The Texas weather was warming up and so were our ideas for The Spa Mart. The next few months seem relatively boring on the timeline of things, but I’ll give you the highlights—this time was integral to our business planning. It’s really during these months that the foundation for The Spa Mart was built. We basically spent the summer working on what would make us different than what was out there, we discussed our ideas for education and support and we worked on figuring out how we could fund the whole thing.
These things are very important as a business plan is taking flight. Be sure to examine your market and hire professionals if necessary to help you—they are experts at what they do and are able to laser focus on data. Determine any performance gaps or things lacking in your industry that would add value and discuss solutions to these problems. These solutions help mold your business strategy and will allow for a more concise understanding of what you are doing when people start asking you to explain what you do. If you cannot explain what you do in less than 30 seconds, go back to the drawing board until you can. This becomes especially important when you are selecting partners for your business and when working with financial people.
We also spent the latter part of the summer drawing up business documents with an attorney. It’s not the sexiest part of the project, but make sure you protect yourself, your business partner and your loved ones. Find a great attorney who really gets what you are trying to do and spend the money to do things right. Business formation documents and tax ID numbers are a must have to move to next steps for your business during this time in the development phase. Understand the financial implications for you and be prepared to have transparent conversations with you business partner and life partner about what starting a business means long term. This is super important to your success (with or without a business partner).
After spending our summer determining our plans and our strategy, we were ready to find a web development partner. A strong website would be essential in the launch of our spa technology company. Funny story—near the end of summer is when we actually came up with the name. I need to warn you that naming a company can be a bit like playing a video game or watching a Netflix marathon—it can consume you. We would be out to dinner and our entire conversations would revolve around finding a name for our boutique spa distribution company. All of us would text each at random hours as we continued the search for “it.” There is nothing worse than thinking you have hit the name jackpot only to go to godaddy.com to find the name taken or for sale for a mere $20,000 (ha ha). Finally, through a series of brainstorming exercises and liquid courage, my mind was revolving around marketplace, exchange, etc. We wanted the company to be more than products and supplies and we wanted to share ideas and information, like a marketplace, that’s when spa mart came up. Unfortunately, spamart.com sells a bunch of hot tubs and supplies—the name, like so many before it, was taken.
Unrelenting, we continued to think because we loved the name and felt like spa peeps would know it would be an online marketplace for spa. Then we thought, we don’t to gym, park, spa, or store. We go to the gym or to the spa. It elevates the experience, right? So lo and behold, we should name our new exchange place, The Spa Mart. Let’s go see what’s going on at The Spa Mart and we typed in thespamart.com into the domain finder and bingo—thespamart.com was available and ready for purchase. Now spa friends, you know how “the” happened. We hope you embrace it as much as we do and meet us online at thespamart.com to see what we are up to.
Spa Smiles,
Teddy and Tori
The logo selection process! So much creativity!
Our final logo design—we hope you love it!
