Little City Kitchen Co. Blog

People often ask how I come up with my blog topics.  I wish I could tell you guys that I have a master calendar filled with scheduled content (sorry Sis!), but I typically wake up on Thursday mornings and think to myself “what am I going to write about today”.

I do tend to stick to one main principle: I write about what is on my mind…and more than likely, it’s what has been keeping me up at night.

If you’ve been reading my “Food Entrepreneur” blog series, you’ve probably noticed that the tone has changed in the last couple of months.   In the beginning, there were tons of things to share and lots of progress being made in the Little City kitchen.  Man oh man…that was an exciting time for me!  Didn’t get much sleep, but the wheels were a-turning!

The last few months have been hard.  As you begin to shift from the “dreaming” to the “doing” part of building a business, you learn really quickly what works and what doesn’t.  And it can be a somewhat painful and taxing process.

Finding Answers in the Woods

For those that know me, you’ll find this analogy somewhat funny since the words “hiking” and “Jill” don’t typically fall in the same sentence.  This journey reminds me of an Outward Bound course I took when I was 15 years old.  We had to walk through the woods, typically with no trail, using a few proven tools to get us to our destination.

In any new business venture, there is no clearly defined path. There is however, a clearly defined direction and goal.  You may trek a little to the right, or wobble to the left, but in general, you’re still moving in a forward direction towards your goal.  And hopefully you’re not going in too many circles.

In this (admittedly unpleasant) Outward Bound course, we had three tools to keep us pointed in the right direction: our map, our compass, and our group.

My Map

Also known as my business plan.  This seems to be in a constant state of tweaking these days.  What is the best way to produce this food?  How do I distribute?  How big do I want this company to get?  It changes often, but typically it’s still moving the company in the same general direction.

My Compass

Oh boy, this is a big one for me.  My dear friend and life coach, Alexis Robin of Nourish Life Coaching, taught me the concept of listening to your body compass.  That combined with intuition are the two most helpful tools as I try and find my way.

And if I’m being honest, I still have a lot of work to do on this front.  Listening to your intuition (I mean really, really listening people) requires your mind to be quiet.  My mind is anything but quiet these days – in fact, it sometimes even screams at me – so I’ll be working on that a lot in the next few months.

My Group

This is my tribe that I’ve told you guys about!  Someone told me last week that “it takes an army” to build a successful company, and after the last few months, I can now emphatically agree.   I’ve already found some wonderful people to help me on my journey, and look forward to finding even more along the way.

So, this should be a really interesting and exciting phase for Little City Kitchen Co.  There will be some changes coming, although I can honestly tell you that I have no idea what those will be right now!  In the meantime, we keep hiking and moving forward.