Member Blogs

Just Be Excited!

On a whim about a month ago I submitted the idea behind my new business venture, JUST BE Products, to a

little contest that I stumbled upon on Inc.com’s website. The contest

was called Inspired Innovations: The Great Idea Contest. At that time,

JUST BE was just an idea in my head and I really didn’t have much put

on paper yet. The day I found the website was the last day to submit

your ideas. I quickly scrambled (read…try to organize) everything in my head

and typed out a few paragraphs to submit.

I really didn’t give much thought to the contest after that because

I figured that all the other submissions were going to be much better

than mine–maybe a cure for cancer or something much more “earth

altering”. Well, to my surprise, I got an e-mail saying that I was

among the 10 finalists! Now, it was up to the general public to vote

for the winner. I sent an e-mail to everyone I had in my address book

asking them to vote for me (now I know how politicians feel–except I

didn’t have to kiss any babies or make speeches that were going to get

torn apart by the media).

I was nervous to read what the other finalists’ ideas were. Who’s

going to care about my dopey t-shirts anyway? Well, more people than I

thought! As my brother-in-law so eloquently put it about the other

entries (thanks Josh!), “I think you have a great shot, so after you

win, you should send the other finalists complimentary t-shirts…Be A

Daddy’s Little Girl With Too Much Time on Her Hands By Developing A

Product You Think Will Revolutionize the World And Advertising It as A

Huge Global Problem Like the Environment But its Really Just as Much a

Problem as People Wearing White After Labor Day, Be A

Lazy White American Who Likes to Think They’re Worldly By Eating

Foreign Foods But Not Actually Take the Time or Effort To Make It

Yourself (My World Chef automated cooking device?), Be A Weird Dude Who

Lives In His Mother’s Basement And Never Comes Out Into the Sunlight to

Actually Interact With People (TV 2.0), Be A Tree Huggin’ Hippy (Green

Carpet), Be a Sucky Idea…Loser (the Straw), Be Dirty-Minded (Mini

Bag-Tag)…”

I got the phone call this morning that I was the winner…BY A

LANDSLIDE! My first thoughts were, “OH MY GOD…I WON! I WON! I WON!

(repeat at least 50 more times)”. As I was running around the house screaming this, my 14-yr old daughter just looked at me and shook her head in embarrassment. My husband’s first words were, “When

are you going to get the money?” The money…oh, I forgot about the

money! $5,000 would sure be nice right now! I was more concerned about

what I now needed to do to make this dream a reality. So, I guess there