How a Mother of 3 Started a Weekend Business to Bring in $20,000 in Extra Family Income
This is the story of how a mother of three started a weekend business that not only brought in extra part-time income, it let her stay a full-time mom.
In the beginning, my life was probably much like yours is today. I had high hopes and dreams, but no prior business experience. I was falling behind and life wasn’t waiting for me to catch up.
I was a mother of 3, with doubts about my ability to balance a strict 9-5 with managing a young family. Sound familiar?
Actually, I wasn’t so concerned about my ability to handle it. Somehow you just do it. In looking down the road though, this was only going to get tougher.
The anxiety became all too real when I realized I might actually miss out on the kids going through their stages and growing up. The thought of showing up too late was what I couldn’t handle.
I believed then as I do now that if you do a poor job raising your kids, nothing else really matters. Managing their social media was challenging enough. It wasn’t going to replace me. But we needed a second income and I needed an ideal work situation.
We were hoping I could find a job to bring in an extra $20,000 a year. That was very doable, but, most things come with strings attached which make them less attractive, especially when it involves working for someone else.
I decided to take the plunge, becoming a “Mom-preneur.” That is a mother in business for herself, managing her own time, making her own decisions with family at the center of her life. We didn’t have a great deal of money to risk and, quite honestly, I didn’t want to completely re-invent the wheel. I was just bound and determined to do it better.
I chose what turned out to be the best business idea ever for moms and women who love children, The Princess Tea Party Business.
In tapping into the enormous birthday party industry, my job in this niche is, to this day, to help a little girl’s princess dream come true. Pure and simple. Having daughters of my own, I knew this was a winning concept. What I didn’t know was that it would become the joy of my business life and mean so much to my family’s well- being.
My first store opened after about a year of preparation with less than $12,000 invested. I never had so much fun preparing for anything. That was the tip-off for what was to come.
Every business has it’s rhythm in terms of demand, and I had to go through a lot of trial and error with advertising, different offerings, when to hire help, etc. There was no one there to hold my hand or a guidebook I could buy with step by step instructions. I had to figure it out as I went along. In retrospect, it is pretty simple, although it didn’t always seem like it at the time.
I have to admit I was nervous when my first party of 8 little 5-year-olds showed up with expectations sky high. This was it. I’ll either be the talk of their kindergarten class (not to mention Starbucks) or, I would go the way of your average backyard clown.
I must have nailed it because word spread quickly about this great new children’s party place in town. My bookings began to stabilize and our investment was returned within the first 18 months. I’m still in the same location and have never looked back.
That was 17 years ago. Since then we’ve made over 6,000 little princess dreams come true and generated more than $2,000,000 in total revenue from a weekend business!
I’m not saying you’ll become a millionaire from a weekend Princess Tea Party business, but you can see that my investment has turned out to be much more than ever expected. My kids have graduated college and I’ve been there for just about every milestone moment in their lives. Knock on wood!
To Your Success!
Lisa
