No Limits Ladies.com

Chapter two: the launch

By the time October and the trade show arrived, we had a decent list and website to work with. We were confident that we were going to be rich- that day at the trade show. lol We spent our last few dollars on trade show things, and went for it. Three days we stood, explaining our new concept to people. We got a lot of support, some naysayers, even one contractor who put our information down and ran away. But not one sign up. We left with less money than we started the show with.

What we did make were two very important contacts: 1) a local celebrity who was hosting the show who loved the idea for our service, and (2) a real estate magazine publisher who was looking for a service like ours.

Over the next few weeks, I struggled to keep the business alive. After our unsucessful launch (read here: we didn't make a million dollars) my partner bailed on the business. I tried an email blast (for free, based on a percentage of sales),which didn't work. I ended up restructuring the whole business, and had a whole new site built (trading out work).

I managed to convince my partner to give it another shot. And he did, half heartedly. In hindsight I should have let him go, it was tricky being married though! We literally begged our way through Christmas time, and were supported by friends , family and the local church as we struggled to make the business work.

About that time, the connections we had made came into play. The RE magazine publisher gave us a free half page ad in their first and second publications, which had a distribution of nearly 28,000. The local celebrity wrote an article about us in the AZ Republic (huge!), and she also had us on her radio program! We had also made the acquaintance of a the owner of EZsitemaster.com who gave us a new site! I had also begun to make friends with other business owners and started linking to their sites.

Slowly my partner wanted out, and I began looking at other options. I looked at bringing in a new partner, hiring a sales staff, getting investors, franchising, etc. (LOL I tried to talk MJ into buying it! LOL) Just when the business was really starting to find it's rythym, I decided to sell.