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 April 2007 - The idea for Atomic Elephant Toy was born while driving in my 2000 Jeep with no air conditioning. NASA asked me if I wanted to be an astronaut. I told them, no, I want to open a toy store. There aren't many truly scientific toy stores out there so I thought this would be my little way of helping children. NASA would have to wait.
April 2007 - We had to come up with a name. My wife had some very sophisticated and upscale ideas (she's very smart). She had all kinds of ideas involving Ben Franklin, Isaac Newton, DaVinci and other scientists few people have ever heard of. We ultimately decided on Atomic Elephant Toy as it highlights both the science and nature theme of our concept.
May 2007 - My student loan payments start coming due. Scary Pirate tells me to start making more money. I apply for a part-time underwear modeling job. I get rejected.
May 2007 - I told my boss at Home Depot that I was leaving. After he finished crying, he wished me well and said I could leave in three months when my current commitment was up. I left my office to go make sure we had enough petunias.
May 2007 - I spent the rest of the month selling lumber and petunias and writing a business plan on my lunch breaks and during the commercials on Family Feud.
June 2007 - I sold more petunias and hammers. Still no air conditioning in the Jeep.
July 2007 - I finished the business plan by July 4th weekend and submitted it to some banks begging for a loan. Still no AC and I'm really starting to feel it now. By the end of the month it's very hot here in Virginia. I really want to fix my AC but by now I'm unemployed.
July 31, 2007 - My birthday. We had spaghetti and went to a baseball game.
August 2007 - We got financed! Not a big loan, but enough to buy my new luxury car and take Scary Pirate out to dinner. Just kidding. I still have the Jeep. And it still has no AC.
September 2007 - My son and I go to a pond looking for tadpoles. We don't find any.
September 2007 - I spent a lot of the month meeting with realtors and leasing agents to find a space for my great toy store idea. We found a mall willing to give a chance to a store with a funny name.
September 20, 2007 - Lisa Scary Pirate has a baby. We find out she is mine and we call her Maggie Belle.
October 2007 - I hired David, DeWitt, Nicole and Ricky to help get the store built out and ready to open. The designer we used was great, but the sign company was terrible. They were behind in everything, everything cost more than they initially said, and we ended up having to open without our main signage. Everyone thought we were the Discovery Channel Store. That bugged me.
November 3, 2007 - We opened for business at MacArthur Center in Norfolk, Virginia.
November 4, 2007 - The mall told us that we might have to move locations sometime after the first of the year. This was bad news for us as we spent a lot of our budget on building a beautiful store and a lot of the work we did would have been wasted.
December 2007 - Sales were great, Christmas was fun, and the crew was happy. I hadn't told them that we may have to move yet. And now the heater on my Jeep goes out.
December 15, 2007 - The mall sent a registered letter from their headquarters saying to be out by the end of the year. The local managers at the mall never told me anything and never offered another space (as was previously promised). I decided we didn't want anything to do with this mall and decided to put the store online until we could afford to find another mall.
December 26, 2007 - We closed our doors and packed everything up and moved to a warehouse in Virginia Beach. I break down and fix the heater in my Jeep.
January 2008 - We spent the month ordering and receiving products and building a website.
February 5, 2008 - Our website is officially open. We get one order. It's from me.
February 9, 2008 - We get our second order. $12.
February 10, 2008 - I have to put my plans for my new luxury car on hold. Again.
March 2008 - The orders start to pick up a little. Not enough to pay the rent yet, but we were able to focus a lot of energy on the 13 customers we had in February. Most of the part-timers have to leave to find more steady work.
April 2008 - David and I remain, working on the website daily, packing and shipping orders, and building baking soda and vinegar rockets in the back of the warehouse. The Fire Marshall told us to stop. I don't know why.
May 2008 - We're still here. The daily orders are still increasing and pretty soon we'll be able to pay the rent again. And my Jeep still has no AC.
Thanks for reading. A lot of the above was written in fun, but that's one thing I want this company to be about- fun. I do care passionately about the education of our children and truly believe the best way to grow this love of science in our children is to make learning fun. If you have any questions about science or toys or if you just want to know how Lisa got her unique last name, drop us a note or call any time.
Cheers,
Matt
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