Personal business plan
Slow Your Roll is committed to
promoting slower fashion. Due to the toxic
effects of the fast fashion industry, we aim to promote buying secondhand,
fixing clothes you already have, swapping with friends, and upcycling fabrics
that are still viable. We will buy
unwanted clothes, hold periodic sewing workshops, make custom clothes from old
ones brought in; lessons included, and host clothing swaps for the local
community to bring their clothes they are ready to give up in exchange for
others.
Business Environment
This business will be competing
in the retail industry. The retail
industry has been showing steady growth trends form 2006-206, and is expected
to continue this growth through 2026 (U.S. Bureau of Labor
Statistics, 2017).
Minimum wage, raw material cost of textiles, and the unemployment rate
all effect the supply and demand opportunities in this industry. Everyone needs to be clothed, but the money
in people’s pockets determine what they spend on clothes. The design of this company is that it is affordable,
even when the economy is not booming. It
will help people to buy clothes for less, or fix what they already have, at the
fraction of the cost of buying new clothing.
Entrepreneurship and strategy
I feel the first hurdles with promoting
and selling is having enough startup capital to do initial marketing. To sell, I would first have to get my name
out there, which usually requires an investment of capital.
Funding would be sought out
through places like Honeycomb Credit,
and competitions in Alpha Lab and Awesome Pittsburgh. These resources are often utilized by
startups to get their feet off the ground in Pittsburgh.
Management
Managing myself in this business
would be similar to how I manage myself in everyday life – playing to my
strengths while understanding my weaknesses.
I must not strive to be the best at everything, as that is impossible,
but be the best at what I know I can excel at.
Following the guidelines of Managing Oneself (Drucker et al.,
2016), I will be motivated by knowing that I enjoy making a difference in people’s
lives and for the planet. I will also be
moved to work harder because I love networking and socializing, so spreading
the word about my new business will be seen as fun, not work. I realize everything will not happen as I
have planned it, but I will be prepared to adapt to any obstacles thrown my
way.
Marketing
Promotion would be based around
the idea of slower fashion. Advertising
would be targeted at eco-conscious groups and groups that look for fashion
trends, but at lower prices. These would
include college students, progressive neighborhoods, people who attend museums
and cultural events, local coffee shop regulars, and those who search for other
forms of making their lives more sustainable.
The product would mostly come from what people bring in to sell/fix/recreate. The price
would be determined by how comparable products are sold for on the market,
and be sold 50%-70% of that cost. We
would pay people 10%-20% of what we would buy them for. The place
that this would all happen in would be a store in the Strip District of
Pittsburgh. There would also be features
that could be bought online, as well as a place to request services online. Promoting
would happen through flyers at local restaurants and coffee shops, and social
media postings. This marketing mix would help Slow Your Roll
get off the ground as a start up and start benefitting the people of the local
community.
Accounting and finance
Assets: Cash = $500, Inventory-Clothes
(purchased from customers) = $500
Liabilities: Rent + building expenses
= $500, Money paid for inventory = $50
Owner’s Equity: Earnings = $200
As we are investing in clothes
primarily, they will be modeled on mannequins and placed on the website and in
the store front as soon as possible. This
will be a long and continuous investment process as the cycle of clothes in and
out of the store should be constant. I
would plan to have monthly checks of inventory, and see what really hasn’t moved
and base workshops and sales off of older inventory to make room for the
new.
Information systems and operations
Google Analytics would play a key
role in figuring out what kind of people look at our website, and how to better
cater to their interests. This would
also help to track our sales, to find trends of when business is good and not
so good, and times of day we are most popular.
Social media will also be used, as a way of gauging interest in
particular events and when they should be held.
Sources
Drucker, P. F., Kanter, R.
M., & Kantrow, A. (2016, October 17). Managing Oneself. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2005/01/managing-oneself
U.S. Bureau of Labor
Statistics. (2017, October 24). Employment by major industry sector. Retrieved from
https://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_table_201.htm
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