Business Start Up Blog

2006 After three years of substitute teaching I did not get a full time job. I had carried mail for the post office ten years and spent eight years as a Continental Airlines flight attendant and was about 20 years older than most new hire teachers. My friend Bev had her son come over after school when she was taking classes and I played Gin Latin with him. He raved about it to her. He was 13 then and in the middle of the age group I was designing the game for.
One day, when she picked him up, I was whining about being jobless. She suggested I do something with the game. For Christmas she gave me $500.00 with a note of encouragement to start a business.
I called a friend of Terry's in the business world and asked him for advice. He told me to go to Go Daddy for help buying the domain name I wanted. I told him I had filled two notebooks with educational product designs and was eager to get started.
He told me to slow down. I told him that I wanted to be the Nordstroms of the internet. An e-store that was friendly and personal. I told him I wanted provide free birthday cards for grandmothers buying products for their grandkids. He asked me if I wanted to make cash or provide warm fuzzies. I told him I intended to do both.
2007 With the $500.00 I bought the name Nixpix Educational Products in Washington state and got a business license. I filled out forms and applied and paid for the Women's Business Enterprise status. I found a graphic artist, Steve Prestek who started work on Gin Latin. He was the ex-next-door neighbor of my ex-dog Susie's new owner and friend, Ruth Yeaman.
I ran out of cash.
I talked Terry into borrowing $1,000.00 to buy the domain name Nixpix.com. Half my friends told me I was crazy to pay that much but the other half said to follow my heart. I followed my heart. I could have had Nixpix.net or .org for five dollars.
I could not get a business loan because I did not have any way to make payments on a loan without a full time job. I fluctuated between ambition to work on new products and immobilizing depression.
The name Nixpix came from when I was subbing at Kenmore Junior High in the spring of 2006 in honors English. I wanted to jot names of books for the kids that I thought they would enjoy on the blackboard. I was short on time to write, "Mrs. Nixon's Picks" and wrote Nix Pix.
2008 I got a long term substitute job and paid for four more copyrights. I gave half the money I earned to my graphic artist and helped Terry pay bills with the other half. Gin Latin got done at the graphic artist in June and was ready to go to the printer. I ran out of cash for the printer. Summer came and I set up a Nixpix office in my living room.

January 7 While eating birthday cake at my son Troy's 14th birthday, my sister Pam turned to me and said, "Wow, Troy can get his learner's permit next year." I went to bed remembering how boring the driving manual was when I had driver's ed at RHS in 1975. I woke up with the idea for a game to make memorizing the book easier and made it. It was a single board for a week until I woke up thinking of a two layered question and answer board with lift-up laps.
On March 23rd we had my brother-in-law's birthday and played the demo and everyone went nuts for it. I had been trying to think of a product I could self-produce to fund Gin Latin so I sent it in for the copyright.
September rolled around and I did not get hired again and I was severely depressed. I took my game up to my friend Connie Moretti's house to have her son Anthony play since he would be 15 in a few days. I told Connie I wanted to produce it so Anthony could have it by the time he was 15 1/2 to take the test to get his instructional learner's permit.
In the original game, you lifted the icon to say what it meant underneath. I picked up a driving manual and found 108 pages of text that I needed to fit on the game board. I knew that was impossible!
Now old, fat and cranky from hot flashing all night, I was a wreck. After spending September in a world-class pity-party, I kicked myself in the butt to do something to get Nixpix going. I decided on the days I didn't have sub jobs to work on Pass The Test, Rules of the Road and get selling it to fund Gin Latin.
On October 20th, Connie invited me over for coffee. She had some health problems and was feeling a little down too. I showed her my game and told her that at 52, I had accepted that I could not get hired as a full time teacher and had given up hope for that.
I showed her my latest version of Pass The Test and she surprised me. She rummaged around somewhere and came over and handed me $500.00 and said, "I want to loan this to you for your game. When can you pay me back?" I said, "How does 2012 sound?" She thought that was fine and we wrote a contract.
2009 I woke up one morning in January and knew that the only way to squeeze 107 pages of information into 32 squares was to have the driving manuals included in the game. I rewrote all the game board questions on the lower board to cover anywhere from one paragraph to ten pages of text. The game went from fun and simple to fun and complex.
I e-mailed the DOL and they shipped me 600 manuals. I ordered cases of mini-racers and spinners and zipper bags online and ran out of money again.
I called the Bothell Landing DOL to take the test but was told that only test takers could take the test. She gave me the information that there are 100 possible questions formatted into four different versions of the test. Of 25 questions the test taker has to get 20 correct. Since the test could cover ANY section of the manual I worked on having each icon and the question below cover all the 107 pages.
I called my neighbor Ashleigh, who had taken the test a few years back for her input. She remembered vividly which test questions had given her grief and I added them to the board.
February: I found out to be hired in Northshore School District that I was required to take and pass an exam called the PRAXIS to be deemed "Highly Qualified" and hireable. I had three huge study guides to forge through so I called Connie to see if she would help me edit my new Pass The Test updated version.
Connie got amazed and inspired by the new version and started putting in long hours for me.
One day we were sitting at my kitchen table working on the latest version and my friend Angela stopped by for our coffee date. I said, "Hi Angela, this is my business partner Connie." Connie left and Angela and I walked across the street to Starbucks for coffee. Connie called that night and said that she liked it when I introduced her as my business partner. I told her that I was sorry I hadn't asked her first and asked her if she did want to be my business partner. She said she did but since we have no business background that we would keep it unofficial.
March 23, 2009: I took and passed my PRAXIS exam but decided I didn't like teaching that much anyway. I don't like waking up early and the class sizes are too big. We voted for passing gambling in our state and were told decades ago the state Lotto would fully fund the schools. What a crock that was. Now all we have are a bunch of compulsive gamblers and underfunded schools.
May 29: Connie and Bev and I went to the Emerald City Casino to see Spike and the Impalers. I hadn't been to a concert since the 1973 Satsop River rock festival. It was way too loud but I had my ear plugs in and enjoyed it. After the concert I told Bev and Connie I had always wanted to try roulette. Bev said she had played before and showed me. She left to play poker and Connie sat with me. I played my chips and Connie would say, "That's enough or play more." I did what she said and then sat down to watch the spin. Bev came back after an hour and I started picking up the 20 chips I had to cash in that I had started with. Connie told me I had come to have fun and to play them all as an investment in fun. I played them all with a double on Troy's birthday. New people at the other end started chanting their number and right as the ball dropped I shouted RED SEVEN! One second later the ball dropped in red seven and everyone stared at me. I knew then that Connie was meant to be my permanent business partner.
June 18: Connie and I took our four mock ups to Kenmore Junior High colt day and set up a table in the cafeteria and had hundreds of kids play our game. Much to our chagrin, they wouldn't open the books if there were true or false questions.
June 19: Connie and I re-wrote the true or false questions and then went over the Nixpix budget and saw that we had exactly $26.00 and need cash to go to print.