GABfest

After becoming her own boss, she wouldn’t have it any other way

For Blagica Stefanovski, job security meant becoming her own boss. Photo: Erik Unger

Losing her Web development job during the 2001 dot-com bust left Blagica Stefanovski broke, rattled and convinced she’d done something wrong. It took her four months to land a new job and a few more to rebuild her finances — and her confidence. After three years working in Orbitz LLC’s online marketing department and another year at coupon site Cool Savings, she decided the only way to control her career was to be on her own.

So in September 2005, she founded Bsolutions, an Internet consulting company, with $10,000 in savings and a Rolodex of business contacts. For the first year, she had 10 clients, including Restaurants.com, for whom she helped create and manage affiliate marketing partnerships. In affiliate marketing, a revenue-sharing system, Web site owners set up links to other sites and get a small percentage of the sales made by consumers who use the links.

Her affiliate marketing experience led to another business idea born out of her own financial frustration. While riding in a cab with her best friend last summer, Ms. Stefanovski, 31, complained that the assessments in her new South Loop condo had gone up 40% in two years. “What if condo associations had Web sites that used affiliate marketing to earn money from online purchases to offset expenses?” she wondered.

“I didn’t sit around thinking, ‘What’s the next big idea?’ ” she says. “The best ideas come from an immediate need and what you know best.”

OKAY TO BE FEARLESS

With that, she scaled down her consulting work and invested $30,000 of her savings to start CondoPerks, which offers condo associations free Web sites that their residents can use to shop at more than 150 stores, including Target, Macy’s and Nordstrom. The associations earn up to 24% of the sale or a flat fee per purchase, depending on the retailer. Ms. Stefanovski earns a percentage of each sale, though she won’t disclose how much.

Since the site launched in May, she’s signed up 24 condo associations with 1,000 units. She recently added associations in Michigan and Washington, D.C., that heard about CondoPerks through word of mouth and blog mentions. Philip Orlandi, president of a condo board in Printers Row, was sold on the idea immediately after learning about it through a neighborhood association. He saw it as a way to offset the building’s regular operating costs. Plus, Mr. Orlandi, an avid Peapod shopper, knew he’d use the site: The online grocery shopping and delivery service is one of the retailers on CondoPerks.

“It brings a sense of community to the building, that we’re all trying to do something to help,” says Mr. Orlandi, who contacted Ms. Stefanovski in July to set up his association’s site. The association hasn’t tallied how much money it’s earned from resident shopping, but Mr. Orlandi expects more to use it as they get comfortable with the concept.

CondoPerks isn’t making a profit yet, but Ms. Stefanovski is confident her long hours will pay off. She plans to have 50 associations by the holiday shopping season, which she expects to be her big break. This was the perfect time to do this, she says, before she gets married or has kids. “Women need to be more fearless,” she says. “It’s okay to be fearless when you’re in your 20s.”

For each pair of Toms sold, the company gives one away to a child in need
By NADIA MUSTAFA

Blake Mycoskie wanted to get away from it all. After founding and running four businesses and losing by a sliver on The Amazing Race, he escaped last January to Argentina, where he learned to sail, dance the tango and play competitive polo. He also visited impoverished villages where few, if any, children had shoes. “I was sitting on a field on a farm one day, and I had an epiphany,” says Mycoskie, who had taken to wearing alpargatas–resilient, lightweight slip-on shoes with a breathable canvas top and soft leather insole traditionally worn by Argentine workers. “I said, I’m going to start a shoe company, and for every pair I sell, I’m going to give one pair to a kid in need.”

He spent the next two months meeting with shoe- and fabricmakers in Argentina and named his self-financed company Toms: Shoes for Tomorrow. He modeled his product after the alpargata but used brighter colors and different materials. “No one looked twice at alpargatas, but I thought they had a really cool style,” says Mycoskie, 30. “I’m a fan of Vans, but they can be clunky and sweaty. These aren’t. They fit your foot like a glove but are sturdy enough for a hike, the beach or the city.”

A Texan who religiously reads biographies of the likes of Sam Walton, Ted Turner and Richard Branson yet ends his e-mail messages, “DISCLAIMER: you will not win the rat race wearing Toms,” Mycoskie had never worked in fashion. With a staff of seven full-time employees (including former Trovata designer John Whitledge), six sales reps and eight interns, he debuted a collection last June of 15 styles for men and women, as well as limited-edition artist versions. They quickly found their way into stores like American Rag and Fred Segal in Los Angeles, where Toms is based, and Scoop in New York City. By the fall he had sold 10,000 pairs, averaging $38 each, online and in 40 stores.

So, as promised, he returned to Argentina in October with a couple of dozen volunteers to give away 10,000 pairs of Toms shoes along 2,200 miles of countryside. “I always thought I’d spend the first half of my life making money and the second half giving it away,” says Mycoskie, who calls himself not ceo but chief shoe giver. “I never thought I could do both at the same time.”

Not that he’s turning a profit. “Selling online has allowed us to grow pretty rapidly, but we’re not going to make as much as another shoe company, and the margins are definitely lower,” he admits. “But what we do helps us get publicity. Lots of companies give a percentage of their revenue to charity, but we can’t find anyone who matches one for one.”

Toms already has orders from 300 stores, including Nordstrom, Urban Outfitters and Bloomingdale’s, for 41,000 pairs from its spring and summer collections, and it will be entering Australia, Japan, Canada, Spain and France this summer. The company will introduce a line of children’s shoes called Tiny Toms in May and will unveil a pair of leather shoes in the fall.

Mycoskie is planning a second shoe drop in Argentina later this year, with more to follow in Africa and Asia. He says 240 customers have told him they would pay to volunteer on shoe drops, so next year he hopes to launch a company offering $2,000 vacations consisting of two days of sightseeing and four days of volunteering. “All these other businesses and deals have been preparing me for this,” he says. “I believe Toms is going to give away millions of shoes one day.”

from my friend Jane
Sunday, May 6th, 2007
I was out walking with my 4-year-old daughter. She picked up
something
off the ground and started to put it in her mouth. I took the item away
from her and I asked her not to do that.
“Why?” my daughter asked.
“Because it’s been laying outside, you don’t know where it’s been,
it’s dirty and probably has germs” I replied.
At this point, my daughter looked at me with total admiration and asked,
“Wow! How do you know all this stuff?”
“Uh,” …I was thinking quickly, ??* All moms know this stuff. It’s
the Mommy Test. You have to know it, or they don’t let you be a Mommy.”
We walked along in silence for 2 or 3 minutes, but she was evidently pondering this new information.
“OH…I get it!” she beamed, “So if you don’t pass the test you have to
be the daddy.”
“Exactly” I replied back with a big smile on my face and joy in my
heart.
When you’re finished laughing, send this to a Mom.

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I was out walking with my 4-year-old daughter. She picked up
something
off the ground and started to put it in her mouth. I took the item away
from her and I asked her not to do that.
“Why?” my daughter asked.
“Because it’s been laying outside, you don’t know where it’s been,
it’s dirty and probably has germs” I replied.
At this point, my daughter looked at me with total admiration and asked,
“Wow! How do you know all this stuff?”
“Uh,” …I was thinking quickly, ??* All moms know this stuff. It’s
the Mommy Test. You have to know it, or they don’t let you be a Mommy.”
We walked along in silence for 2 or 3 minutes, but she was evidently pondering this new information.
“OH…I get it!” she beamed, “So if you don’t pass the test you have to
be the daddy.”
“Exactly” I replied back with a big smile on my face and joy in my
heart.
When you’re finished laughing, send this to a Mom.