Atlanta entrepreneur puts start-up wisdom on cards

Trying to start your own business can be hard, especially in a tough economy. Even supporters might wonder if you’re playing with a full deck.

An Atlanta advertising executive says she has a solution for such entrepreneurial angst, and it’s in the cards.

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Kent D. Johnson/Staff

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Kent D. Johnson/Staff

Atlanta advertising/marketing agency owner Elizabeth Baskin has developed a set of cards (the size of playing cards) that tell would-be entrepreneurs how to start their own business step by step, from funding your startup, to finding office space, to registering a domain.

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Kent D. Johnson/Staff

The cards sell for $25 on Amazon and, Baskin hopes, eventually in stores.

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With Start Your Own Company, Elizabeth Cogswell Baskin tells how to launch a company in a 54-card deck that offers one how-to step per card.

They deliver advice on how to get a business license, register your domain, obtain a line of credit, develop branding materials, and handle many other start-up essentials.

Baskin, owner of Tribe Inc., a seven-year-old agency, is selling sets on Amazon.com for $24.95, alongside various start-your-own business books.

Atlanta executive coach Mariette Edwards, owner of Star Maker Enterprises, suggested not relying on the cards 100 percent, but said, “This could be a tool to help you think through all the aspects of having a business. I see so many people who are lost and completely overwhelmed.”

Edwards likes the idea of using the cards “in conjunction with something else,” such as professional business advice.

Baskin said she got the idea five years ago while flying to Texas to give a speech on how to be your own boss. En route, she scribbled on index cards the steps she’d learned while building her own business. Then she described the steps in her talk.

“The audience went crazy and afterwards they wanted to know where they could buy the cards,” Baskin recalled.

So she decided to start a business about starting a business.

“I’ve had so many people come to me over the years and say I want to start my own company,” she said. “The thing that stops most of them is just doing it. They get bogged down trying to be perfect.”

Startups are not a game of perfect, she said, and “hopefully, these cards make it not an overwhelming task.”

The cards are colorful, the tips snappily written. They come in four sections: vision, launch, follow-through and milestones.

Baskin said the cards aren’t a short cut.”You still have to actually do the steps. But it’s like those moving walkways at the airport. You’re moving faster than you would otherwise.”