Entrepreneurs gather at 1 Million Cups and seek opportunity

During another recent 1 Million Cups event, Al Davis, of Offtoa Inc. presented a new software that helps entrepreneurs analyze potential business risks as they embark on setting up a new company.

The software asks entrepreneurs a series of questions about their companies. Then, using the answers provided by the entrepreneur, it makes recommendations that help entrepreneurs make important decisions and minimize financial risk.

“What it does is it helps to you find out what you don’t know about your company.” Davis said.

Al Davis of Offtoa speaks to entrepreneurs and seeks advice for his company. Photo by Arianna Sena.

Offtoa helps analyze the financial information of companies and predicts how an investor might react to a company’s financial situation. Davis said Offtoa cannot remove all of the financial risks entrepreneurs take, but it can help reduce them. The service gives entrepreneurs an idea of the path that lies ahead.

Offtoa has equity within the company

Offtoa employees don’t get paid a salary. Instead, they each own a portion of the company and earn equity on their share of the company. Because they still need a steady income, all employees have jobs separate from their work with Offota. According to the company’s website, they are entrepreneurs who want to improve the startup experience.

Davis says that while the company has no problem turning a profit once they gain customers, but they do struggle to find them. During the event, he reached out to fellow entrepreneurs in the room for help in getting those leads to help the program to thrive.

Catalyst week is a helpful workshop for entrepreneurs

After Davis’ presentation, participants at 1 Million Cups switched focus to Catalyst week, a free workshop that helps entrepreneurs achieve their professional goals.

Nick Williams, founder of the local SunPort solar plug company, said this workshop is a good way for entrepreneurs and startups to solidify an idea that they already have and focus on making it more tangible. The two weekends will cover strategies, SMART (Specific, Measureable, Actionable, Relevant, and Time Bound) goal setting, focus sessions, feedback and mentorship, and award prizes. 

Nick Williams explains Catalyst Week to the 1 Million Cups audience. Photo by Arianna Sena.

This year’s Catalyst Week workshop was held in March. The last event happened in 2015.

The workshop is free to anyone who wants to attend and is filling up quickly, Williams said. He hopes that Catalyst Week will become more than just an annual occurrence and encouraged those who were interested to host a future event.

ABQ innovators gather every week at 1 Million Cups

1 Million Cups is a national program that allows entrepreneurs to make connections, learn and engage with other innovators in the area. Every Wednesday morning at FatPipe ABQ, Albuquerque’s entrepreneurs gather and listen to speakers from within the community and get the opportunity to chat with others who share similar interests.

On a recent Wednesday, the room was crowded with entrepreneurs young and old. There were people who had been there many times before and those who came to check it out for the first time.

After the presentations, entrepreneurs gathered to network.

Those who are trying to succeed gather at these events where they get to hear from other innovators. It’s all a part of the learning process.
“Learning almost always comes from failure,” Williams said at the event. Entrepreneurs need to embrace that failure so they are not afraid of it. He said that if entrepreneurs succeed right away, they probably didn’t learn anything.

Boutique on wheels set to take off

Tess Coats, 30, always dreamed of owning a retail store but didn’t know how she would succeed. That’s when she came up with the idea for Spectacle Caravan, a mobile boutique in a vintage Airstream. The shop will make its debut on May 1, when the remodel is finished. Photo by Arianna Sena/ NM News Port.

 
Tess Coats always wanted to open her own retail store, but the tough economy for small boutiques in Albuquerque gave her pause.

“I was seeing successful businesses, primarily local boutiques closing down. I guess I didn’t really have the why or the reason that I thought I could succeed at it,” Coats said.

Still, her dream persisted, and eventually Coats came up with a way to avoid the failures of other store owners. About a year ago, she decided to start a mobile boutique out of a vintage Airstream van. She calls it Spectacle Caravan.

Spectacle Caravan

Spectacle Caravan’s concept is not a new one, but it is the first of its kind in Albuquerque. Coats saw that mobile mercantiles were popular and successful in other larger cities, and decided she wanted to open one herself.

Once she had her idea, Coats, a 30-year-old graduate of the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising in Los Angeles, attended  Women’s Startup Weekend last year at Fat Pipe ABQ. She pitched her business to judges at the event for the opportunity to develop a team that would help her grow her business. She was selected as a finalist and met many incredible women who helped her get started.

The first step was purchasing the “store” itself. Coats needed $5,000 to acquire a 29-foot Airstream van. With the help of a friend from Women’s Startup weekend, she started a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo, a site which helps fund entrepreneurial projects. Much to her surprise, she raised the money she needed in just one month.

“Your life, styled”

Coats wants Spectacle Caravan to be a space where customers can shop and hang out. She said that it will be a reimagined shopping experience; from the way it looks to the products offered. The store, located inside the Airstream van, will sell high-quality lifestyle pieces, and the tagline is, “your life, styled.”

The van is being completely remodeled, and Coats says it will be totally transformed when it’s done. The remodel will be finished May 1, and Coats will make her big debut at the Rail Yards Market.

Prepping for takeoff

Coats has appeared at several pop up events recently to examine how customers would respond to what she is selling. She said that she has been quite successful and has seen a positive response from consumers.

All of the inventory is locally-made and hand-picked by Coats. She says she plans to sell only American-made products from her vintage van.

In between marketing for her Spectacle Caravan and being a mother to her 4-year-old, Coats continues to raise funds for the Airstream. She said that whenever she comes across extra money, it usually goes toward the renovating the vintage van. She is also trying to purchase a truck to pull the van, in place of her current, less cost-effective, U-Haul rental.

This isn’t Coats’ only job; she also works as a merchandiser for multiple companies around the city. In this position, she helps develop displays and decides how merchandise will look on the shelves. In the future, she hopes to be able to make Spectacle Caravan her main priority and a full-time job.

 

Coats is currently spreading the word about her startup company and says marketing has been a key factor in her success. Her favorite way to reach customers is the old-fashioned method of getting out there and meeting people. She can usually be found around the Innovation District in Downtown Albuquerque, and she especially likes attending women’s events in the city.

 

“It’s actually gotten to the point where you have to kind of pick and choose what you’ll show up to. Which is great because it didn’t used to be like that here,” Coats said, “Things are very available now. You just have to show up and make it happen.”

Coats said her biggest roadblocks so far have been getting funding for the project and holding people to commitments.

“Contracts are important. Whether it’s your friend or someone’s going to do work for you, get a contract,” she said.

Coats said that starting her own business and learning about the importance of contracts has taught her how to be professional. She said it’s all about, “really making sure that you act like a CEO at all times.”

What lies ahead

When it comes to customer service, Coats is an expert. She’s been working in retail for years.

“[Good customer service is] going over and beyond and providing them with the experience they may not know they can have,” she says.

Coats said that the customers are the ones who are making her dream happen.

Coats’ goal after completing the renovation of the Airstream, is to make this a full-time job for herself by building on the business. She plans to do this by building partnerships and creating a web presence within the next year. She hopes to extend her reach by travelling to other big cities, both New Mexico and outside the state.

Local ad campaign has explosive first year

An overview of Boomtime’s “Make Em Boom” charity campaign. This multimedia package was done as a group project in my CJ 375 Intermediate Reporting course at the University of New Mexico. Allison Romero,  Viridiana Vasquez and myself collaborated on this project.

Last year, an Albuquerque marketing company named Boomtime launched the Make Em Boom campaign, which included setting up eight fiberglass bombs around Albuquerque.

Boomtime is a digital marketing service company that specializes in helping local small businesses market themselves for an affordable price.

Boomtime is a company based on word of mouth marketing. It helps companies attract customers by doing things like building their websites and managing their pages on Google Places. Boomtime works with a couple hundred customers including Scalo and Armed Response. As a rule, they only work with local companies.

“We won’t do business with a business that we can’t take a picture of the owner,” said Boomtime CEO Mark Canon.

Canon has worked in marketing for an extensive amount of time. It has been 20 years since he launched Switchboard, an online phonebook. He held several different positions until Bill Bice, the founder of Boomtime, convinced him to help build on to the business.

Boomtime has been around for about 10 years. The company was originally primarily focused on spas and restaurants, but it was difficult to expand. When they needed to expand and become more well-known in the community, they launched the Make Em Boom campaign.

“We didn’t feel like we were well enough known in Albuquerque,” Canon said. The company decided to take a stab at guerilla marketing and do something that would generate a large amount of likes and posts.

This campaign raised money for local charities. Each bomb was decorated by a different artist. All the artists were hand-picked by Canon. He interviewed 60 different artists and narrowed it down from there.

The company encouraged people to take photos and hashtag #makeemboom on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. The bomb with the most votes would win. Mandy’s Farm ended up winning the contest. This bomb was decorated with a Breaking Bad mural. Canon said they generated about 1.5 million likes and posts.

The company received a lot of attention for this campaign, both good and bad. By coincidence, the bombs went up almost immediately before the bombings in Paris last year. People found this insensitive and a few of the charities who were participating in the project pulled out. Canon said that the idea was supposed to be all in good fun. He said that he did address the criticism, but there were a few charities that dropped out of the campaign.

Now that the contest has come to an end and all of the bombs have been removed, Boomtime is now looking for a place to house the pieces of art permanently. They are currently being stored at a farm. They plan on doing the same contest next year with new charities and new artists to partner with. The company wants to get even more charities and go after more key influencers in the city.

With the controversy that took place during the past competition, Canon thinks it may be a bit of a challenge to do it next time.

Canon said that it’s unpredictable as to what will take off and become popular. He says that while the bombs were not meant to be in bad taste and it generated some negative press, there’s “no such thing as bad news.”
The amount raised has not been determined yet, but Canon estimates that it will be around $40,000 to $60,000. The cost to make the bombs was about $3,000 each, along with the cost of moving them around and buying artists the supplies to create them. The artists donated their time to the project.