Jay Sachetti joined Jeff O’Brien, partner at Husch Blackwell and Dyanne Ross-Hanson, president of Exit Planning Strategies talked about the market for mergers and acquisitions, exit planning opportunities for companies that don’t end up for sale and how companies can maximize their eventual sale price during an early October panel at the first Upsize on Tap event at Summit Brewing Co. in St. Paul.
When the state Legislature passed a law requiring employers to provide paid leave and safe time for employees, Justin Bieganek started hearing differing details from friends, colleagues and peers.
After a full summer of carting kids to soccer camps and art camps and music camps a couple of years ago, Teresa Fudenberg and her friend Mary Kay
duChene started talking.
“We were joking around and saying we should be able to go to camps,” Fudenberg says. She’s a marketing consultant, and duChene is a life coach. “Women, especially moms, always have trouble taking care of themselves.”
They conducted focus groups, signed up sponsors who want to reach women, and last September hosted Mom-Camp 2004, a three-day event that drew 300 people who took volunteer-taught classes on everything from home decorating to martial arts to cooking. A mini-Mom-Camp followed, and sold out at 125 people.
“The idea started out small but ended up being a bang-up event,” says Fudenberg.
This year they’re planning expansion. Focus groups revealed that people who believed in the concept at the start wanted to get something in return. The two planned to launch the Mom-Camp Connection in April, a membership program that will offer nights out with other members, a chat room on the Web, and retail discounts. Memberships cost $50 annually, and they expect to sign up 500 to 1,000 over the year.
A couple of mini camps, including one planned for April, will lead to the big event, Mom-Camp 2005, Sept. 29, 30 and Oct. 1. A new relationship with Simondelivers.com, the local grocery delivery service, should boost awareness. “They have a larger database than Mom-Camp,” Fudenberg says.
They’ve also hired an event planner to try a camp in Rochester, with an eye toward franchising the concept some day. “We get asked if we plan to take it national, but we want to perfect it in Minnesota first,” duChene says.
They’ve formed an S corporation, Wonderful U Inc., which owns the trademark Mom-Camp. Efforts to secure the trademark nationwide are under way. There’s also a foundation, to which they plan to donate profits. Revenue this year should top $200,000, and they think they’ll break even, but for now they’ll still keep their “pesky day jobs,” as Fudenberg puts it.
Teresa Fudenberg, Mary Kay duChene, Wonderful U Inc.: 763.913.7614; in**@******mp.com; www.mom-camp.com
