Balancing Act

by smiller on April 10, 2011

Earlier this year I attended the Stonyfield Entrepreneurship Institute conference put on by the University of New Hampshire’s Carsey Institute.  A big question on my mind was whether, and how, other entrepreneurs with families maintain balance in their lives.  The universal answer seemed to be that they do not, in fact, maintain balance in any [...]

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A Lesson Learned

by smiller on June 12, 2010

We opened our retail shop, or “factory store” as we now call it, a year and a half ago.  At the time, we had gone grossly overbudget on our renovation costs for building out our space, so when it came time to deal with
signage, we decided to wait and spend that money later.  The result [...]

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The Best Intentions

June 12, 2010

So there I was as spring was about to sproing, registering my domain name, building my theme and planning the articles I would post on a regular basis.   And then business slowed down for us.  We were still staffed as we had been during December, the busiest month of the year last year, and suddenly [...]

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Choosing Your Business Entity

April 7, 2010

What kind of legal entity are you going to be? Do you know? Do you care? Should you care? Well, yes, and no. Let me explain.
I’m writing this article under the assumption that most of you who read it are starting a food business out of your kitchen, or if [...]

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The Dreaded Business Plan

March 21, 2010

Recently I attended a business plan writing workshop hosted by the Champlain Valley chapter of SCORE (http://score284.org/) and Merchants Bank, which made me think this is as good a time as any to talk about the dreaded subject of business planning. I’m not going to tackle how to write one in this article.  This is [...]

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Listing into the New Year

January 14, 2010

It’s two weeks into the New Year and I realize I am already behind. I wanted to have a clear sense of what we had accomplished in 2009 in a sort of “report card” kind of way, and a clear view of what we want for 2010. We’ve been meaning to have a “board meeting” [...]

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The Calm Before the Storm

November 21, 2009

This is our third November in business and each one has been slow in comparison to the other months. This year is no exception. It’s noticeably slower, especially at the shop. But I’m grateful for the calm. It’s been a much needed time of rest after the busy summer, the whirlwind trade show experience and [...]

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So Why Do it?

November 15, 2009

A follower recently mentioned in an email to me that my blog may discourage some people from choosing to go down this entrepreneurial path. That’s certainly not been my intention. It got me thinking though. Information from someone who has already gone through something that is brand new to us can seem a little daunting, [...]

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Batching-Up and Packaging

October 11, 2009

It has been an exciting week for Vermont Cookie Love. This week we moved further toward establishing a distributor relationship with Associated Buyers. It looks as if we will be added to their catalog of products in December . They cover most of New England, so this could mean a very large increase in our [...]

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The Vermont Food Venture Center and a Bit About Financing

October 4, 2009

Farmers’ markets are almost over for the season. Shelburne has one more week and Middlebury goes a few more. I have mixed feelings about the end of the season. As I mentioned before, I am tired, bone tired, and ready to have one less thing on my plate. But this may well be our last [...]

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