Steps for Starting a New Business - Weasel Tail Enterprises
Keith on the “lefthand” side with participants at a recent event. Photo by Jeff Nelson.
Before I get started, let me invite you to an event. It’s this weekend on Sunday afternoon at Keith Lefthand’s family ranch in Eden Valley.
It isn't every day that I get to start a new business but over the summer that is just what happened.
Keith Lefthand is a member of the Stoney Nakoda First Nation. He lives in Eden Valley, which is close to where I live, Longview, AB. We offer First Nations education, experiences, and activities. Keith and I set up Weasel Tail Enterprises Inc. offering education, experiences, and activities from a First Nation’s perspective.
In this blog post, I want to outline the steps that I went through to set up the business and get it operational.
1. Company Name
Keith’s indigenous name is Gathjibin Thinday (the pronunciation and spelling are way off) which in Nakoda-Sioux is Weasel Tail. This was the name of an uncle of Keith’s who died a few weeks before Keith was born. After he was born, Keith was given this name.
We had a list of alternatives including his father’s name, Spotted Rock (Johnny Lefthand) but eventually, Keith decided that he preferred Weasel Tail Enterprises. For the record, he owns over 50%.
Screenshot of home page. Photo by Jeff Nelson.
2. Website Domain and Email Address
Next, we researched and set up a domain name and URL. I was surprised that www.weaseltail.com was available but it was so I grabbed it and breathe a sigh of relief. Choosing a company name and getting a related domain name can be difficult.
Getting an email address was easy using Google Gmail. We selected weaseltailenterprises@gmail.com. The simple version of weaseltail@gmail.com was already taken.
Keith is on the left. Eva in front. Lane in the middle. Participants on the right. Photo by Jeff Nelson.
3. Quick Revenue
Keith needed cash in a hurry to purchase dancing regalia that was used as collateral (the coronavirus pandemic has made life tougher than usual for most First Nation communities). The rush was because Keith and his family are tipi holders at the Calgary Stampede. Keith wanted the regalia to show the beadwork to visitors coming to his tipi at the Calgary Stampede.
As a result, I set up a page on GoFundMe to ask for donations. The response was outstanding. We were able to reclaim a significant portion of the regalia from the donations that friends, family, and business contacts contributed.
Screenshot of page on Eventbrite. Photo by Jeff Nelson.
Here’s the thing. Although we were asking the public to donate, Keith wanted to give something back to the people who donated. He doesn’t just take handouts. Keith is conscientious, giving, thoughtful, appreciative, and grateful. The idea that we came up with was to host events at his family ranch in Eden Valley. I wasn’t sure this would work because Eden Valley is somewhat remote. Both Keith and I were overwhelmed with the response.
To describe the details of events and make it easy for people to register and pay, we used Eventbrite. Simple and Effective.
4. Social Media
One of the quickest and easiest ways to get your message out to a broad audience is to set up some profiles on various social media platforms and start interacting with people. We set up the following:
Weasel Tail Enterprises - Facebook
Weasel Tail Enterprises - LinkedIn
Weasel Tail Enterprises - YouTube
5. Website
Although we had the domain name, we hadn’t actually set up a website. A few years back, I did a presentation on why I thought companies don’t need a website. But here we are - 2021 - and every company is still using website technology as a way of communicating.
We selected Squarespace.com as our content management system. Our company has used it for quite a few years so I’m familiar with the interface. It has features for
Blogging
Products including e-commerce using Stripe
Events
Forms
Email Marketing
Simple way to add Google Analytics code
Everything that we needed
6. Marketing
We did a combination of messages on a variety of platforms. The channels where people are most responsive are email, LinkedIn and Facebook. Twitter is useless (but then I’m not a big fan of Twitter).
7. Events
Here we are 6 months later, and we are still in business. If you are interested in upcoming events have a look at Events — Weasel Tail Enterprises. You can also subscribe to our newsletter on the home page. Hope to see you in Eden Valley soon.