By Husbands For Husbands: The Sometimes Bumpy, But Always Fun Ride to the Future!

Great to see you! Welcome to part 3 of our 5 part interview series with the unstoppable co-founders of By Husbands For Husbands,  Gerry Baron and Steve Worth.

Today we’re focusing on their most rewarding and challenging moments as start-ups and chatting about their game plan.

But, if you missed:

• Part 1 and would like to take a peek about how it all began, please click here.
• Part 2 and would like to learn about their business model, their financing and the competition, please click here.  

KTY:  What is the most difficult part about being a start-up on the rise?

G & S: Creating exposure across markets and being taken seriously in the marketplace. 

There is also the lack of cash which makes operating our business difficult because it means that we have to move at a pace that’s much slower than our vision.  Both of us have corporate jobs in order to take care of personal financial needs as we cultivate and grow the business.  This naturally reduces the amount of time and energy available to put into the business. 

However, we have created processes and a timeline for deliverables such as newsletter articles, service and delivery for members, and marketing initiatives.   Also, we work in the future, which means our marketing and blog postings are prepared in advanced and posted according to our marketing schedule. These protocols leave room for changes and we can push back something if we have a more pressing post or marketing message we want to deliver.

KTY: And, what would be the most rewarding?

G & S: Getting positive feedback from husbands and wives who are familiar with our community has been extremely rewarding.  It keeps us motivated. The comments range from “It’s about time for a concept like this geared towards husbands”…”I’m going to sign my husband up right now”…”It’s great to see men helping men in the area of romance and marriage.” 

Our concept has reached the soon-to-be married market as well.  We have had several dads buy our services for their future son in-law.  What an awesome wedding gift!

Another source of fulfillment has been the opportunity to interact with dynamic guests on our radio show.  Our guests have really added value to our concept by providing sound advice and suggestions to husbands which can be put into practice the same day.  Each conversation prompts us to do more to make our own marriages better.

KTY:  What’s coming up next on the horizon for your start-up?

G & S:

Market Expansion
We want to shore up our marketspace here in Metro Atlanta while supporting our clients in other cities throughout the United States.  What’s interesting is that we have acquired these clients despite no marketing outside of Atlanta.  This shows that this concept has significant market appeal. 

Our expansion is planned to begin in the Southeast with cities such as Charlotte, Raleigh-Durham, Nashville, Tampa, and Orlando.  However, we will let market adoption guide us in deciding the next logical expansion step.

Online Community
We want to expand our online community of husbands and future husbands by focusing on our messaging and leveraging our Web 2.0 strategy.

New Products
We have several new products and mediums in the pipeline including:

• Live TV
• Books
• CDs
• Apparel
• Workshops and Seminars
• Live Radio - We have seen our Internet radio show listener base grow by over 1,000% since we launched on April 14, 2007.  The next logical step for us is a live radio show here in Atlanta.  We are preparing our demo and will begin shopping our show in the fall of 2007 (*for those of you who may be unfamiliar with the term like I was (hey, I learned something new!), “shopping a show” means trying to get a show picked up on a station.  The “shopping” concept stems  from the recording industry as artists “shop their demos”…Pretty neat! Always learning something new at VC-TV! :-)…now, back to our interview!)

KTY: What would take you to the next level? What’s stopping you (if anything)?

G & S: The next level for us would involve completing the 4 books that we have in our pipeline and getting a radio or TV show. 

Cash is the hurdle for the first project and not having a large enough audience is the barrier to the second project.

We have developed strategies for each of these projects that provide the direction for implementation.  However, we feel that an additional funding of $500,000 is necessary to move our concept forward to at least 12-15 markets and allow us to focus fulltime on the concept’s content.

 Come back again during the week to learn more about:

• Thursday: Success: theirs and yours!
• Friday: Advice à la Steve and Gerry