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Article by Susan Ward of About-Small Business:Canada About - Small Business: Canada Article written/published by Susan Ward August 1, 2001 Canadian Small Business of The Month: Part 1: Heather Diodati: Whimsies by DDesign Welcome to the Canadian Small Business of the Month feature. What's small and green and sits on top of your computer? A Pet Virus, one of the novelty creations by Heather Diodati. Her business, DDesign, is a personalized cartoon design company offering WhimsiesTM cartoon pictures as well as items such as shoe bags, magnets, buttons, and key chains, all imprinted with personalized cartoons. And the Pet Computer Virus, of course, a furry creature packed in its own home with a care manual. "Lately, there are so many headaches in the form of computer virus attacks," Heather says, "that I felt computer users could use some help to recover with a little laughter after suffering from a computer virus". I have a Pet Virus sitting on top of my computer, and Heather is right; every time I look at it, I smile. Every time I look at it, I also wonder where Heather got her inspiration. The Pet Virus was inspired by two things; a conversation and an applet. One day Heather was sitting at her computer, half-working and half-listening to a conversation about the latest computer virus. She had an applet running on her computer, a little black and white cat that runs all over the screen. "I guess I started daydreaming while watching this perky, little cat and listening to the background sounds of ranting and raving over viruses," Heather says. "What came to mind was a furry little creature sitting nearby on the desk, ready to pick up your spirits... kind of a stress ball with fur!" Presto! The Pet Virus was born! Part 2: Heather Diodati: The Creative Process Heather keeps a collection of quotes tacked to her bulletin board above her desk to provide inspiration, such as, "An idea is a funny thing. It does nothing unless you do." But Heather translates her ideas into products through the creative process. An avid people-watcher, she always tries to find the funny side of any situation. Since Heather has always created, whether it was painting, drawing, designing clothes, or sewing, she started to draw the situations she saw around her in cartoon form. Her latest cartoon, for instance, is called "Bad Day On the Stock Exchange", certainly a fitting comment on many people's late experience. (You can see Heather's cartoons on her Web site.) When creating a cartoon, Heather first sketches out her idea in pencil. When she's happy with it, she outlines it in black pen. Next she paints the design using acrylic paints, and re-inks the outlines, adding additional detail in pen. Then she scans the design into her art program and adds personalization depending on what the customers wants, such as a person's name or descriptions such as "BBQ King". She prints the finished design on heavy parchment-like paper, adds a matte in the colour of choice, packages it, and ships it. While Heather has tried designing only by computer, she hasn't yet found the right software solution to meet her needs. Heather is obviously a very creative person, who has a wealth of ideas for creating new products. But as she says, "Creativity in designing in self-explanatory; persistence and perseverance are definitely needed to succeed. All too often we hear of small businesses 'going under' because the owners got discouraged and gave up too soon without really giving it a fighting chance." "Remember", says another of the quotes Heather has pinned on her board, "once you start, keep going. Once you stop, you'll have to start all over!" Part 3: Heather Diodati: Marketing and Production Creativity has certainly fueled Heather's success, but she feels that her persistence and perseverance have been a big help along the way. For instance, "creating" the Pet Virus was just the first step; executing the idea and producing the Pet Virus was a process in itself, a process that illustrates Heather's persistence. Whimsies! by DDesign is a home-based business based near Montreal, Quebec. In the beginning, Heather and her family started making Pet Viruses by hand. The prototypes were problematical, however; Heather wanted the Pet Virus to have fur of a particular lime green shade. She went through an extensive program of searching and experimenting, even at one point trying to dye white fur herself, a failure that ended up looking like someone's used bathmat. The fur she wanted was impossible to find in Canada and too expensive in the United States. Finally she was able to find the fur at a reasonable price from a supplier in England. The next stage was marketing. Heather credits word-of-mouth for her sales figures to date, especially her family, friends, and work buddies who "were so pleased with their products that they 'spread the word'". In fact, the word spread so well that Heather and her family couldn't keep up with the large number of orders. She needed to find a manufacturer. An intensive search on the Net, by telephone, by email, by fax, and by snail mail led to a company in China that now produces the Pet Virus. As you see, Heather doesn't believe in settling for second best. She believes that if your product is of the best possible quality, you'll be even more proud of it. When Heather created the Pet Virus, she had a definitive vision of the finished product; it just had to be a neon or lime green and extra furry. Even though the "right" fur was very difficult to track down, she refused to allow her product to be compromised and kept searching until she found exactly what she wanted. Heather's goal for 2001 is to have a Pet Virus in every home housing a computer. To accomplish this, she plans to "market, market, market!" So selling the Pet Virus and her personalized cartoons over the Internet was a natural step. Before Heather could create her own Web site, though, she needed to learn HTML. While Heather describes this as "a lot of headaches with countless error messages", creating her own Web site and getting it online is the achievement she's most proud of to date. "There's no such thing as can't; if they can do it, you can do it," says Heather. Her advice to someone who'd like to start a business? "Believe in your product. Be proud and excited about your product. If you look at your product and you get goosebumps, this is good!" And no matter what happens, "Don't give up too quickly. Believe in yourself. You can contact Heather Diodati at info@whimsies-online.com or visit her Whimsies Online Web site. Disclaimer: The Canadian Small Business of the Month feature is provided for information purposes only. If you would like your business to be considered as The Canadian Small Business of The Month, email me at sbinfocanada.guide@about.com, and I'll send you a questionnaire. While completing a questionnaire is no guarantee of being featured in this series of articles, all completed questionnaires will be considered. Back to Press Releases and Articles 
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