Matt Peters
map006@marietta.edu
Last Thursday’s PioPitch session featured two local entrepreneurs, Laura Pytlik and Jack Moberg, both seeking feedback regarding their business ventures.
Marietta’s PioPitch was created to give students and community members the opportunity to share their ideas with staff, students, and other community members in an informal setting.
First to present was Laura Pytlik. Pytlik, the administrative coordinator for Marietta College’s petroleum engineering department, is also the owner and founder of Marietta Marketplace, an annual “pop-up” flea market where local and regional vendors can showcase their products. After several successful Marietta Marketplace events, Pytlik is looking to establish a permanent venue for vendors to market their products.
Pytlik says many of the Marietta Marketplace vendors typically sell their wares on Etsy, a website where any user can buy or sell handmade items.
“A lot of Etsy sellers are really looking to break away from the crowd, get their items noticed,” Pytlik said. “They’re really hoping to get that big break, big wholesale order… or have their items in a shop.”
Pytlik shared her concept for a small retail shop called “Wit & Whimsy.” An Etsy seller herself, Pytlik hopes to offer local artists, craftsmen, and small business owners the “big break” they are looking for.
“The Etsy sellers and the vendors who show up at the Marietta Marketplace, those are the types of people that I want to use to source my inventory. I want to support those people that are working out of their homes and their studios,” Pytlic said.
“The whole thing is to build up other people and not just make money on someone else’s talent and hard work.”
Pytlik said she is convinced downtown Marietta is a great location for such a store, with college students making up a large portion of her 18-34 year old target demographic.
“I want to take advantage of a hub of activity,” she said – adding that businesses such as Marietta Brewing Company and the Peoples Bank Theatre often have evening traffic. “I’d like to offer these people somewhere that they can go in and do some shopping.”
She says her inventory would be a mixture of consignment, vintage items, commissioned products and wholesale products.
The second presenter was Jack Moberg. Moberg is a franchise owner and spokesperson for Juice Plus, an organic whole food capsule.
He explained that when he began selling the product many years ago, his target demographic was females ages 40 to 60. Now, he says, the fastest growing demographic for health/nutrition capsules are females ages 18 to 35.
Moberg’s business advertising, based almost entirely on personal testimonies, depends heavily on social networking. However, he says he is worried that in a market saturated with organic health fads, the simple methods he has been relying on for years may not be enough to reach younger generations.
“You still need someone to tell the story,” he said. “I know how to do it with my age group, I don’t know how to do it with your age group.”
Moberg believes that understanding how to use social networking as a marketing platform for younger consumers is the key to being successful in this new demographic. He emphasized that, because Juice Plus has all the characteristics of current popular health foods (organic, non-GMO, whole foods), reaching this new demographic is merely a matter of changing his marketing approach.
“You guys are doing things that my age group has not even thought about. And in my world, you’re building big businesses, I just don’t know how to find you before I find your grandparents and your parents,” Moberg explained.
