Test your business idea with small steps: starting a quilt retreat

Uniontown, Washington, (population 300) has a strong base of arts, artisan and craft entrepreneurship. When I toured Uniontown, a woman spoke up who wants to start a quilt retreat, a place for people to come and quilt together. More than a local quilting bee, she’s imagining a full retreat space. She owns a historic home […]

Uniontown, Washington, (population 300) has a strong base of arts, artisan and craft entrepreneurship. When I toured Uniontown, a woman spoke up who wants to start a quilt retreat, a place for people to come and quilt together. More than a local quilting bee, she’s imagining a full retreat space. She owns a historic home that was the site of an old convent in the 1890s. There’s an outbuilding that would be a great retreat location.

The old way: Build it and expect them to come

The old way to get started would be to do all the costly renovations first. Then she can organize the first event all herself, and then market it to attract people. If no one or only a few people are ready to sign up, the failure is all on her. She didn’t market it well enough, she didn’t design it in the way that the market wanted or she just didn’t work hard enough.

New way: Idea Friendly

The Idea Friendly way is to build it together. Give as many people as possible a small but meaningful role in designing and creating the event, the space and the community. Here’s how to apply the Idea Friendly Method to her quilt retreat business idea.

Gather Your Crowd

Since she has connections with other quilters online, she could start with a virtual quilting event to gather people to her idea.

Could she start a virtual quilt project that gave more people a small but mean