Key Question:
A: At the beginning when you have nearly zero cash flow, you can bring in family members who will work for free. This is the way new Americans do it. Everyone works long, hard hours for nearly nothing until the business starts to work then everyone is paid fair-market wages.
Search for more on the topic of startup and start a business and click on the question for more answers.
Think about it
Do you have family members who can work for free?
Clip from: Jagged Edge Mountain Gear
Enjoy your summer while you have it! Winter will return!
Telluride, Colorado and Moab, Utah: Deep-seated within every American is the dream of starting and owning a business. Most of us are barely aware that this concept is deeply ingrained in our culture. The modern concept of a corporation actually has its roots in the American revolution. This drive to start a business -- to incorporate under a name -- mystifies much of the world and it has a lot to do with one's sense of purpose or "calling" and also one's process of self-actualization.
In this episode of the show, you meet many very special people, but the stars are Margaret Quenemoen and her sister, Paula. It will become quickly apparent that they are identical twins who share a huge love of life. Their honesty and integrity, their openness and their achievement, their vision and their tenacity, over-qualify them to be our MasterClass teachers.
So, let's drive into the deep mountains of Colorado to look at their foundations, business plan, financing, direct public offering, and so much more.
We'll learn what went right, what went wrong, and what their vision of the future is.
Jagged Edge Mountain Gear (MQ)
Margaret Quenemoen, Founder
223 E. Colorado Ave.
PO Box 2256
Telluride, CO 81435
Visit our web site: http://www.jagged-edge-telluride.com
Business Classification:
Retail
Year Founded: 1991
Recruit Family
HATTIE: When did you come back and the partnership began to develop?
PAULA: I would receive these desperate letters in Asia, with Margaret telling me that she's started to sew these headbands and these vests, and it's going to be good, it's going to be as good as Eddie Bauer. She was trying to put across to me that this was not some rinky-dink thing, this was going to be first-class from the beginning.
HATTIE: So you were trying to sell Paula on coming back to help you.
MARGARET: Mm-hmm.
HATTIE: Subtly.
PAULA: It wasn't subtle. It was overt -- "Help. Please!"
MARGARET: In the meantime, I was living in my car, and...
HATTIE: I want to understand this. You were living in your car.
MARGARET: Yes.
HATTIE: You're in Telluride and you're living in your car.
MARGARET: I was still doing the poverty thing. You know, I just didn't have any money, to be honest. At this point, it was summer, and I couldn't sell the headbands in the summer because it was a winter market.
HATTIE: There you go, that's the reason; OK, it makes sense now. You started with the headband. What was the next item, and what led to it? Did people ask `I want a matching vest to go with my headband'?
MARGARET: Mm-hmm. I was really trying to work out a vest. A store in Aspen said, `If you make vests, we'll take 12 of them.' So I had this goal, I was going to make a vest. And I wanted help with the vest, because my version was just too homemade. And I called the different sewing plants in Salt Lake City, and everybody said `No, we have no interest.' And I accidentally called one back, and the guy said, `I already told you No, and you called me back again,' and he was really annoyed, and he said, `Just hold a minute.' So he put me on hold and came back and he said `OK, I'll see you.' And I went down to this sewing plant and there was pictures of climbers all over in the lobby. I thought `Wow, this is perfect, I belong here.' So...
HATTIE: So they took you in...
MARGARET: Uh-huh.
HATTIE: ...and they took you in and made your 12 vests. Did you make the 12 vests and sell them to the store that said...
MARGARET: We did, and we ended up selling hundreds and hundreds of them. I took the vest and then some other pieces; then I had added to the line with their help at a trade show. And, it was a success. We had an $80,000 order from a Japanese customer, and it seemed it was just taking off.
HATTIE: So you were interning, you were apprenticing. You were doing your homework.
MARGARET: I was. We have a real Asian influence, as Paula was saying, from her background. This is the symbol of the Tao, and we're celebrating the experience and the path, the journey, the way versus the summit, and we've incorporated this into our hang tags, our garments, and our point of purchase displays for other retailers that carry our goods, and it's been really powerful. People like the idea of a spiritual element into the clothing.
PAULA: We were looking for something to add some depth to our philosophy. We found that we were bored with the outerwear industry. Everything was extreme, and emphasis on the summit. But it's the whole process that goes on inside your heart and your mind, and the process of getting to the summit. You might spend months getting to that final goal only to spend 10 minutes on top, and maybe it's a raging storm and you don't get to see anything anyway. Or maybe you don't even make it to the summit. So you've got to enjoy the journey.
