NFIB

A Passion for Business
04/ 01/ 2002

by Lisa Waddle
You've heard it before: do what you love and you'll love what you do.

Harder than it sounds, perhaps, but small business owners are increasingly turning their passions into professions. It's estimated that 60 percent of the 898,000 new small businesses started in 1998 were based on hobbies or personal interests, a record number.

It's no stretch to see why. Technology makes it possible to launch a home-based business with little overhead, and entrepreneurs who left corporate America know the importance of believing in - and enjoying - what you do for a living.

So what does it take to successfully make money from a hobby or pastime? MyBusiness talked to four entrepreneurs about how they turned dreams into a livelihood.

A Knead to Bake
To some, Gordon Sparber's was a dream job: getting paid to write about classical music for the Winston-Salem Journal newspaper in North Carolina. But while listening to Bach, Sparber was thinking about brioche.

So on Labor Day 1997, Sparber quit his job as the paper's music critic, walking away from a 20-year career as a music journalist. His new profession: baking bread at his own bakery.

The only obstacles were that Sparber knew nothing about running a business, couldn't convince a bank to lend him money and couldn't afford an ideal bakery location. Those three strikes would be discouraging, or at least frightening, for most. But not Sparber, who had an intense interest in food preparation and loved making crusty European-style bread.

"I just decided to take the plunge," Sparber says of handing in his resignation. "There wasn't a whole lot of fear involved. The only way to make something new appear in your life is to make a place for it."

It took almost a year of research and work, as well as help from friends, before Ollie's Bakery opened in August of 1998. Ollie is Sparber's dog, sometimes found on the bakery's wood deck. Besides loaves, Ollie's offers breakfast treats such as muffins, scones, pound cakes and coffee.

Sparber credits luck and timing for the small business development loan from the city of Winston-Salem that made Ollie's a reality, and the fact that he found a landlord willing to renovate a 2,000-square-foot former factory outlet store. Today, Ollie's is profitable and about to expand its mostly take-away sales into wholesale contracts with restaurants and grocery stores.

"My strength is the product," Sparber says. "I know and care most about baking the bread."

Initially, Sparber was the chief mixer and bread baker, with two other employees to help with selling. He worked from 4:30 a.m.-7 p.m. six days a week, then did bookkeeping on Sunday. Now with 12 employees, his schedule has eased a bit, although it's still constant.

"I was fully prepared for the strenouous hours and am still here seven days a week," Sparber says. "But I like being here. This is my home now."

Grounded in Music
Wayne Erbsen's zeal for traditional American music goes back 30 years, to when he learned to play the banjo and mandolin on the West Coast.

"Music has such a story to tell, and I've always been interested in the ties between music and folklore," says Erbsen, a college professor who never thought he could make a living at his passion.

"I got a master's degree in American history, figuring teaching would be my profession and music would be my avocation," he says.

Today his company, Native Ground Music, brings in over $200,000 in annual revenue, selling books and CDs of music traditional to the Civil War, the old West, Appalachia and railroads.

He expanded his hobby into a business gradually, supporting himself and his family with stints teaching and selling real estate. In 1994, he decided to commit to making a living recording and writing about the historical music he loved.

"I wasn't cut out for real estate, although I did pretty good at it," Erbsen says. "I decided if I put the same amount of hard work and determination into my own thing as I did in showing other people property, I could do well."

He was right. His home-based business offers 21 cassettes and CDs, 13 music and folklore books and 10 instruction books. Titles range from Southern Mountain Classics, to Outlaw Ballads, Legends and Lore. All are available at his web site, http:// www.circle.net/nativeground, as well as at gift shops nationwide. Native Ground, based in Asheville, N.C., can also be reached at 1-800-752-2656.

Erbsen has recorded and written almost everything he sells. He admits Native Ground could expand faster if he became a publisher of other's music and writings, but he doesn't want to give up his artistic control.

"It's exciting, because I can think of an idea and I can make it happen," he says. "It would be easier for me to hang up my banjo and expand quicker by publishing other musicians. It's tempting, but at heart, I'm an artist, not a manager."

And Erbsen's passion and knowledge for the items that he sells translates into superior customer service.

"I'm tied to my products," Erbsen says. "I've put my heart and soul into my product and it means so much more to me when someone calls me, I can say, 'I wrote the book and I sang the songs, how can I help you?'"

Wild About Flowers
Deb Edlhuber has always taken time to smell the flowers.

Yet it wasn't until starting her seed company Prairie Frontier that she realized how eager others were to not only smell, but grow flowers. Now annual revenues for the seven-year-old company are about $75,000.

"I've loved wildflowers for over 20 years, they've been a part of my life," says the stay-at-home mother of four.

When a tornado destroyed the woods at her family's Wisconsin farm 10 years ago, Edlhuber began photographing and saving seeds from the wildflowers that grew in the storm-cleared field. In 1992 she started selling the seeds wholesale to local garden centers. But it was when she put her photos on her own web page, http://www.prairiefrontier.com, three years ago that sales really took off.

"I didn't go online to sell, I went online to get information on wildflowers out," Edlhuber says. "But I got so many requests for catalogs and seeds, I kept offering more online."

Now retail makes up more of Prairie Frontier's sales than wholesale, and Edlhuber spends much of every day answering email and packaging orders. It's a one-woman operation, with help from her husband and occasionally one of her daughters.

"It's a lot of work, but it's so fulfilling," Edlhuber says. "I've learned so much and I just enjoy talking to people about wildflowers, no matter where they are."

She's had requests from scientists, museums and schools for pictures and information on her flowers. Quite a self-esteem boost for a woman who didn't go to college and is a self-taught businesswoman and webmaster.

"I've always felt kind of like the underdog, because I didn't have any training," Edlhuber says. "It's so rewarding to present something that people think is worth something."

It's through the online portion of her business, which has grown through requests from customers, that Edlhuber has gotten the most satisfaction.

"With wholesalers, we'd drop the seeds off and that would be it," said Edlhuber. "I enjoy the online part because even though I don't physically see the customers, I have contact with them and feel I'm helping them more."

Nothing to Sneeze At
Some might say that Deborah Parrish lives and breathes her business.

Diagnosed 10 years ago with allergies, her search for ways to reduce exposure to dust and mold led to the launch of Priorities, which sells allergy relief products such as mite-proof pillow cases and air filters, as well as her own line of shampoos, laundry detergent and baby items.

Priorities was born out of Parrish's personal quest for allergy relief. She had a hard time finding products that worked, and when she did, her quality of life improved so dramatically she wanted to share her discoveries.

"Only after the fact did I come to understand the potential market for the products," Parrish says. Research has shown that 34 percent of the U.S. population suffers from allergies or asthma and it's on the increase.

Getting Priorities started meant leaving a 10-year career as a marketing executive at Digital Equipment Corp. "I liked my job and was very successful," she says. "But I didn't have the passion I do for this." Parrish started by dropping off catalogs at allergists' offices. Now Priorities products are found online, at http://www.priorities.com, through the mail, on television shopping channels and in retail stores such as Bed, Bath and Beyond. Revenues this year are projected to be over $10 million.

Started in 1994 out of her Framingham, Mass. home, Parrish's business now has close to 30 employees. She will soon complete her first round of equity financing, bringing in between $5 million-$7 million to re-launch her web site, develop online partnerships and increase distribution through drugstores and mass market retailers.

"This is an opportunity for me to do what I love, do what I know, and leverage my marketing skills," Parrish says.

Her belief and first-hand experience in the preventative treatment of allergies has redefined work for Parrish.

"I do not have to go through my day and wonder about balance, which is an issue for people who have an artificial delineation between work and life," Parrish says. "This is a personal journey for me as much as a business. It can still get exhausting, working seven days a week, but when you love what you do it's worth it."

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