One Spark Client Interview: Old Maid Cat Lady #20158

Old Maid Cat Lady has been a long time client at the FSBDC. The owner Lynn Thompson, has an amazing website and seeks to take her line of offerings to the next level via One Spark. We caught up to her at the Landing.

Describe your creator idea.

My project is way beyond the idea phase; I've been operating this online department store for cats and cat lovers for the past four years! It goes beyond a normal e-commerce site in that it's also a resource for cat owners. Cats are often misunderstood, so I try to help people understand feline needs and how to provide for them so they can live more harmoniously together. The project I'm presenting for One Spark is to get funding for expansion of my team by two people: one to help with operations work, and the other to focus solely on SEO. That should free me up to do more marketing and outreach.

Why one spark?

I knew last year that I needed to do a project for One Spark, but was not sure exactly how to make it apply to my business. The impact of this event, and its potential to raise awareness of OldMaidCatLady.com were just too much to resist. So I attended last year to get ideas, read through the material about how to become a Creator, and figured out a way to present a project that would fit within their parameters and still give me something I needed.

How is One Spark going so far?

Traffic was slow the first few days where I'm located, which is a bit out of the main traffic flow. But the crowds picked up a lot on Day 4. Lots more people stopped by and not only voted for me, but took one of my brochures and said they'd be checking out my site. So it should lead to increased sales for me.

What is next after One Spark?

I spoke with a guy who said they're holding an event soon to match up Creators with investors, and I'll look into that. The leader of my peer-to-peer mentoring group also told me she wants to put me in touch with some venture capitalists she knows who may be a good fit. I have taken this retail site as far as I can by myself, so my team definitely needs to expand, and it's not even making enough now to pay my bills, so an injection of capital is definitely needed. Until that comes, I'll continue doing as much as I can alone, continually tweaking and improving the site, processing and following up on orders.

Location: The Landing, 2nd floor #20158

Lynn Maria Thompson
Author - Speaker - Editor
President, Thompson Writing & Editing, Inc.

Proprietor, OldMaidCatLady.com

Neptune Beach, Florida
www.thompsonwriting.com

www.oldmaidcatlady.com

Phone (904) 242-0054
Cell (904) 955-2367
Fax (904) 458-8021
E-mail lynn@thompsonwriting.com

Follow me on Twitter @gatorlynn and @OldMaidCatLady