Five Years with KidBean.com… Where Do We Go From Here?
This month we are celebrating the 5th anniversary of KidBean.com on the Internet! We started in 2003 with fewer than 100 products, and a great deal of determination. Five years later (after very little sleep!) we have over 700 products, some of them manufactured just for us, and KidBean.com has become a well-known and respected company.
We have been through the everyday challenges of parenting young children while running a business from home (yes, sometimes I ship orders in boxes that may have been a puppet theater or spaceship and sometimes when you call you will hear my children fighting, I mean playing, in the background), and the struggle of balancing work/family/personal needs (that last one is so tough!). We have also been through some not-so-ordinary challenges, including a devastating hurricane that destroyed half our home/office and left us without electricity for weeks (luckily our neighbors had battery- and solar-powered computers–thank you again, Al and Sandy!), a major relocation from FL to NC, serious illnesses, and the loss of someone very special.
As I look back over the last 5 years and reflect upon how I can improve KidBean.com, my focus settles on addressing some of the regular questions I am asked by customers, vendors, and journalists. As a business owner, I expect to be asked about my business and my products, but the questions I am asked most frequently are much more personal. By answering such questions and sharing parts of my own life, I hope to educate, inspire and challenge you toward a more conscious, peaceful lifestyle; not to mention satisfy your curiosity.
Some of the personal questions that I am frequently asked, and which I will address in forthcoming posts to this blog, include:
- What advice do I have on vegan parenting?
- What books do we read?
- What kinds of clothes do we wear? Are they all organic cotton made in the USA or does some polyester (gasp!) occasionally find its way into our home?
- What kind of beds do we sleep in?
- Where do my children go to school?
- What do we eat? Specifically, how in the world do we get enough protein and calcium? And, how do I get my kids to eat so many vegetables?
- What kind of toys do my children have? Is everything really organic/natural and labor-friendly, or has even my home been invaded by the likes of Barbie and LEGO?
Since I have always freely answered such questions, and am in fact rather transparent about such aspects of my life, I created this blog to address some of these questions to a wider audience. I also plan to use this blog as a place to announce new products, discuss existing products, and comment on news of interest to me and my customers.
Oh, and in case you’re wondering why I chose to call my business “KidBean”, please see my updated About Us section. In the next post I’ll start answering some of those pressing personal questions listed above. For now I’ll close with some pictures of me and my family so you can see the faces behind KidBean.com.
Peace.
