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Drum Roll: Entrepreneurship By Way Of The Internet
Who needs bricks and mortar to start a business when you've got the World Wide Web?
by Mary Welch
October 21, 2008
J
ennifer Fallon concedes she got too bogged down in the minutiae of her wedding.
Was it too much to ask for party favors that were practical, useful and memorable? "All I
could find were plastic baskets to put colored almonds in," she recalls. "We had a garden wedding,
and I wanted something garden-related, and I couldn't find anything. I concentrated on the little
things rather than the big picture."
Eventually she found
and used as party favors pewter antique car place holders that mirrored the vintage Rolls-Royce
that she and her husband drove off in after the wedding - and her dream wedding was saved.
And from that frustrating search for party favors came the idea for Kate Aspen, a company
that designs, manufactures and sells favors for weddings and other events. It seems there was an
untapped market for party favors. Today Fallon is founder and CEO of Aspen Brands Co., which will
post sales of more than $22 million this year - and the company is only 5 years old.
It goes back to her wedding in 2003 to search-engine optimization consultant Brad Fallon.
She selected "the perfect outdoors venue, but I couldn't afford it. I don't believe in roadblocks."
She worked a deal with the owner that she would market the venue online in exchange for a price
within her budget. She started Atlanta Magical Wedding, an online wedding site and marketed the
venue. It was booked a year out within no time.
"That was the point where I realized that there was nothing I couldn't do and the power of
the Internet," she says. "I came back from my wedding and my inner entrepreneur came out."
Fallon had a degree in communications from Florida State University and several years in
corporate sales under her belt with Johnson & Johnson and Westlaw. She realized there was a
market of brides just like her who wanted practical, memorable party favors at a good price. Using
the profits from her online wedding site, in 2004 she launched Kate Aspen, a Web-based retail
outlet selling party favors. "I learned how to use key words to attract people to the site. I never
thought it would really take off. But we sold beautiful favors at a price point of less than $3. If
you're buying favors for 150 guests, you are looking at the price."
She went to the Atlanta gift mart looking for items that could be used as favors but weren't
marketed as such. She sold the items under the name Kate Aspen Inc.
"There is no Kate Aspen," she says. "I thought the name Kate sounded like the girl next
door, and Aspen just had an exciting sophistication to it. It's just a good fictional name."
She also realized that she would have to supply the market she was creating with a variety
of products, themes and designs. She ordered products from China but had trouble with back orders
and quality. Through networking, she found someone who grew up in China. "I showed her a drawing of
a favor I wanted and asked if she could find someone in China who could make it. She came back with
five different versions of it from five different manufacturers. Wow!"
She now manufactures her items in China but recalls it was a struggle in the beginning.
"There's a lot to learn and a lot of trust issues," she says. "Quality was a big issue, but once
you've established who you are and develop that trust, everything falls into place. We wasted so
much inventory in the beginning."
She has learned to be "very specific" with her Chinese manufacturers. "We tell them exactly
what we want, exactly the color, exactly the size. We draw the item on all four sides. I used to
say I needed a favor in a wedding dress, and it'd come back in a tuxedo. I mean really, really
specific. You have to make certain they understand you are not going to sacrifice quality."
Her small wedding online
store found its market and she now offers more than 360 different items. In 2004, retail sales hit
$1 million and a year later, after sales were in the $7 million range, she opened a line of credit
to help fund the growth. Within two years, it was ringing up sales in the eight figures and she
expanded her line to include favors for all of life's special events, including baby showers,
graduations, anniversaries, baptisms, Sweet 16, Quinceanera and girls' night-out parties.
Just as her wedding was the impetus for her original company, her pregnancy was the
inspiration for her second. In 2007 she founded Baby Aspen, which designs and manufactures baby
shower favors. A year later, she expanded into gifts derived from nursery rhyme themes.
Her business is now established. She has more than 60 employees, and she is moving into a
7,600-square-foot warehouse in Duluth. "We've gone from shipping 50 boxes a day to 1,000 every day.
Originally our warehouse was my dad's spare bedroom. A few years ago we were literally taking the
orders off the fax machine ourselves and then packing the boxes. We exceeded our capacity and had
to deal with it. We have gotten our shipping down so that we can process orders within two to three
days."
Even though most of her sales are still through the Internet - either her site or the sites
of bridal shops - she realizes she needs to be in "more brick and mortar places." She is working
creative deals so that wedding and gift shops can show brides and wedding planners her line of
party favors and then order from her rather than have the stores stock the products. "I've hired a
national account manager, and I'm excited because we are going to be in some big national stores as
well."
Also on deck are plans to go international, with the United Kingdom and Australia tops on
her to-go list.
Fallon says she never expected her business to resonate so much with her market. "People
really do want to give out something that's practical and will help their friends remember their
special day. We do heart-shaped bottle stoppers or heart-shaped salt and pepper shakers. We've
introduced In Favor of a Cure and the Pink Ribbon Favor Collection, a series of favors designed to
benefit women's health-related charities. We're doing favors with plant seeds so that guests can
plant flowers. Very creative."
Fallon promises that there will be more excitement to come from her company. With so much on
the planning board and her company thriving, Fallon says she sees "no roadblocks to stop us from
growing and growing."
There is one slight bump, however. The mother of 2-year-old twins says, "I'm very tired!"
