This is business inspires a monthly podcast of the tri Village Chamber partnership to run a successful business you need resources valuable connections and community recognition. Business inspires will provide you with the tools resources and examples to inspire you to create the business you are envisioning. Here's Michelle Wilson executive director of the tri Village Chamber partnership.
Welcome to our first of many. Business inspires podcasts. In this episode we're speaking with Laura Oldham of Starburst media. Laura thank you so much for being our first guest on business inspirers thank you for having me. We want to talk to you today about your decision to start a business move to Columbus all those things that you did a few years back and just be candid. And we just want to hear your real story. So let's start out with a fun question which was what did Laura want to be when she grew up.
That is a funny question because I wanted to be so many different things. I would say probably top 10. I wanted to be a writer an actress a restaurant owner a scientist.
I wanted to be in math. I really enjoyed history and considered psychology. So it's really that's very right brain left brain. It was kind of all over the place it switched every week. So one week I'd be writing 20 page novels next week I would be cooking gourmet grilled cheese for my siblings so it was kind of all over the place.
That's awesome. So how how does some of your childhood dreams tie into what you do today.
Well I was kind of thinking about that a few weeks ago actually. Where did I land. Where I am now which is on the Internet. It's funny because every day I kind of do a little bit of all the things I wanted to do. I write every day not necessarily for Saturday Night Live like I want to do. I get to write sometimes funny for some clients sometimes very serious law firm content but it's all over the place which kind of I mean when I was a kid what I wanted to be was all over the place. So from day to day everything is different. There's really not any predictability which is something that I thrive on as is the constant stress of what might pop up day to day. And that's something that I really like about just having my own small business because I do accounting which I like I was in an accounting club in high school and won statewide Titus's.
So I mean there's the math there's the words there's acting like I like to network because it's such a hard thing for me. It's just a little bit of all the things I always wanted to do.
And Laura you serve as our chamber president so networking is a big part of what the Chamber does when we connect businesses and you do you do do that. And that's great that you can act that way but also that you do. You do a very good job of that and you do help us connect businesses each day. So you touch a little bit on what you do with business. But tell us about Starbursts media.
Sure. So I started starburst media almost seven years ago. I was living in Chicago without any financial responsibilities so it was very easy for me to quit. At the time I was working at two different bars as well as a Internet startup. So it wasn't. It wasn't difficult to kind of throw everything to the side because I didn't have a mortgage or a child or all the things that I have as commitments today and I was very fortunate where my then boyfriend now husband encouraged me to do it and said he would be willing to financially support me during the inevitably hard first few years. But my background was in journalism and advertising copywriting was kind of the jump I took after college and then Digital Marketing working with some Internet startups so I kind of wanted to roll up all of the skills basically that I'd come up with and try to come up with a way to do it for myself that wasn't having to work 80 hour weeks so that I could actually pay my rent in Chicago. So what I started I thought I was going to be just copywriting and social media because that's what I had all the experience in. But every single business that came to me and that I talked to they all wanted help with their websites. Every small business needed even the simplest Web site. So when this was you know seven years ago I started taking classes on Linda and Skillshare and whatever other free or very inexpensive services I could find to learn to e-mail and see is sent a little bit about you know Page P and JavaScript and I'm not an expert necessarily in coding but I know enough that I can get a simple website for small business together pretty quickly and it's evolved a lot since then where I work with a lot you know bigger businesses and more complicated Web sites.
But at the very beginning the whole goal was to be able to help people like my parents both of them own their own small businesses and the big issue that they had was they would want a web site but developers would charge them a ton and not be willing to help them when they need to make small changes. So what I wanted to do was come up with a way to basically empower these small business owners to make changes themselves. So my philosophy has always been to provide tutorials at the end when a website launched so that the small business owner doesn't necessarily need to depend upon someone like me when they have a new employee join their team. So that was kind of how I evolved into doing websites and now day to day. Probably about 80 percent of my time is doing websites and the social media and copywriting is done by my assistant who does a fantastic job of keeping up with that whereas I am really enjoying doing the website work now. So that's what you prefer. It's what too. Yeah exactly. But I still like helping with the social media. But the older and more tired I get a social media posting is a little tough. So what was the very first website you designed it was actually at the bar.
I was working at the time it was for Patti Long's beer and bacon pub in Chicago was a 300 dollar bar trade show. The first website I built I got a lot of bacon and some beer out of it.
Ok great. God bless Pat the owner be willing to let me try and having faith in me. But he was. That was my first big quote unquote big website. And my first ongoing social media client and it was really fun to watch them. They landed on the Travel Channel and the Food Network and all these other places while I was doing the social media and it felt it felt like hey this is you know this is actually helping their business. It was a really cool way to start. And what brought you to Columbus. Well we dug and I realized was we could we had gotten what we wanted to get out of Chicago Basically we weren't going to the museums we weren't going to the beach to play volleyball we were going to the same bar and restaurant down the street ordering in the same Chinese takeout. But we were paying a lot more for a very very small place. And when we got serious about you know we're going to want to fambly at some point. We want to house and if we want to do that in Chicago we're going to need to make millions of dollars more because we weren't we weren't interested necessarily and moving to the Chicago suburbs where it takes two hours to get into the city.
So we did a tour of the Midwest basically and consider different cities like Pittsburgh Louisville since Cincinnati and Cleveland and we came to visit Columbus. It was the first time I'd been here since college which I had in my head what Columbus was and it was you know being drunk and I other streets on campus and we came to Columbus to visit just to see what it was like. And it happened to be Kompass weekend and we fell in love. And we we just what a great energy young city but not necessarily in age but more so.
And the way that the city felt like it's on the verge of really growing into something even more awesome than it already is. So another very irresponsible but gut reaction we got on Craigslist and we found an apartment and we didn't see it before we got it. But it's in the Grand View area. And we rolled up with a U-Haul at about 10:00 on a Tuesday night.
My gosh look at this adorable neighborhood. There's this cute little theater. There is all these restaurants and bars and it was just kind of by dumb luck that we landed in the area after doing some research on LinkedIn and Yelp and we just love the tri Village area.
We moved five and a half years ago and now we have a house in Upper Arlington and we have a yard and a dog and a child and all the things that we knew you know almost a decade ago that we're not going to happen within the city limits of Chicago.
Great. So how did you start your business here. How did you reach out to potential clients and establish yourself.
You know this is going to be the greatest endorsement for the chamber but the first thing I did before I even move indoors away to move to Columbus was I reached out to Michelle and I said I'm a small business owner looking to grow my business and I'm going to be moving. Actually I said I'm going to be moving to Grandview. And we set up our meeting at stops and that was a day or two after we had moved to Columbus. And Michelle told me that we were actually in fifth by Northwest not in Granby. So the Craigslist listing wasn't necessarily completely truthful but that's totally fine where in the grand view area and I met with you and joined the chamber I think the next day started coming to all the luncheons and being very nervous about it but it was honestly the best move I could make as far as. I met so many people who immediately were like oh my gosh you know I've been looking for someone who could help me with my website. You know I have a local restaurant or travel agency or whatever. And it's been wonderful where I've had a chance to work with all these small businesses especially in the tri Village area and I feel like I get to make great connections with these people and actually hopefully make a difference in their business in their day to day lives.
Well I definitely think you do and I think that's the beauty of our area is that. And working with other small business owners is that you get to make these connections and they become friends down the road or they come back to you for more business. And if it's for instance coding or something that is something you might need to farm out then you know we refer these businesses on to other people and we keep all these connections going and it's very beneficial to everybody involved. So tell me what some of the challenges you have been through or faced as a small business owner whether it was just starting out or even currently what are some challenges that you're facing.
I mean I'd say month to month the challenge is change. Obviously the biggest stress is whether I will be able to pay my bills because month month you don't know how much work is going to come in and how many you know computers are going to crash which last year I had two computers that needed to be completely replaced which was no thank goodness I could. But you just don't know what's going to pop up day to day. And be able to pay for child care is real as a real stress when you don't know every two weeks you're going to get this dollar amount check.
I mean that's been a stress from the beginning and I can't imagine any day when it's going to be completely out of the picture. I always have a fear that maybe I just I want my clients to always be happy I want them to feel like they are getting value from my work and that's something that I will probably always second guess myself on. But you know so what I in my office I've surrounded myself with. Thank you cards from clients from the last seven years to try to remind myself that people do appreciate what I'm doing and the time and effort that goes into the work we do for them even if they don't always often think it's been fortunate to have a lot who are very kind and said I was going to ask you how how you persevere when you when you face a challenge and if it sounds like one of your big challenges is self-assurance and so you know you're surrounding yourself with those those notes.
And I'm sure that gets you through moments but was there one really great piece of advice that somebody gave you along the way that really made you want to stick with what you were doing and not to throw in the towel and go find a corporate job that does guarantee a every two week paycheck with benefits.
So when I said I was going to start this.
Everyone said it was a foolish decision and it by all means it was. But Doug stuck by me and said you know this is your best bet because I don't really fit into a perfect job.
From a corporate job. I don't. There's nothing that would be my dream to do day to day. So for me being able to have all these crazy things that pop up is actually something that's good for me. As far as good advice. Just sticking with it and believing in myself is a thing that I strive to do everyday. My office has all these inspirational quotes that I've put up on the wall and some banners and pennants and I just try to keep it as the most positive. I literally switch to a standing desk so I'm always up physically but I would say just trying to stick with it. But you know being realistic. Sure.
How about talking about some of the sacrifices it takes to be a business owner or a small business owner.
So when I first started out and I did not have tons of clients it was a picnic. For me it's like literally living in Chicago. We would going I would say you want to go to the Cubs game today. Sure it's Wednesday afternoon. Why not. Let's walk to Wrigley and that is not my reality anymore. But you know first someone said to you when you work for yourself you can work whatever 16 hours a day you want. And at first I was like oh yeah ha ha. But more and more that is the reality that it's unfortunate that I really like what I do because I'm working most nights and weekends to try to make sure that I'm staying on top of all the requests. But I'd say work life balance is probably the biggest thing that you kind of have to accept you're never going to get exactly right especially once you have kids because there's all these wonderful ideas in your head of how things will look when you have children and you work for yourself. You say oh I'm going to be around so much more and I can work from home instead of having daycare. And the last year and a half of my life has definitely taught me a lot of lessons where there's not going to be a perfect balance but you know except whatever it is at that time and just kind of love it as much as you can.
That's great. So what if anything would you perhaps do differently if you were starting your business today already established in Columbus Ohio and with family and I would have maybe a hundred thousand dollars to back up when it started so I could feel a little bit smarter with the way things went but I don't know.
It's hard to say if I started my business now I'm a very different person in a very different time in my life than I was almost a decade ago where things would have to be a lot more calculated. I would probably be going to classes to make sure that I'm making a well thought out business plan instead of just kind of shooting from the hip. I'm fortunate that things have worked out how they have because on paper things probably shouldn't have because a lot of reckless decisions were made based entirely upon my gut such as moving to Columbus Ohio just because we thought it had a nice vibe like that is a ridiculous but I mean it did work out great.
Yeah yeah. That's fantastic. So I'd like to kind of wrap this up with. How does Laura Oldham define success.
For me I would say success is being able to comfortably pay my bills and feel like I'm making a difference in people's lives that I talk to every day. It means a lot to me when the general tone of emails texts facebook messages and calls from clients because I get all of them constantly when they're positive. I feel like OK this is I'm doing the right thing. This is this good I would say. Just being able to pay my bills and keep clients happy. That's what I would say is my success and you know day to day. Did you define.
Well congratulations and we're so happy to have you. And starburst here in our area and certainly helping a lot of clients and if people wanted to find Starbursts how would they do that.
You can visit my website Starbursts Colombus dot com. It's got a lot of clients on the portfolio from the tri Village area things too. Honestly my involvement with the chamber then Granby Area Chamber now tri Village Chamber has been fantastic for me to be able to find people to work with.
Great thank you so much. We appreciate you joining us on Business inspirers. Thank you.
Thanks for subscribing downloading and listening to business inspires a monthly podcast of the tribe Village Chamber partnership our innovative and active chamber is successful because of our smart and engaged members who cultivate our strong business community with more than 60 years as an integral part of the Grandview Upper Arlington marble Cliff communities. The tri Village Chamber partnership is dedicated to a single purpose. The success of the business community you can find a link to our Web site. The podcast notes to learn more about the tribe Village Chamber partnership for information about this podcast. To schedule a guest appearance or to find out more about sponsoring this podcast our contact information is in the podcast notes. Make sure you write and review our podcast on iTunes that helps us spread the word about business inspires.
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