Week 2 Conquer, Automation, Accelerate

This week, I submitted the trademark application for Livid Lash. It takes about three months to get a response. I have engaged with social media more. By researching how to do so, I found a calendar that gives me direction on content. Clients keep mentioning in posts that they miss Livid Lash products and services, but with the current state of the State of Michigan, salon services and products have come to a complete halt. I need to think of ways to innovate and address their concerns. I am thinking of doing some research to give them an answer and present it to them in some way remotely.

I found data from Livid Lash POS platforms to figure out my target market. It was more insightful than I originally thought it would be. The data, gave me access to every client I ever processed a payment with since 2014! I imported the client information into the website platform so that I can communicate with them about COVID-19, workshops and products through email marketing. There is still no word on when stylists can start working again, so all the products that I ordered will be DIY instead of supply based.

The pilot marketing that I executed for my online workshop so far has resulted in unfavorable results. Jeff told me that I needed a 2% conversion rate with my Facebook and IG ads. I only sold one workshop and that lead came from a person who was interested before, but probably jumped on the opportunity from seeing the promotion of the online workshop. The promotion began on May 6th and received 13 likes, 0 comments and 1 bookmark. It reached 14,479 people, 99% weren’t following me and 97% came from the promotion. I may want to look into a funnel advertising expert. Jeff suggested that I use an ad that says “This is why this online course will make you more money. Learn how to do lashes and not get sued. Learn how to turn followers into money, etc...”.

I am researching two accelerators: Automation Alley and MSU’s Conquer.  The Automation Alley accelerator has more of a digital focus and MSU’s Conquer seems to be a general entrepreneur and innovation accelerator. Since Livid Lash is going digital, I think that I will find useful information as to how the accelerators help companies with digital transformation. MSU’s Conquer accelerator appears to be within the MSU network, and I can learn about how universities help using their own academic network.

The SBA asked me to submit documents that I have submitted at least three times before, but I did so again. I met with Jeff May 8th and we heavily revised the Lean Canvas. To better understand the problems. I worked on the “Five Whys” so that I could better reiterate the source of the problem section. Some of my inputs for the sections on the Canvas didn’t make sense, so I had to revise them to better explain them. Jeff suggested that I investigate data from my POS platform questionnaires for some customer discovery and reach out to clients for feedback.

Progress during prior week

• Submitted trademark application

• Increased social media engagement

• Researched Livid Lash revenue data (PayPal, Square and Acuity), Integrated client info from platforms

• Researched Automation Alley and MSU’s Conquer accelerators

• Resubmitted SBA PPP Loan documentation

• Revised Lean Canvas based on the critiques of Jeff Ponders

Plans for the coming week

• Increase social media engagement

• Assess the results from marketing pilot

• Address customer concerns simultaneously with customer discovery

• Write and finalize paper from the two accelerators researched

• Make Lean Canvas revisions (add tags to align segments, problem and solution section should be dictated in the voice of the consumer or service providers
  

Questions/Issues/Concerns/Observations

I have a lot of tasks and I need to figure out how to “kill several birds with one stone”. 

I am worried that the SBA Loan is going nowhere after several re-submissions of the same documentation.