Biz Miss Math: Time = Money July 20, 2008

Time equals money. We’ve all heard the axiom. The problem is, it’s not a precise equation. There’s a coefficient missing. It should really read:

Time = A x Money

with A being some positive rational number. You see, one of the trickiest balancing acts for me in business has been figuring out when it is more beneficial for me to spend time, and when to spend money. Most of the contract work I do these days (when it doesn’t involve new designs), I do for about $30/hour. Since I have neither time nor money to spare, I figure that anything that works out to less than this rate is worth purchasing rather than doing myself. For example, I recently sourced out the screen printing of my t-shirts.

Printing t-shirts is not difficult for me to do, and I already have all of the materials, but it still works out to be cheaper overall to have them printed by another company. Mostly this is because every t-shirt needs to be ironed three times: once to get out the wrinkles before printing, and then once again on each side of the shirt to heat set the ink. This takes about ten minutes per shirt overall. At my pay rate that’s $5 a shirt. At Babylon Burning, however, it costs $1.25 per shirt at twelve dozen shirts. Therefore, when it comes to screen printing,

Time = 4 x Money

You see, I have many more profitable things I can do with my time than run my own little t-shirt printing factory. Ten full hours spent making sales calls, sending out press releases, and developing new products ultimately puts my business further ahead than the $180 I had to spend.

Keeping Stress out of the Bedroom July 6, 2008

I realize it’s been an inexcusably long time since I last posted anything. I have probably lost all of you to disappointment and summer, but as busy as I am lately, I will try my best to keep this resource growing, albeit slower than I would like.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I’m getting married (in exactly six weeks). When my fiancé and I first got engaged a year ago, he swore he wanted to handle half of the planning. He said it was because we should have equal ownership in our wedding, the way we will have equal ownership in our marriage. I thought that made sense and was happy he felt that way. But, as a freelancer, my husb-what can’t predict when his heavier workloads will hit. The latest one hit about six weeks ago and I’ve been on my own in wedding planning ever since.

I had no idea how much work it takes to plan a one-evening event. It takes up all of my time each and every day. I haven’t spent more than an hour or two a WEEK on my business and I’m starting to feel trapped inside post-war gender roles.

Two nights ago I had a nervous breakdown in bed. I suddenly realized that I had wasted over a full month of my life on a wedding that is turning out nothing like the casual family barbecue/picnic we had originally envisioned. In fact, it is looking suspiciously like my mother’s dream wedding–the one she never got to have, and which, I am convinced, she is subtly forcing me to plan via ESP and Jewish guilt. I freaked out so badly I couldn’t sleep until dawn, at which point I dreamed we missed our flight and couldn’t go on our honeymoon.

That night spent hyperventilating in the dark was the third night in a row I didn’t sleep because I was stressed out over the wedding. So I began to try some strategies to help me calm down:

1. Talking it out: this only works if the person you’re talking to understands what you need when you’re stressed out, and is not too stressed out him- or herself to really focus on you. It helped, but it wasn’t a cure.
2. Decompression: I tried doing no work after 9pm, then no work after 8pm. No dice. The only night I slept peacefully was when I stopped working in the afternoon, then filled the night with “Ocean’s 13” on DVD and a roll in the hay. Lesson? Stop early and occupy both body and mind until bedtime.
3. Making lists: Part of what I stress out about is inadvertently overlooking something, so I am a compulsive list-maker. Things would probably be worse if I didn’t have my lists, but they don’t relieve enough anxiety to let me sleep.
4. Crowding out brain space: During an episode of Radio Lab I heard about a study in which subjects were given various tasks before they went to sleep, to see which ones penetrated their dreams most often. The big winners? Tetris and video game skiing. I thought doing a couple of hours of jigsaw puzzles at night would do the trick but it didn’t, so today we bought a Nintendo Wii.
5. Drinking warm milk: Yup, I tried this one, too. It’s soothing while you drink it, but milk doesn’t stand a chance against full-blown anxiety.

I have not been testing these strategies scientifically. I have also only had one restful night of sleep this week, so I’m still looking for new ones. If you have any suggestions for leaving stress out of your bedroom, please share them in the comments.

Eradicating the Disease of Slavery June 9, 2008

The busier I get, the smaller my world becomes.  Trying to run a business and plan a wedding at the same time (which I do NOT recommend) has recently shrunk my world to little bigger than my apartment.  I forget about friends and family, my neighbors, and my community, because my brain is so consumed by immediate, personal stresses.  Then I hear a lecture on my car stereo and it blows my world wide open again.

Kevin Bales, the President of the organization, Free the Slaves, recently delivered a concise and compelling lecture at the World Affairs Council on the state of world slavery and how to end it.  The problem of slavery, while a very real one, is at its most solvable point in history, according to Mr. Bales.  Slavery accounts for the the smallest percentage of our world’s population ever, despite the fact that in some places, slaves have become so inexpensive that they are practically “disposable.” There is also not a single country or industry that is financially dependent on slavery and every country in the world has laws against it.  Furthermore, the estimated cost to bring the world’s 27 million slaves out of bondage and rehabilitate them to become financially independent is only $10.8 billion dollars–the amount Americans spend on pretzels and potato chips in one year.

The lecture is free to listen to online.  I highly recommend it.  When you’re baffled by the seemingly insurmountable problem of getting your sales up, or figuring out why your books don’t add up properly, it helps to be given some perspective.  If we can eradicate slavery from our planet the way we eradicated smallpox, for the cost of improving Seattle’s light rail system, surely we can figure out what the font should be on the top of our letterhead.

Review of May Events: Capsule Design Festival June 7, 2008

I have attended two previous Capsule events as a shopper, but this was my first time as a vendor.  All in all it was worth it (I made about twice the cost of my booth) but it wasn’t an investment with major returns.

The event happened on Sunday, May 25th, from 11-6, on several blocks surrounding Patricia’s Green in the Hayes Valley neighborhood of San Francisco. The booth fee is a fairly steep $190, considering you are not provided with shelter, parking or furniture of any kind.  We all got nervous when it rained the day before, and a chance of rain was predicted for the day of the festival as well.  Luckily, things stayed dry.  If nice weather had been assured, the turnout may have been better, but nonetheless there was a pretty steady stream of customers throughout the day.  I was set up on Linden Street, however, and a fellow vendor told me that his table on Octavia Street between Hayes and Grove was only receiving about half the traffic–a good thing to know considering you get to choose your own table location.

Compared to other craft/handmade events, the Capsule Festival has a reputation for being a little too cool for school.  It’s definitely hip and on the high end price-wise, but it seems like a good venue for artists whose goods are too time-intensive and costly for the average craft fair.  At Capsule, there are plenty of buyers who are prepared to spend over $100 on a well-made item, provided you accept plastic.

Scattered thinly amongst the uber-hip artisans were a few typical “street fair wear” booths.  Their goods may have been technically handmade, but not by anyone in the U.S.  I heard complaints from some artists who were placed next to such ventures, since their prices were glaringly cheaper, and a few customers were so relieved to finally find a “bargain” that they failed to realize that they came out to Capsule just to shop at H&M.  I know that Capsule juries it’s applications, and I know that they walk the fair themselves, so I can’t imagine they allow such vendors to return in the future.  It used to say specifically on their website that Capsule is not a venue for mass-produced discount merchandise, but I can’t find that statement anymore.  Maybe the definition of “independent design” has changed?

Depending on my schedule and how busy I am in general, I may sign up for the October Capsule Festival.  It’s right in my neighborhood so it’s ridiculously convenient.  It’s also nice to have an event earlier in the holiday season.  You can do some first-hand market research before the big rush and adjust your inventory accordingly.

Tip: Sunscreen the S@$T out of yourself before any seven-hour outdoor event.  I had such a wicked raccoon tan I couldn’t take my sunglasses off in public for a week.

Review of May Events: Bazaar Bizarre @ Maker Faire May 26, 2008

(May 3-4th) This was the third annual spring Bazaar Bizarre held in conjunction with Make magazine’s “Maker Faire.” I love participating in this event but it has changed drastically from year to year, so you never really know what it’s going to be like.

At the first Maker Faire, the Bazaar Bizarre was pretty small, and held outdoors. I didn’t vend that year, I only visited, so I don’t know much else about it. The second year, the Baz Biz moved indoors to a huge hangar-like pavilion. There were hundreds of vendors, and we shared the space with the main stage and dozens of workshops, demonstrations and displays. Many customers complained that they felt confused and overwhelmed by the barrage of multi-sensory stimuli, so the Bazaar switched gears again. This year’s event was held indoors, in a comparatively small and carpeted room. There were fewer than half as many vendors as last year, and the overall atmosphere was much quieter and calmer. Even the knitting drummer was deemed too disruptive and made to move outside. Had she not been a vendor, I think the postcard “machine” may have been next.

As usual, Jaime and her family were on-hand to make sure everyone was fed, happy and provided for. This year they also started a raffle to help offset the cost of running the event, to which I happily donated a Family Size Hambone. Anything that helps keep the Baz Biz the best deal in town ($120 for the whole weekend!) is something I will fully support.

The only area which could have been improved was parking. It was a bit confusing getting to the lot, and also figuring out at which gate to park once you were inside. I had to move my car twice. There also seemed to be some confusion about whether or not vendors had to pay for parking. I was told, for example, that parking would be free in the following instances: if I left the lot immediately after loading in; if I moved my car to the far end of the lot, where I would not be competing with paying customers; if I arrived prior to 8am. All of these statements were either false or not communicated properly to the booth attendants, because we had to pay the full parking price both days. It wasn’t really a big deal, but it would have been nice to have definite information about everything in advance.

All in all, the Baz Biz was totally worth it (and always is). I cashed in about 50% more than last year and even got a couple of return customers this weekend at the Capsule Festival. As an added bonus, on my way to get lunch I saw a wedding at the life-sized Mouse Trap game! The giant weight at the end crushed a white wedding cake, which was a little sad but also kind of awesome.

Worth It’s Weight: Dri Mark Erasable Higlighters May 22, 2008

Holy crap, these things should have been around YEARS ago, and they certainly should be in stores now. Erasable highlighters! I got these as a gift from a friend of mine who shares my obsession with office supplies and they blew my freakin’ mind.

Technologically speaking, they’re nothing special–my sister and I had erasable markers as kids that worked exactly the same way–but in this GTD, DIY world of ours, oh, the uses! Let’s say you’re a student, for example. You want to highlight passages in a book to use in a term paper, rather than typing/writing them all out–but the book belongs to the library, or you want to sell it back at the end of the semester. Problem solved! Just erase all of your highlighting when your paper is finished. You could also highlight a to-do list chromatically according to priority and erase the highlighter when you cross off the things you’ve completed so they don’t distract your eyes.

Of course, there are other, artsier things you could do with erasable highlighters, too, but from a business standpoint I think they’re pretty darned useful. The only drawback I’ve found so far is that once you’ve erased a spot you can’t re-highlight it, which means you can’t change the color something is highlighted in. I have yet to see these in any office supply/stationery stores, though they supposedly carry them at Office Depot. You can find them here, at $2.99 for the whole set of four (plus shipping, natch).

Photo courtesy of drimark.com