Blog Tour: Courtesy of Booksparks
Thanks so much to the author, BookSparks, and Chronical Prism Publishing for the complimentary finished copy of this book in exchange for my honest thoughts and participation in this blog tour. All opinions are entirely my own. { partner } All of my reviews can also be found on Instagram @Tackling_TBR and on my Goodreads.
Synopsis from Goodreads:
In just seven years, Jaime Schmidt went from making natural products in her Portland, Oregon kitchen to turning her brand into a household name and selling her company in a nine-figure acquisition. Supermaker is her guide to business and career development on your own terms.
Through unfiltered storytelling and instructive takeaways, the acclaimed entrepreneur, founder of Schmidt’s Naturals, and icon of the Maker Movement shares how you too can start or grow your own business with her secrets on marketing, sales growth, product development, customer engagement, scaling operations, and partnerships.
Following Jaime’s journey from market stand to global brand, readers will take away:
• The keys to establishing a financially successful business for entrepreneurs and professionals ready to go from maker to magnate.
• Tactical approaches to branding, PR, sales, marketing, culture development, and team management.
• Candid advice and storytelling from an industry disruptor and proven executive.
Following her growth from kitchen to acquisition, Supermaker is a riveting mix of inspiration, the honest airing of mistakes, and indispensable instruction.
• A go-to guide for the passion-to-profit journey.
• The perfect read for aspiring entrepreneurs, makers, creatives, and anyone with an interest in selling their products online, retail strategy, or digital marketing.
• Great for anyone who enjoyed Start Something That Matters by Blake Mycoskie, Craft, Inc: Turn Your Creative Hobby into a Business by Meg Mateo Ilasco, and The Girls’ Guide to Starting Your Own Business: Candid Advice, Frank Talk, and True Stories for the Successful Entrepreneur by Caitlin Friedman.
Review: (3 Stars)
I was so excited to jump into this book! Last year, in December 2019, I started my own small shop on Etsy, and it has been a crazy just under a year trying to figure it out as I went along. So I was so excited to be chosen to be a part of the blog tour for this book, and learn all of the things that Jaime had done early on in her business’s life, and how she made it what it is now.
I flew through the first half of the book, because I found it all so fascinating. The stories about her starting at craft fairs and farmers markets, to going in to her local shops to learn the process of getting her products on those first store shelves. Watching her in the middle of the learning process that is a constant once you pass the moment of “I like making this product, and I think that people would be interested in buying it” and are trying to figure out what comes next and what you would like the future of that business to look like. I got some answers to a few questions that I have had in my own experiences, and some answers to a few questions that I didn’t know that I had, and even a few answers to questions that I haven’t gotten far enough in my process yet to have been curious about.
All of that being said, once I got into about the second half of this book I hit a bit of a wall that I found myself really having to push through to the finish line and the last chapter. And that is nothing against the book, but I think that at this point in my own process only the first half of the book was really aimed at me and my business. Let me start off this portion by saying that we have very different types of businesses, Jaime and I, so it wasn’t like the whole book was going to be a one to one comparison. But more so than that, about halfway through the book is when she and her business really started to blow up – being able to shop it at target, moving into really large production spaces, hiring more and more staff members, etc. And that just isn’t a place that I see myself ever going with my own business. The biggest I could ever see my shop, in my absolute wildest dreams for my business, would be a small storefront with myself and at most one other person selling things that are still each made by my own hand. So by the time the book was all about her bringing in business partners and giving interviews on television, or being mentioned by celebrities in magazines, it just became a little bit more difficult for me to get through and I ended up finding myself putting it down in favor of my other reads.
Overall I would say that this was a fairly interesting book, written very narratively, and with lots of categorized tips and tricks from someone who made something really huge and international truly out of nothing. I would say that this book may be more interesting for you if you see yourself wanting to really take your business and make it something very big like Jaime did. Otherwise, if you’re a small business like me, maybe you’ll get more out of the first half than the second half. I am very glad that I read it, and there are a few tips and bits of inspiration that I have taken from the book since having read it. So if you are in that situation, it will just be up to you to decide for yourself if it is something worth picking up and reading, if you will potentially only be getting the information out of that one half.
About the Author (from Goodreads):
Jaime Schmidt is the acclaimed entrepreneur, investor, and Maker Movement icon that started out making natural products in her kitchen, and in short time, grew her brand into 30,000+ stores and sold it in a nine-figure acquisition.
Suffice to say, she’s got quite the story to tell. Not only about how she did it, but all the unbelievable twists and turns along the way that threatened to sink her business.
Through unfiltered storytelling and instructive takeaways learned during her growth from maker to magnate, Supermaker shares Jaime’s secrets to financial success, marketing, operations, sales growth, product development, PR, partnerships, and customer engagement.
Following Jaime from kitchen to acquisition, Supermaker: Crafting Business on Your Own Terms is a riveting mix of inspiration, the honest airing of mistakes, and indispensable instruction.
Tackling TBR 