What: A retail
store where customers throw parties to bake and decorate
cookies
Who: Caryn Truitt
and Betsey Toombs of Cookies
Where:
Seattle
When: Started in
2002
It's a kid's dream come true to walk into Cookies. With a wall of
sprinkles on one side of the store and a wall of cookie cutters on
the other, "they walk in wide-eyed at all the sprinkles,"
says Caryn Truitt, 38. "There are cow sprinkles and dog bone
sprinkles-almost anything you can imagine."
Truitt met Betsey Toombs, the owner of a dessert company, when
Toombs worked with Truitt's sister, who ran a restaurant. After
getting to know each other, the future business partners began to
toss around ideas and landed on the Cookies concept. At first, they
faced skepticism when they decided to open a cookie-party store;
doubters didn't think there was a market for people who liked
to bake-or do it socially, for that matter. But Truitt knew there
would be a customer base: "People come in and remember their
moms baking cookies, and [they want] to continue [that]
tradition."
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When they found a space they liked on Seattle's famous
Market Street, they opened their doors to an array of clientele.
Now kids, bridal parties and even corporate groups schedule baking
parties in their store. "It's hard not to be happy
here," says Truitt.
Toombs, 49, a baker by trade, notes their popularity is growing
by word-of-mouth: "We keep getting more people discovering
us." Today, they offer a "cookie cutter of the
month" club, a gingerbread house-decorating festival for the
holidays, cookies with logos for corporate clientele, and
cookie-decorating classes-with about $100,000 in sales for their
first year in business. With plans to expand into franchising
someday, it looks like there will be a lot more sweet cookie
partying in the future.
At Their Service
What: A Web
site providing civilian job listings for ex-military
personnel
Who: Karin
Markley of Military Exits
Where:
Chatsworth, California
When: Started in
2002
Finding a job is one of the biggest challenges for people coming
out of the military. Karin Markley, founder of Military Exits,
knows this well-she has 15 years of experience working in a
civilian employment agency. She knows companies value employees
with military backgrounds, and she wanted to provide a one-stop
link between the two.
Setting up MilitaryExits.com out of her home, Markley, 40,
contacted the Department of Defense for permission to use its seal
on her Web site. It took months to get it, but MilitaryExits.com is
now linked to all the military bases. It costs nothing for
servicemen and women to post their resumes and search for jobs;
employers pay for the listings, which reach service personnel in
the United States and overseas. The site also includes information
on relocation and education, as well as military support chat
groups.
Markley, who projects sales of $600,000 for 2004, points to her
biggest reward: "Helping the military. Getting the letters and
phone calls from these people thanking me so much for what I'm
doing for them."
Picture Perfect
What: A stock
photography agency that provides images of minorities for
advertisers and graphic design professionals
Who: Troy A.
Jones and T. Lynn Ford of Ethno Images Inc.
Where:
Dallas
When: Started in
2000
Former advertising executives and colleagues Troy Jones and T.
Lynn Ford knew the advertising industry well-and they knew when
they searched for stock photos of minorities to use in ad
campaigns, they would come up empty-handed. "Working with
various art directors, there was always a need for an
African-American image here or a Hispanic image there. But there
was never a resource for it," says Jones.
Jones, 34, and Ford, 28, spotted a niche-and saw that the
growing minority population would correspond with a growing need
for minority-targeted advertising. They were also tired of the ups
and downs of working at ad agencies.
But starting a one-stop shop for minority stock images presented
its own challenges-such as locating enough talented photographers
who shared their vision and had those kinds of photos in their
collections. Says Jones, "We did direct mail, searched the
Internet, [did] guerrilla-type marketing, went to exhibits [and]
shoots-word-of-mouth was a key factor."
In the end, the creation of Ethno Images turns out to be a
winning situation for all involved: Ad agencies get the photos they
need, photographers get to sell their photographs, and Ethno Images
secures a commission for linking the two. And their annual $700,000
in sales is only the beginning, according to Jones. He sees Ethno
Images eventually becoming part of a larger Ethno brand that will
encompass a greeting card company, a recording label and an
entertainment company.
On a shoestring
What: An
online store for specialty auto parts
Who: Michael
Lewis and Brian Marks of PartsForYourCar.com (PFYC.com)
Where: Sammamish,
Washington
When: Started in
1998
Start-Up Cost:
$583
After eight years of working for others-after he'd owned his
own business-Michael Lewis got the inspiration to start PFYC.com.
The car enthusiast had been chatting on a Pontiac Grand Prix
community Web site when he met Brian Marks, 28, and the two
commiserated about the difficulty of finding specialty car parts.
Both had jobs in the tech industry at the time, yet they wanted to
launch a Web site to meet car hobbyists' needs. Says Lewis, 42,
"We had this idea we could do this with little risk because we
could use the Internet as our catalog."
The partners started part time out of their homes-with Lewis in
Sammamish, Washington, and Marks in Raleigh, North Carolina.
"We didn't even meet until we'd been working together
for three months," says Lewis. Their earliest expenses were
$55 per month for Web hosting and application fees for the Internet
transactions and merchant bank account. To save money, they
didn't stock inventory at first, but relied on drop-shipping
from vendors instead.
In 1999, Lewis quit his job to devote himself full time to the
growing venture; Marks quit his job in 2000 and still resides in
North Carolina. Lewis credits outsourcing with keeping overhead
low-even today, with sales in the millions, they outsource
warehousing, distribution and shipping. "As much as you want
to start with $2 million in capital, keep the day job, and get your
toes wet," says Lewis. "Learn when the consequences
aren't so high."