls attached to the loop of the dock line keeps the line from rubbing on a piling, Gray said.

It all began as an idea while hanging out at Hernado Beach's Gulf Star Marina north of Tampa Bay, Fla. Gray has been a sailor of S-2 yachts for years.

The initial idea came in April 2005 and the Grays worked all summer on the prototypes. The first was the use of roller blade wheels but a 3-inch diameter solid plastic ball worked better. The ball is bored to allow the dock line to slip down the center.

"They balls are indestructible," Gray said. "And they float."

For a 12-inch-diameter piling, a set of nine TideMinder balls retail at $49.50. A competitor's product is a small car that runs along a track bolted to the piling and retails for $225, Gray said.

The TideMinder is portable, staying with the boat from marina to marina, said Gray, a member of the Muskegon Inventors Network.

"I like to think it is the perfect invention ... something every boater needs," Gray said. "(As a manufacturer) it's not that perfect though ... it doesn't wear out."

The product was ready for marketing in October 2005. The TideMinder is produced by CamCar Plastics of Muskegon and distributed through Dr. Shrink, a distribution outlet of Mike Stenberg of Manistee, Gray said.

Some 2,000 packages of the TideMinder have been produced but Gray said he cannot say how many of those have been sold. The product was written up in Practical Sailor last June and Gray is working to get the product into the West Marine inventory -- the boating superstore with an outlet in Muskegon.

This is not the first product that Gray has produced. The retired music teacher and choir director also had made a vacuum cleaner accessory for shag carpets that eventually was sold to Clarke Floor Machine.

Larry Gray's TideMinder protects boat dock lines from chaffing.

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