“How do I market my shop and products?” is the most common question I get asked by shop owners who use Shapeways, the 3D printing service and marketplace where I work on the community team. My answer is always more questions: do you know specifically who you are trying to market your products to? And, […]
Four steps for healthy, creative business collaboration
Like many creative people, I both love and loathe working alone. I often feel I want to pursue my singular creative vision, but also feel strongly that my vision and what I can create is stronger when I work with other, like-minded, people who can bring a variety of perspectives and ideas to mine. As […]
Why looking back moves your creative business forward in the new year
It’s the time of the year for resolutions, putting our best intentions into action, and setting goals for the year ahead. To help get your New Years’ projects and goals up to speed and set realistic goals for this year it’s important to take stock of what goals you accomplished last year then document, quantify, […]
How Makers + Entrepreneurs Can Survive and Thrive during the Holidays
The holiday season has officially arrived and with it comes the familiar rush of parties, fairs, markets, sales, and social events. I work for an online retail company and we, like many makers and merchants, have been preparing for the holiday season since July. We’ve done so much work to get ready and I can’t […]
How to assess + pitch the value of your creative products
Do you value the creative work that you do and business you are building? “Of course I do!” you say to yourself, but do you know how to pitch and communicate that value to your customers? And finally, do your prices reflect that value? I’ve been thinking a lot about this issue because recently the […]
How to Craft a Successful Crowdfunding Campaign
So you have taken the plunge and decided to run a crowdfunding campaign because you are burning with passion about your project and are ready to spread the word and raise money. You are excited but also nervous about what comes next. You want your campaign to be successful, maybe even viral… so how do […]
Should you crowdfund for your handmade business?
As independent creatives, most of us had the opportunity to support, or even run, a crowdfunding campaign for a creative project. Mustering up support from the community for our ambitious, creative projects is a big part of how creative projects happen at all in this post-recession age. Every day it seems like a new crowdfunding […]
Three Tips to Get Creatives Inspired This Summer
As a North Easterner I’m attuned to the changing seasons. I think of winter as the time for hunkering down and honing a skill and summer as a stretch of languid days full of drinking lemonade and going to the beach. However, for makers and handmade business owners summer can be a time to reconnect, […]
How to survive (and thrive at) conferences
Expert speakers. Valuable workshops. Sparkling parties with industry influencers. Meeting your social network in real life. These are just a few advantages of going to conferences. As fun as they are, they can also be overwhelming. I just returned from a marathon time at the South by South West (SXSW) music, film and interactive conference […]
how to assess opportunity cost for handmade businesses
Lately I’ve been thinking about the concept of “opportunity cost,” which is probably familiar to any of you readers who have taken a course in microeconomics. Simply put, “opportunity cost” is what benefits or profits you forgo to pursue a specific opportunity. When you analyze opportunity cost you also think about if what you must […]