So what would a new studio need? A new snazzy desk of course that has oh so much space for computers, cameras etc. We’re all about projects especially when it involves wood staining. There’s just something about the look, the smell…no judgement.

Pinterest is a great place to get some ideas or at least your juices flowing for your own projects and that’s exactly where we were inspired to build our L shaped desk. What we found was actually a just a long and straight desk but we had the room to extend and use up a corner in the studio area.

Here’s the inspiration:

We first built the box stands. We just used plywood from Lowe’s and sanded it down where it’s perfectly smooth to touch.

Measure your opening size and slide in where you want your shelf to be and boom. We added some thicker boards to the bottom for extra stability and height.

We took guerilla marketing to a whole new level. We threw in a bigfoot to make things interesting…

I’ve had a large amount of people ask me, “What made you decide to use a bigfoot to market Business Beware?!” It’s simple. I knew I needed something tangible and that people could “see” since BB is a service and not a product to put into someone’s hand.

Marketing and advertising companies want a lot of money to create large campaigns while promising they will make you the next big thing. Not all, but 97% of them just want your money. Just being real here… Like most startups and small businesses, we didn’t have a large marketing budget. We actually didn’t have ANY budget to be honest with you. We just went the word of mouth route and reached out to friends to help spread the word. I had reached out to a few different advertising companies to see what their fees were for some ideas I had but each were about $5,000+ I knew that we were capable of pulling something off that could not only reach people, but make them laugh too.

A few months ago when the whole thing happened with Obama talking about how small businesses “didn’t build that,” fiasco, I started scanning Twitter and business owners fired back across the boards. I was taken back with how many people were letting him know what they thought about his comment. I was taken back in a good way…

Business owners have been put in the backseat with just about everything in this society. As I’ve gotten older and really seen the other side of what it takes to run a business, I see how so many out there work hard but never have a voice . We only see the flashy things in front of us as in the big companies like Apple, Google, Wal-Mart etc. Most large companies have great compelling stories of how they started but they are told over and over. It’s almost like a new song that gets overplayed on the radio, you finally get to the point where you tune it out over time because you’re tired of hearing it. There are so many stories out there whether they’re in small towns, a startup trying to make a name for themselves or someone who is dropping out of the corporate to pursue their dreams.

I was speaking with someone the other day about our mission with IAmAMomandPop.com and they said to me, “I started my first business when I was 15 and I’ve heard stories all of my life but if you didn’t bring these to light, nobody would ever know about them.” It’s so very true. Even though we launched this project just a few months ago, we have a long way to go and oh so many stories to share with you from people across the country.

Have a story you want to share? Send it to iamamomandpop(at)gmail.com

This is one story you don’t want to miss and you might want a few tissues on hand too…

Dear Jacob…

I always had this dream of playing major league baseball and having the crowd cheer for me as get up to bat. That dream was shattered my first week in the minor leagues after I was in a car accident that caused my right leg to be amputated. I was completely crushed because I saw my dream slip away right in front of me.

The entire rehab I was angry and didn’t care to talk about anything related to sports or that related to any type of happy thoughts. One day I was sitting there in the rehab area taking a break and this little boy comes in there that was missing both legs but the only thing I noticed about him was the large smile he had on his face. For some reason I could not stop staring at him and his smile was so contagious that I had to at least nod at him while smiling back.

A few minutes went by and he rolled over to me in his wheelchair and said:

Boy: “Why are you so sad?”

Me: “How did you know that I was sad when you don’t even know me?”

Boy: “Your eyes told me a story.”