October 11, 2011
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Refinancing her building to generate cash and befriending too many employees were just two of the mistakes made by serial entrepreneur, Melody Biringer.
“My motto is ‘fail fast,'” said Biringer, a self-proclaimed ‘start up junkie’ who has invested about $1 million of her own money in 21 failed ventures over the last 30 years.
After much heartbreak and financial collapse, she finally hit on a winning concept based on helping entrepreneurs succeed by avoiding making all the mistakes she’s made.
The Crave Company, based in Seattle, publishes 31 glossy city guides featuring profiles and color photos of women-owned businesses. Most of the companies featured in the books are spas, retail shops, beauty salons and fitness companies.
Even her biggest success had a bumpy start. She said she lost money on her first Seattle guide by publishing it without a profitable distribution strategy. Now, every business featured in every Crave guide commits to buying 50 copies at $10 each. Those funds more than cover Biringer’s production costs.
In addition to publishing the city guides, The Crave Co. publishes an e-newsletter, hosts events and monthly Crave ‘chats’ for women business owners who pay about $20 each to attend. Her company also recently published Biringer’s practical and readable book, Craving Success, co-authored by Sally Reavis. The book features the top 10 lessons learned from all her failures, including “flip it.”
“When your business concept is not working, it might be time to flip your model upside down, inside out or sideways—think about doing the exact opposite of what you’ve been doing,” said Biringer, who has been in business since she was eight years-old.
Her first venture was selling lemonade to workers on her family’s strawberry farm in Marysville, Washington. She quickly recruited her younger cousins to help out, realizing she liked being in charge. After graduating from high school, she fell in love with a furniture maker and they opened a furniture store. She closed that business when they split up.
Biringer admits she’s made many mistakes through the years, but her biggest blooper was refinancing the 10,000 square-foot building she built in Marysville for $800,000. The building housed her biggest venture, a gourmet food factory and commercial bakery that made muffins and other baked goods.
When a real estate appraiser valued her building at $1.2 million, she refinanced it and spent about $400,000 expanding her line of gourmet food products which were mostly sold to tourists through gift shops around the country. Unfortunately, soon after she expanded operations, terrorists attacked America on Sept. 11, 2001. Millions of tourists stopped traveling, effectively killing her business. She was forced to sell the building to avoid foreclosure.
Looking back over her multiple business failures, she admits there is a theme: being busy doesn’t mean you are actually making money.
“Sometimes you are so busy, the phones are ringing and you are spending all of your time in chaos,” she said. “You don’t stop to ask yourself why am I doing this? Sometimes it takes a dramatic crash to stop and ask yourself: ‘am I actually making money?’”
Another mistake she made was repeatedly befriending key employees, counting on them to stick by her, no matter what. “But, then they would get a better job offer and leave me,” she said. “That hurt.”
Looking back, she realized that although she loves starting new ventures, she hates to be the boss. “Being a manager sometimes feels like being a babysitter and that’s not my cup of tea,” she said.
Now, she relies on handful of hourly employees and independent contractors to manage the production of the various Crave guides. Once in a while, she calls a meeting in the suburban Seattle condo that serves as her home and world headquarters.
“Right now, I’m really jazzed to have a solid, successful business model,” said Biringer, who is spending the Fall in Europe, expanding her operations abroad.
“We’re in 31 cities and I hope to expand to 40 or 50. The beauty of this business is that it combines everything I love to do and if I get bored I can start a new division, so it satisfies my startup junkie personality.”
When I asked her what advice she wished someone had given her years ago, she laughed: “That I could do everything I want to…just not all at once.”
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