Sunday, February 3, 2013

I'm Going to Pump You Up !

I had the awesome opportunity to attend The Makers Summit in Greenville, SC on Saturday, February 2nd. It was an event to connect with fellow creatives while learning how to start or grow your creative business, hear practical advice from industry experts and participate in collective discussions. What a great time we had! The Keynote Speakers were incredibly inspiring.

Stephen Fraser, co-founder of Spoonflower, the world’s first Internet-based custom fabric printing service, spoke about the difficulties they had getting their business up and running.

Grace Kang spoke about her background as a buyer for stores such as Bloomingdale's and Saks Fifth Avenue and how it helped give her the background to fulfill her passion to step out on her own and open her own retail boutique, Pink Olive, in addition to having a site, RetailRecipes, devoted to helping designers and artists make their products consumer ready.

The final speaker, Kimm Alfonso from etsy, spoke about doing business intentionally, setting goals and meeting them. I'm sorry to say I had to miss Kimm's speech because of a variety of issues, the first being it started to snow and we had a three hour drive ahead of us, and the second was our car started overheating (my husband had dropped me off while I attended the conference) and we needed to go find an auto parts store before we got on the road. So I didn't get to hear Kimm's speech, but during the conference I did have the opportunity to have a private consultation with her which was very insightful. She reviewed my etsy shop and gave me some wonderful advice which I can't wait to implement her suggestions!

There were also panel discussions, where I was able to hear Amy Flurry discuss pitching your products to publishers, etc. I bought her book” Recipe for Press” and hope to have some time to delve into it soon.

Needless to say after this weekend, I'm PUMPED UP !

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