Photons & Stitches Expansion

BUSINESS OVERVIEW

Photons and Stitches is a woman-owned company creating and selling fandom and pop culture art tumblers and micro-embroidered jewelry. These products are sold to convention and event market attendees. While our products appeal to a large demographic, our target audience is gender variable between the ages of 18 - 50 who attend comic and fandom conventions. Our products provide customers with the option to customize tumblers and jewelry to showcase their love for their favorite geek niche.

Date of formation: 05-13-2020
Legal Structure: Sole Proprietorship

MISSION & MOTTO

To provide customized sustainable drinkware to those who identify as pop-culture enthusiasts, geeks, and nerds. While embracing social entrepreneurship by allocating a percentage of profits to an LGBTQ+ charity of our choosing.

“If It’s Geek, We’ll Make It”

MARKET OVERVIEW

Relevant Market Size

Our relevant market size is the annual revenue that our company could attain if we owned 100% market share.

Our relevant market size is calculated as follows:

Number of customers who might be interested in purchasing our products and/or services each year? 5,000

Amount these customers might be willing to spend, on an annual basis, on our products and/or services (based on current average purchase)? $50

Our relevant market size: $250,000

As the analysis shows, our relevant market is large enough for our company to enjoy considerable success.

Target Customers:

Age: 18-50

Income: middle-class

Gender: binary, nonbinary and ungendered

Location: United States Activities & Interests: Fandom, Comic Con, and Geek Conventions

PRODUCT OVERVIEW

Custom Tumbler

Price is dependent on size of tumbler, theme, specialty pigments, and 3D sculpting. This product allows customers to specialize and showcase their favorite fandom and interests. Product

Price: 35-80

Ready to Sell Tumblers

Price is dependent on size of tumbler, theme, specialty pigments, and 3D sculpting. These tumblers focus on fandoms and are sold direct to the customer at conventions, pop-up markets, and craft fairs.

Product Price: 35-80

Micro-embroidered Jewelry

Each piece is a one-of-a-kind creation using traditional embroidery techniques on small surfaces to create unique pieces with nature and fandom motifs.

Price: 30

PROMOTION & DISTRIBUTION

Photons and Stitches will use the following tactics to attract new customers:

Networking: Meeting with vendors at events with complimentary products to drive referrals to Photons and Stitches.

Online Marketing: Create SEO and social media advertising to drive traffic to website to facilitate non-event related sales.

Word of Mouth / Viral Marketing: Encourage and utilize satisfied customers by allowing them to post reviews and share products via social media.

Photons and Stitches will use the following tactics to distribute products:

Direct to Customer Events: Farmer’s & Artisan Markets, Pop-Up Shop Events, Fandom Conventions

Direct to Customer Website:

https://www.photonsandstitches.com

Third-party Sites: Etsy, Facebook Marketplace, Meta Shops

FUNDING NEEDS

To date, Photons and Stitches has been self-funded. Current funding need is $10,000. Funds will be used to be used to double my production capabilities by adding 6 new workstations for a cost of approximately $500. Additionally, purchases of medium blanks would allow me to create a larger inventory. This would cost approximately $1000. There are upcoming events that have reached out to me regarding booth space, and at this time $2500 would go towards entering those events. Technologically, the grant would allow me to hire assistance to create a stronger SEO presence for my website. The cost for this varies, but through Fiverr this part of the project could cost as little as $110, but I would budget this item at $500 as it may need to evolve as more products are added to the site. For marketing, I will be focusing on social media avenues and would like to allocate $1500 for campaigns. Finally, the remain funds would be used as an operating expense fund for supply needs, travel expenses, education courses to run a business properly, tax services, and possible expansion to add digital printing capabilities. The later will require the purchase of two separate printers, toner, ink and sublimation paper for an approximate cost of $2000.

Thank you for your time and consideration of my expansion project. Please feel free to contact me regarding any questions.