Oh hi! Welcome back to Warm Wishes! So much has happened in a week. A week ago, the online Warm Wishes shop wasn't open, I hadn't turned my kitchen table into a shipping and packaging station, and I didn't know just what it would feel like to share this adventure with a larger community (update: it feels exciting, overwhelming, and fun... mostly).
How it started
One of my dearest friends asked me this week how I started the process of opening a business: how did I go about gathering more information, did I write a business plan, etc?
Her questions reminded me of one of my favorite Amy Poehler quotes: "You do it because the doing of it is the thing. The doing is the thing. The talking and worrying and thinking is not the thing."
As I started the whole opening-a-business process, this quote was a helpful reminder to get out of my head and take concrete next steps: to reach out to people with jobs I admired and invite them to coffee, to make that first phone call to a lawyer to set up my business structure, to send an introductory email to a potential vendor that I'd followed on social media for years, to ask a friend to read a first draft of a business plan. It was easy to think that I wouldn't hear back from people or that they'd be too busy to help me, but that was never the case.
How it's going
And now I'm finally entering a new phase of the doing: wrapping packages in hot pink tissue paper, slipping in personalized notes to each customer, and walking to the mailbox and around town with my dog to deliver orders.
So what's next?
I'm excited to share new products next week and to continue to update you all as we start getting the store ready in Jefferson in early May. Follow Warm Wishes on Instagram @warmwishesfromiowa for regular updates. Thank you again for your support!
A moment of gratitude
I am so grateful to the small business owners that shared their own stories with me and let me ask super specific questions about challenges that felt impossible in the moment. They were patient and encouraging and clearly believed in my potential from the beginning. I'm looking at you Niki Neems, Laura Capp, Alyse Ruriani, JoAnn Larpenter Sinclair, Queena Hoang, FM Muñoz, Ellen Daly, Kelli Jackson Amato, Darcy Swon, Bonnie Silbaugh... and at the many other friends that opted into my "text focus groups" during random weekdays.
Warm Wishes from Iowa,
Klang