Up in My Business

How to travel on flights fashionably and efficiently can take a little bit of practice to get down, but once you have your rhythm and favorite items, you can do so with ease! If you are traveling for work, family, vacation, it can make your travel experience so much more pleasant with a few tips to really smooth the travel process and ease the stressors.  1) Don't wear outfits with a lot of accessories.      If you are traveling through an airport, you will have to go through security. This is often true if you are flying a private jet and smaller airports too. The more pieces you wear that make it hard to take them off as you are going through security can add time to your travel journey. I recommend to really cut back on wearing jewelry or belts while you are traveling to ensure a smooth process.  2) Wear shoes that are easy to get in and out of.     Not all airports require you to take off your shoes anymore, but I would show up prepared. I wou...

Shoe Dog is a must read for business owners from all walks of life. It is the story of Phil Knight entrepreneur and founder of Nike and the empire he has built in just 80 short years of life.  Key Takeaways: Overall, Shoe Dog is a page turner! I think I read the whole book in two days! Fear does not have to stop you. During his journey Nike was a crazy idea. Blue Ribbon.. reselling Japanese shoes. Running was anything but popular. People thought you were nuts. You have to been the one to see things through.  You don't always have to have a perfect vision, but you need to be willing to figure it out! You just need to start!  If you're going through hell...keep going... you are going to be so knocked down. So tired that you can barely think strain, but you just keep putting one foot in front of the other.  The use of environmental factors as catalysts for company growth and expansion. Japan with globalization. The internet with Google!  The downside that can come ...

I guess in the end, it's natural to think about the beginning.  5 years ago today, I opened the Voxn flagship in downtown Boise. I still remember my very first customer--It was my neighbor's wife and her friend. I remember exactly what was bought. I remember what we talked about. I remember her ice cream earrings. I remember how red my face got because I was overthinking how to look natural and what to do with my hands. I was an official entrepreneur.  I remember meeting one of my first team members at a coffee shop when Voxn was chicken scratches on notebook paper and napkins inside some puppy binders. I bought the puppy binders because I thought that they were cute, they were on sale and I was ready for my idea to be taken seriously. I'm pretty sure we both thought I was crazy, but she was in. We rallied those in the community who were as excited about fashion as we were. Our first fashion show was a shot in the dark. We had no idea what we were really doing, but we survi...

"It's getting bad here. People are dying. The government is closing our doors. We have to stop all production and we are running out of medical supplies. I will let you know more as I know. Please take care of yourself, Erica. God bless."  A frantic email sent from on of my international manufacturing partners warning me of the severity of Covid-19, early January 2020.  Partners I have created great relationships with, spent years of business with. Respectable, hard working, never complaining. Then, a frantic email out of character followed by... radio silence.  Like most people, I was scared. Listening to the news and reading as much as I could, scavenging the internet. There was nothing. nothing. Thinking back to my relation to the BioTechnology field, it made sense why masks were backordered and harder to come by. What is going on with the Supply Chain? I fished out an old medical mask and took measurement on it. My intent was to send them overseas. They need help....

Technology. An efficient advancement in society, yet a scary field to navigate when it comes to security, web/software customization and intellectual protection.  I'll be the first to admit that I am not an absolute expert in technology. However, I do know enough to take a company website and email down during a c-panel data migration by pointing all the name servers to a different host and changing the DNS MX Records to a 24 hour TTL propagation during a peek period. (So, enough to be dangerous. Very dangerous.) But, that's a story for another day... and don't worry, I'm much better now.  If starting a business hasn't been hard enough in the past, revolutionary inventions like the internet have come to present us with new terrain to navigate. Whether you are an online commerce or only brick and mortar, having and protecting your online presence is crucial in the world we live in today and can deem equally as important as your physical locations.  While this may see...

Did you know that anytime economic crisis hits, there are some companies who see no economic impact simply because of their customer? One of my favorite examples is the fashion icon Prada. Prada's customers is wealthy and values the finer things in life. They typically have a sound financial setup to afford luxuries. This may have been inherited, gifted or built. When markets waiver due to national or global economic hardship, (aside from catastrophe) Prada doesn't typically see much fluctuation in revenue. Why? Prada's customer has build a strong loyalty and is fixated on their products. Their customer has made their product a priority in their expenses and will actually make lifestyle adjustments to continue to afford those products. This can include things like deciding to walk more places versus taking a taxi or skipping the morning coffees to save for what they value more.  If you know me personally, you know that I am not a collector of material things. I am not a sh...

Did you now that Jeff Bezos has his day planned out down to the minute? It truly explains why he has become as successful as he has. In any aspect of life, managing your time is so incredibly important. You will have to find healthy ways to feed your focus and starve your distractions to match the life you envision. This can be very complicated, especially in the interconnected world we live in today.  Here are five tips to manage your time: Limit Social Media Use Have you ever gotten on social media to check one thing and the next thing you know, an hour goes by and all you've done is read about other people's lives. This can be a very dangerous habit to get into. Not only is it a time waste, but it is also a huge reason so many people compare themselves to others and then feel bad about themselves. Stop doing that. You truly don't have time. I get that social media is such an integral part of our lives and this can be hard. To help you easy yourself out of this comparison...

The brain. Such an incredible creation and so very complex . Humans have been studying the brain for centuries to understand how people learn, love and process information. It's incredibly fascinating. We are only scratching the surface of the brain, but congruently are creating technology that resembles the brain known as artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence or AI is intelligence that is demonstrated by machines. How does AI work? First, let's look at how the brain works. Your brain has different regions the process different types of information through messengers called neurons. Neurons are the basic working unit of the brain. Neurons use electrical impulses and chemical signals to transmit information to different areas of the brain and from the brain to the rest of your body's nervous system. A more complex, entangles system of these neurons is called a neuronet. Your neuronet is your first line of defense when processing information from the outside world ...

The amount of time that goes into starting and running a successful business is more of a time commitment than people imagine. You will start to have little time to do the things you love, but it truly is a matter of priorities. After years of trial and error, I have finally found a system that works for me and wanted to share the three biggest obstacles that I had and ways to manage them.  Cleaning Ask for recommendations of local cleaning services that can come and help you manage your home economics so you can focus your time on nurturing your startup in its infancy. This will help you have a fresh space to come home to and help you build a though-out system that will be ready to scale because you have given it the proper attention.  Workouts Running a startup and finding time for workouts is very difficult, but so essential to balance stress and keep your body and mind in equilibrium. My first year and a half of running my company was so hard. I really struggled with findi...

Women in business are still fighting the good fight and making monumental progress for women everywhere. This is especially true for women in industries that are male dominated like construction, science, engineering and technology.  The beauty in these fields is that as they advance, so does the education discipline options. Symbolic Systems has become a new major that was development as the technology field evolved and there was a need for a connection between mind and machine. This study is a hybrid of computer science, linguistics, mathematics, philosophy, psychology and statistics.  Marissa Mayer is exactly that. This Stanford Graduate of Symbolic Systems, took the technology industry by storm by being one of the first influential women in tech--starting her career as a developer at Google . After a short time, she identified that there were others that were more efficient in development than she. Mayer switched to User Experience Design and is the creator of the Google ...

It is no secret that balancing a startup and a relationship can be very hard. Mainly because your business and your partner are both competing for spot #1 with limited time and that can be very hard on both parties. Being that it is the season of love, I want to share some tips on ways to balance both.  As business owners, our free time is limited and when we have it, we want to spend it doing something we enjoy and make the most of it! A very efficient way to maximize that time spent with you partner is understanding how you both show and receive affection. Your love languages.  There are five love languages and knowing them can help you in business and your personal life. The five love languages at a glance are words of affirmation, quality time, acts of service, gifts and physical touch. I will expand more into each in a bit, but why is this important? Knowing how you and others communicate love is a very adept skill to refine. This will help you maximize your limited time ...

 How to find your genius... I was having a very interesting conversation with one of my business mentees about topics for them to blog about. Their focus is in Health and Fitness . Once we started brainstorming, ideas were thrown out and they politely turned them down by saying, " Everyone already knows all of those things. " Often times people who excel in a specific area have been immersed in that field of study, independent or institutional, that they start to think there isn't much special value to it. There is . And, it's a first sign of an area that could be your genius.  According to the Oxford Dictionary, a genius is defined as a person who is exceptionally intelligent or creative, either generally or in some particular respect.  The truth is that although you may not think much of it.... there are people who don't know how to read a nutritional label, people who don't know how to play a single instrument, women that don't know how to care for chil...

When I receive the opportunity to speak at seminars, I often get asked the question from people at all stages of life, " I don't have the money to start a business. What can I do to start my business? " Did you know that women wearing pants use to be considered taboo? What a world we live in. Another concept that has been considered completely taboo is talking about money and the finance geek in me LOVES answering this question.  The harsh truth is that we live where money makes the world go 'round. Truly not knowing how to manage money can be very detrimental to your chances of moving ahead in life. It starts with you. It starts today. You need to learn how to manage money.  The best advice I have ever heard in my life was from my accounting professor that once told me: " Successful Old people come from Smart Young People. " And what he meant is that success and its fruits are not handed to you, it takes foresight, thoughtful calculations and above all, d...

I'd like to start this post off by saying thank you to those of you who read my first introduction post . There is so much more to my story as an entrepreneur and topics to expand on that it's hard to cover in one post, but I will aim to do so over the progression of this blog.  One of the biggest themes that I have seen in entrepreneurs is their curiosity and longing to educate themselves. Often times this is done through reading, watching videos and attending seminars / networking events. These are all beneficial and necessary learning avenues that I will cover individually.  To start, let's talk about the importance of reading. Reading non-fiction books on self-help, business and psychology are a great place to start to expand your knowledge and foster a logical perspective. But, don't rule out fiction writing as it is important to nurture your creative side and allow you brain to take a break from always processing analytical information. More on this mindset balanc...

The business world... I was listening to a podcast on one of my favorite entrepreneurs. She was talking about her start into business. At a networking meeting she was approached by two men who congratulated her on her success and said, "Welcome to the business world. Are you ready to go to war?"  Decades, centuries. This is how business has been run. More profit, more gross margin, more quantity.  Although it's very convenient, companies like Amazon have completely created a culture of people expecting to pay nothing for almost anything. It's no secret that it has been a threat to brick and mortar retailers, but I think the biggest concern is the devaluation of artistry and manual labor it has created in our society. The harsh truth is that the more you support cheaply priced items, the more you support low wages. Businesses can't compete in a marketplace driven by the cheapest price without paying low, unfair wages.  Everyone talks about these politic...