What attempts have you made to build your business? Have you been successful?

I have built my business solely on a cash-flow positive growth strategy. I started with selling to friends and family and was fortunate to have enough of their support to be able to access weekend-markets. Now, that we have been fortunate enough again to have found support from our customers at those weekend-markets to be able to invest in the expansion of our product line to develop a product that will be better suited and received in a retail-store setting….

What do you intend to do with the investment funds? Where will the money go? With the investment funds, we would like to invest it into three primary channels…

Since we have started selling our Atlas Kits, we have been often asked how this little project of ours came to be.  Well the truth is that the origin of the Atlas Project has several different roots with each feature having its own story….Travel Map:

Since we have started selling our Atlas Kits, we have been often asked how this little project of ours came to be.  Well the truth is that the origin of the Atlas Project has several different roots with each feature having its own story….

Our other big challenge that I realized we had while selling at the markets was the overall depth to the concept behind our product as the Atlas Project so much more than just a map, a bottle, or a random international coin. This has led to some significant challenges in regard to consumer education. So, we perfected our pitch over the course 8 months at markets, constantly experimenting and evolving over the thousands of times we told it until we could tell our full story in 30 seconds or less.

Some of the biggest hurdles that our business face is one that I feel many businesses face, especially ones who have invented a new concept/product, which is marketing and finding ways to share our product while having access to very little capital or resources. We never took out a massive loan or had a venture capitalist backing us which would have provided us a long financial runway to run a sustained and effective social media campaign. We didn’t have access to social media influencers or the capital to invest in having an influencer share our story…..

As we promised, we have some big news to share with all of you! After 8 months of selling our Atlas Project in markets across the Northeast, shipping orders across the U.S. and in some cases the world, being sold in three different shops in the Greater Boston area, and of course, buying first rounds for Atlas Travelers on four different continents, we have finally positioned ourselves in regards to our growth trajectory and numbers to go for the big move. A move that has been suggested to us by many of you at nearly every market! We’ve officially decided to fill out and submit our application for Shark Tank!

A few short weeks ago, we had our final summer market of the season in SOWA, and we couldn’t imagine ending on a higher note or with nicer people!

With the official end of the summer market season, we are now preparing for our first official Holiday Season! (i.e., basically, the Super Bowl for small businesses) It’s hard to believe how almost exactly a year ago today, I was loading UPS trucks at 3 o’clock in the morning for the Holiday Season, and now a year later those same trucks will now be delivering our Atlas Travel Journals and Kits around the world!