As for the occupational saga, I’ve given up on applications and wooing hiring managers and instead purchased a little business so that I can tend to that in the mornings and then use my afternoons for advocacy and humor writing like God intended. Huzzah! I cracked the case.
I closed on the business on June 16th which made me smirk because I started Lux on July 16th exactly ten years ago. It felt a little kismet-y. The less kismet-y part is that I don’t know how to run this type of business, but I can learn. Also, after eight years of “if you mess up, my whole wedding day is ruined” this business strikes one as having a high barrier to disaster.
The business: acupressure bracelets. Isn’t that funny? As a nauseous member of society, I’m well aware of the nausea bands. I believe every one of my queasy family members has worn them at sometime or another; and they are schlubby, utilitarian things. Quite conspicuous as well. “Look everyone, I might blow chunks!” As motion-sick mavens, my family has participated in all kinds of nausea remedies.
For almost a year now, I’ve been keeping an eye on businesses for sale. I like working for me. But I wasn’t just going to buy a business to solve my unemployment woes - it had to be something I could get behind, something that met an extensive list of criteria. Primarily, I didn’t want a business selling crap to people. The list of businesses rules included these things:
-No selling gewgaws or doodads
-No ill-fitting, flammable clothing
-No drop-shipping businesses
-No SAAS businesses
-Nothing with lots of unrecyclable plastic components
-I don’t want to manage a team of more than 10
-Nothing techy, medical, or overly complicated
-Nothing with bookkeeping that exceeds my art school education
-No agency businesses
-I’m not buying anyones blog or ad-based income situation
-No meat, dairy, leather, or feather based products
-No cosmetics, supplements, or other products that suggest you're ugly or broken
-I will not be filming workout videos or tutorials
-Not interested in sports
-Nothing politically, religiously or ethically outrageous or polarizing
-And ideally I get to stay home
So obviously my options were abundant. I considered the rare few that met this criteria but they weren't things I could proudly stand behind. I put in an offer on one and then the guy decided to raise the price. Can you believe that? I was outraged.
And then came the barf bracelet business. Here’s what’s neat about it, they don’t look like barf bracelets. They look like fun wrist bands - that’s the whole schtick. “Fight nausea, look great” the marketing says, and by golly, they do. In considering this business, I thought about the bulky set Mom was given too late on an ill-fated boat ride around a Caribbean island. Mom flung herself overboard, swam to shore and barfed in the bushes nexts to some happy beach-goers. I thought of the pinching sweatbands I was given to wear on a cruise on formal night, and the grey elastic did not go with my shimmery outfit.
It suddenly seemed so obvious. Nausea bands like look like jewelry. What a brilliant idea.
So I hopped on a call with the owner/founder. We got on like wildfire. She came up with the idea after one of her colleagues noticed the ugly, “Hey, I’m queasy” sweatbands on her wrists and subsequently outed her new pregnancy at the office. She got on a prototype right away - she’s has six kids so far, so she’s always wearing nausea bands.
But in talking to her, I learned that the pregnant and the motion sick are only half of the customers - the other half come from the “medical woes” sector of life. Chemotherapy, vestibular disorders, assorted medical treatments that leave people rolling. She told me about the little notes she receives from people with debilitating, chronic dizziness that are so excited about the inconspicuous bands.
A worry that this might be a good business for me set in. Have I found IT? I'm a nauseous nancy, a vertigo veteran, a queasy queen! I was made to sell this product. Is this my ticket out of financial ruin and traditional employment? Should I do it?
I got on a second call with the owner. This time I asked more in-depth questions, the operational kind that make me look like I knew what to ask about. I could find no real cons, apart from not knowing how to do the things she mentioned. I hemmed and hawed. I was preoccupied by the idea that I didn’t know enough to even know what to ask about. I looked at the P&L, the supplier agreements, the marketing strategies. I asked Chat GPT what I’d forgotten to ask about.
As you can imagine, I had the consult of Popples Union in my ear as well, and while his fallback was, “I don’t know e-commerce” he was enlivened by the opportunity. He told me all kinds of businesses things in acronyms I haven’t learned yet, and made sure I understood that “no one expects to get their asking price for the business.” While the P&L brought him and me to a similar suggested offer price range, I wanted to factor in all the invisible labor and the fact that she will see her business as more valuable than it is because it’s her big thing.
Business-man Dad was amused by my sweetness. We went back and forth on the matter. It’s not that wanted to pay more, but I was worried about insulting her with what we thought was fair. “It’s business. It’s not personal.” Dad would say, and I know he’s right, but also, it’s a little bit wrong too. If I was buying Home Depot, sure, but this is one woman’s small business for a product she designed herself. Dad smiled sympathetically at me and left me to make the decision on my own. "I can’t make it for you,” he has conveniently said at all points in life when I want him to choose for me.
I took Pip for a walk around the block and then came home and low-balled her. Lower than Dad suggested.
She accepted!
I called Dad to tell him. “I can’t believe you went that low!” he said.
“I thought she would counter!” I retorted.
“You're a business woman! I’m so proud of you!”
So I got a deal AND made my dad proud. There was no backing out now.
Over the last two months we’ve been migrating the assets (the phrase makes me laugh every time I say it to people) to my name and I’ve been trying to figure out what’s going on. The founder is very nice and open but she never wrote an instruction manual so it’s a lot of taking things apart, looking at the pieces, making notes, and putting in back together again before I update it all in a few months when I’m more comfy. I’ve got big plans, baby!
It has all been as tricky as I thought it would be. Somethings are easy and obvious - answering emails about sizes and shipments - other things are more complicated than expected. I've bought it while inventory is extremely low and have had to get more materials manufactured (never done that before) and had to send existing materials to the company in China that assembles them (or that), and man oh man, shipping stuff to China is tricky. I’ve already messed this up and have to have the assembly company hire an agent to get my shipment out of trouble at the customs dock next week. Whoopsies!
Now I know for next time.
After I bought the business, the founder shipped me hundreds of pounds, thousands of yards of the elastic fabric. She had this sitting in storage in Texas where she lives and would send bits of it to the assembler in China as needed. She lost points for organization when I opened these boxes to find chaos. There was no packing list. No notes on how much of each pattern I had. It was quite literally thousands of yards of loose elastic, patterns intermingling, unopened shipments of elastic, nearly complete rolls with a mystery amount missing. I stood frozen by the magnitude of the job at hand.
I have to measure all of it. And worse, way way worse, wind all of it into wheels. You know Big Mama came over to help wind things into rolls, and EisenEars has been winding while watching TV at night. Tomorrow should be my last day of measuring. I’ve arranged to have the assemblers store it for a small fee, and they can just measure out what they need as I order. I can’t be having fabric made, and sent to me just so I can measure chunks of it, pack it back up and send it to China every few months. Huh uh, no way. I can’t be storin’ all that!
So I’m going to ship all this to China on a palate just as soon as I figure out how to do that.
For my next improvement, I’ll tackle the website, which I think under represents the goods. Then, add some new designs. Next, marketing strategies. And later, for my first big act, I’ll try to get these bad boys into the drug stores.
I’ll keep you posted.
