What is the learning curve?

Learning curves are formidable thing to deal with. When you approach something new you do not, or can not possibly know all of the questions to ask, or fathom all of the details that you need to absorb. We all face that, whether it is new processes at our job, or a technically demanding new software. Sometimes its something simple like learning the nuances of change of our new cell phone. Learning curves happen, but the good news is when you learn them, you are golden.

When we made our first batches of soap in the summer of 2010 we really did not think about all of the details we would learn – whether just complying with federal guidelines for soap manufacture, or all the details our business would come to include.

Here are a few things we had to learn and work through:

• Where do we buy supplies ? when you start a business you have to find adequite supplies at a reasonable price. Our first purchase of supplies was very expensive, and not sustainable.
• What all is needed to operate a business? Business license, insurance, a good accounting program, and a good tax accountant, llegal help to become incorporated in some fashion.
• Business Insurance – selling soap should not be high risk, but we were certainly comforted to have business insurance when a customer called us to ask if our soap would hurt her dog. Apparently the dog ate a bar of soap. (Thankfully no great danger, it acted only as a laxitive which kept the dog busy cleaning out )
• Finding our tribe – it took a bit to find out who our customers are, and where they hang out… its always great to be able to make things that connect with people and are products they will come back for more.

Learning curves can be steep, or almost non existant… but this is a great age where the answers to everything are at our finger tips. If you are stuck, puzzled, or having an issue with your business look around, and reach out to someone else that is running a business.