1.  Coo de Tot is a mission.  Our aim is to empower small women-owned businesses by building a bridge of accessibility between art and commerce.  The service we will provide is to link several baby-centric start-up businesses in the Austin area and to organize affordable “outdoor boutique” sales and information events, create a coalition brand, develop a network of businesspeople, artists, designers, musicians and consumers, run group advertising campaigns, construct an online retail shop, and eventually open a retail establishment focused on these small businesses.  By participating, each small business is able to save cash, time and energy allowing them to maintain competitive price points and focus on quality.  We would also like to teach the process of setting up this alternative sharing thus strengthening coalition.

2.  Our goal is to collaborate effectively and prosper. We want to form a force devoted to mutual support and into the concept that socially responsible business practices and active involvement in the community need not be off the table for small businesses struggling to compete with the big boxes.  We would also like to encourage consumers to respect the arts, fair trade, diversity, small local businesses, mothers working from home to be with babies and to learn about a variety of less mainstream child birth and child care services.  At the same time, we would like to dazzle our customers with brilliant innovations in fashion and services thereby keeping small businesses in business. Shopping is Voting!  Our sales events ask the businesses involved to contribute to the community while effectively promoting and growing their companies.  A percentage of sales goes to local charities and a percentage goes towards the coalition’s growth.

3.   Coo de Tot is all about decreasing risk for small businesses by charging minimal administrative fees, organizing affordable marketing and ad campaigns, and saving valuable time and energy through mutual support.  The only foreseeable risk in creating this service is the slim possibility that we will build and customers will not rally quickly enough.  With this in mind, our greatest challenge is sales.  Luring our community members away from the ease and impossibly low prices of “the superstore” is by far our biggest challenge.  Connecting small businesses and consumers involves a number of small victories; creating a buzz, building an event atmosphere that compels families to attend, finding a venue that is easy to access, and conveying the message that “Shopping is Voting” 

4.   The greatest competition we face is also our greatest challenge: finding a space in which to be seen amongst massive national chains and convincing consumers that our group of small businesses provides products and services that stand out in quality, beauty, and affordability.  We feel that once the hurdle of actually finding Coo de Tot is overcome, consumers will remain more loyal to local, involved businesses than to our competitors.  Also, small businesses are more agile with trends than larger companies allowing conscious consumers to experience the latest in innovations in designs and services that are primarily focused on product quality. 

5.  Many Coo de Tot companies are run by new mothers who deeply understand what fellow new mothers actually need!  Several of us started home-based businesses based on the certainty that we could provide products and services that were not available on the market. 

6. Our niche: conscious consumers who wonder what the alternatives are to buying mass-produced, blah products produced in sweat shops by nine year olds who are denied education and rarely see the light of day.  Also, serious shoppers buying anything irresistible.  Oh! And lively socialites who delight in dropping designer names.  And aunts and uncles who look for things extraordinary for nieces and nephews…

7. We are a group of women facing the challenge of balancing art and commerce in a healthy, alternative manner.  Some of us are on the art side of the teeter totter creating logos, labels, ads, t-shirts, flyers, and posters in house – we thrive on adding right-minded sensibilities to the venture.  Some of us have serious experience in marketing, retail, wholesale, and direct sales – they are focused on bottom lines and economic viability.  As “entrepreneuses”, we split the load of launching Coo de Tot making it affordable and strong. Our diverse talents and opinions create a project that hits the fulcrum.

8. Advertising, Marketing, Merchandizing, Sales are our top budget priorities..

9. we might actually eek out a living wage doing work that benefits many and allows us family flexibility.

The ultimate purpose of business is not, or should not be, simply to make money.  Nor is it merely a system of making and selling things.  The promise of business is to increase the general well-being of humankind through service, a creative invention, and ethical philosophy. – Paul Hawken, The Ecology of Commerce