Ecopreneurist

It’s hard to believe that it’s already been a decade since my wife and I opened our doors of Inn Serendipity in southwestern Wisconsin.

Our marketing background at a large advertising agency in Chicago taught us the value in protecting your company name and brand by trademarking your logo with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). For Inn Serendipity, we did so from the very start. Now, it’s time to renew based on the USPTO’s ten year renewal cycle. From our perspective, we found that we didn’t have to be an attorney (or a genius) to use their straightforward Trademark Electronic Application System (or TEAS) service online.

After our original submission of our logo to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) by following their step-by-step process, we just had one additional renewal payment of $100 and submission of an affidavit that demonstrated our use of our business logo between our fifth and sixth year. Since we applied for a trademark within only one USPTO class, the original fee was about $500.  While there are many “Serendipity” bed and breakfasts, there is only one “Inn Serendipity.”  Given that we plan on being the longest, continuously operating B&B in the nation (possible, since we started Inn Serendipity when we were only 30 years old), preserving and protecting our name is crucial.

Now heading into our ninth year, we, once again, have to renew our trademark for another ten years to protect our investment of time, energy and creativity into developing our award-winning green enterprise. Our trademark protects us from someone else coming along and infringing upon our identity. That said, we are eager to share how we operate our enterprise and borrow our approach to becoming a better business, not necessarily a bigger one.  It’s what we write about in ECOpreneuring (from which some of this blog is drawn). Our first book, Rural Renaissance, covers a wide range of topics related to running our enterprise as well as living sustainably.

Naming your Business

A DBA refers to “doing business as” and establishes the name of your business. Our sub-chapter S Corporation serves as the legal business while we hold a DBA, Inn Serendipity®. Registration forms and fees vary by state but most are easy to determine by contacting your state’s Department of Commerce. Often, many DBAs can be created within one umbrella business name.  Forming a corporation or Limited Liability Company, done within a particular state, is distinct from trademarking a name used for business.

Increasingly, many green businesses choose to create an authentic connection to a real place, like a farm that sells honey, by branding themselves and using their personal name in the business name. There is no correct business name. But whatever name you select must not be used by any other business, otherwise you might find yourself in a legal dispute. You can do free searches for names on the USPTO website.

Registering your Trademark

Naming your business is fulfilling and should be a meaningfully creative process. While possibly requiring the services of an attorney if you have a complex business model, establishing the name of your business and registering its trademark or service mark with the US Trademark Office can be done with the forms provided on their website. Protecting your business name insures that no other business will usurp your reputation and borrow your identity for their profit, not yours. The small “TM” refers to a registration mark waiting for approval by the US Trademark and Patent Office. Once approved, the “®” replaces the TM. It’s important to use these marks to protect the reputation of your business and reaffirm that you are pursuing business in earnest, not as a hobby.

Besides the easy to navigate USPTO website, amazingly you’re just a toll-free telephone call away from someone with the USPTO to personally assist you with your registration.  As for the cost to register a trademark, perhaps a better way to think about it might be to consider the costs (or lost revenue) your enterprise might incur should your business have its identity stolen.

Protecting Authored Works and Inventions

Processing Trademarks and Servicemarks are only a few of responsibilities of the USPTO. They’re also the Federal office that handles patents and copyrights. Protecting your ideas is important. Patents, usually lasting up to 20 years, are offered by the US Patent and Trademark Office for intellectual property that is unique in design, utility (a process or machine) or plant. Copyrights apply to “original works of authorship” and include literary, musical and other artistic forms of expression; the length of a copyright depends on when it is created, how many individuals may be involved and various other factors. Our books are copyrighted. If we invented a new wind turbine that mounts on our roof, it’d be patented. The bigger or more complex the idea, the more you might consider hiring an attorney to assist you in protecting your interests.

Graphic: Inn Serendipity’s trademarked logo/www.innserendipity.com

“Empower people in the US to realize that they have power to influence the global economy through their purchasing choices.” That isn’t some pie-in-the-sky wistful, unrealistic dream. That inspiring vision forms the Earth Mission, that driving force behind World of Good as they aim to transform how we shop by connecting us directly that individual who made our product, even if they are half-way around the globe.

Fostering an economy based on social and economic justice, World of Good, launched by co-founders Priya Haji and Siddharth Sanghvi — just after they graduated from University of California Berkeley Business School — features unique gifts and handcrafts from artisan communities around the world. By selling through an ever-expanding distribution network of retailers nationwide, they are building a whole new economy based on Fair Trade.

Ten percent of their profits get funneled to their sister non-profit organization, The World of Good Development Organization, which helps support artisan communities and works to strengthen international fair wage standards.

“Our aim is to make it easy to help customers make a good choice — not to buy more, but to buy differently,” explains Priya. “They can expect quality, convenience and style — yet the products can be made in a way that actually helps the people who make them. Right now, our products are women’s accessories and housewares. As World of Good grows, our aim is to make the choice for people-positive products easy to find in every category of daily life. We want every human-made product to be a tool of relationship and empowerment for the person who crafted it. Imagine every product not as a material thing but as a bridge of connection and transformation.” Read the rest of this entry »

“Follow your dreams and do what you love, creating community wealth in a living economy. Explore, listen and share. Help others see the interconnections. Realize that all the solutions we need are here now, and do what we can to help others embrace the real life and what can be.”  With an “Earth mission” like that from Brett and Tawnee Dufur, how can you go wrong with your business, or life?

The following ecopreneur profile, drawn from my ECOpreneuring book, is an example of how some of the most successful ecopreneurs follow their passions, not the profits, while navigating their often diversified enterprises that thrive with a triple bottom line.

Books, bikes, canoes. Publishing, tourism, outdoor recreation. Family, friends and fun. Like nature’s diversified geography providing the Missouri River backdrop for the scenic town of Rocheport, Brett and Tawnee Dufur’s ecopreneurial life reflects the strength in diversity. Despite the sleepy town with a population a dash over 200, 15 minutes outside of Columbia, Missouri, the thirtysomething husband-and-wife team has created a laboratory of innovative, ecopreneurial ventures that keep life and livelihood blended and blooming, locally focused, yet reaching audiences and customers well beyond the river’s touch.

Brett’s first venture started in 1995, when he wrote and self-published the first guidebook for the Katy Trail, the longest rails-to-trails project in the United States, 225 miles along the meandering and mighty Missouri River. It remains a best-seller to this day. “What I discovered is that people are hungry for the opportunity to connect with a sense of place, and that’s what this guidebook is all about,” explains Brett.

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In a world overdosed with negativity, Jan Joannides roots for the opposite underdog, building an organization and livelihood around showcasing the positive side of what’s working right.

As co-founder of Renewing the Countryside, Joannides created a means to showcase positive examples of rural revitalization while simultaneously serving as an inspiring example of how one’s purpose and life can passionately blend.

As I write about in the Ecopreneur Profile found in ECOpreneuring, the seed for Renewing the Countryside stemmed from Jan’s master’s thesis work in the late 1990s profiling vibrant, diversified Minnesota farms and ranches. “As I interviewed these folks, I became so deeply inspired by their story and commitment to their family farms that I wanted to get these narratives out to the public, since the media often focus just on the negative decline of rural America,” explains Jan. Inspired by a similar venture in the Netherlands, she tapped into grant funding to publish Renewing the Countryside: Minnesota in 2001, showcasing 44 profiles of successful rural enterprises.

The enthusiastic response to this book led Jan, in partnership with her husband, Brett Olson, to found Renewing the Countryside as a non-profit organization in 2002. Its mission is to strengthen rural areas by championing and supporting rural communities, farmers, artists, entrepreneurs, educators, activists and other people who are renewing the countryside through sustainable and innovative businesses, initiatives and projects. “After all,” she says, “rural America is abundant with prospering enterprises as diverse as colors in the rainbow.” Brett leads the creative side of the organization, developing innovative public education strategies and campaigns.  It’s through our work on the Rural Renaissance book that my wife and I discovered this innovative non-profit organization, an organization that had its pulse on the revitalization happening in rural areas and the net migrations afoot from urban and suburban areas back to rural areas.

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Figure out what you love to do. Then just do it — under a green umbrella. By focusing on the process, rather than the product, Peter Nicholson serves as ecopreneuring inspiration, founding the premiere non-profit organization serving sustainable education in Chicago, Foresight Design Initiative, based around his passion for design.  Nicholson is among the Ecopreneur Profiles featured in our ECOpreneuring book.

“For me, design is manipulating variables for a desired outcome, which in this case is improving our urban quality of life without sacrificing the needs of future generations,” explains Peter. “The variables could be anything from words to graphics to economic influences. I’m fascinated with how we could use design to empower people, to improve human conditions holistically, and often dismayed by the abundant examples of how poor design hinders us.” Today, Peter serves as Executive and Creative Director of Foresight Design Initiative, providing him a palette for sustainable design expression.  Like many sustainable enterprises, they have plans to operate from a showplace green office building not unlike the Matson and Associates Eco-Building in State College, Pennsylvania.

Peter’s career roots back to a foundation in music, essaying initially to be a concert cellist. “When I realized I didn’t have the talent for professional music, I parlayed my music background into arts administration,” explains Peter. Blending music and entrepreneurship, his first venture included launching a classical orchestra in New York City. “I felt classical music was staid and stuck in the 19th century, losing a whole new potential audience. With this new group, we aimed to blow the lid off same old same old and designed fresh, hip graphics and style for every element.”

Enticed by design, Peter enrolled in a design graduate program but left after a year, realizing he had garnered the tools he needed, and took his education into his own hands. A residency in Europe led him to the o2 Challenge in the Netherlands in 1998, a life-changing, dynamic, hands-on working conference on sustainable design that planted the seeds for Foresight Design Initiative. “I realized that sustainability would not evolve without a broader application of design and found, in the challenge of this pursuit, barriers that were both worthwhile and fulfilling to engage,” explains Peter. “Sustainable design, however, was an emerging field; I knew I needed to create the conditions to practice this vocation.”

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Often stressed ecological systems emerge, evolve and reorganize in the most innovative ways.

The same holds true for T. S. Designs, the nation’s largest maker of the most sustainably printed T-shirts.  It’s a company that revolutionized the very process of manufacturing.  Isn’t this the kind of innovation and creativity President Obama is calling for?

Ironically, T.S. Design’s transformation was brought about by the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), championed by the US government under the Clinton Administration, that nearly destroyed their business when their customers shifted to off-shore sources for cheaper T-shirts.

T. S. Designs, founded by Eric Henry and Tom Sineath, now uses 95 percent American-made organic cotton in their T-shirts. Its patented REHANCE printing process allows them to avoid using plastisol, normally made out of polyvinyl chloride (PVC), thus reducing the harmful ecological impacts of these ubiquitous products. As I write about in ECOpreneuring, T.S. Designs doesn’t just make an eco-effective product; it transformed its business model from a focus on profits to operating by a triple bottom line: people, planet and profits. Instead of selling to the Gap and Nike, it now sells to Whole Foods Market and Greenpeace.

“Although Tom and I have always taken care of our employees and tried to make socially and environmentally responsible decisions with our business, our transition to a triple-bottom-line business was not spurred by inspiration, but by desperation,” admits Eric, about their transition. “We believe that if you go outside your market to source a product that your market is capable of supplying, that is not sustainable. Unfortunately, this is due to NAFTA’s and the World Trade Organization’s missions that are driven solely by consumer price and do not consider environmental or quality-of-life costs.”

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While the U.S. Congress and President Obama attempt to jump-start the economy (the destructive “growth” one, not the nature-based, restoration ECOnomy) by spending hundreds of billions of dollars they don’t even have, many ecopreneurs and the green businesses they manage continue to prosper in the restoration ECOnomy.

True, some of the proposed Federal spending will be devoted to the “green economy,” providing a boost to renewable energy production, energy efficient construction and more fuel efficient transportation.  But the ecopreneurs my wife and I interviewed for our ECOpreneuring book have discovered that the “triple bottom line” approach to running an enterprise is more resilient to economic (or ecological) shocks — like the ones occurring around the world at an accelerating pace.

For example, take Small Potatoes Urban Delivery, or SPUD for short, founded by ecopreneur David Van Seters.  Already North America’s largest online organic home grocer, SPUD merged with Organic Express and Westside Organics in 2008. With the amalgamation, SPUD now serves four major U.S. west coast markets: San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle and Portland.

In these times of change and challenges, we need success stories.  Here’s the story of SPUD founder David Van Seters, adapted from ECOpreneuring:

Small Potatoes Urban Delivery, or SPUD, is no ordinary delivery service. First, they promote organic food with free home delivery. Second, they sell food grown or produced by local or regional farmers, whenever possible. Their business model intersects the double-digit growth in organic food and the buy-local movement, while reducing carbon emissions and urban congestion through their resource-efficient delivery service. Topping it off, SPUD harnesses the Internet to offer customers the opportunity to customize their orders with a guarantee of satisfaction.

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Are you fed up with the Fed (Federal Reserve System) and Treasury Secretary, or growing weary working at a job for someone else’s dream and financial benefit?

I was, before I launched by own dream green business and starting making time to smell the flowers and eat the strawberry.

Here are 5 tips to start a green business based on my experiences and book, ECOpreneuring: Putting Purpose and the Planet before Profits:

(1) Follow your Earth Mission.
Wealth without purpose is poverty. Who wants to be the richest person in the cemetery? Turn your passions and sense of purpose into an enterprise. Ecopreneurs craft an “Earth Mission” to use their business as a catalyst make the world a better place, often defining success qualitatively, not quantitatively.

(2) Operate your green business with a triple bottom line: people, planet and (some) profits.
Rather than the purpose of business to simply generate profits, sustainable businesses thrive in a restoration ECOnomy based on restoring or enhancing the planet, providing fair and equitable relationships amongst all stakeholders, and generate profits to sustain the business and its mission (in various ways, to make the world a better place).

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“We need solutions at the speed of business,” says Hunter Lovins, author, speaker and founder of Natural Capital Solutions in the Naturally Successful DVD, produced by Arnold Creek Productions, Inc., known for its award-winning videos on sustainability used by organizations around the world.

Naturally Successful is an expertly assembled compilation of inspiring interviews of the leading visionaries giving a voice to the emerging green ECOnomy and the businesses that are in the business of remaking the world for the better. The release of this video couldn’t be better timed as millions of Americans explore ways to prosper despite the economic downturn.

“Build your business around your calling,” continues Lovins, who like the many leaders featured in the DVD, recognize opportunities for enterprising ecopreneurs to solve the most pressing problems now facing us, turning some profits in the process while achieving a happier, more fulfilling life. “We’re not in a sprint. We’re in a marathon to save the world…What is it that you love to do? How do you make a business of it?” asks Lovins.

To grasp the scale of the sustainability movement afoot and harness ideas to guide your green business, this 78 minute DVD offers insights on what being an ecopreneur is all about with a focus on building a values-driven business, providing meaningful leadership, achieving results beyond profits, serving customers, thinking long-term, seizing opportunities in new and existing markets, creating a thriving business and embracing a new type of commerce that seeks to make the world a better place. Interviews are woven together like a well-made life raft for anyone setting out to launch a green business that thrives with a triple bottom line.

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As explored in my previous posts related to the triple bottom line for green enterprises, these business ecopreneurs seek to consider all stakeholders of their enterprise (not just the shareholders or owners’ financial interests), how the business transforms or is transformed by the environment, and finally, profits, the heralded benchmark for allowing one to define their business as a business, not a hobby.

Millions of American workers — steady-eddy 9-to-5-ers (or sunrise to sunset go-getters) — are observing how the fine print of their so-called pensions could wipe out their sense retirement security while healthcare costs continue to get larger and their portion of the bills explode. Many are kissing off corporate America before their company goes bust or gets gobbled up by Uncle Sam. They’re managing the crisis rather than the financial crisis managing them by launching the dream green business they’ve always wanted with a triple bottom line of people, planet and (some) profits.

Ecopreneurs, harness our profits to create the changes they desire in their communities, shifting the economy away from the present one based on cheap oil, wasted resources, the exploitation of people, and, as of late, drinking form the bottomless cup of debt (mostly “bad” debt). We operate our enterprise in a way that restores or heals the planet — in the restoration ECOnomy — and fosters more equitable and fair relationships among anything touched by our business. By running our own enterprise, many have discovered just how much we can regain control over our life (even if we can’t seem to influence our representatives in Washington DC much).

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