willotoons.com

The World’s Largest DIY Festival
A two-day, family-friendly event to MAKE, create, learn, invent, CRAFT, recycle, think, play and be inspired by celebrating arts, crafts, engineering, food, music, science and technology. Located @ San Mateo Fairgrounds this weekend…
Saturday, May 30th: 10AM - 8PM
Sunday, May 31st: 10AM - 6PM

Remember, Bazaar Bizarre (where my WilloToons table will be) is located in the Cypress Building, come say hi!

View upcoming & recent WilloToons events….

This is pretty cool… I might add it to my about page. It really made me aware of how many different sites I’m on, but at the same time how few I *really* use.

Also, if you have a Retaggr card/account, you can apparently bookmark me and grow your network. Leave me a comment if you’re on there already and/or create one. I don’t know who’s on there yet, so I haven’t had a chance to bookmark anyone yet!

They also offer a cool (and smaller) Add Me button:

There’s also a site dedicated to helping you create your own personal Geek Chart. What’s geekier than making a chart of all your geekyness?

Social media sites can be a lot to keep up with. Especially for those who are new to it all… it can seem down right overwhelming. But my suggestion is just to slowly start using one. That said, if you have found you can handle following a few, but don’t want to keep up with visiting 5 different sites, maybe you want to look into a service like FriendFeed, which culls several of my posts & updates in one place:

Personally, I think Twitter, Flickr & Facebook are my favorites. Mostly because they’re practical. Twitter is fast, Flickr holds my photos, and Facebook has basically become a great way to connect/chat with friends and share events. Any of these services are going to be more fun if it’s authentically something you enjoy doing - i.e. talking with your friends, looking at their photos, planning a group BBQ, etc.

I stumbled upon (no pun intended) all of these via this article on Mashable: 5 Ways to Share Your Social Media Identity

Would love to see your profiles, geek charts or hear your favorite social media websites! Please leave a comment. ;)

As many of you know, I moved into an office downtown in January of this year, as part of the Renaissance Entrepreneurship Center’s Incubator Program. Today I’m proud to announce that in a few weeks I’ll be leading a workshop for them as a part of their Fashion Industry Network (FIN) program!

I’ve been speaking more & more recently, and really enjoy sharing what I have learned with the community. Not to mention I always learn something back from the audience. This spring I co-lead a core-convo at SXSW, titled Snappy Strategies for Selling Art Online, and more recently spoke on a panel at the Summit of Awesome titled, What’s a Social Network and How to Use it for Good. The Renaissance Center’s programs have been nothing short of amazing for me, so I’m delighted to be a part of their incredible line-up of educational resources for entrepreneurs.

Here’s the full workshop description & my related bio. If you’re in the Bay Area & this sounds like a topic you’re interested in, please register online & join us!

Using Social Media To Grow, Market and Sell Your Fashion Line

With all the social media websites and services out there, it can be daunting to pinpoint which ones are the most effective for marketing your products or services. In this workshop, you’ll learn what it means to develop and engage with your community both online and off, as well as the best practices for each.

Other Topics Include:

• Creative ways to market your line without paid advertising or expensive PR.
• Utilizing your network to brainstorm or launch a new product.
• How social media can help increase online sales.
• The value of maintaining authentic communication with your community.

When: Wednesday, May 27, 2009, from 6:00pm to 8:30pm
Where: Small Business Administration, 455 Market Street, 6th Floor, SF, CA
Cost: $30 or $15 for Fashion Industry Network (FIN) or FBI, Inc. members
Register: Sign up through Acteva by going to www.acteva.com/go/rec

Download Event Flier (PDF)

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Willo O’Brien moved to San Francisco at the dawn of the first Internet bubble. As a highly social individual, she has no trouble making new friends - whether it be at a rock concert or in line at Whole Foods. Her friendly, outgoing demeanor has allowed her to spend the last decade building long-lasting friendships with the entrepreneurs and trendsetters of the Internet 2.0 phenomenon, and she has become a dyed-in-the-wool early adopter of social media technologies. Her experience in social networking has fueled the success of her business as an illustrator and music lover who turned her lifelong passion into a unique, eco-conscious gift line for babies and toddlers: WilloToons.com - where geek meets rock ‘n roll.

Wet Hot American Birthday, originally uploaded by OsakaSteve.

From this kick ass photoset from our trip to Tahoe. <3!!

Wet Hot American Birthday, originally uploaded by OsakaSteve.

Check out JD’s photoset from our trip to Tahoe! <3

me, rachel, caitlin & katy kristin reunited!, originally uploaded by Willo.

It’s official: The first ever Summit of Awesome, held last weekend in the heart of our nation’s capital, was AWESOME! (yes, there was no shortage of that word all weekend :p) It was so wonderful to reunite with everyone from last year’s Craft Con & meet a ton of new fabulous crafters, too!

Danielle & I’s talk on Social Networking was packed & full of great questions & conversation from both the crowd & people joining us in the live Etsy Virtual Lab. Here’s cutie Danielle & I after our panel:

Caitlin, who stayed with me at last year’s Craft Con, was kind enough to host me at her crafty studio/apartment, just outside of DC. It was great to see her again, not to mention so fun to see her workspace in person & meet her cute kitties:

She showed me around DC by taking me to some fabulous must see DC spots, like the Palace & Ben’s Chili Bowl:

The cherry on top was I got to spend time with my dear friend Jess, who moved away from SF last year & we all miss so dearly. Her friend Katie, who I met recently in SF, is such a sweetheart, too & the three of us had a blast for the 48 hours or so we had together at the end of the weekend!

I have a few more photos in my iPhone I still need to download & add to this set, but you can at least get started with all of the photos posted thus far.

It was a fabulous weekend all around!

Hey all! I can’t believe I haven’t posted about this yet, but I wanted to let you know I just flew in to D.C. to speak at the first ever Summit of Awesome in the heart of the Nation’s Capital! I just realized I posted all about it on the Church of Craft site (wherein I’m the SF CoC Coordinator), but spaced posting it here - eep! Anyway, check it:

I’m speaking on a panel: “What’s a Social Network and How to use it for Good” on Friday May 1st, 11:30am-12:30pm (with Danielle Maveal of Etsy Success/Virtual Labs and myself, Willo O’Brien of WilloToons).

Some of you may remember that last year, around this time, I attended Craft Con (view photos), and the Summit of Awesome is sort of like the Craft Con of 2009. Not officially related, but it’s all about the business side of craft… which as you all know, is what I’m all about!

Here’s the full deets on the conference:

I’m so excited to see Handmade Nation! I missed the premiere in SF that happened about a month back. I’m also super excited for Saturday night’s Show of Awesome, that I’m inviting a few of my DC pals to & I hope they can make it.

On top of all of this awesomeness, I get to see my dear girl friend Jess, who moved away from SF last year & we all miss so dearly! She actually got in a bad bike accident recently that broke her jaw & required it to be wired shut to heal. :( We all sent her a big care package, but I can’t tell you how excited I am to see her & give her a big hug in person! Jess is amazing, and has been so strong through all of this. In fact, should you be in a position to only be able to eat blended food through a straw, check out her awesome blog documenting all the great recipes you can drink through a straw!

OK, that’s all for now. I’m staying at my fabulous craft girlfriend, Caitlin’s place (of Rebound Designs), but she’s in bed & I’m still awake on west coast time, therefore staying up way too late! For those of you who are here, please find me & say hello. For all the rest of you… I wish you were all going to be here. This weekend’s going to be AWESOME!

hangin in the park with mah peeps!, originally uploaded by Willo.

This is just one of the many fun photos full of great friends, smiles & warm weather.

Check out the full set of fun pics!

As many of you know, I’m currently in a 14-week intensive Business Planning class through the Renaissance Entrepreneurship Center, as an active participant in their year long Incubator Program (more on this here). Tonight we had to do a 3-4 minute sales presentation to our class. Of course, being the busy bee that I am, I hadn’t put anything together yet. Woops! :p But, the good news is I know my business well, so I was able to clickety clack it out in the first hour of class. Thought I’d post it up here for those who may be curious and I’d love to hear your feedback & thoughts, too!

First, a little set up: We were to tell the rest of the class who they were supposed to be (i.e. an investor, a property manager and/or lease agent, customer of their product or service, or wholesale customer). I chose wholesale customer. So I informed the class they were to be owners or buyers of shops/boutiques where I’m looking to get my WilloToons Baby/Toddler line on the shelves. It also should be noted that, in reality, I’ll never give a sales pitch this long & detailed to a retail owner or buyer, because they’re just SO busy! :p But regardless it was great practice & I think I’ll probably include some of this verbage in a letter or cover sheet, should I email or snail mail a catalog to a boutique.

Also, it should be noted - for those of you who are familiar with my line & know that I have adult tees & jewelry, etc - that my business plan is currently going to be primarily focused on wholesaling my baby & toddler line to shops & boutiques around the country. The big message in this class is to scale back & be sure you’re growing sustainably, so although I will always have adult tees & maintain my *hobby* of handmaking jewelry for my retail site, those won’t be in my focus initially for my wholesale line. Also, these products I reference (the bright colors & 100% organic cotton) are on order right now, so they’re not available in the shop yet. If you’d like to be notified of when they are available, and/or you are a store interested in carrying my line, please sign up on the mailing list or contact me directly.

Lastly, some of this formatting was for my ease of reading/referencing it easily in front of the class - and of course it was written someone conversationally in order to be read aloud. Alright, here we go:

Hi my name is Willo O’Brien, and I have a fun, eco-conscious gift line of clothing for babies & toddlers, called WilloToons - where the style is geek meets rock ‘n roll!

The history behind my ‘geek meets rock ‘n roll’ line is that I’m an illustrator, web designer, & avid music lover & show goer. So essentially the way I describe the passion behind my line is that I’m:

• geeked on illustration, design & the web
• geeked on music, and
• geeked on the environment!

Being an eco-conscious clothing line is very important to me. So while in the first 18 months of my business I have been entirely locally produced & American made, I’m proud to report that we’ve now moved into utilizing 100% organic cotton, too! For the silkscreened products I use all pvc-free & water-based inks, and WilloToons packaging is all recycled and eco-friendly.

• The organic cotton I’m using is really soft & all the designs contain very fun bright colors.
• I provide hangtags that have my logo & a cute photo of a baby or kiddo in the product - which helps the customer visualize the product on the child & increases sales.
• I also offer gift sets, which are very popular for customers who come in looking for a fabulous baby shower gift. The gift sets contain a onesie, pants and a matching cap or bib.
• My toddler line of clever tees fit kiddos from 2-6 years old.

I have both embroidered & silkscreened items… so to give you an idea of what you’ll see in my WilloToons line, I have things like a cute embroidered whale, called “splash“, and another design that says “nerdling” with a little pair of glasses on it (great for the children of all the internet geeks out there). Then I have fun designs for the little rockers, like “eat. sleep. rock. repeat.” and “rock squirrel.” Those last two more rock-focused designs are printed with fun, bright inks on black organic cotton - which I’m doing in response to popular request. Which makes sense, because babies are messy. :)

As you know, today it’s very important to be an green company, and what I think is really fun about my line is that it targets buyers who appreciate unique, quality products AND it’s eco-conscious, without having that be the focus of the actual design. The WilloToons style is focused on FUN, with designs that feature whimsical cartoon illustration that celebrates every child’s individuality & character.

For my wholesale accounts I have made it easy for you to order, in two different ways - whichever is easiest in terms of the order workflow for your store. You can either order online, on my wholesale website, or I can send you a phone/fax order form. I have a low minimum wholesale order, and have created a couple pre-set packs to get you started carrying WilloToons in your store!

How would you prefer to get started? Would you like me to send you a catalog, or can I set you up with a password on our wholesale order site?

: : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : :
Then I was prepared for FAQ:

Turn around time?
Depending on the size of your order, it’s anywhere from 2-4 weeks. Do you have an idea of the size of order you’d like to place initially?

Prices? Organic = expensive?
We have taken into consideration the average wholesale cost, so I think you’ll find they’re competitive to a lot of your current products… I’ll send you price list, or if you prefer, get you set up on the wholesale site & you can see the prices there.

The only other question I got was if I could handle a very large volume order. And I said yes. :) All of the other feedback I received was very helpful & positive. What do you guys think?

Again, for those of you just visiting, these new products I’m speaking of (the bright colors & organic cotton) are on order right now, so they’re not available in my online store yet. Nor is the wholesale website done yet, I’m working on it now! But if you’d like to be notified of when they are available, and/or you are a store interested in carrying my line, please sign up on the mailing list or contact me directly, and I’ll let you know! Also, in the meantime, you can support me by shopping my big SALE! Help me clear out this old inventory & make room for the new! :)

If you’re interested in the business side of craft, you may want to check out my Get Crafty site, where I’m publishing resources & information from our “Snappy Strategies for Selling Arts & Crafts Online” talk we did at SXSW. The audio/video of that presentation WILL be posted soon, so be sure to subscribe or contact me if you want to know when I (finally) put it up! Also, I’ll be speaking on a panel at the Summit of Awesome - in Washington DC in May - which is all about the business side of craft!

Thanks for reading, and as always for all of your support. I would love to hear any further comments & feedback, positive or constructive!

creating history, originally uploaded by Willo.

I love my BAMboozled.org kids!! I’ve been working with a group of teen authors for 8 years now (since ‘01), ever week in the Sunset. How responsible & grown up of me, huh? haha. Truly, the mind boggles.

Anyway, I absolutely love every group that comes through, and it’s always so hard to see them go [off to college]. Breaks my heart to even think of the few awesome kids in this shot (which we took at last night’s meeting) who I’ll dearly miss.

The good news is they usually keep in contact with us for years after. In fact, thanks to the internets, I’m still very much in touch with a few of the kids from the very first group I had! Love it.