Small Business | Penny Portrait

Interview on Starter Story

maurymccoy — Wed, 06 Feb 2019 00:58:34 +0000

Excited to recently be featured on Starter Story! Starter Story is a cool site started by Pat Walls that interviews small business owners about the nuts and bolts of their business.

This is by far the most detailed interview I’ve done on the various inner workings of the Penny Portrait empire. Check it out here and let me know what you think.

https://starterstory.com/stories/starting-a-business-selling-portraits-made-of-pennies

This interview is just one of a number that I’ve done about this crazy side biz. You can see/hear additional interviews at the following links:

The Grit & Hustle podcast was super fun and Ryan Helms over there was great to chat with. If you’re the type who’d rather listen than read, this is the link for you.

Not too long ago I was featured on Chris Guillebeau’s “Side Hustle School” Episode 54. Chris is a best selling author of such notable books as “The $100 Startup”.

I was also recently mentioned on Nick Loper’s “Side Hustle Nation”. Nick has an amazing Facebook community where entrepreneurs share tips and tricks as well as weekly wins. A great page if you have a side biz of your own.

And last but not least, an interview from when I was just getting this product off the ground from one of my favorite personal finance bloggers – Jonathan at My Money Blog.

Always happy to chat with anyone about unique business ideas and hopefully pass along a little of what I’ve learned from this crazy little side project.

-Maury

Trademarks & Copyrights

maurymccoy — Thu, 01 Nov 2018 04:01:02 +0000

I often get questions about trademarks & copyrights for Penny Portrait. As an artist and business owner, it’s important that I’m able to protect my work and insure that I’m in control of my brand.

Filing a copyright is extremely easy. To file a copyright on a single image made by myself such as the Penny Portrait image, I simply needed to pay $35 to the government and submit an image file to them online. You are then provided with a copyright verification number and it is listed online for all to see.

Here is a link to my copyright, registration # VA0001643737 / 2008-08-16

Why is this important? Well, not long ago shops started appearing on Amazon selling Penny Portrait Kits. These were not authorized vendors and had no way of actually acquiring Penny Portrait Kits to sell. They were either just going to take the money and run, or print a knockoff product of inferior quality. (As a side note, you know you’ve made it when folks overseas think your intellectual property is worth stealing!)

By providing my copyright info to Amazon, they were able to shut down these shops and stop them from listing a product they didn’t have. (The ensuing game of whack-a-mole, shutting down the same shop that would pop up with a different name each week, lasted for a few months.) I’m pleased to say they finally gave up however and the only listing on Amazon is now for genuine Penny Portrait Kits.

Tradmarks are a bit trickier. They cost significantly more with a $225 minimum. They are used to protect my company name/logo. Up until now, I had avoided getting a trademark as it was an unnecessary expense, but that is changing this week. You see Amazon will no longer let me edit the listing for my product unless I can prove I hold the trademark. It’s a bit of a headache, but I’m thinking I finally need to bite the bullet as Amazon’s retail team currently controls how my product is described and the images used in the listing and I’d like to fiddle with the title/description/images to make it a bit easier to find and see if I can improve sales.

As always dealing with the government is tricky. They are multiple types of trademark filing options. For example there is the “Trademark Plus” filing option and the “Trademark RF” (Reduced Fee) option. In typical government logic, the reduced fee option is actually more expensive than the “plus” listing ($275 vs. $225).

Another interesting bit of info is whether I should be using the TM symbol or the R with a circle around it. Ends up, anyone can use the TM symbol. It simply means that a term, slogan, logo or other indicator is being used as a trademark or is in the process of registration. It may not hold up in court however as the person claiming the trademark needs to prove they were the first to use it and that the person infringing on that trademark could cause confusion about the source of that product in the eyes of the public.

A registered trademark on the other hand indicates that the trademark has been registered with the USPTO (United States Patent and Trademark Office). This is a pretty big deal and, in court, you can be awarded triple damages if someone infringes upon your trademark. Unfortunately, it also takes a while to get… I won’t expect to hear back from the USPTO for at least 3 months and even then it could be much, much longer before it is approved. Alas, becoming a brand manager on Amazon may take a while…

All that said, expect to see a little “TM” next to the Penny Portrait name in the near future and hopefully a little R with a circle around it sometime next year.

Penny Portraits now with U.S. Minty goodness

maurymccoy — Wed, 08 Aug 2018 19:37:43 +0000

Wanted to welcome another fantastic vendor to the Penny Portrait empire. The U.S. Mint is now carrying Penny Portraits in the gift shops at both the Philadelphia Mint and Denver Mint.

Even better, we have an ACTUAL Penny Portrait on display in both locations. (Because, let’s face it, once you see one in person, you just need to get one.) Sales have already been above expectations and the gift shop has decided to showcase our product and give away (yet another) completed Penny Portrait at the World’s Fair of Money next week in Philadelphia. Swing by their booth and enter for a chance to win your very own copper creation. (Pictured here.)

In the meantime, in honor of our most recent vendor, here is an incredible 1940 video on how pennies are made.

Grit & Hustle

maurymccoy — Wed, 06 Jun 2018 20:00:18 +0000

Extremely pleased to be featured on the Grit & Hustle podcast this week (Episode 27). I’d highly recommend this podcast to anyone who is curious about starting a business or learning a bit more about how a business like Penny Portrait is run. Ryan Helms who runs the podcast was a hoot to talk to and has a genuine interest in helping people succeed with their side hustles.

This is the most recent of a number of interviews I’ve done. Not too long ago I was featured on Chris Guillebeau’s “Side Hustle School” Episode 54. Chris is a best selling author of such notable books as “The $100 Startup”.

Penny Portraits of Abe Lincoln Turn Into $40,000

I was also mentioned on Nick Loper’s “Side Hustle Nation”

310: 10 Creative Side Hustles that Make Real Money

And last but not least, an interview from when I was just getting this product off the ground from one of my favorite personal finance bloggers – Jonathan at My Money Blog.

Entrepreneur Interview: Maury of PennyPortrait.com

Always happy to chat with anyone about unique business ideas and hopefully pass along a little of what I’ve learned from this crazy little side project.

-Maury

A quick thank you to our vendors

maurymccoy — Thu, 25 Jan 2018 20:41:39 +0000

2017 was our best year yet so just wanted to give a quick shout out to our fantastic re-sellers!

PennyPortrait.com of course

Vat19.com

Amazon Prime

Uncommon Goods

Hobby Town USA

The Money Museum (Colorado Springs, CO)

The Ford Theater Museum

The Gettysburg Museum

Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library & Museum (Springfield, IL)

The Lincoln Museum (Hodgenville, KY)

The Newseum (Washington, DC)

The What on Earth Catalog

Contemporary Art Museum of Houston

Kickstart my Art

maurymccoy — Mon, 20 Nov 2017 05:58:22 +0000

“So sir, how many posters do you want to order?”

This was probably the single hardest question I faced when starting this crazy little side project. I had already created the 18×24 poster image and printed out a sample MVP (Minimum Viable Product). To print out one poster cost about $30, but it was just going to be used as a proof of concept to make sure that this crazy idea worked. In order for this to be a profitable business, I needed to get the price of each poster way down, and that meant ordering in bulk.

So, how does one estimate how many people want portraits of Abe Lincoln made out of pennies hanging on their wall? I knew my mom would want one, so that was a start, but beyond that my guesstimate got fuzzy. I of course, thought they were pretty cool, but I also like magic and bonsai trees, so I’m probably not exactly the best predictor of mass market demands.

Up until this point, I had sunk maybe a hundred or so dollars into this side venture. Just to send my poster to the industrial printer, however, was going to cost upward of $500 in setup charges. My little crazy side hustle just got real!

If I recall correctly, the first 1,000 posters were going to cost me about $900, and 2,000 posters would be $1,200. I had no idea how much space 2,000 posters would take up, but I figured if I was doing this thing I was doing it and opted to go with 2,000. Worst case scenario I could hide them under the beds throughout my house. It worked out well, and thankfully, there was demand for this wacky little project. It took a while, but after a year or so I was getting close to the end of my print run.

Enter Kickstarter

The launch of Kickstarter significantly changed the way crazy ideas like mine get off the ground. People could create an MVP or proof of concept and use Kickstarter to gauge demand so they didn’t get stuck with…. oh… 1.6 million penny images under their bed.

I was super jealous that this hadn’t been around when I launched my product. As my print run was coming to an end, I decided I’d approach the Kickstarter community to see if I could help raise money (and interest) for my next round of posters. Kickstarter was making headlines and I thought I might be able to piggyback off the excitement.

The only way to really learn about doing a Kickstarter project is to do one. I was far from a social media master and didn’t have a giant twitter following I could reach out to. The video is a big part of any Kickstarter project and as I had a broadcasting/advertising degree so I knew I could handle that aspect of it. (Obligatory Kickstarter video below.)

https://ksr-video.imgix.net/projects/865321/video-345569-h264_high.mp4

Being from the Midwest, I’m pretty frugal with money and not the type of guy who would feel comfortable asking for a handout. One of the mistakes I made with this project was I wanted to reach my funding goal before spreading the word to any of my friends and family. I have such great friends, I knew a lot of them would buy one just to support me and my crazy adventures. I didn’t really want anyone to feel obligated to do that. Once I hit my funding goal, I could feel comfortable spreading the word without feeling like I was asking for help.

In hindsite, this was the wrong approach. The initial interest in a Kickstarter project really determines where it will show up when people are searching the Kickstarter site, or who Kickstarter chooses to highlight on their front page. Projects with early momentum tend to “go viral” and really snowball. Now don’t get me wrong, my project did pretty well. I surpassed my goal and raised $1,874 for my second print run (2,500 units), but I kind of feel like it could have gone even better if I knew what I was doing.

That’s sort of the way business works though. You just keep stumbling forward and hope more good surprises happen than bad ones. Since then, I did another print run of 3,000 bringing the total number of Penny Portrait kits manufactured to 7,500! If everyone who orders a kit completes it that would be a total of $63,450 in pennies hanging on people’s walls.

Crazy little side project indeed…