• On choosing strategy: "We do no market research. We don’t hire consultants.”
• On demanding reputation: “My job is to not be easy on people. My job is to make them better.”
• On Apple’s focus: “Apple is a $30 billion company, yet we’ve got less than 30 major products. I don’t know if that’s ever been done before.”. “It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully.”
• On launching Apple Store: “It was very simple. The Mac faithful will drive to a destination, right? They’ll drive somewhere special just to do that.”
• On catching tech’s next wave: “One of our biggest insights [years ago] was that we didn’t want to get into any business where we didn’t own or control the primary technology because you’ll get your head handed to you.”
• On managing through the economic downturn: “What I told our company was that we were just going to invest our way through the downturn, that we weren’t going to lay off people, that we’d taken a tremendous amount of effort to get them into Apple in the first place — the last thing we were going to do is lay them off. And we were going to keep funding.”

I feel I can apply many of these lessons to my current job and side projects. I think you’ll benefit from reading the article as well. Check it out.

If you haven’t read part I, please read “We have lost our beautiful home, our new cars, and in some respect, our dignity, but … “ an inspirational story of two Michigan mom entrepreneurs first.

GeekMBA360: After you came up with the business idea, how did get started?

We actually did write a business plan. At the top, we wrote to "Glorify Christ in all we do". When I tell you that our faith has increased through all of this, it is no exaggeration. There have been countless times when there was no way for us to make it, and He made a way.

We had no cars and my husband needed to get to school. We were feeling hopeless, and then suddenly we were given a used van for free. Not just a car, but a van that fit all 6 of us! Pretty coincidental, eh? My husband hasn’t had work in a very long time, and yet, we are together, comfortable, and doing well. The Lord is carrying us and we are trusting him. I guess that for some people, like myself, it takes being knocked on your butt, to wake you up and realize that you can’t do it all yourself. It was only when there was nowhere else to turn and I was filled with fear and desperation, that I turned to Him. I am so happy that I did.

There was no initial funding for SUDS. We used a portion of our grocery budget to buy the ingredients that we needed. It was a gamble, but we are prepared to work hard and make it pay off. I already had background knowledge into the beneficial qualities of specific butters and oils from before. So we started with ingredients from the grocery store. We made our first test bars with Olive, Coconut, Safflower and Palm Oils.

We started thinking about scents that we love and the colors and designs that would coordinate with them. Samantha and I are all about style, so we have found this to be very exciting. We made a few batches in every scent, until we found the recipe and design that we were looking for. We want SUDS bars to feel good, smell good, and look good. It is also important to note, we never test on animals……. only friends and family

GeekMBA360: You take care four kids full-time. How is your day like to joggle kids and starting a business

Hectic, crazy and wonderful!

I am very aware of how quickly time flies. Before I know it, the kids will have moved on and it will just be Chris and I. That thought is always with me and it helps me to treasure even the most hectic of days.

I try to wake up a couple hours before anyone else in the house and I do my soaping in the kitchen. I can usually get a batch done before anyone wakes up and then another batch when the baby is napping, or after he goes to bed in the early evening. I tend to the kids all day and check the website and my emails off and on throughout the day.

Samantha is juggling the business and a family of 4 as well, so she operates very much the same way that I do. The only difference is that she is much more of a night owl. Where as I love to soap before dawn, she is up soaping very late into the night. Between the two of us, we have SUDS operating nearly 24 hours a day! I am not going to lie though, with everyone home, working during their summer break is difficult. I am admittedly looking forward to school starting!

GeekMBA360: What’s going to happen next for SUDS Handmade Soap? Where can we buy it?

The most important thing for SUDS now, is getting our name out there. We have a unique and beneficial handmade product, but we do not have the funds to pay for marketing. We will be attending craft shows throughout Michigan and we are open for business on our website www.shopsuds.com. We are also really excited to be building up a fan base now on Facebook.

Our ultimate goal is to have a brick and mortar SUDS shop as well as be operating online. We would love to meet our customers face to face and be able to make our soap in the same building that we are selling in. It is a dream of ours to be set up in a way that allows our customers to see our soap making process from start to finish.

Consumers believe that they are buying soap at the grocery store but, more often than not, they are actually purchasing what the FDA considers beauty bars. Unlike soap, these bars are actually detergents, made up of synthetic chemical and petroleum products. The ingredient lists are often quite difficult for any normal person to pronounce.

When real soap is made from scratch, a natural occurrence takes place. Glycerin is created. It is a wonderful, natural, and healthy moisturizer. It is a necessary component of healthy, elastic skin. Glycerin naturally moisturizes the skin and keeps it’s healthy glow. Everyone wants their skin to feel soft, smooth and moist and it is glycerin that makes it happen.

Here is the thing…..the big commercial soap manufactures know all of this about glycerin also. During their manufacturing process, they actually extract the glycerin from the soap and replace it with detergents and chemicals. Why do they do this? Because they can then process the glycerin into other products like hand and body lotion, creams, balms, and other moisturizers. That’s right… they actually remove it from their soaps just so they can sell you an additional product. They then sell you a second product that contains what you should have had in the bar of soap you used in the first place! Now that you are out of your bath or shower, you must apply their additional product to make your skin feel soft, or suffer dry and itchy skin. This is pretty sneaky on their part, but it has worked, and they have the profits to prove it.

I do not want to bash other companies, but I think it is very important that consumers are educated about the products they are buying. If handmade soap is what you are looking for, it is important to understand the difference between melt and pour and cold process soaping. The difference is that while it, technically, can be considered handmade, or handcrafted, this is a misleading term. Melt and pour soap base is not made from scratch. The soap base is purchased, then melted down and the fragrance and color is added. The soap base is then poured into molds and cooled. It can then be sold immediately upon cooling. It takes much less time and much less skill to make melt and pour soap. This is the great attraction and the reason that I, originally, started out making melt and pour soap myself. On the other hand, real soap, made from scratch, is made with fresh butters and oils. Upon pouring, it must continue to cure for weeks to reach it’s peak. It is a true exercise in both skill and patience and, in my opinion, it is in a totally different league. That is why I am willing to work so much harder to do soap from scratch instead.

GeekMBA360: A lot of folks are struggling in this economy. Some of them are thinking about starting their own businesses. What advice do you have for them?

My advice is the same advice that rang in my ears when I initially decided to become an entrepreneur.

Use what you know and do something that you love. Beyond that, I would like to say something to all of the families that are struggling in today’s economy. You are not alone. Hang on to each other, support one another and have faith. We can all get through this.

Related posts

• From ad-free blogger to #1 selling author on Amazon.com
• IPO shouldn’t be the goal for a start-up
• Too many managers, too few leaders
• Is Cafe in the coffee business?
• You must be a lazy man if it takes you ten hours to do a day’s work

Excellent resources

• Rich Dad’s Before You Quit Your Job: 10 Real-Life Lessons Every Entrepreneur Should Know About Building a Multimillion-Dollar Business
• The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It
• How to Make Millions with Your Ideas: An Entrepreneur’s Guide
• "This business has legs": How I Used Infomercial Marketing to Create the$100,000,000 ThighMaster Craze
• Own Your Own Corporation: Why the Rich Own Their Own Companies and Everyone Else Works for Them (Rich Dad’s Advisors)

Jessica Clark is the co-founder of Suds Homemade Soap. I first learned about Suds when Jessica visited this blog and commented on Go Scooter Girls! – An inspiring entrepreneurial story of starting of starting a business during the current financial crisis.

Jessica wrote:

“We are two moms working hard to make certain that our families do not continue to suffer because of this catastrophic economy. We live in Michigan and there are so many families now suffering extreme financial hardship.

We come from a family of builders. Due to job loss in the residential construction industry, our husbands have gone back to school. We never imagined that we would be in this situation. After 17 years as successful builders, they are now starting at square one on a completely new career path as registered nurses.

Our families have suffered extreme financial losses. We have lost more than we ever imagined, but we know that those are all just things. We focus on what matters most, and that is our families. We are using what we know, making beautiful, fresh & natural soap, to see our families through these incredibly difficult times.

I was so curious about Jessica’s comments that I immediately emailed Jessica after reading her comments. Jessica has generously shared her story via an email interview.

I was so touched by Jessica’s writing that I’ve decided to publish the entire email interview. Due to the length of the interview, I’ll publish it in two installments. Today is the first installment.

Get ready to be inspired.

GeekMBA360: Can you please tell us a little bit about you and your family?

Jessica: My name is Jessica Clark. I was born and raised in southeastern Michigan. My husband and I have been married for 15 years and we have 4 children ages 14, 12, 8 and 10 months. I have been a stay at home mom since our first child was born, back in 1995.

GeekMBA360: What made you decide to start this business?

Jessica: My husband was a residential builder for nearly 17 years. We were comfortable and living the good life. We saved for 3 years to buy the 8 acres that we built our dream home on back in 1999. My husband built the house for me himself.

With the devastating downturn of the Michigan economy, my husband found himself struggling to find work. With the skyrocketing number of job losses, the building industry has taken a serious hit. The news covers the auto workers, but there are also hundreds of thousands of carpenters, builders, and other skilled tradesmen that have lost their careers. These people receive no buyouts and no severance packages for their years of dedication and hard work. But you don’t really hear anything about that. There is simply no consumer base for new construction these days. Those that are working, are finding themselves traveling to other states for temporary employment. There is no security.

Things became more and more desperate. The housing market continued to plummet and we came to the conclusion that his being out of work, was more than just temporary. It became pretty clear to us that we would lose our beautiful home, if we couldn’t sell it. It also became clear that I was pregnant with our 4th child.

We had put our house up for sale and desperately continued to drop the price, in hopes of at least breaking even. We actually had a buyer, at one point, but 12 hours before we were to sign, he lost his job and the deal fell through. We never even had another looker after that.

As those in the medical field seem to be the only stable careers left in our area, my husband tested and applied for the nursing program. Only 80 out of 800 applicants get accepted, and the Lord blessed us, because my husband received an acceptance letter about a month later. At the age of 35, my builder husband is now about to start his second year of school on the road to his brand new career. We are starting at square one. In May of 2010, he will graduate as a registered nurse, and I couldn’t be more proud of him.

We have lost our beautiful home, our new cars, and in some respect, our dignity. But, we have gained a stronger trust in the Lord and our family has survived a test that many others have not passed. We are closer than we have ever been before. We’re half way there now, and we will overcome this, but I need to do all I can to support my husband’s goal. That is what sealed my decision to make SUDS happen.

GeekMBA360: What is SUDS Handmade soap?

Jessica: SUDS Handmade Soap is more than just handmade soap. It is also more than just fresh and natural. Our soap is made from scratch, in small, meticulous batches, using the cold process method. It is poured fresh with premium butters and oils and then cured for a full 4 weeks to ensure the mildest and longest lasting bars possible.

But, what really makes our soap unique, is our philosophy. We believe that "fresh and natural" soap does not have to be boring. Our soap bars are made very much like a work of art. My business partner, Samantha, and I are young women who enjoy color, style and design. It is important to us that we incorporate those things into each and every batch that we pour.

GeekMBA360: How do you come up with the idea for SUDS Handmade soap?

Jessica: As the old saying goes, necessity is the mother of all invention. I have played with soaping and candle making for years. I have heard other entrepreneurs say things like "use what you know" and "find something that you love". Well, I know and I love making soap!

The idea popped into my head one day and I envisioned it all quite clearly. I knew immediately that it was what I had to do. I called my creative cousin, Samantha, who’s husband is also a carpenter now back in school. She immediately jumped on board. SUDS was born!

Coming up tomorrow for the second installment of this interview:

• After you came up with the business idea, how did get started?
• You take care four kids full-time. How is your day like to joggle kids and starting a business
• What’s going to happen next for SUDS Handmade Soap? Where can we buy it?
• A lot of folks are struggling in this economy. Some of them are thinking about starting their own businesses. What advice do you have for them?

Related posts:

• Anatomy of a business start-up – ScooterGirls Inc.
• The Hot Dog Guy
• Is starting a company in Silicon Valley stupid?
• Fooled by Randomness, Start-up and Serial Entrepreneur
• If I can pick and choose any start-up to work for, I’ll pick … Part 1

Excellent resources:

• The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur
• Life Entrepreneurs: Ordinary People Creating Extraordinary Lives (J-B Warren Bennis Series) /
• Weekend Entrepreneur: 101 Great Ways to Earn Extra Cash
• The Art of the Start: The Time-Tested, Battle-Hardened Guide for Anyone Starting Anything
• Founders at Work: Stories of Startups’ Early Days (Recipes: a Problem-Solution Ap)

One day a few months ago, we went there again. The first thing we noticed when we walked into the restaurant was that all of the waiters and waitress were new. I’ve never seen them before. I thought they just hired a few new employees.

We then ordered a few familiar dishes. But, all of the dishes tasted very different. We usually ordered very similar dishes every time. So, it’s very easy for us to tell something was not right.

I talked to the waitress. "You know, the dishes taste really weird."

"What do you mean?"

"We’ve been here many times before, but these dishes just tasted different today".

"How could that be possible? We have the same chef cooking here."

"But, all of you look different. I’ve never seen you guys before. Did the owner sell the restaurant?"

She paused; looked around. Then she said. "no, the owner went to Hawaii for a long vacation."

I didn’t believe her. We kept eating the not-so-delicious dishes. Then an older waitress walked by. She asked me: "you said that the dishes taste different, can you tell me how different?"

"Why are you asking me. You should know."

"Oh. I just want to find out so that we can improve".

"Are you the new owner?"

She didn’t say "yes" or "no". She skillfully changed the topic, and left.

It’s becoming pretty clear that the restaurant had a new owner. But, they didn’t want to tell their customers about it.

It’s funny — the same thing happened to me last weekend.

I used to work in downtown Seattle, and there was a hot dog stand that I occasionally visited. Until this time, the owner was always there selling the hot dog himself. He was a middle-aged men with a friendly smile. He kept the hot dog stand very clean.

When I went to buy hot dog this weekend, the hot dog stand were manned by two young men in their early 20′s.

"Are  you guys new owners?" I asked.

"Oh, no. The owner is in Hawaii."

I smiled, but didn’t say anything.

They still had the same menu, but the stand looked dirtier and messier. One customer accidentally dropped a coin onto the grill when he handed the money to cashier. The cashier used the chef’s tongs to pick up the coin, and then immediately use the tongs to pick up the meat on the grill.

It’s gross. The previous owner would never do that. I’d never go back there again.

Both the Chinese restaurant and the hot dog stand wanted to maintain the brand/clients under the previous owners. But, as a customer, what I care most is the preservation of the customer experience that I’ve always enjoyed. I don’t really care there is a change of ownership as long as I can have the same experience. Unfortunately, both businesses have failed in this regard.

Next time when a new owner tells you that the previous owner goes to Hawaii, just tell them that you’ll be back when the owner is back. Let’s see what they say.

Related posts:

• There is ONLY one retailer that had its entire parking lot cleaned for customers when the whole city was paralyzed by a foot of snow before Christmas
• Anatomy of a business start-up – ScooterGirls Inc.
• Mediocrity at Barnes & Nobles and why Amazon.com is winning

Recommended reading:

• The Big Book of Small Business: You Don’t Have to Run Your Business by the Seat of Your Pants
• The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It
• The Magic of Thinking Big
• See You at the Top: 25th Anniversary Edition

I was looking to buy a pair of New Balance running shoes last weekend. We went to the New Balance store in the local mall.

The sales associate in the store was very patient and helpful. I finally decided on a particular model. But, they didn’t have the color I wanted.

So, I asked. "Do you have gray color for this model?"

"We don’t have it in the store, but I know we make gray color ones. You can order online".

"Oh, cool. So,  I just go to NewBalance.com?"

"Yeah. That’ll work. But, actually, Zappos will be better. They’re really good, and really fast. You’ll get the shoes the next day, and you return for free. Highly recommended. "

Wow! As you might know, Zappos has a very dominant position in the online shoes retail market — it’s the "amazon.com" for buying shoes online. But, this is flattery at the highest form — when your competitor/suppliers are pointing their customers your way, you’re doing something right.

New Balance is a supplier of Zappos. So, I’m not sure how the economic works here — will New Balance make more money from sales on their own online store comparing to sales via Zappos? I’m not sure. But, still, it’s very impressive for zappos to establish such respect and positive word-of-mouth.

Interesting enough, the current issue of Inc Magazine runs a great article on Zappos — The Zappos Way of Managing . Check it out.

Related posts:

• Only one waiter takes orders at a very popular restaurant
• Is starting a company in Silicon Valley stupid?
• The Hot Dog Guy
• Is Cafe in the coffee business?

Recommended reading:

• Small Giants: Companies That Choose to Be Great Instead of Big
• The Cult of the Customer: Create an Amazing Customer Experience That Turns Satisfied Customers Into Customer Evangelists
• The Knack: How Street-Smart Entrepreneurs Learn to Handle Whatever Comes Up
• Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us

A friend works for a start-up company. They’re on track to generate $30 million revenue this year, which will allow the company break even. Eighty percent of the revenue are from the US, while the other twenty percent are from western Europe. They still have about $10 million of cash that they received as part of their most recent round of venture capital financing.

Lately, the company has received inquiries from 3 potential customers who are very interested in doing business with them. But, these 3 potential customers are from 3 different countries: South Korea, Russia, and Brazil.

They have no presence in any of these countries. They would need to make some changes to their product in order to support customers in these emerging market.

The sales people are eager to close the deals. The head of marketing is excited because it’ll be a "great story" to talk to the media about.

The CFO is shaking his head: it’ll be very costly to enter these market. And it’s very hard to estimate how many customers they can get once they enter each of the emerging market. The financial risk is high. The VP of engineering is also very concerned: his small team of developers have already been working their tails off to ship products. Customizing the products for those emerging market customers will only add more pressure to the team. Does it really worth it? The director of operation and support is equally concerned: how could his small team to support customers with such diverse languages and customized products?

If you’re the CEO, what would you do? Should the company stay focused in the US market and continue to grow revenue and profit? Should the company enter the emerging markets? Or there is something in between? How would you decide?

I’ll share my thoughts in another post.

Recommended reading:

• Emerging Markets: Lessons for Business Success and the Outlook for Different Markets (Economist Books)
• Understanding Emerging Markets: Building Business Bric by Brick (Response Books)
• Three Billion New Capitalists: The Great Shift of Wealth and Power to the East
• The Chinese Century: The Rising Chinese Economy and Its Impact on the Global Economy, the Balance of Power, and Your Job (Wharton School Publishing Paperbacks)