Jellyfish Art, LLC
“The SBDC has given me a lot of financial guidance. They helped me think about all my business processes quantitatively. Overhead costs, price, profit, and cost of goods all change with volume. The SBDC and I were able to use his tables to quickly see how these variables would change as the business scaled.”
Alex Andon, Owner of Jellyfish Art, became a member of the San Francisco Small Business Development Center’s Youth Entrepreneurship Program in June 2008. He was in the early stages of starting his business when he was introduced to the SBDC and began making use of its services.
Challenges
Alex was not sure which direction to go to increase his client base while offering a product with the highest profit. He wanted to know how to introduce his company concept with a limited budget.
Gameplan
Alex met with a senior business advisor for help revising his business plan. Shortly after, Alex began working with a financial modeling advisor to decide which jellyfish tank would be most profitable to produce. The SBDC helped Alex to create a financial model that incorporates the core needs of the business through specific expenses with anticipated sales forecasts to determine what was a reasonable breakeven period and how much cash was needed to move the business beyond breakeven.
Results
Andon has now decided to focus his efforts into producing his latest creation, the Desktop Tank.
Jellyfish Art incorporated in May 2009 and has since been featured on NPR, the Boston Globe, the New York Times, ABC, and Entrepreneur Magazine. In November 2009 Andon participated in the Extreme Entrepreneurship Tour, hosted by the SBDC and City College of San Francisco. The tour introduces youth to entrepreneurship as a profession, and motivates them to take the first steps down that path. At the tour, Andon was able to share his innovative new business with other young entrepreneurs and give insight about launching and operating a business. Alex recently began making steady profits in August 2009, and we are happy to report that he has been watching his profits double every 2 months since. His gross annual sales increased from $20,000 in 2008 to $144,000 in 2009.
