Timely Appeal

During business school, Courtney Hines dreamed of owning his own business with his friend Adrian Woods. But the pair had neither capital nor a brilliant idea. Then, in December 1994, they began glancing at calendars while Christmas shopping at the Fox Hills Mall. They found cats, cartoons and beautiful women in swimsuits--but none that featured African Americans. After more research, they realized they had found a void in the market. Three months later, Shades of Color was born and now includes four product lines. Along the way, Hines and Woods have learned how to fill a niche and how to broaden their appeal. Hines was interviewed by Karen E. Klein.

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We started off with an African American female swimsuit calendar, thinking that this was really going to be more fun than work. We marketed that first calendar to major bookstore chains with the idea that this product would fill a void. The calendar business is extremely competitive and the big boys have got many titles. But, for whatever reason, there are certain niches that are still open.

When buyers saw our idea and that it wasn’t already out there, a couple of them gave it a shot. The first hurdle we hit was financing. The theories I had learned in school as a business and finance major didn’t work in the real world. I thought that if we took our $100,000 in purchase orders to the bank, we’d get a loan.

That was not the case at all. Lenders wanted prior financial statements and several years’ track records, which we did not have as a new company. So we ended up raising money from friends and family and financing that first calendar ourselves.

After an initial success, we decided to continue targeting the same market, but we wanted to expand the line, so we hit the pavement again and began to look at what was not represented. What we came up with was loving, wholesome images of African American families. The next year, we added a calendar we call Loving Dad, which features African American men with their children.

Even though we had specifically targeted African Americans, we found there were a lot of crossover sales happening. So our next project was to obtain a licensing agreement with an African American artist who definitely has crossover appeal. We put together a calendar featuring her artwork that will be released for 1998.

Our calendars are currently distributed not only nationally but also internationally. The big sales are in Washington, New York, Atlanta and here in Los Angeles. We also have product being sold in London.

We found that because we had chosen this niche, buyers initially were hesitant to place our product outside of traditionally “black” areas. But we started to get a few orders for stores outside of urban areas, and the calendars have done well. Now, those buyers are increasing their orders by 20% for next year. So we have had to earn trust and achieve popularity little by little.

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AT A GLANCE

Company: Shades of Color

Owners: Courtney Hines ad Adrian Woods

Nature of Business: Calendar publishers Location: Gardena

Founded: 1995

Employees: Two full-timers, two part-timers

Annual Sales: $120,000

MORE SMALL BUSINESS NEWS: D8