Project Startup: Business Launched Today!

It took 5 months, but we finally had our official opening on Sunday's Wellness Works fair!

We set up the booth at about 10am -- most of the other 30 vendors had already finished setting up. It was tough to fit all the stuff needed for the booth in one cab so we took one of the Expo minivans. Fortunately, with 3 interns (plus a

boyfriend), and my wife there, we got set up in only about 15 min. I think the booth turned out fairly decently. Several people who came by the booth during the day mentioned that it looked well thought out and pretty professional :)

We had a good location -- central, with no one to our back and no one competing on either side for signage. Our booth had essentially a backdrop with our logo on a field of green, then two self-standing banners. On the 1.8m table itself, we had a display of 9 common household pollutants and a guessing game where people had to match the pollutant to the proper

name and health effects. Not probably the most fun game, but at least it was an easier way to break the ice than a straight sell. On the right hand side, we had a lucky draw where people could win gas-removing green plants (we brought a snake plant, a peace lily, and several aloe veras), vouchers for free lead testing, vouchers worth 250 or 500rmb, and one grand prize of a free complete home assessment worth 2000rmb (around $300). Also on the table, we had a fair promotion flyer, brochures in Chinese and English, frequently asked questions, and a sample of the completed report as well as a raw Chinese test company report.

There wasn't too much traffic in the morning. At first we found out that it wasn't that easy to get people to leave their personal information. This is probably that we just didn't ask for it. I had

initially planned to offer a lucky draw to people in exchange for them going through a quick little mini-assessment, but in the future, the better idea is probably to just get them to leave a business card and a sense of what they are interested in and then follow up later. I was one of four speakers to give a little talk ("Indoor Environmental Quality in China: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly", but last minute the venue changed. I am not sure if that was the reason, but there was low turnout and only about 10 people (besides our staff) were there. Fortunately, there was pretty good interaction and people asked a lot of good questions and it generated 2 leads who later came to the booth. I also found that one of the best ways to quickly get people to understand the value we add is to show them the Chinese report, which is pretty bare and just has numbers, and then show them our report, which has an initial customer profiling and recommendations on what to test, then graphical test results based on both Chinese and international standards, and then analysis of problem sources and recommendations. People understood that much more than anything else we showed or explained. We really should show this more, but I would be careful to release it as an electronic source, because it could be copied.

Chinese Marketing 101: one big takeaway is that having young, overly formal-dressed, nervous looking Chinese staff hovering definitely drives away traffic. I watched expats literally look up at the booth then veer away. When Sarah, the blonde foreigner was there by herself, she got tons of traffic.

There were other competitors and potential

partners at the fair and I went over to meet some of them. There were air purifier representatives, a water purifier company, and a health retailer. Fortunately, still no sign of anyone else doing anything like what we are doing. It was interesting that several of the representatives from the other companies said that they had heard of us, and at least one rep said he wanted to meet up later to talk about working together. Really is a small community or else word spreads quickly.

At the end of the day, we had 7 potential customer leads, of which 3 are highly likely to convert into test projects. The most interesting one was a guy from sweden who is having a mold problem and was almost begging us for our help. Unfortunately, we don't know too much about mold outside of what I've learned in books. The good news is that there is almost no one else in China who does, so we can at least add some value. When I went into his apartment to take a look (he lived in the apartment complex that was hosting the fair), I felt like I was walking into a tropical jungle. Mold loves humidity, so it wasn't hard to be able to tell him that no matter what he does, it won't be successful until he can reduce the humidity.

Since Sunday, I have been able to meet with the retailers, who want to partner with us to certify their products and co-market, and will be meeting with an air purifier manufacturer tomorrow in order to work out some sort of referral relationship. The tough thing will be finding a balance between keeping our independent third-party position, while also offering downstream solutions and being able to make some money off of it.

I also did a lot of research on mold to be able to advise the customer with the mold problem. Followed up with a call today and we spoke for about an hour. He is very happy to have someone to talk to and is an "ideal" customer. Not only is he a good customer, but if we succeed with him, we can almost certainly get more business in that apartment complex and he will probably be a good advocate. I sent a proposal earlier tonight.

In the next few weeks, we will need to keep ironing out our processes, do good work to get a solid reputation, and then start expanding our marketing channels. Once we hit about 10 customers, I think it will be time to pull the trigger on full-time staff and some investment on test equipment.

The website is live too and that's a whole another animal -- adwords, blog maintenance, promotions, cross-marketing, search engine optimization... take a look and let me know what you think. Send me a message if you don't know the website address.