We’re having a huge sale in the WilloToons shop! Not just any sale, but a huge, bring the house down, clear out the closets, make room for new inventory, SALE.

We can’t wait to bring you more organic items and some new designs (yes, really!) but we need room for them. To make that happen, we’re giving you the best pricing we’ve ever offered on many of our baby onesies and selected adult tees. We’re talking onesies as low as $10 and adult tees as low as $12! Head on over to the store to pick up some goodies now. Hurry because the sale is for a limited time and quantities are limited!

While you’re there, don’t forget that Valentine’s Day is just around the corner. We’ve got a ton of new jewelry in the store as well as our delightful, perfect for Valentine’s Day, Bacon Lover greeting cards. What says love more than bacon??

All single item jewelry orders are only $2 shipping and
FREE Shipping for all orders over $50!
(these are domestic rates only, but we ship internationally, too!)

Sometimes it’s hard to decide just what to buy that special someone… so let them pick out their favorites!

A WilloToons Gift Certificate is a great idea for when you just can’t decide what to get. Let the recipient decide if they want a sassy t-shirt or a pretty new pair of earrings.

Our gift certificates are available in email format – perfect for last minute shopping! Send us the recipient’s name and we’ll email you an attachment to forward on to the recipient or print out and give to them.

We’re looking forward to an awesome 2010 with all of you, with new and exciting happenings at WilloToons. Stay tooned!

I’m leading a workshop here in San Francisco, called “Using Social Media to Grow Your Fashion Business.” I did this workshop once last year, and it was a lot of fun, so I’m looking forward to presenting it again in a few weeks! Keep in mind you don’t have to have a fashion business per say for this information to be relevant.

Details:

There is a lot of talk about the importance of integrating a social media campaign into your marketing and sales strategy! Come learn how to navigate and sort through all of the social media sites and figure out which ones you should invest your valuable time and efforts on.   In this workshop will learn how to build and engage your community and create increased product awareness.

Topics will include:

• Creative, low cost marketing strategies
• Maximizing your network to test or launch a new product
• Increasing online sales
• The importance and value of maintaining authentic communication with your community

Presenter: Willo O’Brien moved to San Francisco at the dawn of the first Internet bubble and has spent the last decade building long-lasting friendships with the entrepreneurs and trendsetters of the Internet 2.0 phenomenon. Her experience in social networking has fueled the success of her business as a designer, illustrator and music lover who turned her lifelong passion into a fun, eco-conscious gift line: WilloToons.com – where geek meets rock ‘n roll.

Using Social Media to Grow Your Fashion Business
Tuesday, March 2nd
6pm – 8:30pm

The Art Institute of California
1130 Market Street
10 UN Building
4th Floor
San Francisco

Cost: $35/$20 for FBI members
Register: Click Here!

View Event Information on the Fashion Business, Inc website

RSVP on Facebook!

Hey pals! I’m so excited for Austin this year… and it’s coming up fast!

If you’re attending SXSWi this March, you can click the links below and add our core-convo’s to your schedule:

• SXSW SARS

  Friday, March 12 @ 2pm
  Core-conversation led by Jay Goldman & myself (Willo O’Brien)

  Add to my.sxsw
  Add to Sched

  Each year at SXSW, you hear about “SXSW SARS” or “SXSW Scurvy.” Days packed with panels, movies, and concerts are exhausting and wear down your immune system. Learn some ways in which you can prepare for, and stay clear of getting sick at SXSW.

  UPDATE: Take our survey about staying healthy at SXSW!
  (or whilst traveling to any conference)
  Here’s a link to a tweet to RT, too, if you please.

• Snappy Strategies for Selling Art & Craft Online: Part Deux

  Tuesday, March 16 @ 11am
  Core-conversation led by Rebecca Marshall & myself (Willo O’Brien)

  Add to my.sxsw
  Add to Sched

  More people than ever are starting their own art/craft businesses or supplementing their income with passion projects and, as always, technology rises to meet the challenge. Even as the economy worsens, our passions strengthen! Come discuss all the online tools and creative strategies that can help you sell your work online.

  Listen to our audio clip about this convo on the GetCrafty site!

As per usual, I’ll be there for both Interactive & Music. Looking forward to reuniting all my kick ass friends from around the globe, and meeting new fabulous faces, too!

Sorry for the build-up on this news. I didn’t mean to make it such a big deal, but it IS an exciting move in my world, I just had to notify a few specific people before telling the internets. You all are so incredibly darling for being interested and so supportive. I truly, truly <3 my internet friends!

So, the “big move” is exactly that… WilloToons HQ has moved offices. The short story is that I was in the Renaissance Center last year, and now I’m working out of the Irata Labs office (which I expound upon more in the last 1/2 of this post). Now, this might not mean a thing to the rest of you, but in my life, it’s kind of a big deal… and, for those of you interested, I’ll happily detail why. :)

But first, a little background for those who don’t know me, or my story, that well:

I spent six years, working from home, doing freelance custom illustration and web/graphic design*, and while I loved working out of my house, my office was in my bedroom. Which, probably goes without saying, made it that much harder to create any kind of work/life balance. I launched WilloToons, my product line, in 2007, which meant I went from juggling one business, to two. Including storing inventory and shipping orders out of my garage**.

* I’ve pretty much let go of my freelance design business, but still take on small web/graphic design jobs + custom illustration work for cash flow.

** I now have a rockstar Merchandibeense Manager, Jen, who stores & ships all my inventory (among many other helpful tasks)

My First Office
In the fall of 2008, I was approached by the Renaissance Entrepreneurship Center and awarded one of the few grants they had available, from the Mayor’s Office of Community Development Women’s Grant Program. This enabled me to enroll myself, and WilloToons, into RenCenter’s year-long Incubator Program. This program included office space in their SOMA location, as well as one-on-one consultation with business, marketing and finance professionals. As you can imagine, I was beyond thrilled! I’m very business-minded, and an entrepreneur no doubt, but the truth of the matter is I’m an artist. Meaning, I can use all the business guidance I can get! :)

Also, starting a company can feel really isolating and overwhelming. I am fortunate that I had (and have) a lot of really amazing, supportive friends… but at the end of the day, it’s me bootstrapping it all and having to figure out what move to make next. Granted, that is the task I’ve taken on by owning my own company(s), but doesn’t lessen the immeasurable benefit of having solid advisement from friends and business professionals.

For the first year (2007-2008) I worked my butt off promoting WilloToons – learning from every transaction and experience, collecting data, brainstorming new ideas, defining and re-defining my vision – all the while still taking on clients for my design business, but found it harder & harder to juggle both. Becoming involved with the RenCenter at the end of 2008, and starting the year with my offices there in January 2009, I decided to let go of my design business even more and “get serious” about WilloToons. This involved taking their Business Planning course and – finally, 2 years in to my business – writing a business, marketing and expansion plan, drafting up financial projections, and putting a framework around how I wanted to see my business grow and what it was going to take to get there. I have mixed feelings on if doing a plan is absolutely essential for every business (as many have done just fine without), but it’s an excellent exercise and taught me a LOT nonetheless. Plus, at minimum I need the financial projections for any fund-raising or small business loans.

I’d have to say one of the best, best, BEST parts of it all was having an office outside of my house! My bedroom is now just my bedroom (I have space on both sides of the bed… huzzah!), and the fact that I’m able to occasionally leave my laptop, and therefore work, at the office, and just enjoy my space/time at home is nothing short of dreamy. :) This transition alone has created so much more peace of mind this past year. And, as a small business owner, peace of mind is gold.

2009 started off with a bang! And while it was a difficult year overall, I have a lot to be grateful for. The support and consultation of the professionals I met through the classes, workshops and individual sessions at the Renaissance Center were life changing, and I am so grateful to know these resources are available moving forward. I sincerely think one of the biggest challenges we face in business – or even life in general – is learning how to ask for help. We have all these amazing minds around us all the time, and so much of it is just knowing what questions to ask, and being willing to receive support.

Making the Move
I actually didn’t think I was going to move offices, but as the year was ending, so was the end of my year-long grant. Which meant, in order for me to stay, I was going to need to re-up my enrollment into the incubator, which meant providing them with my financials, P&Ls, and paying rent. I had a choice. I mean, if I was going to be actually paying rent, I had the option of where that office would be. I certainly didn’t want to move my office back into my house, but as a business owner, I had to consider the additional monthly overhead rent was going to add to my already tight (bootstrapped) cash flow situation, and had to make a decision.

Thankfully, as I was trying to figure out what to do, I was chatting about it with my friend Chris, and he mentioned how much space there is in his office at Irata Labs, and that while he couldn’t promise it would be long term, we could arrange for me to have my office here for awhile. YAY! (Actually, Chris will tell you it wasn’t quite that easy. We seem to have a pattern where he offers up his help, and me and my independent (stubborn?) self doesn’t allow myself to receive, and next thing you know it’s in the 9th hour & I realize I *do* need his help, and he’s magically there for me. Heh. *sigh* I love my friends. And yes, I’m trying to work on that whole asking for help/receiving thing a bit more. :)

Moving into the RenCenter was a big move, so my moving on from there, in to another office space, is just as great in my book. I think this one feels especially big, too, because it actually marks me having my *2nd* office ever. One where *I* made the choice. And, BEST OF ALL, I’m with my awesome friends! I am so stoked.

I now work in an office with my super good friends, Chris & Keith (and Ben, who I’m just getting to know). Keith (@dkr), in particular, has been a friend for years, AND he’s a badass, creative designer (not to mention great taste in music), so I’m thrilled to be working near him. I was telling them both yesterday, “I am with my people!” :p Plus, I’m all excited about this new location (2nd & Harrison), because I’m near South Park and have a TON of great friends who work around here:

• My awesome TicketFly peeps: Ali, Amy, Marianne, and founders Dan & Fraser (who were my clients at TicketWeb!)
• Susan Wu, who is a rockstar CEO I met initially through CFC in ‘08, but recently reconnected with (thanks to Randy), and we had an awesome business meeting. I’m THRILLED on her business guidance… and it’s been such an incredible reminder for me to tap into the amazing brains I’m surrounded by (and not just dine & have drinks with them, but actually seriously sit down & talk business :)
• Citizen Space is right downstairs, where my good friends work: Hillary, Seth and occasionally Thomas, just to name a few. AND this is conveniently where I host my Church of Craft monthly meetings (this month is most likely going to be there January 24th… get on the list if you want to join)! Oh, and coincidentally, Irata Labs is actually in the space where Citizen Space used to be! So I’d been here many times already.
• South Park awesomeness, including being able to eat lunch in the park, meet friends for lunch, and take part in all of the awesome SF street food carts that frequent this area! Most notably @banhmai, my friend Mai’s Vietnamese sandwiches that I’ve yet to try. Update: Oh yes, AND The American Grilled Cheese Kitchen, who is Heidi from my business planning class… they’re opening up soon just a few blocks away. Yum!

The move happened pretty fast, and yet totally felt right. I love it when that happens. After meeting with Susan on Friday, I stopped by to say hi to Chris & Keith, and saw once again how cavernous this office is, and realized how completely easy and great it would be to work out of here. I made a call to my friend Brian, who recently offered me to share some of his storage space, and asked him if I could store my desk & a few other things I wouldn’t need to bring with me, and he said he could help Saturday… so literally less than 24 hours later, I was moved!

Alright, I could go on & on, as I have a few points I want to expand on, wrapping up some of the other amazing things that happened in 2009, as well as discussing my plans for the new year, but let’s publish this bad boy once & for all.

Thank you all again SO much for your interest, support and friendship. Some days I feel like the luckiest girl in the world, and having you all in my life – as a part of my amazing community, both online, and locally – is truly what keeps me going. Group hug! And for you locals, let’s do lunch in South Park soon. :)

“Featuring over 40 of our favorite Bay Area designers selling their latest and greatest wares with artistic flairs perfect for all your holiday shopping needs and at affordable prices. There will be a full bar, sweet treats and of course the best music to shop to – come join the fun!”

RSVP on Facebook

Hope to see you there!

I’m so excited to be a part of Cosa Verde. Their whole mission is “connecting independent and emerging artists with environmentally-conscious consumers.” Love it!

How wonderful to have a site/shop that’s dedicated to featuring only companies who have gone the extra mile in creating products that are organic, reusable, repurposed, recycleable, conflict- and cruelty-free and more.

WilloToons is eco-friendly, because I knew that if I was going to be adding to the things in the world, I wanted to make sure I had thought about how those things were made, and how they get to us. The manufacturing, yes, but also the entire process – from the growing to the making to the purchasing, packing, and shipping.

I hope that through my caring about the environment and sustainability in my products, that people will stop and think about what went into making every product they buy.

Visit Cosa Verde and check out all of the wonderful vendors involved. And thank you in advance for shopping consciously this holiday season!

I’m delighted (read: SUPER FRICKIN’ STOKED!!) to announce that I will be co-leading two awesome core-convos at SXSW ‘10!

• Snappy Strategies for Selling Art & Craft Online: Part Deux
  A continuation of the fantastic convo that Becca & I had last year, that was jam packed, with a line out the door – YES!
• SXSW SARS
  Fortuitously taking over for preggie Tara, and I get to speak with my NBFF Jay Goldman! This convo is perfect for me because, as many of you know, I can somehow party my arse off in Austin for 10 days straight & still be standing. I’ll see if I can’t package some of that magic for this talk. ;)

So excited to see you all there!

UPDATE 1/14/09: Add our convos to your my.sxsw schedule!

Recognize a face in those phones below? Yes, that’s me on Square’s site, which has been getting quite a bit of press the last few days now that it’s launched.

What is Square? It’s this cool way to process credit cards on the iPhone. I’ve been on their beta for a few weeks now and I love it (and so do my customers)!

It comes in SUPER handy at my craft/sales events, of which I have 3 coming up… come out, do some holiday shopping & try it out!

UPDATE: A lot of people have been asking me about Square, and it was interesting to see the commentary on this TechCrunch article, so I wanted to add a little more to this post. Specifically about how Square has made a difference in my business so far.

In the last two years doing events – selling my WilloToons t-shirts, baby gifts, jewelry & cards at craft & music festivals around the country – I’ve been able to take credit cards, but I had to do it the old fashioned way. At first I actually had to manually write down CC numbers, but then finally got myself a fancy “knucklebuster” (see photo). So while those are handy to quickly get the card number, thing is I still had to hand enter all those credit card numbers in after the event – making the post-show work even more laborious (the time saving aspect is HUGE).

Now, not only do I have to manually jot down the CIN (Card Identification Number on the back), or handle that clunky knucklebuster, but I also don’t have to take down the customer’s phone number for the off chance that the credit card transaction didn’t go through when I finally got around to processing them one by one (via PayPal’s Virtual Terminal) later that night or the next day. More importantly, there’s not paper lying around anywhere with my customer’s full credit card & contact information on it. I always keep it safe, but still – such an outdated and unnecessary risk… whenever any buyer requested a copy, I would warn them to keep it safe or scratch out their info just in case.

Another cool thing is that customers are happy to provide their email addresses for a receipt. Which, beyond the futuristic novelty, is also way more eco-friendly – less paper! I recommended to the Square team that they build a newsletter/marketing authorization into that part, so that right there they can say yes or no to receiving future communications from me. At this point I can ask at each transaction, but it’s inefficient to have to make note (by hand) who has said yay or nay.

Last week I met up with Cameron & Randy (my awesome friends & Square developers), over a coffee at Blue Bottle, and I communicated that, along with a few other feature requests. The most important one, in my opinion, is having the application calculate sales tax. I cannot wait for that one! But other than those, the actual app itself is awesome. Super simple. Easy to use. Pretty. And my customers seriously love it. Seriously, it’s SUCH a hit at shows, that everyone literally oohs and aahs. Gotta love any way that makes people paying you money an even better experience! All of my other feature requests are simply focused on accessing the transaction info in a batch post event… which their working on.

Time is money, and between all my pre- & post-event preparation*, my not having to deal with entering in the credit cards manually AND know the transaction has already been approved is so key.

*In case any of you are curious… here’s what goes in to an event:

Pre-event Prep: preparing inventory bins, signage & displays, marketing the event via Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, my blog, my newsletter.

Event Day: loading up all my inventory, tables, racks, banners/signage, etc, driving to the event, setting up, selling, breaking down, packing it all back up & unloading it again.

Post-event Tasks: cleaning up/restocking inventory bins for the next event, entering the event sales into Quickbooks**, adjusting sold inventory in my online store, typing in the collected (hand-written) newsletter sign ups, and following up with any customers who have requested something custom (and/or logging their request to follow up with them when a certain style or size is back in stock). **So that the both money and the inventory is being accounted for. I usually do one invoice for the cash sales, and one for the credit card sales. This makes it easier for those transactions to reconcile/match the deposits.

All of the above is why it’s so awesome when you buy something
from an independent vendor at a local craft show! :)

It also should be noted that while I could process credit card transactions in Quickbooks on my laptop (which would be ideal, considering it would be saving one of those post event tasks), often when I’m at an event I don’t have power or wi-fi. Nor do I have the space for my laptop (most events only give vendors a ~6′x5′ space). So, my using the iPhone – that I know will last the whole day, and most all the time have a signal over the Edge or 3G network – is a total win. Also, to be honest, I actually don’t have my QB set up to process CCs just yet – I’m looking into all of that right now. I’m looking to find a provider that can give me a gateway for that AND my online store for one fee (and be able to deposit into my Chase bank account)… but that might be more info that you bargained for. ;) All the little fees related to credit card processing, in order to evaluate the competition, is so complicated.

OK, speaking of pre-event prep, I’ve gotta stop blogging and start prepping for my next event, which is tomorrow! Hope to see you Bay Area folks at one of the three holiday shows I have coming up in the next few weeks. Come say hi, and try out Square! I’ll try to have someone take pics & a video of it in action for those of you who aren’t local.

Thanks for reading all of the above, and if anyone out there is a business owner with advice/feedback/questions/comments on any of the above, I’d love to hear them. Leave a comment on this post, or contact me directly. Also, if you have a minute, I’d love it if you’d click this banner below & help WilloToons win a small business grant.

Photo credit: The photo used on the Square site was taken by my friend, Randy Reddig (@rr), who also is one of the talented brains behind Square!