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Designing an MBA

Business thinking for designers and makers.

  • June workshops scheduled

    Just a quick note to let you know that I’ve scheduled new online workshops for the end of June.  If you missed them in the first go-round, hopefully these will fit your schedule. Need info on the basics of setting up your business, keeping track of finances, and creating a business plan?  Business 101 will…

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  • creating a culture of profit

    A while back, I ran a survey for CMBA readers about which business topics they were most interested in learning about, and marketing was at the top. That’s not really surprising.  It’s easy to view marketing as the magic bullet to running a successful business.  But I don’t think lack of marketing prowess is what’s keeping most craft businesses…

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  • business buzz 6-4-10

    A weekly roundup of craft, design, and business related news and links: Copycats & lessons we can learn – Really thought provoking video of Johanna Blakely’s TED talk about intellectual property and the fashion industry.  Particularly interesting to me was the graph near the end comparing gross sales of low IP industries with high IP…

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  • stop making average products for average people

    I was reading Seth Godin this morning and he made the following statement: “We’ve been culturally brainwashed to believe that the factory approach (average products for average people, compliance, focus on speed and cost) is the one and only way. It’s not.” And that phrase, average products for average people, stopped me in my tracks….

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  • what do you need to grow your business?

    Yesterday, I shared some of my thoughts on why your craft business gets stuck.  And many of you chimed in to talk about the issues you were dealing with.  But I wanted to ask a little more directly: What do you need to grow your business? What kind of time, money*, help, resources, services, or…

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  • why your craft business gets stuck

    I think a lot of craft businesses get started the same way – you have a process or technique that you love and you think, “I could do this as my job!”  Maybe you went to school to learn this skill, or maybe you taught yourself.  Or maybe it’s a product you started making that…

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