Educational content is reinforced through comprehensive reading stories, a computer voice-over, 5 reading stories, quizzing, and supporting learning games and activities."

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Choosing Your Company's Name

 

Many people ask us about the origin of our company's name - Windmill Works.  I've always promised to write the history of the rationale of connecting a windmill to a company that creates educational software (!), but never had the time.  However, in the spirit of collegiality with my fellow enterprising internet and other entrepreneurs, I decided there is no better time than the present to issue forth a "don't-do-what-I-did" edict.

 

How We Started: Our company started in 1985 when I had switched careers from teaching deaf and hard of hearing students to interpreting for deaf and hard of hearing students (professions on the surface may appear similar, but in actuality require different skills.) Since my daughter Bethany was in elementary school, I wanted to decrease the stress that teaching brought with its daily lesson plans, writing of goals for Individualized Educational Plans, IEP's, and the weighty responsibility of directing the course of the education of the students in one's charge. (Not that interpreting doesn't carry it's own set of stresses, but those were easier for me to handle at that stage of life.)  I, therefore, began interpreting at a high school in Coon Rapids, MN and had the pleasure of interpreting for a lovely young teenager in a senior literature class taught by a wonderful teacher, Sue Everett.  It was Ms. Everett's daily lectures on authors and their works that reminded me of a card game, Authors, that I had played as a child.

 

The Idea for Our First Project: I then began searching all over the city for a copy of this card game (this was before internet with ebay, craig's list, and google). I ended up at a shop called Grand Games in Minneapolis.  The owner of the shop at the time, told me that she had received many requests for the game and suggested to me that someone should re-publish it.

 

"Ah.... what a great idea," I thought.  So I decided to publish a game called, American Authors and paid a student in the Art class in which I was interpreting for some drawings of authors which eventually became part of the new card game, American Authors.  Meanwhile, we had to come up with a name for the company that I was forming.  (And here's what the "don't-do-what-I-did" part comes in. 

 

In 1985, the film, Man of LaMancha with Peter O'Toole was just released to video tape.  So after renting the movie one night and being swept away with Peter O'Toole's piercing blue eyes and the lyrics:  "to dream the impossible dream, to fight the unbeatable foe, da, da, de, dah," I decided Don Quixote's quest in relation to windmills might be just what I was doing - only my quest was more hopeful and rational, I reasoned. 

 

So there, you have it.  I combined the word "works" with the word "windmill" (for alliteration) merely because I was touched by the movie.  Therefore............................

 

Rule #1:  Don't name your company after some movie, boyfriend, philosophical, or other romantic idea that has you in it's clutches. Why? 

a.  Most likely the name you love is not at the beginning of the alphabet. "But wait," you argue - we're talking about the internet here - not the phone book.  Trust me, if your company is listed on someone's site, chances are they somewhere, somehow end up listing your company alphabetically.  Thus, "w" was not a good bet for us, and alphabetical tail end letters probably won't be good for your company either. 

 

Rule #2:  Don't name give your company a name that has nothing to do with what you do; it just confuses the masses and messes up the search engines. (Or the converse:  give your company a name that reflects your product or what you do.) Thus, we would have been much better off to name our company "A Software Learning Place," or "123 Software for Students"  - you get the idea.

 

So why didn't/don't we change our name?  Well, things in life tend to snowball.  First of all, we had our logo designed by artist Tim Carrier www.needcoffeecreative.com and fell in love with the windmilll at first sight.  We can't let the windmill go now; it has become part of our identity.  Secondly, some of our customers, thankfully, have become used to the fact that Windmill Works creates software and sells other games.  Finally, to change all of our business forms, registrations, etc. would take our time away from the stuff we love to do - create new products.  So Windmill Works has become part of us, we've grown to love it, and we'll keep it.

 

But if you're just starting out, it's not too late for you!  Save yourselves!  Pick a name that's higher up in the alphabet AND that reflects your company's focus or product.  If you have one unique product like purple petunia plants - then be sure to have that in your company's title AND to buy a domain name that reflects your product.  If someone has already purchased purplepetunias.com not to worry.  Try purplepetuniastogo.com or some variation.

 

These are probably  tips that everyone knows, but as they might say in Minnesota:  "Yust in case, here's something that might be helpful, doncha know."

Selling Other Companies' Products on Your Website

I was looking for a web site in my AOL favorites list when I came across a site I had bookmarked a while back for my daughter, Bethany, the actor (www.bethanypagliolo.com). I clicked on the bookmarked site, "Best Actor Day jobs"   http://bestactordayjobs.com/  just to see why I had taken the time to add this link to my favorites, and discovered there a list of wonderfully creative ideas for actors on how to make money in between gigs. Since even non-actors have lulls "in between gigs" (ah-hem website owners) I found these suggestions useful. The most pertinent suggestion for those of us who try to sell online was the suggestion to sell other peoples' products on your web site. As Craig Fergusson would say, "I knowwww..."   

In spite of the fact that our company basically designs software, we have found that the sale of other products, especially the highlighter tape we feature, gives us a daily psychological boost to keep on our quest. Getting a notice of a purchase of 6 rolls of economy size highlighter tape in our morning email is like Starbucks in the cup. It gives us the little burst of energy that spurs us on to keep our web site going.

The point is, if you have a website, even if your only purpose is to keep a blog or provide information, consider selling other people's products on your site. You don't even need a merchant account if you become an affiliate of other companies.  If you do want to feature a shopping cart on your site so you can sell other's products, that's easy as well.  We build our web site through web.com and easily add new products through their site builder.  You don't have to know html to do this. In addition, you don't have to keep an inventory of the product if the company offers drop shipping. (You send them the order information, they ship it out.) 

For example, if you wanted to sell our product, Computer Game Maker on your web site, you would simply email us and we would send you information on wholesale pricing along with the jpgs and other graphics and description to put in your store.  Once you had a sale at retail price, you'd email us, we'd ship the product, and you would send us the wholesale amount through PayPal.  Very simple.  There are wholesale places online such as doba.com, but there are several considerations we always take into account before featuring ANY product on our site. The factors listed below might not be found in Marketing 101, but they are elements we feel are important if you wish to be a company of integrity.

1. Sell a product that you really, really like yourself

I LOVE highlighter tape we sell, use it on a daily basis and enjoy seeing other people use it. Of course, the software games we have created such as Presidential Solitaire, Academy Awards Solitaire, etc. are programs we play ourselves during our down times. (We have to be careful we don't become addicted to our own software!) Selling a product you love is a powerful motivator.

2. Research the production of the product.  We can't assume that a product we find at a wholesale site online is produced in a factory that has fair labor practices.  While it might be tempting to sell a product that you can buy cheaply and sell for a profit, knowing that this item was by a company that employs child labor, for example, is simply not ethical.  

3. Be sure the drop ship criteria of other company matches yours.  If you're used to shipping your product in 24-48 hours and state that on your web site, be sure the company that is drop shipping for you has the same criteria or at least state the various discrepencies in policies on your web site.  We sold a product from a company whose shipping took more than a week to get to our customer. While the customer didn't seem to mind, it took a great deal of checking and re-checking on our part to see if the product was actually shipped.  

4.  If a product you've listed just isn't selling, put the "real estate" on your site to better use. If you have worked with the company to see why a popular product is not selling on your site, it's best to devote the space to something that is more productive. It's hard to give up something you wanted to sell, but if your visitors aren't interested, your time and space would be better spent looking for that perfect item that will wow your customers.  

Here's to finding amazing products for your site!

Until next time - cheers 

Billie

Unrelated Thought for the Day: 

"Rings and other jewels are not gifts but apologies for gifts. The only true gift is a portion of thyself."  Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

January 16, 2007- Helping Out Scooter

 

Worked on Scooter's Dog Blog, and it's one of my favorite parts of working on the web site.  However, in a small company, working on one thing takes away from attention to another.  On the otherhand, if it's a feature that customers enjoy, it's worth it because there is more to a web site than selling. There's the satisfaction of people appreciating something you've created.

 

Tomorrow we hope to list some more highlighter tape on the website since we are planning to keep an inventory for small orders of highlighter tape as well as drop shipping the larger orders from schools.  A neighbor who happened to read a manuscript I was working on noticed the highlighter tape with which I marked the manuscript.  This neighbor had been a realtor and mentioned that that is another market that would most likely find our product useful.  Another avenue to pursue. 

 

Best to you, our reader.  Thank you for visiting.  Happy Day.

 

 

 

Avatar?  Who even knew that word existed before the internet.  Well, actually people practicing the Hindu religion did because, as dictionary.com explains the word comes from Hindu mythology and refers to "the descent of a deity to the earth in an incarnate form or some manifest shape." ( from ava- "down" + base of tarati "(he) crosses over)

 

My daughter, Bethany Pagliolo (www.bethanypagliolo.com) thought it merely referred to that little picture that serves as a symbol for yourself on the internet or on My Space (where,by the way she has a few clips of her comedy and acting pieces  www.myspace.com/itsbethanydude  - Yep, that's my baby doll.) And actually, Bethany is right it seems, since dictionary.com defines an avatar in relation to computers as "a graphical image that represents a person, as on the Internet."

 

But dictionary.com hasn't heard of Site Pal at oddcast.com.  They have the coolest animated talking images that you can imagine.  So I created an image to talk customers on our website.  I made her look just like I would want to look (a great exercise in understanding your alter ego). Of course, her voice is mine, so at least there's some reality to our avatar. We're still trying to get the bar on top of her frame to line up properly, but she's up for now! We hope people like our new virtual staff member!

 

We're hoping to get the word out to speech clinicans and teachers about Computer Game Maker - Lite because it's really a program we're quite proud of.  We may do mailings with sample CD's or somehow hope to get an opt-in list for email advertising.  We're open to any ideas that YOU might have for us! We'd also like to set up a message board just for users of Computer Game Maker - Lite so they can share their creative ideas for projects and maybe even exchange games they've created for their students or children.

 

We're also still trying to get the word out about "Presidential Solitaire".  We'd love to take it to the Democratic Convention in Denver and the Republican Convention in Minneapolis because

that seems as if it would be the perfect audience.  We could even make different versions that had different candidates as the next president.  So it would go:  Carter, Reagan, H.W. Bush, Clinton, Bush, and Obama for example.  Then all the Obama supporters would purchase that game while all the Clinton supporters would purchase the game with their candidate as President.  So many ideas, so little time.

 

Please feel free to email us with any of your ideas, comments, suggestions for our web site.  We'd love to hear from you. 

 

An obvious resolution for Windmill Works - write more frequent entries in the biz blog !  

 

We do have an excuse, however, and we're stickin' to it.  Seriously, since our last entry, we have been working feverishly to finish development of IQ Solitaire-Presidents, making a trial version so our customers can "try it before they buy it." We're proud to have finished that and hope to get it out to toy shops and educational software companies, catalogs, and of course, to you, our online customers.  We would love to take this software to the Democratic Presidential Conventions in Denver in 2008 and the Republican Presidential Convention in Minneapolis as well.  Of course, Minneapolis is our home, so it would be great to combine a visit to our family and friends with selling our unique computer game,

IQ Solitaire-Presidents.  Anyone who purchases the full version of Presidential Solitiare, will receive an updated version with the newly elected President!  Exciting times.

 

We have also been busy putting the final touches on newest software, Computer Game Maker-Lite.  We created this game to be simple and easy to use.  Now teachers, speech clinicians, ESL educators, home-schoolers, parents, and kids themselves can make a computer memory game that has names and pictures of family and friends.  This game even allows sound files! 

 

The idea for customizing this classic memory came when I was teaching a wonderful second grade little girl named Amber in Minnesota.  Amber was playing the old MECC game matching compound words.  However, the compound words she was having fun matching were beyond her reading level and while the game was fun, the learning value could have been so much more if the content were relevent and teacher-selected. 

 

To our great pleasure, we have finally completed Computer Game Maker-Lite which is wonderful piece of software that allows the user a fast and easy way to create individualized Computer Memory games.  The trial version is easily downloadable and let's our customers "try it before they buy it." We hope to be marketing to professionals involved in Curriculum Design and Adaptation as well as to teachers of the deaf, speech clinicians, and ESL teachers, home-schoolers, and others.  Of course, YOU, are always our BEST source of marketing.  When you like our products and tell your friends and colleagues, that's as good as it gets.

 

We'd like at this New Year time to thank all of you who visit our site, read our blogs, and who have been such a positive support.  We apologize to Scooter's fans who have missed his entries since he's been a little busy watching us be busy.  (He promises to write more in his blog in the coming year.)  We appreciate your comments and your interest in our products.  You are the motivation that keeps us going.  Yours are the suggestions we want to implement. 

 

May this year be filled with those things that touch the strings of your soul and make it sing!

 

Cheers,

 

Billie