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Hoosier Momma visits Ivy Tech campus to speak about starting a small business
Hard work is what it's about when starting a small business according to Erin Edds, founder of Hoosier Momma LLC., who spoke at Ivy Tech Community College on Wednesday evening as part of the Ivy Tech Business and Entrepreneurial Services Center 2013 Speaker Series.
Edds spoke about how Hoosier Momma got its jumpstart after a phone call from a New York event planner led to her Indiana-based product being distributed during the 2010 Super Bowl in Indianapolis.
Edds, a former Ivy Tech Community College student, originally went to school to study musical theater. At the time her mother had a culinary business and in her eyes, she did not want to follow her mother's footsteps.
"You rebel against what your parents do," explained Edds. "(After years of odd jobs) it always went back to culinary."
In May 2008 Edds started a culinary company with her sister, Country Mouse City Mouse. At the time of the phone call the event planner was looking for something that would be able to be put in gift baskets. However, Edds' business did not carry products that could be shelved.
"The chance of missing an opportunity was not something that Edds wanted to see happen. As she began to think of ideas, she thought about a Bloody Mary mix she had made a month earlier for an open house for Heartland Distillers.
After perfecting a Bloody Mary mix, which was vegan and gluten free, she sent two boxes to New York and sold the rest at a farmers market. The product sold like crazy.
"I had some left over so I decided to sell it to my customers at farmers markets," Edds said. "They started coming back and wanting more and restaurants started calling and I said to myself 'I'm going to have to make this stuff again.'"
The appearance, which Edds calls a "happy accident," launched her career so quickly it was a struggle to keep up.
After having several retail establishments call her in regard to the mix, Edds decided that she needed help with the packaging process.
After receiving her first 30 cases, they sold out in two weeks. She then increased the order to 90 cases and those too sold out in two weeks.
"During this time I had a really honest conversation with myself about my skill set," explained Edds. "I'm not someone that has a classic business background. I was lucky enough to have my husband who had gone to college with a woman who had a very successful business. We just happened to bump into her and her husband one night and we gave them some Hoosier Momma. Her husband called the following day and said 'we need to talk.' It was a very obvious fit from early on that we needed to work together."
Edds formally launched Hooiser Momma LLC in July 2010. Edds maintained the face of the company.
"We took into consideration our goals, growth strategies and skill sets," explained Edds. "To be really honest with each other from the very beginning was really important to us."
The company decided early on that their goal was slow and sustained growth. Keeping their eye on the prize.
From the beginning Edds stated that they took the social media role very seriously in the early years.
"It was hard for me to remember that I was Hoosier Momma first and Erin second," Edds said. "We then had to look at our personal accounts and think about our public persona. That was hard. It took some time for us to really get comfortable with the fact that we were becoming more and more public figures."
When Hoosier Momma finally got into distribution, one of their first challenges was designing a logo. The previous logo had a pin-up girl, which was taken from a website that was public domain. Hoosier Momma needed a logo that was all its own.
"First thing we had to do was come up with a logo that was ours," Edds. "We hired a graphic designer. When we switched over to this (the new logo) we had about 60 accounts."
Her advice about competitiors, is to make them her best friend.
"I'm friends with the owners, we talk about marketing strategies," explained Edds. "We're not doing it because we love each other. We're trying to make sure that one of us doesn't get ahead of the other one."
Some companies however, are not so friendly. Edds told the audience not to obsess over it, you have to just look at the situations and see what can be taken from it, how can you grow and what kind of marketing strategies can be used.
With the new logo, the company began to grow at rapid speed. Due to the success of the company, some hard changes had to be made to remain competitive and stay relevant.
With major success came a lot of criticism. However, Hoosier Momma had its own way of doing things and they kept true to themselves.
"Hoosier Momma's a different animal and we're going to do things a little bit differently," Edds said. "Nobody is writing a Kelley School of Business model book on how we run anything. But, just because someone tells you that's not the way you do it doesn't mean that it won't work."
One of the major hurdles the company came across as it grew was the bottling, which was glass. Edds was told that bottles were so heavy they were breaking in transit and needed to be switched to plastic. So, with that Edds went for a vintage-vibe milk bottle, which was plastic.
"I'm a farmers market brand," Edds said. "The bottle looks kind of vintage and Indiana-centric."
The company switched to plastic in May of 2012. With this new change came even more vendors looking to sell Hoosier Momma product lines, which are now sold in more than 900 locations in six states. All in less than three years.
Many may look at Edds and think she has it made. However, as a smart business woman, she made it her goal within the first five years to promote as much as possible. Hoosier Momma is doing this through sponsorships, all of which cost a lot of money.
Currently, Hoosier Momma is a sponsor of the Indianapolis Colts, Indy Car and the Kentucky Derby. Edds stated that she still is working as a bartender and a server. Not because the company isn't making money, but because they are continuing to reinvest that money.
"It's been worth absolutely every penny. I haven't taken a dime out of the company since January of last year," Edds said. "The only thing that's going to make you successful in business at the end of the day is passion, drive, hard work and sacrifice. Being a small business owner is not easy, it does not happen over night. If you can persevere through it the rewards are exponential."