CarbonAccelerator Event #2 New Date and Call for Pitchers

Bit of housekeeping up front, we need to reschedule the next Accelerator event to Tuesday, May 10.

For this next event, I thought we would tackle the question on many new, and would be, entrepreneurs minds.

How do I take my idea to the next level?

For many people, they have come up with a product and are unsure as to the best way to get their product to market.  Should they sell directly to their customers, or should they look for national distribution and become a wholesale producer.

There are many product ideas that could make a good small business, but very few that have a chance at national success.  Deciding early on if you are going to wholesale your product or not should influence a lot of other decisions.

Pricing for instance, if something costs you $10 and you sell it to the end consumer for $20 - you've made $10.  If on the other hand you decide to put this product in stores, you now need to sell a hell of a lot more widgets to make up for the decrease in margin.  These are things that represent "basic" business - but things which plenty of seasoned business people fail to grasp if they are not in the business of building and selling products.

Why am I talking about this?  Well, I've had some troubling discussions with people getting started who have been "mentored" by the usual government "experts".  Their canned response to him was, "Well, you've got to get a good distributor."  While this may be true for widgets, it isn't true for many of the creative/crafty sorts of products that we have an abundance of in Nova Scotia.  These people sell their product because they have developed personal relationships with their customers, or personal relationships with a small handful of retailers that they have chosen to work with.  Getting a distributor to "pick-up your product" may sound like a great thing - but remember, they can drop your product just as quick if it isn't working for them and those relationships that they fostered may be gone forever.

So, how does this fit into the CarbonAccelerator?  Well, in our next session on May 10 we would like to hear from pitchers that are in this type of situation - if you are one of them, or know of one of them, please get in touch with us so we can put you on the agenda.

And remember, CarbonAccelerator is open to the public - if you're going into withdrawal from the season's ending of Dragon's Den, come on down and check things out - 6:00 Tuesday May 10 @Carbonstok, 1235 Barrington St.