Once upon a time, in the cold, lonely, pre-post-historic days before everything important had two syllables (Google, Twitter, Facebook), and before the Internet itself was the ubiquitous mind-melding leviathan it has since become, I started a small business making surfboards in my parents’ garage.
I worked hard, had fun and relied mostly on word-of-mouth to sell my sleek creations of toxic foam and fiberglass. My target market consisted of high school friends and acquaintances. My business partnerships comprised my father, who grudgingly allowed me to use his shop vac, and my 13-year-old brother, who provided much unsolicited advice.
This was 1989. Bush 1 was president. Grunge loomed on the horizon like a flannel sunrise. Moviegoers eagerly awaited the release of Back to the Future, Part II. But I was 17 and ambitious. I was febrile with the idea of becoming a surfboard manufacturing magnate. By the time I was 25 (I surmised) I’d be so rich that I’d be able to hop on my private jet for impromptu surf sessions in Uluwatu or Kirra. But how to get there? “You need to advertise,” my younger brother quipped between Otter Pops.
Advertise? Sure, why not. But my marketing options seemed either ridiculously out of reach (TV commercials) or ridiculously small beer (flyers on car windows). After batting some ideas and cost estimates back and forth, I decided to rely instead on the Field of Dreams marketing strategy: if you build it, they will come. And they did come: a few more friends, my woodshop teacher Mr. Matsuyama, a couple of kids from other schools, and a second-cousin.
Then the price of materials began to go up. I was also close to failing a couple of classes. I was forced to hunker down and scale back my operation before it even got off the ground.
The old saw that “timing is everything” is, well, everything. A small business in 1989 and a small business in 2009 stand as far apart from one another in terms of targeted marketing as the catapult stands to the ICBM. The Internet, blogosphere and search engine marketing triumvirate are redefining what a small local business means, and how swiftly and accurately it can reach the customers who want and need exactly what it offers through online advertising.
Dark garages can be fertile ground for creativity; they gave us Grunge and Microsoft, after all, not to mention a few surfboards that still serve me well. But it’s a brave new world all over again, with tremendous Internet advertising for small business possibilities. Time to come out of the proverbial garage and into the light.
-- Contributed by Derek Hoffmann
I worked hard, had fun and relied mostly on word-of-mouth to sell my sleek creations of toxic foam and fiberglass. My target market consisted of high school friends and acquaintances. My business partnerships comprised my father, who grudgingly allowed me to use his shop vac, and my 13-year-old brother, who provided much unsolicited advice.
This was 1989. Bush 1 was president. Grunge loomed on the horizon like a flannel sunrise. Moviegoers eagerly awaited the release of Back to the Future, Part II. But I was 17 and ambitious. I was febrile with the idea of becoming a surfboard manufacturing magnate. By the time I was 25 (I surmised) I’d be so rich that I’d be able to hop on my private jet for impromptu surf sessions in Uluwatu or Kirra. But how to get there? “You need to advertise,” my younger brother quipped between Otter Pops.
Advertise? Sure, why not. But my marketing options seemed either ridiculously out of reach (TV commercials) or ridiculously small beer (flyers on car windows). After batting some ideas and cost estimates back and forth, I decided to rely instead on the Field of Dreams marketing strategy: if you build it, they will come. And they did come: a few more friends, my woodshop teacher Mr. Matsuyama, a couple of kids from other schools, and a second-cousin.
Then the price of materials began to go up. I was also close to failing a couple of classes. I was forced to hunker down and scale back my operation before it even got off the ground.
The old saw that “timing is everything” is, well, everything. A small business in 1989 and a small business in 2009 stand as far apart from one another in terms of targeted marketing as the catapult stands to the ICBM. The Internet, blogosphere and search engine marketing triumvirate are redefining what a small local business means, and how swiftly and accurately it can reach the customers who want and need exactly what it offers through online advertising.
Dark garages can be fertile ground for creativity; they gave us Grunge and Microsoft, after all, not to mention a few surfboards that still serve me well. But it’s a brave new world all over again, with tremendous Internet advertising for small business possibilities. Time to come out of the proverbial garage and into the light.
-- Contributed by Derek Hoffmann
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