Starting With....Nothing

I had to begin from scratch.

I knew absolutely nothing about soapmaking, so the Internet and the bookstore quickly became my friend. I am not certain why I developed a passion for this so quickly, but once I molded my first bars, I was hooked. I come from parents who were business owners.

My parents owned a chain of drycleaning stores in Washington, D.C., and I spend my life around people who owned their own business. But business even 20 years ago is markedly different from today. My father never fell into the trap of needing the "hot, new thing" to prove he was successful. In fact, it was only after his manual cash register finally died, did he turn to a computerized model. It served as a constant source of frustration for him.

Almost until he died, he and mother tabulated their payroll by hand. Every Tuesday, my mother carefully wrote out payroll checks for each employee and stuffing them into envelopes. For the freelance or independent contractors, they just gave them cash. Most of the record books were the black and white marbled composition books that the school kids carried. Mom would draw columns in them and they worked as well as anything they could buy from the printer.

Without the advantage of the Internet, Daddy would troll the button store for exactly the right zipper or button to fix the trousers entrusted to him for repair. And he would never settle for "close enough" - it had to be exact. I learned from that lesson - that quality is not easy. There is a price for convenience.

Despite her troubles and bad press, I still consider Martha Stewart the epitomy of the kitchen table entrepreneur. I have been reading her book, "The Martha Rules" and something that she wrote struck me. "If you happen to know a most determined woman cooking away in her kitchen, don't underestimate what she may be cooking up." How true.

For the past two years, I have been trying to come up with a formula for the perfect home-based business - something that would allow me to spend quality time with my son and still make a few bucks. I also needed something that would fuel my creativity.

That was an aspect of myself that I had lost in the long decade over which I had taken care of my ill mother. I spent so much time considering whether she had everything she needed that I put aside the things I liked to do. Making soaps came as an easy and interesting hobby. But I quickly discovered that this was something that people loved. A little treasure that made their day a little brighter. It made me happy. My son was proud that his Mom was doing something none of the other Moms did. And my clients (I call them clients, rather than customers because they are that important to me) appreciated a handcrafted item that they could use or give as a gift.

When time came for me to begin refining my idea, I had to sit down with a notebook and begin really looking at my product, defining what I wanted it to look like, and what message I wanted my company to convey. I needed a company identity. So I thought about when was the happiest moment of my life. It was when I took my son to the beach and he saw the ocean for the very first time, how we would sit on the balcony of our hotel room and watch the sun come up in the morning - what he would later tell me was his most favorite time at the beach. The ocean. The Bay. We're Marylanders...so it came easy.

I am still learning and when you're in business, I guess you always are. But the best lesson I learned from my folks is that when you're starting with nothing, you don't have to go out and buy everything to make it work.

Kathy A. Gambrell,
Founder
ChesapeakeBayBathandBody.com