A new custom search engine, A Day's Outing was just launched by Charlottesville entrepreneurs, Elizabeth Muse and Cathy Jolly.It focuses on finding short-distance and weekend activities or trips. It is easy to use and a great way to find last minute adventures just around the corner.
The idea was the developed by founders Elizabeth Muse, CEO and Cathy Jolly, President, out of a need that they had finding activities for their families. Typical of many entrepreneurs, they developed a company around a personal need. Neither Elizabeth nor Cathy had experience in launching a company before but they were determined, and they found valuable advisers early on to help them along the way.
When you visit the site, it becomes apparent that they know their market well - 25 to 54 year old very busy women looking for interesting and fun activities for their families. The mission of the company is to enable people to fully experience the wealth of activities around them by identifying events in a customized format. Both Elizabeth and Cathy come from a background in PR and have capitalized on social media marketing and solid PR to get the word out.
When asked about the one thing that surprised her about launching a new business, Elizabeth replied, " I knew it would be a roller coaster ride but wasn't quite prepared for the many ups and downs that you can and often do experience in one day." She also indicated that the best thing about being an entrepreneur is that you laugh every day.
Elizabeth also said that their success to date was due to very good advice from key local business leaders that help set them on the right path early on. One piece of advice was to get out in and around your target market with a preliminary mock up of the site - survey your market early to verify the market need and the size. This was valuable advice as it provided the building blocks for the business plan.
A Day's Outing creates a personalized weekly eGuide, Go FLoyd, named after one of their favorite four-legged traveling companions, Floyd. Go Floyd is like having your very own, very enthusiastic friend that searches the web for unique outings and then delivers a personalized listing to you at the beginning of each week.
I thoroughly enjoyed speaking with Elizabeth, and appreciate her enthusiasm for sharing her stories about entrepreneurship on the web. Good luck, and I look forward to my first Go Floyd newsletter. You can follow the latest seasonal activities on their blog.
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