NiMA

“I have big news,” I told my friend Ken over IM a couple of months ago. Generally, when you say that to people, they think you’re either getting married or having a baby (although I’m nowhere close to doing either!). So I told him that I was, in fact, giving birth… to a business, not a baby… and joked that I was planning to have a business shower. The minute I said it, I had an A-HA moment.
 
Why not have a business shower? Bridal and baby showers have long been held to help people celebrate and prepare for a new phase in their lives. A business shower could do the same by helping the first-time entrepreneur set up shop. After all, who needs venture capital when you have friends?

The Business Shower Committee

Once the decision was made, I set out to form a committee (it would be silly for me throw my own shower!). I asked 12 of my closest DC friends – Lena Aburdene, Shireen Bashir, Kristine Friend, Tania Galarza, Natalie Keuppens, Kasia Klem, Kenneth Lim, Beth Oblak, Lila Paig, Beth St. Clair, Becky Vaughan, and Amanda Yanek — and my sister Amberin Amin in NYC to serve on the committee. In addition to putting on the shower, the committee was meant to be my support group… the people I leaned on in the coming year when things got tough. So it was very symbolic to me. Plus, I got each of them to agree to let me move in with them if I was no longer able to pay my mortgage. I hope never to have to take them up on that! 
 
The committee, led by Lena, did an amazing job of organizing the shower. For my part, I registered at www.myregistry.com for things like a printer, shredder, hard drive, flash drive, etc. I also offered to do the favors, for which I created Business Messaging Kits people could use at their desks to let coworkers know what they’re doing or how they’re feeling at any given time. The Kit includes cards that have straightforward messages on one side – such as “Out to Lunch,” “In a Meeting,” and “On a Call” – with lighter messages on the other side — such as “At the Bar,” “At the Water Cooler,” and “Nature’s Calling.”   

The shower, which also served as my launch party, was held at Hudson Restaurant and Lounge on Monday, 1 Febraury 2010 from 6:30-9pm. We had a great turnout, including people I had met during different stages in life — from former bosses, employees, and coworkers to friends I had made through business school, book club, and game night. There were even a few people I hadn’t met before. I received quite a few of the items on my registry (a big thank you to my friends!) as well as a couple of good leads.  

In the end, the business shower was my proclamation to the world… that I was committed to making NiMA a success, that it wasn’t just a fly-by-night operation, that I wasn’t going to go gently into the night. I made the same type of proclamation a few years ago when I ran the Marine Corps Marathon. I had announced it to all my friends when I first started training and raising funds, so when race day came, there were too many people counting on me for me to give up. It’s the same with my business. 
 
Plus, the shower also shows who I am as a marketer — someone who comes up with a crazy idea like a business shower and talks 13 people into throwing it for her. If I can do that for myself, just think what I can do for your company.