Chicken Poop, Chocolate Goop, Hair Gels and Can’t Sells.
Posted on March 9, 2007 by Brian under Life, School.
Last night my wife took me to a speaker panel for 4 of the most prominent entrepreneur’s in the city of Wichita. One was Craig Allen of “Craig Allen Salon’s” the other was the owner of “Coco Dulce” a chocolate boutique, the third was the Sister of the owner/creator of “Chicken Poop” lip balm and the last was a poor guy trying to get an over worked idea to work for him. Over all the speakers were very good and the information was interesting for those that were there to learn how to start your own business. I think most of the people that were there were only there to fulfill a class credit or something.
This poor guy that had the web idea (a social place like MySpace but for sports) was one of the people that i feel will not make it as far as getting his business off the ground. The whole MySpace thing is a done deal. It was nice when it was new and at the moment there are so many social sites available that one more is just a drop in the bucket. I felt for this guy because he says he works a full time job, comes home to his kids and then programs till 2 in the morning. I told my wife that he just needs to come up with something more origional. The “Craig Allen” guy is another that I think wont last past 5 years. This is a novel concept, a salon geared solely towards men, but its a changing world. Guys are no longer moving towards $55.00 haircuts, reguardless of the environment. He stated that he is looking to expand his business in other states. I told my wife, “He may be able to get this idea to last in like California, Dallas, New York or maybe even Florida. However, here in Wichita its not going to last, the people here are just to frugal. They will try a concept for a while but when the novelty wears off the business eventually fizzles out and dies”. I think the people that will be in business for a long time are the Chicken Poop people and the Chocolate person. These are 2 concepts that we dont currently have in Wichita. Chicken Poop has gone nationwide thanks to Walgreens and is running neck in neck with Burt’s Bees, another natural’s creator. I told my wife that this is an idea that will be around for a while. Create a product out of natural ingreadents, give it a catchy name and package it to appeal to the customers eye. They have done all of this and its paid off for them in major ways. The chocolate place it great because they are appealing to not only the upper middle class house wife, but the corperate person that is looking for that “Something Special” for there end customers, bosses, CEO’s or whatever that they are wanting. This is a great concept that will be around for a while.
All-in-all this was a great speech sessions and i was glad that my wife drug me too it. Originally i did not want to go but i broke down (i can never tell my wife no, i may put up a good fight but in the end…i love her to much to deny her anything) and finally went. I took away some good knowledge if i wanted to start my own business and I think in the future if I do want to start my own business, i know who in town to turn to for advise.
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