Monday, October 3, 2011

"Budding" young entrepreneur in the making....duct tape flower pens!

Since I wrote the business plan for Greenfundraiserstore.com in early 2010 there has been many turns in twists in the evolution of the project.  If you can measure success with the comparison of progress to the stated goal.... then I can say we have overreached our early vision of creating "education and awareness" of green shifts in the course of daily living.   When we started pushing out the word of GFS through the development of the web site, attending local events in South-Eastern Michigan, posting on social media sites, sponsorship of local green events, and blogging... the intended audience was Oakland County,  Metro-Detroit, South-Eastern Michigan, and perhaps Michigan along with some Mid Western attention.

What the survey says based on our web sit statistics is that it has been something entirely different and unexpected.  Please don't take this reporting as boastful or bragitory but more of keeping the audience updated on our progress.  People ask me all the time... "How is it going? or tell me about your green company..." and therefore we want to keep you informed.  Besides we are measuring our success here based on "outreach" and not "sales".  Truth be told if we were measuring based on sales then I'd be calling this project a complete failure at this point and time.  Recall earlier this year I attended the "IDEA" conference held in Detroit Michigan that was hosted by Crains Detroit.

http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article/20110112/CRAINSEVENTS/110119926/idea-detroit-conference#

What I took away from that meeting was something new and exciting about the vision for creating and running a business.  The younger speakers shared their vision of business plans with a social cause at the core.  I began to think at that moment that in fact was what GFS is about.  It is really a social mission of creating "Education, Awareness, and the next steps of Action through unique fund raising opportunities".

Here is why I am likely never going to get attention from a venture capitalist organization who are in the business of loaning out billions of dollars to new businesses with great vision plans... I have refused to bring the focus to the profit side of the equation.   I understand that a venture capitalist is not loaning their funds for the greater good of man kind... in fact they are doing the opposite.  They are looking for ways to exploit the next big thing for a sizable profit.  That my friends is called capitalism.  In fact... we have learned that there is very little if any "human expense" considerations in the capitalism equation.  If it is discovered that a certain country is willing to produce a product at a lower labor cost, lower regulatory standard, lower taxation, lower environmental standard... then the company will move in a NEW YORK YANKEE minute.  By the way... and as a side note... my home town Detroit Tigers are about to put the beat down on the YANKEES.  In fact the series is tied up 1-1 coming home to Comerica Park in the D.

http://detnews.com/article/20111003/OPINION03/110030364/Tigers-come-home-with-series-even--setting-up-Sabathia-Verlander-rematch

 I am thinking it will go six and the Detroit Tigers will finish off the STANKEES in their home stadium in New York this weekend.  I love NEW YORK... Really?  Sorry NY fans....  I love DEETTRROOIITTT CITY and it is the year of the CAT... Tigers and Lions! FO SHORE!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QM7LR46zrQU

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0032138/quotes?qt=qt0409880 

Back to the story...

The "global" outreach has been nothing more than... amazing !    You have to take it back to beginning and measure from the intended target audience to realize where we are coming from.  Below you will find the stats on the September visits to GFS and it appears that the Chinese, Japanese, and  West Coast of the US are very interested in what were about.  Remember... they are curious visitors and not yet customers.  So... with that in mind... I am open to any suggestions you may have on how to make that happen!

http://soundfxnow.com/sound-fx/cash-register-cha-ching/

Countries Visits %
China 16,772 75.78 %
United States 3,716 16.79 %
Japan 1,315 5.94 %
Russia 164 0.74 %
France 32 0.15 %
Ukraine 21 0.09 %
Germany 16 0.07 %
Turkey 14 0.07 %
United Kingdom 14 0.06 %
Sweden 13 0.06 %
India 7 0.03 %
Netherlands 7 0.03 %
Israel 6 0.03 %
Brazil 5 0.02 %
Canada 4 0.02 %
Italy 3 0.01 %
Hong Kong 2 0.01 %
Romania 2 0.01 %
Moldova 2 0.01 %
S. Korea 2 0.01 %
Philippines 2 0.01 %
Colombia 2 0.01 %
PA 2 0.01 %
Other 10 0.04 %
Total 22,131 100.00 %

So... that is all I have to report for now in our progress.

One last thing... my right hand girl who has been with me at my side from the first day (please note the small freezing figure in photo 2 at the right side of the table.... ) has her own idea's about "re-purposing" and be rolling out her own line of specialty pens she call's "Duct tape flower pens".
Bet you didn't know you can find duct tape in all kinds of colors ranging from hot pink to zebra stripped.  Keep an eye out for this "budding" entrepreneur.... get it?  Flower pens....Budding.... OH NEVER MIND!
Look for more details coming soon...!

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