"It is very important that you maintain faith in yourself and your idea because you CAN do it!" with Cherie Climent
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Meet Cherie Climent, age 32, from Seattle, WA, wife, and mother of 2 small children (under the age of 3!). She is one extremely sleep-deprived entrepreneur and co-founder of Paragon Technologies, SL – a smart transforming furniture company, started in Seattle but is now based in beautiful Spain.
· Can you tell our readers about your background?
I have a Bachelor’s degree in Environmental Studies, with a minor in Resource Management, and a Law Degree in Environmental Law and Regulation. After graduating, I began working for a small business in the maritime industry. After I became pregnant with my son, I left that position to co-found a startup, with my husband, who at the time was an engineer for SpaceX. Shortly after my son was born, we made the decision to move to Spain, with a plan to primarily conduct our business in the U.S. In 2021, we secured funding for the company, finalized product development, and I gave birth to our second child.
· What inspired you to start your business?
Four years ago, we were living in our nice apartment in Seattle – but it had one problem – it was tiny! For $2,000 a month there was not even room for a dining table. This meant no hosting friends or family members for meals, and having to cut a steak dinner on your lap, while sitting on the couch. So my husband, this accomplished aerospace engineer, and I had this idea – what if we made a transforming coffee table to dining table? That’s when the idea for our first product, the Paragon Table, was born.
· Where is your business based?
Originally, we were based in Seattle, but now we are operating from Spain. We primarily are selling in the U.S., and are hoping to move back in the not-too-distant future. Operating in Spain has allowed us to conduct research and development and set up the manufacturing part of the company at a very low cost – think a small town in Idaho, with no health insurance premiums.
· How did you start your business? What were the first steps you took?
Well, first we started in Seattle. It’s so easy to legally start a business in the U.S. – you can simply Google search it, and you’ll end up at a US government website and the process is very straight forward, and inexpensive. From there, we set up a website – purchased a domain name, which probably was the lengthiest process because you have to think of a business name that you not only like, but can find the same or very similar domain name of. Next, I learned how to make a website on WordPress, and set up emails. Then I learned how to 3D model in a software called Maya, so that I could come up with designs of our table. I learned this by watching YouTube videos, mostly. It took a bit of time and dedication, but was such a fun skill to learn. And all the while my husband was working on the engineering and structural design portion of our table.
· What has been the most effective way of raising awareness for your business?
To be honest, we are still figuring it out. Social ads have been very good at driving traffic for us, mostly Facebook and Pinterest. Google Ad Words drove a bit of traffic too, but we haven’t seen the amount of conversions that we would like for Ad Words to be cost effective for us. We are still exploring distribution channels and are always learning as we go.
· What have been your biggest challenges and how did you overcome them?
One giant challenge has been to not run out of money before generating revenue and profit. Additionally, finding the right distribution channel is a real challenge also, for all start-ups, and at different stages of your start-up. For example, social media ads were great for us to raise awareness, but not for conversions. So we will need to hustle a bit harder and find out which distribution channel will work for us. And on a side note, if you have children, especially small ones still in diapers, you are in for a really intense experience. It definitely can be done, but there will not be a lot of sleep involved and coffee will be your hero.
· How do you stay focused?
The stress, mostly, is what keeps me focused. I am in a high-risk, high-reward situation, that only has the best chance of success as the amount of time and energy I can dedicate to it. Some days I am tired, or feeling burned out, or want to quit, but I keep my eyes on the end goal. One tip that has been very helpful for us, is to constantly remind ourselves of not how far we still have to go, but of all the accomplishments that we have already made. You’ll be surprised at how much that can help boost morale.
· How do you differentiate your business from the competition?
For us, we’re somewhat fortunate because there’s not a whole bunch of direct competition, because there are no other smart transforming tables out there. But, we of course have to look at regular furniture as competition, and see how can we differentiate ourselves as much as possible, and what can we do to our product that has never been done before in furniture? What new technologies exist now that have never been used in our industry? We have been watching another electronic table start-up, and it has been eye-opening for us to see the mistakes that they have made, like for example, I have read many of their customer comments complaining about a damaged product when it arrives, and horrible customer service. So in this case, we see this information, and we make decisions in our company to ensure we do not make the same mistakes.
· What has been your most effective marketing strategy to grow your business?
So far, our best distribution channel has been offline marketing. Sounds so old school, especially when we are promoting ourselves as the furniture of the future. But, at the end of the day, a large portion of our customers are people who live in apartments and condos – and the best way to get in front of their eyes, is to go directly to their building management and have them promote us. So, flyers, handouts for new client welcome packets, special resident discounts, etc. has been a really good strategy for us at this stage.
· What's your best piece of advice for aspiring and new entrepreneurs?
That you can quite literally do anything yourself. You can learn how to build your website, how to market and sell your product, how to 3D design if needed, how to manufacture – albeit this is a little trickier – but you can almost certainly make your own prototypes. You don’t need to have a lot of money, you don’t necessarily need to pay someone, you don’t need a fancy degree – all you actually need are 3 things: 1. Perseverance, 2. Access to YouTube where you can literally learn how to do anything and everything, and 3. Faith in yourself. It’s really, really easy to become discouraged. You may find your close friends and family even doubting you or trying (or not, but still succeeding) to bring you down. I have had my own mother tell me to my face, “you know this is not going to work, right?” So, it is very important that you maintain faith in yourself and your idea because you CAN do it!
· What's your favorite app, blog, and book? Why?
I would say it’s more of an essential than a favorite, but Traction: How any startup can achieve explosive customer growth, by Gabriel Weinberg. I think this is a must-read for any entrepreneur. And read it as soon as you can in the product development stage because it will really give you a leg up on what you can be doing now to ensure marketing success, even before your product is ready to go.
· What's your favorite business tool or resource? Why?
Probably Google Analytics, because it provides such valuable information regarding who is coming to my website, how many people, from where, what pages and links they’re clicking. Without it, I wouldn’t be able to see what is effective in terms of phrasing, pictures, pricing, etc.
· Who is your business role model? Why?
· How do you balance work and life?
I’m not sure there is such a thing, especially if you are an entrepreneur. You just try the best that you can and try to take care of yourself when you need to. One important thing is if you can, try to figure out the value of your time, and if it makes financial sense and you are able, try to offload time-intensive tasks that are not actually worth your time. This could be hiring a cleaning person every other week to deep clean, or getting pre-made meals.
· What’s your favorite way to decompress?
I love to watch a good show or movie with husband, whenever time allows. I do love to play video games – Occasionally, I’ll play a couple rounds of Battlefield or get lost in the beautiful game of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.
· What do you have planned for the next six months?
We are planning to go to several trade shows and conferences throughout the U.S. and Europe. I am hoping to ramp up our production of the Paragon Table and hire some new employees. This is really the best part of being an entrepreneur – when all of your extremely hard work begins to pay off and you can see that you are succeeding. How amazing your first sale feels – there is hardly anything like it! And then you get your first amazing customer feedback, and then another, and another… it all becomes worth it when you realize you are making a positive impact in peoples’ lives.
· How can our readers connect with you?
Through our website, www.paragonhome.com or email directly, Cherie.climent@paragonhome.com
