To Sell or Not to Sell

This is my latest masterpiece. It's made in a 3" PVC pipe with a whole loofah. Cutting it was a challenge because of the loofah. My girls cannot wait to try it out and neither can I.

I intially started this hobby to make beautiful soaps for my family. I have succeeded to that end but now have soap piling up around the corners of the dining room. At some point, I'm going to have to sell it just to make room for more. Being a child of a small business owner, I fully understand the implications of running a business. My dad worked a lot when I was growing up. Having a business is like having a 2 year old child that never grows up and nobody wants to babysit. As an adult, I hear people fantasizing about running their own business. They dream of being free of a boss and being able to do things their way. They truly believe life will be easier and they will be wealthy running their own business. My dad has been running a business for over 35 years and I can tell you he is neither wealthy nor free and it's a relatively successful business.

Knowing these things doesn't dampen my thoughts of venturing into the realm of entrepreneurship. I have attempted at various points in my life to run small little hobby businesses. One never even got out of the starting gate before it fell over. Perhaps there is some genetic component. It is in my blood. The problem is that I want to start it but then I do not want all the headaches that come with ownership. There are taxes and business licenses, pricing and advertising, and craft shows. What is a soap seller without craft shows? Do I really want to travel that road?

All business ownership aside, there is the market saturation. There are soap sellers by the hundreds on Etsy. The craft shows and farmer's markets are also laden with the fabulous fruity aromas of homemade soap. What can make my soap any different from the masses? Surely I do not want to sell at a discount. Maybe I can persuade people that my soaps are better and sell at a premium. That's laughable in today's economic turmoil. I think people are more likely to buy Ivory with coupons than pay top dollar for my special soap. However I could ride the coat tails of the everything organic trend. My soap is locally made, even though the raw materials are trucked in from all over the country. The ingredients are all natural save the fragrance oils and fun colors.

Perhaps I will forgo business ownership and just use it as barter. Maybe my business will grow organically like the tomatoes that offer themselves up every year in my garden.