The holiday season is right around the corner, and I have a goal to sell 500 sets of MuseCubes — 5 times the amount sold last year!
Problem is, I don’t have enough time, hands, or patience to make that many sets myself. I need help, and I need it soon!
Enter: Charles and Mariah. They are freshman at West County Community High School (WCCHS), a unique charter school in Richmond, CA of which I am a founder (and to whom I donate a percentage of the MuseCubes profits).
When I advertised for MuseCubes Assistants at WCCHS, Charles and Mariah were the first to send in resumes. I couldn’t be happier! They are bright, eager and thoughtful 14-year-olds. Charles is a boy scout and mows lawns; Mariah has made crafts at home with her mom. For both of them, it’s their first real job.
Yesterday we got together for our first work session. I told them that I’m depending on their creativity and problem solving to design more efficient manufacturing processes. They accepted this assignment with gusto!
As we rocked out to Green Day and Aerosmith (from Charles’ iPod), we painted Mod Podge and experimented. Forever the teacher, I talked to them about Henry Ford’s assembly line process, and we discussed whether it makes more sense to break up our tasks into parts, or have each person make an entire cube.
Here are a few things we learned:
- For training purposes, it makes sense to make the whole Cube, so each person understands the entire process.
- Charles likes making 3-at-a-time, and seems to be slightly faster than Gretchen’s 18-at-a-time process.
- The hot setting on the hairdryer works better than the cold setting.
- We’ll try the cottage industry approach, whereby each Assistant takes home a kit and gets paid for the Cube.
- As excited as they are to work at their own pace at home, we had such a good time working together! Maybe when I drop by the school to pick up finished Cubes and drop off new kits, we’ll work for two hours together.
- Charles & Mariah agree that if we had two more Assistants, we could be really efficient with an assembly line process. They’re going to encourage their friends to apply.
They’re going to see if they can drum up more assistants. In the meantime, I’m grateful to have a growing team of Assistants, so I can focus on marketing while they expand my inventory.
Get ready, folks! MuseCubes make great, inexpensive stocking stuffers at only $15 plus tax, and soon we’ll have plenty to go around.
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