If at first you don't succeed . . .
Feoshia Henderson |
Thursday, September 09, 2010
Failures can cost entrepreneurs their dreams, and lots of time and money. Still, the possibility of failure doesn't stop thousands of Ohioans from starting new business every year. In fact, the prospect (or reality) of failure often is what drives entrepreneurs to invent new business ideas or revise old plans. That creativity often leads to triumph. Here are three stories of struggle or uncertainty -- but of eventual success.
Keri Jaehnig, founder Culturally Connected, LLC
After years working as a contractor for non-profit organizations that placed international students with host families in Ohio, Keri Jaehnig, of Wilmington, went out on her own with a related business idea. Jaehnig, in 2005, began to lay the groundwork for a company that would teach English as a Second Language courses to international students the summer before the school year with U.S. hosts.
The company would go beyond teaching language skills and give students a chance to experience community service, field trips, cultural orientation workshops and more.
"I had been advising people in cultural customs in homes and businesses by word of mouth," Jaehnig says. "And we had really developed some awesome programs that didn't compare with what was available out there."
Jaehnig spent about year working to get her company off the ground, and had even attracted some students. But things weren't going as planned. Though the program garnered interest, it was harder than expected to attract international students to Ohio for the summer. Many were looking for big city experiences in New York or L.A.
"We couldn't quite sell the folks in Korea, Brazil or Japan," she says. "Several pillars in the community said if I had done this on one of the coasts, I'd be famous."
By the summer of 2006, when she had expected to launch the program, it was clear to Jaehnig the idea wasn't going to work. She decided not to launch the company and referred students who had signed up to other programs. She was heartbroken and had a short period of self-doubt.
"It really stinks. You go through a list of everything you did wrong and think 'What if I would have tried this? And you have some issues of personal and quality doubt," she says.
She shortly returned to nonprofit work and cultural coaching for a few months, then got the idea for her current business Culturally Connected. The company, launched in 2008, specializes in nonprofit development, business email and event marketing and project management. She's now delving into mobile marketing and social networking. It was a big departure from her previous work.
"I sort of let my international exchange go. I let it go because it was time to grow and change," she says.
Though she's now finding success, she brought some big lessons from her first idea into her new business.
"Just because I think it's a great idea doesn't mean everyone thinks it a great idea � You have to find out what your audience wants and how they want it, and you have to be willing to change with that," she says.
Matthew Reddington, President & CEO TDC Group, Inc.
Matthew Reddington, of Dayton, had a slightly different business experience. His company didn't fail, but he recognized when it was time to head off a potential downturn in business due to technology changes. Managing the risk of change was crucial to the company's success, he says.
TDC Group Inc., launched Freeance Mobile in 2008. The application brings Geographic Information Systems, or GIS, to BlackBerry smart phones. It features interactive maps, database forms and searching, tracking and geo-tagged digital photos designed to make work more efficient for government and utility field workers. It saves them time and money, says Reddington.
The software began as a web-based product, and though it was doing OK, Reddington saw a huge mobile market was untapped. After about six months of research and planning, he decided to make the shift into mobile marketing.
"We were delivering a commercial, web-based product and we saw an emerging opportunity in a much larger market," he says.
The Dayton Development Coalition helped the company in commercialization of the product, and Dayton-based Aileron helped the company develop a strategic management model. Reddington says innovation and risk-taking is essential to his company's survival but those risks should be managed.
"An innovative business needs to be able to take an idea and create a product that people will want to use, see value in and will pay for. � To scale into a large customer base requires timing, knowledge of customer sales and the business processes. It is essential to understand those elements in order to manage risk," Reddington says.
Jared Ray, president of XzamCorp and DemandIncrease
Jared Ray, of Kirtland, just outside of Cleveland, knows what it feels like to put your heart and soul into a great idea just to see the business opportunity slip away.
Before focusing exclusively on XzamCorp, a customer quality evaluation business, and DemandIncrease, an event and venue data base, Ray put some hard years and "tens of thousands" of dollars into three other web-based consumer product ventures that never made it off the ground.
"They were all consumer product oriented and the time wasn't right, despite lots of work and money," says Ray, a former attorney.
Ray was actually working on all five ideas at once, but realized with the economic downturn, the consumer product ideas weren't going to work. XzamCorp and DemandIncrease had more potential, he says.
"I just boxed everything up and realized it's better to cut and run than to drag things out," he says. "It was horrible. I still feel poorly about it today. They were neat and artsy products that would totally work in the marketplace."
It took him a couple of months to recover from the decision before moving on, but he did so without fear.
"You have to bet on yourself, it's as good as anything else going on in there right now," he says.
Both current businesses are doing well, and growing. Ray took the web development and marketing skills he honed in his previous business ideas into his current efforts. Ray's reinvention isn't over. He's working to turn XzamCorp, which employs 12, into a full-time call center.