In 2008, Mary Lynn Schroeder was working in the music business in Chicago. Because the work was not fulfilling, she decided to move on. She departed for southern Illinois and on the way stopped at a Jo-Ann Fabrics & Crafts store. While she did not know much about sewing, she bought a sewing machine, primarily to hem her jeans and make curtains. Schroeder stayed long enough to take several lessons. She arrived in southern Illinois and rented a farmhouse near Carbondale, the home of Southern Illinois University. Her intention was to find a job in Carbondale and settle in. Instead, she unexpectedly fell in love with sewing. Rather than finding a job, Schroeder started sewing—making small items and completing clothing alterations. She found the idea of becoming self-sufficient appealing. She opened a small consignment shop in a town of about 400, selling her own work and the work of others. The shop had a small studio in the rear where Schroeder did her work. During this period, she developed an interest in making leather journals. The idea she settled on was to make journals bound by leather on the front and the back. The cover would have an image on it, selected by the buyer from a book of images she would maintain. The buyer would also be able to provide up to 10 words of text to accompany the image. The combination of these options would result in a one-of-a-kind custom journal with the buyer’s favorite phrase on the cover. Shortly after moving to southern Illinois, Schroeder established an Etsy shop. For the first year or so, she sold small handmade goods. When the leather journal idea came along, she added leather journals and leather sunglass cases to her Etsy store. She would sell one to two products a day, which was a pace she could maintain. Simultaneously, Schroeder was working at Steak & Shake, a burger and shake restaurant, to supplement her income. On December 2, 2009, shortly after Schroeder started selling leather journals, an extraordinary thing happened. The Martha Stewart Show featured her journal. Schroeder woke up the next morning and had 80 orders for journals. This was the beginning of a larger business. She also began establishing wholesale accounts. Because of her visibility on Etsy, she began receiving offers from chains and boutiques to carry her goods. These orders became the foundation for Schroeder’s business, called In Blue Hand made, to grow.....

Discussion Questions:

1.What can a first-time entrepreneur, who may have a good idea but not much money or business acumen, learn from Schroeder’s experience?

2.To what degree do you think you are capable of building a website on Squarespace and setting up an online store on Shopify? If you do not think you are capable of either of these tasks, what can you do now to obtain the necessary capabilities?
3.To what degree do you believe ready-made platforms like Squarespace, Shopify, and Etsy are contributing to the entrepreneurial ecosystem in the United States and abroad? To what degree could you envision using one or more of these platforms if you launched a business of your own?
4.Identify and describe a ready-made platform, like Squarespace or Shopify, that is not a direct competitor of either one of these platforms but fills a similar role in that it allows an entrepreneur to perform a vital task with very little upfront capital investment.
5.Why do you think this case appears in the chapter titled “Assessing a New Venture’s Financial Strength and Viability”?