Yvonne Shortt started a home based business with $865 so she could spend more time with her two daughters.
Now she averages over $50,000 per month gross revenue and her one luxury is a Steinway Baby Grand Piano.
She saved labor costs at first by using College Interns who got college credit and a stipend and part time labor.
She now, though, employs 5 fulltime workers who work from their home as well.
Her company “Small Biz Booster” provides marketing services to small local businesses.
Based in New York, she’s branching out to Los Angeles.
From Inc. Magazine
Last June Yvonne Shortt left a six-figure salary at American Express to launch a marketing firm from the cramped, toy-strewn basement of her home in the Queens section of New York City. In a mass e-mail to people she had met through networking groups and a previous venture, she introduced Small Biz Booster, which provides marketing advice to small companies. The pitch promoted services ranging from market research to direct mail at prices starting as low as $500 per month. Soon she had eight clients and was hiring a small army of interns and part-timers to help her.
A year later, Shortt has 25 regular accounts, averaging $2,150 a month. She now has five full-time employees, who, like Shortt herself, work from home. “My business is virtual,” says Shortt, “and I hope to God it will always be that way.” But don’t you dare call Shortt a “lifestyle entrepreneur.” Though her original goal was to spend more time with her kids, she is also highly ambitious. In 10 years, she hopes to have a $25 million firm “with New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles on the letterhead,” she says. At that point, she figures she’ll buy the house next door and, zoning regulations permitting, run the company from there.
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