Moving Forward

On September 18th I attended the one year anniversary of Girl Power Hour at the Pan Pacific Hotel in Seattle. Here in the picture are my two friends Shelly in black and Katy in the Pink. Both women are amazing and are well on their way to being strong business women. The night was quite the night full of glitter, pink bedazzled cupcakes and party dresses. Usually Girl Power Hours are networking meetings exclusively made of women however for the anniversary party men were partying right along with the gals. I love going to women events but now I think I'll attend more with diverse company.

In other news, tomorrow I mail in the paperwork and a hefty check to become official. Lookwhatididtoday.com will become Look what I did today LLC. I am extremely excited about this since now I can open a business account and start depositing money toward developing my site. I met with Donna, my accountant awhile ago and she walked me through the process and then with the help of my boyfriend's mom, Marly she guided me through the final details. Thanks to both!

I'll keep you updated as the site progresses :)

Go get that connection

Over the last couple months I've come to realize that starting a business is more than just hard work, it also has to do with the people you socialize and network with. Two weeks ago I attended an event for women through Webgrrls. Here I made a few contacts and listened to some amazing stories people went through to launch their own business. I had plenty of business cards in hand and made a point to talk to as many women as I could (one time I actually ran out of business cards-how embarrassing). Here met a woman who is interested in meeting with me to go over the marketing plan for www.lookwhatididtoday.com and through a connection I made I have a second web developer who I'm interested in contacting.

The other day I received an e-mail from the leader of the Seattle chapter who linked an article about the event and photos. As I was scrolling down, I spotted myself laughing in background in one of the pictures. I was also quoted "This meeting gave me a chance to connect with many fabulous women who are all eager to help and lend their knowledge". - Celia A. Moody Dental Assistant and Entrepreneur

Very cool!

Am I becoming a business woman...

One day I'm going to open my closet and there staring back at me is going to be a blue business suit and a meticulously matching pair of pumps. Is there still the pantyhose club?

Over the past month I've been immersing myself in networking events and meetings. It all started out with just one meet up a month and now I have two scheduled for this week alone. I have one scheduled on Wednesday where I meet with other women to discuss techie stuff and the other on Thursday appropriately titled Seattle Geek Dinner. I am fully enjoying myself and I love listening to all the other stories of what women are facing in starting their own business. I find that women are so eager to help each other seem to really care.

Last Thursday I joined an event hosted by WebGrrls www.webgrrls.com, a network of women around the country who just branched out to a Seattle chapter. Incredible women and amazing connections. Seeing that I want to launch an Internet site, I can't think of a better group to join. I now have two very capable marketing firms that I'm interested in collaborating with. A meeting with one is tentatively scheduled for next Friday.

The following day I had a meeting with a highly recommended website developer, Vida Clement, with Vida Productions. We had a wonderful lunch at the Nordstrom Grill and discussed realistically what it will take to get this off the ground. I'm finding out very quickly that I can't just jump into a site with all the bells and whistles I want, it's going to be a process. So as the site grows with traffic so with the graphics and capabilities. However, she did promise me that right before I make my debut on Oprah I will have the fully loaded site :)

Later that day I met with an accountant to go over business licensing and other very fascinating pieces of paper that I need. This is why I'm definitely going to hire an accountant, I get lost in all that talk.

Next week on Thursday I have my favorite networking meeting that I'm going to and men can come too. Girl Power Hour www.girlpowerhour.com it's the new latest rage complete with swag bags, fufu drinks and I think there might be glitter. This is the perfect place to be your own biggest fan and talk up yourself to everyone. I always leave fully energized and have made some really good friends here. Darren, get ready to have some fun with the ladies!!!

Well, so there ya go. Soon this site will be up and then I can go to even more of these events and seek out not future users but real users.

Moving closer and closer to launch

Two months of work...done!

As many of you might know I was in the process of researching and preparing a business plan to present to my investor. Last night Darren and I met with her and proposed the site of http://www.lookwhatididtoday.com/ and it was a huge success. I'm so amazed about how much I've learned in the process, they say you write a business plan 10% for the investor and 90% for yourself. I now know what the steps are involved to actually get the site going.

I'm going to do a test site launch for two months including 50 people. Using the comments, feedback and the chance to work out some of the bugs I will then launch to the public. I'm finding out that my idea one Saturday afternoon is quickly becoming a real thing.

Julianna if you read this-Thank you so much for all your help, you are amazing!!!

PEOPLE ARE EXCITED

Hi Everyone, I wanted to share all the exciting things that have been happening with my new website. I'm getting closer and closer to making this happen.

I recently attended a Girl Power Hour at the Canal in Ballard-beautiful venue :)
What an exciting place to be, I was surrounded by driven women who all have their own business or are in the process of launching like me. I had my business card taped to my purse so it's easier for people to approach me and start a conversation and it worked. I was testing out perfume when a lady walked up to me and said "you don't know us but we want to get to know you, we are dying to know what you did today" I laughed and filled them in on what lookwhatididtoday.com is all about. They all loved the idea so just that easily I have 4 more future users. The night was a huge success, meeting many new people and sharing ideas and goals.

I've hired a graphic designer to work on my website with me. We have a meeting set up on the 17th at Hector's in Kirkland to go over ideas. Now I'll have an official business card-hey isn't that what it's all about. I can now drop my card in the fish bowl and hopefully win a free lunch.

I'm still involved in my meet-up group which has proved to be invaluable. The connections I've made and the tips I'm learning are steering me in the right direction. Thank you Jenny :)

As for the Business Plan-it's still in the works but there is progress.

An update

First off, I want to thank everyone for their support and encouragement on my future business dream. As it turns out many people also think the idea has potential in becoming a strong website. I've been spending many hours online researching successful websites and figuring out what makes them popular and finding out that some companies make big mistakes. One in particular was fined $130,000 due to collecting too much private information from kids. I won't be making that mistake. Currently I'm still in the process of writing a business plan so the status of the business hasn't changed however I'm now using a company to store e-mail addresses of those who are interested in becoming a future user. If you haven't signed up yet it's just to your right. My boyfriend has been a tremendous help in this area. He just seems to have the knack for preparing business plans.

On June 19th I will be attending a women's entrepreneur meeting where like minded women get together and network. Its called girl power hour and I'm so excited to be attending. I want to keep going to meetings and conferences to keep me motivated and inspired.

Yes I Can

“When was the last time you did something new for the fist time?” As of last week I had a hard time coming up with an answer to this question. However, in the last couple days my life has been full of things I’ve done for the first time. I have a website (not totally up and running but on its way) I have a business meeting scheduled today to discuss how to prepare a business plan. I might have found an investor that will help me launch my dream site and I’m helping taking care of a very well behaved golden lab named Rufus. If you know me then you know I am NOT a dog person. Things are changing very quickly and headed in the right direction. I think all this inspiration has directly come from the club I joined 2 months ago. I just needed that extra push and encouragement to get my energy flowing again. Last night I sat down at the SIP and listened to live Jazz while I sat out on the patio drinking ice water, my notebook in hand I jotted down everything I want my website to include. To see it all written on paper and to know that somehow this is all going to work out makes me think “yes Celia you can.”

I can now cross this off my list

I have some exciting news…I finally took the first step in running my own internet business. I bought the domain name www.lookwhatididtoday.com. During my last women’s entrepreneur club meeting I felt a rush of energy to really get my company started. Up until then, I was a little afraid to actually make a definite step and make my idea real. I still have to set up the site, but I will hopefully have it going this week. I’ve read many blogs over the last two weeks and now I feel like I can confidently blog with the rest.

Bringing families together...

I'm extremely excited about my upcoming website that soon will be created. Recently I joined a women's entrepreneur club to learn about how I should go about launching my site. We meet once a month and share our goals, give advice on how to overcome obstacles and encourage one another in achieving our dreams. I am dating a man who has a wonderful son from a previous marriage; however like most separated families his child only see's his mommy every other weekend and school holiday. Also, like divorced families the relationship between the parents is tense and children can always sense this. Therefore, I came up with the idea to create a website for kids where they can go to and share with the other parent what they did that day. Look what I did today.com was born. I quickly started brainstorming and came up with some great ideas. Living in today’s high level of web knowledge kids would love to have their own private webpage. (passwords and high security is a must) The child can update his or her page daily, if needed with the help of an adult and customize the layout. I read in the National Vital Statistics Report that in 2007 the divorce rate in America is 49.3%. We need a way for children to contact and share their day to day life with their mommy's and daddy's and I feel this is just the way to do so. Now all I have to do is make this website a reality.

First time ever...

I'm going to start out by giving you a brief run-down on how this blog came about. In a couple of months I will be launching my own website where I can bring kids and their relatives closer together. I think it's a great idea the only problem is I have zilch experience in anything to do with launching my own website. So what is a girl to do?? Well first I went through countless websites on "how to start your own website business" and that got me nowhere fast. Then I started reading books on the subject but it left me with even more questions so I joined a club. This is a club where other women meet once a month who want to become a success. My first meeting was last week and we chatted about all sorts of stuff including blogging, and I asked "what's a blog?" I must be living under a rock because apparently everyone knows what a blog is. So now here I am starting my very own first blog and ready to run with it. I need to dive into this world of blogging so when my website does become a reality then I will have a following, I will be more computer savvy and I will get people to my site. So that's my plan!! Any tips, feedback and comments are appreciated. ~Celia