Monday, January 11, 2010

We're Expanding!!....What Took So Long?

This weekend, while helping me prep for two events, I was ranting to a friend of mine about how excited I was to finally add new products to our current line and then my friend asked the Million dollar question. "What took you so long"? I wanted to say "what do you mean what took me so long"???!!!

I had at least five core answers to run off the top of my head. But, the truth is in the past three and a half years that Nidasii has been on the web I've had a daytime job. Actually, it's a deamanding, full time career in Clinical Research for a Major Pharmaceutical company. Although I have wanted to resign many times I never did because I was paid extremely well and it was my source of funding for Nidasii. Here are a few of the things that delayed my product expansion over the years.

Looking back to 2004 when I decided to form a business I now realize I had no clue of how challenging it would be to get the business off the ground. I spent hundreds of dollars ordering ingredients, bottles/jars, oils, butters and fragrances that ninety percent of the time went to waste because I would think of a formulation,try it out, then tweak a few things to make it right. That left me with countless supplies that were half or barely used. I soon found my home drowned in an abundance of supplies that I had no room for. That's when I realized I needed to focus. I needed to implement the tactics I used on a daily basis to run clinical trials into my business.

Fast forward two years to 2006, I am working feverishly as both a Clinical Researcher and CEO of Nidasii. I finally got focused and decided to start off the line with two types of product in three core fragrances. So Sugar Rush, our three in one bath scrub and our tropically scented Body Butters became the face of Nidasii. I had a logo designed (that's a story for another post), professional photographs taken and a website designed. Then the site launched in 2006. That's when the real work began!!

So now the site is up, remember I warned you all that I was clueless, I thought that people would somehow find my site and begin visiting and purchasing product. I quickly found out this is sooooo not how it goes!! After almost two years of working and running the business I decided I needed to re-evaluate the way I ran the business and devised an exit plan to one day leave my day job/career. I jokingly referred to it as "Project Exit the Office" to my friends. A huge part of it was mainly taking stock of my finances. I had to figure out how much I needed to cover my monthly living expenses, the amount I needed to contribute to the business and where I needed to be as far as savings.

"Project Exit The Office" went into effect in September 2007 and experienced it's first road block by mid January 2008. If you haven't done the math that's three and half months later. You see January 2008 the company I work for announced they were being bought by another pharmaceutical company. I'm sure your well aware of the workings of Corporate America. At a time when many of my co-workers were nervous about being laid off especially when the state of the economy is currently not at its best I actually was not worried about losing my job because I had a plan. Then I realized I had more than a plan. I have my OWN business!! Since then I have scaled back my work at the office to focus on my new plans for Nidasii. And in six to eight weeks I will have to make a decision or a decision will be made for me. I will keep you posted!!

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