In this module, you will learn about defining your online business, opening a business bank account, the value of customers, branding your business and differentiating you from your competitors. Learning Objectives ________________________________________ • Discern between a product, service, subscription and content business • Choose a good domain name • Define the steps to open a bank account What's included 21 videos 12 readings 4 quizzes

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Welcome to launch your online business. Launching an online business or moving your existing business online is a very exciting adventure. My name is Joan DeCollibus, and I'll be your teacher for the lessons to come. I studied graphic design in college and started my career as a producer designer of meetings and events for corporate clients. My team and I would create visuals to support corporate business meetings that could span for days. In the beginning of my career, back in the '80s, all of the artwork I created was done on a drawing board by hand using film and photography and slide projection. In the 1990s, personal computers were invented and seemingly overnight we began to create all of our art and design work on the computer. As I gained more and more skills in computer graphics and interactive animation, it occurred to me and two of my friends, Glenn and David, that we could start our own business. With our small investment of $15,000 and a handful of clients, we rented an office in Boston and hired an intern. With the help of a lawyer, we incorporated our name, Planet Interactive Inc. and drew up a partnership agreement. What I distinctly remember is we did not do a business plan. Ouch. I really recommend doing a business plan. So before we signed the lease, we did a rough estimate of what we thought each of our clients would and could pay us for the year and we added that up. The numbers look good, so we took the plunge. Back in the early '90s, very few people had our skills. We had a very unique offering, digital media or designed, delivered digitally, not through print. Through our existing clients and word of mouth, we have a steady stream of business. I develop my product line in 2017 and launched online using Shopify in 2018. I named the company Rubina.NYC. The name became part of my brand story. Rubina means redhead in Italian a node to my heritage and my little dog and fit model Ruby is a red poodle. I'll circle back to my business as we go along. Launch an online business is a 16 lesson course. Most of our lessons we'll have a quiz, a student activity, and an assignment. You'll gain an understanding of different business models so that you can pick yours. I'll cover naming strategies for your business, as well as creating customer personas. We'll go through steps for creating your brand and how to develop a unique value proposition or your UVP for your business. I'll share the steps you need to take to launch your web site and production do's and don'ts for copy-writing and photography. I'll cover a pre-launch checklist and website maintenance and some of the basics of marketing, advertising, and PR. As the course goes along, you'll take what you're learning and create a pitch deck about your business that you share with potential partners, investors, or team members. Let's get started. What kind of business do you want to launch and what will you name it? Creating an online business presence is good for business. When we need something, what's the first thing that we do? We either ask a friend or search online. If our friends don't have an answer, Google usually does. Your online presence will provide your customers information about your business and it will help build your brand and generate revenue. There are many business models for online businesses. To find the right one, you need to ask yourself, will my business be a service, product, subscription or content business. Let's go over the different types to help you understand which type makes sense for you. A service business is where you have a service to sell and will collect a payment for this service on your website. Examples of services could be a salon, a spar, coaching, tutoring, elder or pet care, online therapy, yoga class. The important distinction to make here is that you are selling a service, not a product. You may have an existing brick and mortar business that sells anything from laundry to manicure services, and you want to bring it online. Once your business is online, your customers can book and pay for their service through your e-commerce platform using a touchless checkout process. This will provide a safe and easy way for you to check them out. With online payments, you can charge clients without having a face-to-face interaction, and the exchange of credit cards, checks, or cash. Let's look at a few examples of service businesses. The Art Studio founded by Rebecca Schweiger is a Manhattan-based business that offers art classes at their brick and mortar studio or online. You can browse through classes and pay online. Dirty Gloves based in the Bronx is a business that lets you schedule an appointment to have your drain cleaned and you can pay online, and RuffCity founded by Heather and Stacia is a Manhattan-based dog walking service. Because pet care is a bit more high-touch, they have an orientation process where you meet your dog walker before you sign up and pay online. So let's move on to product businesses. If you have a grocery store or a restaurant, those are product businesses because you are selling a product like a pound of butter or a hamburger. Other types of product businesses include apparel, home goods, garden, health-related, auto or pet products. Again the list is endless. Your company may be in the business of selling products you design and manufacture like my company Refina, or you could be selling products that you are buying wholesale and selling on your site. Let's look at some examples. Absolute Trophies based in Queens sells all sorts of trophies that you can have customized and purchase online. Ojala Threads founded by Ramona Ferreyra in the South Bronx has built a product business that's also very involved with the community. They have a line of apparel inspired by Hispanic heritage that you can buy online. Harlem Heirloom founded by Jammie Waldron in Harlem offers customers handmade soy candles. Another model for online businesses is subscription-based model. In this case, a subscription could be for either a service or a product. Subscription businesses require the customer to sign up for products or services they receive or have access to either monthly or yearly. An early example of a subscription service is Birchbox, founded in Manhattan by Hayley Barna and Katia Beauchamp where customers pay a monthly fee and receive a box of beauty product samples. Another example of a subscription business is Blue Apron, also started in Manhattan. They deliver the ingredients for customers to cook meals at home. Barkbox started by Carly Strife in Manhattan delivers dog owners a monthly goodie box filled with dog treats, dog toys, and other dog products that fit in the box. It's like Birchbox, but for dogs. The last online business category we'll cover is a content business. These online businesses create content that is curated to an audience that has shared interests. It's like a magazine, and the businesses make their money through advertising dollars. For example, PureWow founded by Ryan Harwood in Manhattan caters to a millennial female audience that likes to read about fashion, beauty, family, recipes, and home. The businesses articles may include branded content, meaning content that features a certain product. The product is talked about in a natural way so that readers don't feel like they're being advertised to. Rather they feel like they're getting an inside scoop on what they wanted to learn anyway. Pure Wow has many competitors like Bustle and PopSugar, all in the beauty lifestyle category. There are many online content companies that focus on different interests like sports, travel, cooking, finance, and so on. Another example of a content business is MITU, a Latino focused lifestyle site. You can see the paid advertising content in the bottom row. It looks like the rest of the content and it's naturally integrated into the overall content even though it's paid for. Four your student activity, take 15 minutes to look through these online businesses and see what inspires you. When you look at these websites, think about what they're trying to sell and how their potential customers would feel when looking at their websites. Ask yourself the following questions: do I understand what their business is? Do I feel I can trust them? Is it easy to get to the checkout page and make my purchase? Would I tell a friend about them?

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Take fifteen minutes to look through these online businesses and see what inspires you. When you look at these websites, think about what they’re trying to sell and how their potential customers would feel when looking at their website. Ask yourself the following questions: • Do I understand what their business is? • Do I feel I can trust them? • Is it easy to get to the checkout page to make my purchase? • Would I tell a friend about them? Dirty Gloves: https://www.dirtyglovesservices.com/ Bark Box: https://www.barkbox.com/ Pure Wow: https://www.purewow.com/ Please feel free to use the Business Worksheet below. 01BusinessWorksheet XLSX File

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What is Your Online Business? Part 2 Welcome back. I hope you had fun looking at these websites and saw the differences between the service, product, subscription, and content businesses. Along with understanding the purpose of each site, you may have noticed the different tone and voice in each, the use of photography, the use of copy, color, and topography choices, and how it all added up to make you think and feel in a certain way. We'll be learning a lot more about how the look and feel of a website affects our inclination to buy or not to buy, when we talk about branding in lesson 2. Now that you've decided what kind of business you're going to start, let's begin thinking about what to name it. Your business name doesn't have much value, if your customers can't remember it. Find a name that's simple, easy to pronounce, and evocative. Keep your name short and sweet. Whatever name you choose, just make sure it can be easily spelled and searched for online. Let's take a look at the naming checklist. First of all, make it easy to say out loud. Can everyone pronounce it? Is it easy to spell? Avoid cute, misspelled words in your name and remember, you want people to be able to find you online. Does it convey some meaning of your business? Can you get it trademarked? Choose a name that's available and can be trademarked. Depending on how big you want to build your business, this can become an important consideration. It's worth checking in with the trademark office at USPTO.GOV before settling on a name. It's unlikely that your competitors will choose exactly the same name as you do, but if they do, customers will be confused. Without a trademark name, you will have no legal grounds to stand on to stop your competitor from using it. Does it have meaning? Don't use a generic name that doesn't mean anything. For instance, eight minute abs and 5-hour energy take advantage of details such as numbers and days. An email marketing tool name their brand, you send it, because that's exactly how the tool works. You use their tool and send an email. I chose the name for my brand, ruffina.nyc off of my brand story. Rufina means redhead in Italian, and my dog has red hair, and I liked that it had a nod to a dog bark in the name, rough and that nod to my Italian ancestry. All Good. But really not specific enough. No one's searching Ruffina, but millions of people are searching dog. I'm strongly considering rebranding and adding dog to My name, ruffinadog.nyc. I would show up in search way better than I do now. Live and Learn. Yes, but I do consider it one of my most expensive mistakes, and I don't want you to make the same one. Is the domain name available? Now that you have a great name for your business, let's make sure you can get a domain name. Your domain name is your websites URL name. My favorite place to research and buy domain names is GoDaddy.com. There's a fee to buy a domain name. No matter who you buy from. Other places, you can buy a domain name from are domain.com, Bluehost.com, Namecheap.com, are just a few. You can also buy your domain name from your e-commerce platform that you sign up with like shopify.com, square.com, or Wix.com. What domain extension is best for your business? For many years, domain extensions were limited to.com for company,.edu for education,.gov for governmental agencies,.mil for military,.net for networks,.org for non-profit organization. Over time, more domain names became available to allow people to be able to choose from more potential names, and be more specific about their business. Now there are domain extensions from a to z for almost anything you can think of. For instance,.agency ,.accountant,.baby,.beer,.boutique,.online,.wedding,.xyz, even.yoga and.zone. If you've had a baby clothing business whose name was Clothes For Baby, you could choose your URL to be clothesforbaby.com. The fee to buy it for one year would be $3,000, and then $20 each year thereafter. Meanwhile, clothesfor.baby would only cost you $20 for the first year. clothesfor.baby is a way more affordable name and it's shorter, which could come in handy on labels and business cards. But customers are still thinking.com, and they may have trouble remembering your URL and finding you online, if you go with.baby. Domain sellers assign the highest price to the most straightforward name that ends in.com. If you feel comfortable veering from.com, you can save money. If you feel comfortable changing the spelling of a common word in your name, for instance, using B-A-B-E instead of B-A-B-Y, you can buy clothes for baby.com for 1199, or the first year. You'll just forever be spelling your name, B-A-B-E, not y. As a small business owner, I would likely go for using.baby over the cheaper price on that one. Ruffina.com was not available. I ended up choosing the extension.NYC, because my products are designed and made in New York City, and that I saw as a marketing benefit, and that I really wanted to reinforce. Choosing your brand name can feel like a daunting task, but it's absolutely crucial to put time and thought into naming your brand. That's how customers will come to know, recognize, and talk about you. If the names too difficult to remember, you're missing out on loads of word of mouth marketing that doesn't cost you a single penny. For the student activity, start thinking about what to name your business. Visit any of the domain register sites and try some names out. See if the name you want and the extension you want is available. Look on USPTO.gov to see if the name you picked can be trademarked. Have some fun with it and I hope you find some names you like.

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Take five minutes and test out some names for your business. Give your business name some thought and go to https://godaddy.com to try out the names that you like for business and see what if your name is available. As you enter names for your business, GoDaddy’s website will respond with a price for the name you entered or alternatives for a similar name. Who knows, you may like one of the names they offer up even better than the one you thought of. Write down the options that look good to you. Enter your name on USPTO.gov to see if it is already trademarked by someone else. If the name you have chosen is already taken by someone else, it will show up in their list and you should avoid using that name.

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Open Your Business Bank Account Welcome back. Now that you have a business name and a domain name, let's get your business banking setup. You need to formally register your business with your state so that you can ultimately open a bank account in your business name. New York City has a lot of resources to guide you through this process. First, you'll need to choose a legal structure. Corporations, limited liability companies, and limited partnerships register with New York State, and general partnerships and sole proprietorships register with the appropriate county clerk. In the student activity, I include a link where you can learn the details of these different business structures. Once you pick one, you'll apply for an employer identification number, your EIN, also known as your Federal Tax ID number. Finally, you'll need to register as a sales tax vendor with the New York State Department of Taxation in order to sell products or services in New York. The link I'm sharing to you also explains insurance for business. I recommend that you get insurance for your business to protect you from loss, lawsuits or fines of any kind. Once you have your business registered and an EIN number, you can open your business bank account. Check around with different banks to see what they offer you in terms of business accounts. Some offer free checking and low monthly balanced minimums. Once you have your account numbers, you'll be able to link your eCommerce payments to your business banking account. We'll cover setting up your shopping cart in lesson 10. For the assignment, over the course of your class, you will build a PowerPoint deck that will be a roadmap for launching your online business. You can use this presentation to explain your new business to a variety of people, from potential investors and employees to your family and friends. It will also be a helpful tool for you, the business owner, to refer to as you build your business and create your brand. The good news is, I have created the template for you. All you have to do is fill in the blanks. For your first assignment, you will be naming your business and choosing a domain name. Fill out the slides for lesson 1. Thanks for coming to the first class and good luck with your assignment.

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Explore the following site where you can request SBS legal assistance services prior to exploring lending agents and opening a business bank account: NYC SBS : https://nyc-business.nyc.gov/nycbusiness/business-services/legal-assistance/get-free-legal-advice SBS pro bono legal partners can help NYC entrepreneurs establish a legal structure, register an EIN, and/or register as a NYC sales tax vendor. SBS Flyer.pdf PDF File Mark as completed Like Dislike Report an issue

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Over the course of our class you will build a PowerPoint deck, aka. Pitch Deck, that will be a roadmap for launching your online business. You can use this presentation to explain your new business to a variety of people, from potential investors and employees to family and friends. It will also be a helpful tool for you, the business owner, to refer to as you build your business and create your brand. The good news is I have created the outline of the deck for you. All you have to do is fill in the blanks. For your first assignment, you will be naming your business. Fill out the slides for Lesson 1. Feel free to download and use the Pitch Deck template below.

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Now that you've finished the first videos, I'd like to introduce you to entrepreneurs who've built successful online businesses. The business owners have lived the lessons I teach in this course. They're sharing their experiences to help you learn from their successes and challenges. The following videos introduce you to them and their online business. You'll hear from them throughout the course, whenever we cover a key topic.

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Hi, my name is Phylicia Dove and I am the owner, creative designer for Black Monarchy. Black Monarchy is a global artist and fashion boutique, and we specialize in custom pieces, African and African-inspired clothing, fashion and jewelry, and we also carry items from all over the world that speak to the African experience.

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Zoom Chat: "Introduction to Classic Knot" My name is Shelden Gibbs and I am 14. I'm the owner and operator of the Buffalo based company called Classic Knot, and I specialize in handcrafted bow ties and men's accessories. Basically, what got me started is, a long time ago, when I was a little kid, my mom kept me well dressed. We would attend church, we'd attend different things that you had to get well dressed up. As I got older, and as I developed my own style, it stuck with me. As I'll go to stores and stuff and try to find different clothing, I didn't see any ties or any bow ties that I like, so I came up with a solution and that was to cut up my old dress shirts and make my own bow ties. At first I didn't start automatically selling them, I just wore them for me. I made them and then wore them for myself. Then as I go out in public, I got different complements and then, I just started my company. I might as well turn this into a company because every time I go out, somebody says, "Wow, look at that bow tie. Where did you get it from?"

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Hi, My name is Dawne Hoek. I'm the executive director of Stitch Buffalo. Stitch Buffalo is a 501C3 community organization located on the West Side of Buffalo and we have three separate programs are number one in Primary program is the Refugee Women's Workshop and this is a program where refugee women can come. They can learn skills in the textile arts whether it's weaving, embroidery, sewing. They can get the supplies that they need to complete projects. They can choose which projects they'd like to make. And then when they finish that they can put it into the retail shop for sale. And when that item sells, they receive 60% or more of that sale. So this is a way for them to have some financial income for themselves without having to get a full-time job in some kind of factory work. The second component to Stitch Buffalo or program is second stitch and that's a reselling of fabric yarns, knitting needles, sewing machines. Anything to help you create within the textile arts in our third program, our community workshops and we offer a wide range of different workshops in the textile arts. So we offer weaving. We offer embroidery. We offered dyeing with indigo. We offer block printing. And so those are the three components of Stitch Buffalo.

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Hi, my name is Courtney Nelson Benton, and I'm the owner of Elle James Decor here in Buffalo, New York. I have been in business going on three years, and I'm currently in my brand new store location. This is my very first location, and I've been painting, and you guys can see the tape on the windows. So I'm still covering it up for the public, but super excited to open this spring.

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My name is Zandra Cuttingham. I'm 20 years old, born and raised in Buffalo, New York. I am the CEO and founder of Zandra Beauty, which is a premium plant based skin care company that I created at young age of nine years old. When I was nine, I was obsessed with lip balms to a point where, my dad refused to buy me more and that he was my number one supplier. That inspired me to learn how to create my own and fill a void for girls like me who wanted a product made by a team dedicated to them that, had a mission. But also was made with plant-based ingredients that was safe for my skin. Now Zandrew today is sold in stores across the nation. We are in big chain stores such as Target, Wegman's, Whole Foods, just to name a few. We are all about educating and empower girls and women across the globe.

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Welcome back. Now that you know what type of business you're going to launch online and have thought about what to name it, let's work on figuring out who your customer is. In lesson 2, we'll talk about who your customer is and why it's important to have a clear vision of who they are. The more detailed and focused your customer description is, the more focused your product or service development becomes as well as your marketing, advertising, and PR. The broader your customer description is, the more likely you are to misjudge what they want. You'll spend time and money recreating your business to find out. To start, imagine who this customer is, who will buy your product, use your service, or subscribe to your content. This exercise actually has a name. We call it creating personas. Personas are made up of characters that you create to represent the different customer types you think will buy from you. I actually love this part of business planning because it will give you examples of people you and your team can refer to as you make real business decisions. You'll give your personas names, for instance, Mario, Dana, and Carlos. When you write content or copy for your website, you'll be thinking, ''Will Dana understand this the way I've written it," or when you're developing products or services for your business, you'll ask yourself yourself, ''Are these right for Carlos?'' When designing both your website and your products, you'll be able to use a manageable and memorable cast of 3-4 personas to focus your decisions rather than considering thousands of opinions from all of your potential customers. Personas really help you make decisions that are right for your business. Let's look at a few examples. This first example was done for a coffee shop business. Right away, you can see by the picture of Anna that she's a young professional, just look at her Polish jacket. This coffee shop owner likely went online and searched images of 20-something-year-old women until they found a photo that looks like a person that they can imagine walking into their coffee shop or shopping with them online. Then you can see there's a whole description of a day in the life of Anna. You'll see an important detail in there. She lives on coffee. You can see details about Anna's background, her finances, and her online behaviors which become important to any business owner when they start to pay for ads online. If I'm this coffee shop owner, I'm focusing my ads on Instagram rather than all the other social platforms because Instagram is her main social activity. Under what she's looking for, we get an idea of the type of coffee shop that would appeal to her, a place to decompress and a quiet place to study. The business owner is thinking about Anna and giving her these attributes. The business owner is also researching who goes to her competitor's coffee shop. What are the competitor's customers like? Does the business owner hope to allure them away? Or is the business owner creating a wholly different type of coffee shop? We can see that Anna is influenced by friends and colleagues rather than famous people. She seems to read a lot and not watch a lot of TV. She likes magazines, blogs, articles, and design publications. If I owned this coffee shop, I would put some energy into writing a blog that has articles that Anna reads about her interests and then shares with her network. We'll talk more about blogs in the lessons ahead. We can see that she likes brands like Starbucks, H&M, West Elm, and Target. I should consider how these brands advertise. What I would find is they all have very straightforward messaging. If I do create ads, say for Facebook, then I would make sure to keep them clear and simple to appeal to Anna. She has hopes and dreams. One that stands out is to not have to worry about finances. I bet a loyalty card where she gets a free cup of coffee after 10 cups would appeal to Anna. I hope you're beginning to see how personas like this can help you make real decisions to build your business and reach your customers. Let's look at a few more. This persona is for an online bookstore. You see it looks completely different from Anna's. That's because there are many ways to design a persona. Let's look at what they have in common. First, there's a picture of Nerdy Nina. Whereas Anna's title represented her occupation- student, this design captures Nina's personality. Nina embraces her nerdy side. Anna's quote was, ''I need to be able to go somewhere to relax, refocus, and get inspired without breaking the bank.'' Nina's is, ''The book is way better than the movie.'' Nina is 100 percent about books. For an online book business, there could be another persona who dislikes giant booksellers like Amazon and Barnes & Nobles. Their quote might be, ''I'm all about small businesses.'' The online book persona is shorter than the coffee shop persona, but it still has key information that will help the business owner, for instance, Nina's age, her job, and family life. This persona lists her goals. Nina wants to discover new books and find unique stories. We also learn that she's frustrated by missing the release date of books, keeping track of her favorite book series, and making space in her home for new books. As the online bookstore owner, I could plan to do regular email campaigns to keep my Nerdy Ninas aware of launches, new books, new authors, and so on. I could do a blog about book storage and the best bookshelves. One important thing Nina's persona is missing is her preferred social media platforms. Where does Nina spend her time on social? Knowing where your customers spend time online is necessary to focus where you best spend money on ads. Let's turn to our last example of a persona. You'll notice it's completely different than the first two. It's very visual and free-form. This persona features two people, Mario, the Studio Consultant, and Eliza, the PR manager. Mailchimp, an email marketing business you might be familiar with, did these personas. You can see that they took a very creative approach to their personas and went very visual. The photo chosen for Mario shows him dressed ready to go to the office. We see he has a creative flair with his hat and multiple stripe combo on his shirt and vest. His style is playful and creative while still saying office. Turning to Eliza, we can see that she's very well-groomed. Her hair is blown out and curled. We also see a full-on tattoo. Tattoos don't work in all office environments but are totally accepted in creative work environments. We don't have their exact ages or see their home life, but we can see they're Millennials and can draw assumptions about how their life outside of work is. For a business that solves mass emailing and fun creative ways, Mailchimp might not need all the details to align their business thinking to work for Mario and Eliza. What's the takeaway? Mailchimp is targeting customers who are educated, career-oriented, independent problem-solvers, creative people in marketing and management who are trying to overcome old office and build business culture. The Mailchimp team can use these personas to ask questions that test their ideas of their customers, like, would Mario like using our website? Is it smart and creative enough? Should we make it more playful and more relevant for Eliza? The point is that the photos you pick and the details in them are important. They go a long way in explaining who your customer is. For the student activity, to prepare you to build your personas for this week's assignment, please take 15 minutes and use the Persona Worksheet provided to fill in data for one of your businesses' personas. There is space to fill in up to 3-4 personas.

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To prepare you to build your personas for this week’s assignment, please take 15 minutes to fill in the data for one of your business’s personas. There is space to fill in up to 3 or 4 personas. Please download and use the "Persona Data" spreadsheet below to complete your activity.

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Welcome back. I hope you were able to get a good start on gathering data for your customer personas. You'll be using this information when you do your assignment for this lesson. We need precise customer personas to help us stay focused in every area of our business. It will become more important to you as you start to develop your business product or service and create marketing materials for it. Let's say you were planning to launch an online health and wellness business that was for kids, teens, adults, and elderly people. You might think I can help everyone. The problem is you also have to market to everyone and advertise to everyone. In this case, it's four different groups; kids, teens, adults, and the elderly. Marketing and advertising to broad audiences gets expensive as you have to communicate to everyone from kids to the elderly. What if you started out your business focused on the customer that you felt most able to serve best? Let's say it's the elderly customer. Now, you're creating one message instead of four over multiple channels to be understood by one customer group, the elderly. What if you're planning to launch an online business that attracts a wide audience, like a grocery store and you have men and women, both young and old, shopping for groceries on your website and in your retail store? What is your store specialty? Well, let's say maybe it's Italian and you sell freshly baked bread or homemade sauce, or you have the world's biggest olive assortment. You might sell individually prepared meals and family style and of course, you sell ingredients for customers to make their own food. This business owner would create a persona for the typical younger woman and older woman, and the typical younger man and older man, who will be shopping at their store. Maybe one of them wants prepared foods while another only makes their own food. Maybe one buys in bulk and the other shops almost daily. They can have all sorts of differences but the one thing they have in common is that they all love Italian food. When you figure out who you're selling to, and then focus that audience as clearly as you can, it will really help you shape your business and make decisions that will help you succeed. Back when I did my personas in 2016, when I was planning my business, I saw them more as a group of like-minded 20 - 40 year-old men and women who were drawn to modern design and like a pop of color, appreciate quality and easy care. Four years later, I've learned that my actual customers are older and mostly women and for the most part, use Facebook. Your assignment for lesson 2 will be to create 3 - 4 personas for your business. You'll see the template in our PowerPoint deck under lesson 2. Where you see the word customer, put in the name that you gave your customer, place your photo in the box that says photo of your customer. Replace my questions with your answers. Do the best you can to get very detailed. Your personas can change over time as you get more information about who is actually buying from you but for now, create customers who you think will buy from you.

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When you look at my story of growing, the artistian festivals were my first step of meeting my customers, learning what products sell the best, and growing my product phase. Then customers were always like, ''Well, are you online? Do you have a website?'' I would be like, ''Not yet, not yet,'' and I'm like, ''I'm making a website because I'm not going to be losing out on business.'' I decided to start my website on Wix. I will say I did that because I did my wedding website on Wix and it was easy for me.

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When you're trying to figure out who is your customer, first, you definitely look at who's your target? What is your target market? What is the offerings that you have in your space, in your store, online or brick and mortar? And seeing how that fits into your community. Then you watch to see the traction that's happening with your products, with your sales. Then you target and sometimes even have to pivot in many ways with your inventory based on what is being consumed by your market. For us, it was pretty easy to narrow down who we thought would be our target market. What we learned was actually a little bit opposite. We started off thinking, it's a pretty much an African-American base brand, so that would be our base customer, which we do have a huge, huge, and we're so grateful for our Black and African American, people of color base. But what we didn't realize is that people who love to travel opens it up very much. Our huge target now is for people who love things that are different, things that speak loudly, and people who love to experience the world and beautiful spaces, and that's our new target market.

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Please use the "Persona Data" spreadsheet and the information you filled in during the activity from week two to complete your assignment. You will create three to four personas for your business and update your Pitch Deck with the following: 1. Where you see the word Customer, put in the name you gave your Customer. 2. Place your photo in the box that says Photo of Your Customer. 3. Replace the questions with your answers. Do the best you can to get very detailed. Your personas can change over time as you get more information about who is actually buying from you- but for now – create customers who you think will buy from you.

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Having a really good pitch deck is so important, and here's why. There are multiple uses for your pitch deck. You can add some pretty pictures and fun coloring and nice music for your family who are interested in investing in your business, or you can go the strict black and white route for those who want to know what your bottom line is, what are your numbers, and how they can make money off of your brands and your products. But having a really good pitch deck will give you the confidence to not only have your business, whether it be online or as a brick-and-mortar, but really have it in your pocket to present at any time where there's someone who might actually want to invest in your company. Make sure your pitch deck is together.

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Welcome back to launch your online business. Now that you've thought about what type of business you'll launch, what you might name it, and who your customer personas are, let's learn how to communicate with your customer. In today's marketplace, there are a lot of competitors. Your business needs to stand out and be memorable to potential customers so they think of you when they need your product, your service subscription, or content. In lesson 3, creating your brand, it's all about branding. Branding is the way your business communicates with your customer. Everything your customer sees, hears, and touches as they interact with your brand are brand touchpoints. Your brand touchpoints represent your business, they stand for your values and shape your customers perception of your brand. Business and brand are interchangeable. Your brand is your business, and your business is your brand. My top three things to consider when developing your brand are, brand promise, brand identity, and brand story. These essential elements will get you started on the road to developing your brand. Consistency across these elements will help you build brand trust with your customers and maintain their focus on what your brand, your business is all about. Let's start with brand promise. Brand promise is the statement you make to your customers about what they can expect from every interaction with your brand. It's not just about your products or your services, but it's also about your people and your organization as a whole. It's a promise of the unique value and experience your customers can expect to receive every time they interact with your business. The more you can deliver on your promise, the stronger your brand value is in the minds of your customers. When writing your brand promise, try answering the question, what do you do for whom? Let's look at some famous brands and see how they do it. So Nike, to bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world. What do you do? Bring inspiration and innovation to. Who do you do it for? Every athlete in the world. H&M, more fashion choices that are good for people, the planet, and your wallet. So what do you do? More fashion choices. Who do you do it for? People, planet and your wallet. They really make it look easy, don't they? Now let's think about your business. For instance, if you have a bodega that you want to take online, your brand promise could be groceries for the neighborhood. What do you do? Groceries. Who do you do it for? Customers in the neighborhood. Groceries for the neighborhood is a broad brand promise. You're promising to provide groceries for the neighborhood. That's why you're in business. While it's a good promise and a worthy endeavor, lots of markets in the neighborhood could say the very same thing. I challenge you to get more specific. What sets you apart from your competitors? For example, you could have organic groceries for the neighborhood, farm fresh groceries for the neighborhood, locally grown groceries for the neighborhood. If you go with organic, your food must be all organic because you promised it would be. Same for farm fresh. Is it really? Locally grown, you should be able to name the farm it came from. Once you've written your brand promise, use it to shape all of your marketing and advertising materials. Remember, whatever you promise you have to deliver or you will erode trust and lose customers and we don't want that. My brand promise for Ruffina is we design clothes for little dogs that we would wear if we were dogs, and we always deliver on that. Now let's move on to brand identity. Your brand identity is how your brand looks visually to your customers. Your logo, the style of typography, the colors you feature, your packaging, all make up your brand identity. Let's start with your logo. Your logo becomes a recognizable visual symbol to which your customers can easily identify. For example, the Nike Swoosh, the Apple used by Apple Computers, and the Amazon smile. Nike Swoosh represents the winged Greek goddess of victory and competition. Nike's first products developed back in the '70s where running shoes that helped athletes win races. The logo developed in 1971 has changed very little over the years. The enduring brand recognition has helped them earn and keep brand trust. When we see the swoosh, we know it's Nike. Now, Apple's first logo back in 1970, was an image of Isaac Newton, the man who revolutionized science with discoveries of gravity, sitting under an apple tree. Newton discovered gravity when an apple fell on his head. Steve Jobs, Apple's founder. Though we like that idea, he quickly got tired of the logo because even though it showed Newton was a nod to knowledge, he thought it was a little too old fashion looking. Apple's logo evolved into a rainbow colored apple, signifying the first Apple computer screens to display color. It was modernized overtime to the simple black apple, and finally, today we see the updated apple that has the luminous 3D feel. The apple symbolizes knowledge. The bite out of it is a nerdy nod to computer term byte. Amazon's logo was created to represent the message that it sells, everything from A to Z. The arrow connects the two letters to represent the smile that customers would experience from shopping on Amazon.com. Now, let's look at some examples of New York City logos. The Lobster Pound has a whimsical tow truck pulling a lobster. Fat Witch a baking company literally uses a fat witch. Brooklyn Barn, a clothing company uses a barn door, and MOSCOT an eyewear brand uses very distinct eyeglasses. Gotham Greens delivers food to your home. They have a very simple and clever logo. Then my favorite Russ & Daughters, [inaudible] uses a fish integrated with typography. Shake Shack and New York eatery incorporates a hamburger, and [inaudible] construction uses an I-beam. Incorporating a graphic into your logo can make your brand more memorable and recognizable. The next element of brand identity is typography. What font feels like your brand? Are you big and bold, soft and swirly, personal or business? The way a font looks says a lot about your brand. There are thousands of fonts to choose from. If you're using typography in your logo, I recommend using fonts that are very readable. For your website. I recommend using fonts that are offered by the platform that you choose to build on. The fonts used by platforms are designed for screen and are most readable. For consistency, use these same fonts for your packaging and any print materials you make like business cards. Let's take a look at Google Fonts. It's a great tool to see how your brand name looks in different fonts. You can enter your brand name, or your tagline to get an idea of how it looks. You can find this tool at fonts.google.com. The right color shows off your brand's personality more than just a visual cue to your brand, like the McDonald's golden arches. Color conveys emotions, feelings, and experiences. Blue can be all business. Red for adventure and strength. Yellow for knowledge and light. Green can represent eco-friendly. Whatever color you pick, just remember to stick with them. Consistency and branding is so important. Imagine if Blue Bottle changed their color scheme to pink. The name wouldn't make sense anymore. They'd have to change their name to pink bottle. Anyway, there is no right or wrong answer with color. It should just make sense to you and your customer. An important tip is to make sure that the logo you design or have designed also works in black and white. Often, if your logo appears in print publications like the newspaper, or if you're featured as a sponsor of an event, your logo will need to look good in black and white. Finally, if you have a product or a subscription business, your packaging is a big part of your brand identity. Your packaging provides a unique identity for your product. It should not only keep your products safe from damage, but also fit your brand and appear different from your competitors packaging. When your customers order online from your business, remember, the first physical contact they have with your brand is that package that you've shipped to them. This is a unique opportunity for your brand to make a favorable impression and strengthen your brand recognition. Although packaging is usually discarded, consider that some customers will hold on to packaging if they like it's look or feel. Maybe they'll even reuse it when giving a gift to someone else. A couple of tips for packaging. Put your contact info somewhere on the package. Make it easy for customers to reach out to you if they need you. Do not put the product price on your packaging as if your prices change over time, this will also make your packaging obsolete, and that can get very expensive. Now, let's move on to brand story. Your brand story is another key element of your brand. Your story is a simple narrative that includes all the facts and feelings that are created by your brand. Unlike an advertisement that's meant to have a call to action such as "Buy this product,'' your brand story inspires an emotional reaction from your customer. When you're writing your brand story, speak directly to your personas and tell them about how you got started. People shop with brands they like and identify with. Sharing where you came from, where you are headed, what your worldview or philosophy is allows your customers to connect with your brand, and that connection builds trust. Your story has to be authentic and honest. Customers are really good at seeing through brands that don't feel real. When you lose the trust of your customers, you'll lose their business. Let's look at some examples of brand stories told by some of my favorite New York brands. We can start with Baked by Melissa. I love her tagline, "Make life sweeter." You all know those little tiny cupcakes. ''Today and every day, we empower women to grow and achieve success, not only within our company, but as students, hard working moms and everything in between. We are always looking for new ways to give back to our communities and our planet. We've partnered with Girls Inc. Every Mother Counts, Dress for Success, and many more amazing teams that share our desire to make a positive impact for women everywhere.'' So I want to have a positive impact on women everywhere, I'll buy her cupcakes, it's easy for me. Now, let's move on to Warby Parker. Their tagline, ''Good eyewear, good outcome.'' You'll see what I mean after hearing their brand story, "We believe that buying glasses should be easy and fun. It should leave you happy and good looking with money in your pocket. We also believe that everyone has the right to see. Almost one billion people worldwide lack access to glasses, which means that 15 percent of the world's population cannot effectively learn or work. To help address this problem, Warby Parker partners with non-profits like VisionSpring to ensure that for every pair of glasses sold, a pair is distributed to someone in need." Well, I have to say I love that idea and I want to help people see too, count me in. Then lastly, Chrome Industries. Their tagline, "Useful Durable Gear. Made for the City." Again, you'll understand that tagline when I read you their story. I won't read the whole thing, but, "Over two decades ago, we made our first Chrome bag with a Juki sewing machine, a few yards of industrial grade nylon, military grade truck tarpaulin, and the commitment to make durable, useful gear that works on and off the bike. We didn't have money to make a buckle that could hold the weight of a loaded messenger bag, so we salvaged seat belt buckles out of junkyard cars. An icon was born." You get the story. They go on to say that they're interested in durable goods that last a long time, and they're totally committed to it, so I also buy their bags. If I need a good strong bag, I look to Chrome because I like where they're coming from and I like how that they're interested in re-using things and not making crummy goods that fall apart in a heartbeat. Take 15 minutes and start reading the articles I found for you to help you learn more about creating your brand. Save these links for future reference.

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I guess, my brand is really good vibes and positive energy. All of that is based around home decor and sage smudge sticks, really. Those are my biggest selling products. When I'm selling a product, I'm really not selling the products, I'm trying to sell the feeling you'll get from the products. When you're burning a sage stick, you're clearing up negative energy. You're clearing the staleness out of the environment. We all have staleness in our houses right now from just being in here day, after day, after day. I know when I have an argument with my husband, and I see him pull out a sage stick, that's going to immediately make me a little bit more forgiving. [LAUGHTER] I'm like, "You know what? At least that man is trying." It helps relationships, it helps your family environment, it's cleansing your air. I think what I've learned it's not about this is a beautiful sage stick, and it looks great on your mantel. It's about, this sage stick is going to make you feel good. It's going to help your house be healthier and happier. That's what my brand is about. It's about spreading positive energy and good vibes.

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Articles referenced in the Creating Your Brand video include: Brand Promise link: https://www.powerreviews.com/blog/brand-promise-examples/ Brand Colors link: https://venngage.com/blog/brand-colors/ How to Write an "About Us" page link: https://www.shopify.com/blog/how-to-write-an-about-us-page

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Welcome back. I hope you found the articles interesting. I'm always inspired by how brands put together their promise, identity, and story. It's really helpful to look at examples and learn from them. Now that you are familiar with the deck you are building, use what we've learned about branding to fill out the slides for lesson 3 in your deck. You will be creating slides for your brand promise, brand identity, and your brand story. Thanks for coming to the third class and good luck with your assignment. See you for lesson 4: what makes your brand different?

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I think it's important. I feel like we're a social change company, so I feel like it only makes sense and just being who I am. I'm a girl's rights advocate and I've been with the International Girl campaign and also the Girl Up through United Nations since I was 13. Play video starting at ::30 and follow transcript0:30 The whole idea and the mission behind Zandra is to educate and empower young girls, and to help them take advantage to get all the access they need to it, because understanding that these options and this freedom and this access is not available to girls in other parts of the world, and it's just actually sad. When I found that out, I was like, "Oh my gosh, I can't believe this," and I wanted to make sure every girl that had the access here, with America being free and all, understanding that even if some areas here at home in the US a lot of girls in certain demographics are saying, some girls I even look like me are not targeted in a way and don't have the opportunities to get the access that they need, that they say is available to them, if that makes sense. Understanding that we have that barrier at home, here in the US and understanding that that's a problem. Understanding that, we try to do that and incorporate that in business and honestly I feel that with Zandra, I was trying to find something that made, Zandra does more than just the typical lotion and soap bar and stuff. Yes, the products are great, but what is the brand going to stand for? It came at a perfect time because I figured I wanted that to represent who I was, and then I'm growing up and able to have more of a voice and understand what's going on in society, social media is such a big thing. Understanding that we are going to speak on certain topics that's going on that not only affects me and my community, but just women and being a black woman, the black community and just being a woman in business, how that affects our future generation and then the current generation is happening right now. Understanding that and understanding that we want to connect, we want our customers to know that we care about certain things, that we're not going to stand for certain things and that we respect being a part of. Sometimes customers can feel that since you're part of the corporate world, or the business world or whatever, you get sucked in and you got to don't really care about the people, or the customers and stuff and I don't want it to be a barrier like that, because it's not true. We're still a small business at heart, we would be nothing without our customers and I believe that we should take a stand and we should stand for anything. I feel like it's really important to know that they know that we care and showing that and knowing that we care about what the things that they care about too. I'm leaving that section open, let us know what you want us to talk about or you wanted to share about and all that good stuff. I'm keeping the conversation open both ways.

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In addition to the resources referenced in 'Creating Your Brand' please read the following articles to learn more about creating your brand: Everything You Need to Know About Picking and Using Brand Colors How to Write a Persuasive About Us Page (With Examples and a Template) Everything You Need to Know About Picking and Using Brand Colors - Venngage Link: https://venngage.com/blog/brand-colors/ Everything You Need to Know About Picking and Using Brand Colors - Venngage Link: https://www.shopify.com/blog/how-to-write-an-about-us-page

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Use what we have learned about branding to fill out the slides for Lesson 3 in your Pitch Deck. You will be creating slides for your brand promise, brand identity, and your brand story.

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Welcome back. I hope that your name and branding are taking shape. In lesson 4, we're going to look at how you can make your business stand out from your competitors. You will create a unique value proposition or a UVP and a tagline to go with it. What makes your business different from your competitors? With so many businesses starting up and, or owners who are taking their brick and mortar businesses online, you need to identify ways to make your brand stand out from your competitors. The way you'll do this, is to develop a list of things that make your brand different from your competitors, or we call these brand differentiators. A differentiators are seen in the features and benefits of your products or services. Features are defined as top-level statements about your product or service, such as what it does, the particular specifications and so on. Benefits are the statements that show the end result of the product or services features. Here are a few examples of features and benefits. If for instance, your brand features phone support, I know as a customer that I can call you to get help. I love that feature, or maybe I'm an environmentally oriented consumer, I'll love that your item is made of recycled materials. As you're thinking about what makes your brand different from your competitor, take a look at their websites and see what you can learn about their products or services. What are they doing that you plan to do better, or in a way that adds more value to the customer? Will your price be better? Is your product made of maybe unique materials that are better than all of your competitors? Is it recyclable? Is your production process better than all the rest? Do you have free shipping or delivery? Can you do it faster? Is it fresher? Are you open every day of the week? You get where I'm going with this. The features and benefits of your product or services are differentiators that can set your brand apart from your competitors. Creating your UVP or your unique value proposition is similar to your brand promise from lesson 2 both your UVP and your brand promise, focus on the one or two key points of difference between your brand and your competitors. Your brand promise is more about what you as a brand promise to do in every way, all the way down to your lowest level employee. For instance, Patagonia is in the business to save our home planet. That means, everything they do is working towards saving the planet. Your UVP is a clear statement that describes the benefit of your offer, how you solve your customer's needs, and what distinguishes you from the competition. Patagonia's long-lasting outdoor gear from a company that is fighting climate change. No other outdoor gear company can make that claim. Patagonia owns fighting climate change. Your UVP can appear on your homepage of your website and in every advertising and marketing campaign you create. It speaks directly to your customer. Here are three methods for creating your UVP that you can try out. Let's take a closer look. Method 1, go deep, write a headline, a subhead, and three supporting bullets, and think about an image to go with it that supports what you're saying. Method 2, keep it simple. What, how, why? Three key words or phrases, and method 3, we help x to do y by z. Let's look at how I could use method 1 for my brand. I have a headline, clothing and accessories for little dogs and their humans, then I go deeper on the subhead and I get into particulars on the bullets, and I have a photo that supports the copy. Now, let's give method 2 a try. What, how, why? What is clothing and accessories? The how is made in New York City and the why is for little dogs and their humans. Finally method 3, we help x to do y by z, we keep little dogs and their humans warm and adorable all winter long with our clothing and accessories. What did I learn for my brand? Clothing and accessories for little dogs and their humans. Let's review a little. In lesson 3, we learned that your brand promise is the promise you make to your customers, your employees, and the World about how you do what you do. Now, in lesson 4, we learn that your UVP is a statement about what makes your brand unique. Because you are a new brand, please put your UVP on your homepage. Remember, even though you may have been thinking about launching your business for years, no one knows who you are. Make it easy for people to quickly start learning about you in the clearest, most concise way possible. Now, let's learn about taglines. Your tagline is a short and catchy phrase, or a group of words that summarize the overall benefits of your business. The best taglines have their foundation in their brand promise and UVP. You know what your customers need from you and what they expect from you. Your tagline supports that promise. Let's compare the brand promise and taglines of brands we know. For instance, McDonald's, their brand promise, simple, easy enjoyment. Their tagline, I'm loving it. Coca Cola's brand promise to inspire moments of optimism and uplift. Their tagline open happiness. Nike, their brand promise to bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the World. The tagline, just do it. Let's look at some examples of local New York brands. Lenwich the sandwich maker, their brand promise, served deliciously crafted sandwiches and salads prepared to the highest standards. Their tagline, the ultimate sandwich. Baguu, they make bags so that you don't have to use disposable bags, specifically, delightful bags that make life easier and more enjoyable. Their tagline, bags for people and the planet. Then Fat Witch Bakery, their brand promise, Fat Witch turns old-fashion recipes into modern day irresistible treats for the gourmet palate. Their tagline, New York City's legendary brownie. Finally, my tagline the brand promise, the promise we design clothes for little dogs that we would where if we were a dog and the tagline for the love of little dogs. Spend 15 minutes online searching your competitors website, google your business category and see what companies come up. Use the worksheet provided to identify the following elements that you may find on your competitors website. Look for the company name that's usually at the top with a logo, the domain name, that will be their URL, their brand promise, maybe an about us, their UVP and their tagline, which may be on the front page as well. See how many brands you can complete in the next 15 minutes. This exercise will help you with the assignment for lesson 4.

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Spend ten minutes online searching your competitors’ websites. Google your business category and see what companies come up. Use the worksheet provided to identify the following elements that you may find on your competitors website. Company Name – Usually on the home page Domain Name – their URL Brand Promise - Look in ABOUT US UVP – Look for copy on their homepage that says what makes them different Tagline – Often under the Company name or logo. See how many brands you can complete in the next fifteen minutes.

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Welcome back. How did the activity go? Were you able to identify any of the brand elements that we just learned about? Not every brand does every element and some brands do it better than others? I checked out a few of my competitors and most of them because they've been in business for five to 10 years are not putting their UVP on their homepage. That said I'm sure it shows up in their marketing materials. If someone asks me about Ruffina, my UVP rolls off my tongue, we make clothing and accessories for little dogs and their humans. I'm so glad I took the time to create my UVP, so that I always stay on message. For the assignment in lesson four, you'll be asked to create your brand's UVP and your tagline. I will include the different methods and you can use the one that makes the most sense to you. I hope you have fun with it. See you in less than five.

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When we think of telling our stories about why we want to start a business, some people are afraid to tell the story. Some people don't know how to tell the story. Some people feel like they don't want to share a pity story. But for me what I noticed, what I realized and what actually finance my business was being honest with other people of what that journey into entrepreneurship looked like. It was not easy and it was not the most sexiest of all stories but telling the story of one and engine that could, someone who believed, someone who was equipped, maybe not with the education for the actual entrepreneurial journey but had to drive with a mission to learn everything that was needed to be successful. I told that story and there were people who believed in what I believed in and they were willing to invest in me. My goal is to forever make that investment the best investment they've ever made and to teach other entrepreneurs that even if you don't have the capital there are people that will believe in your dream to help you get there.

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Create your Brand’s UVP and your Tagline in your Pitch Deck. Use the method that makes the most sense to you. Have fun with it! Finally, update your Pitch Deck.

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