Written by Home Depot and Lowes are not the only companies that can offer hardware and appliances under the same roof. At Home Depot, finding someone to help can be a full-time job sometimes, and both Lowes and Home Depot are simply large warehouses with no real warm and fuzzy feeling. I wanted to do something about that.
Lambert’s Tree House could provide a warm and customer-friendly place to shop for all your household and garden needs. And by garden, I mean there would be gardens and trees planted in each store. Each store would have a children’s play area with qualified attendants working, giving parents the freedom to walk the store with ease. The store would be built like a massive greenhouse, allowing lots of natural light to flood the walkways.
The retail store would be more user-friendly, with a row of kiosks in the front of the store that could direct you to the right location to find your item. Additionally, the parking lot for each store would wrap around the building with several entrances and exits so that customers would never have to travel too far to reach their cars. Most importantly, employees would be paid more and provided more benefits than would be found at the other retail giants. A happy employee makes for a happy customer; and reduced turnover.
The plan involved a move to Seattle; the Northwestern market would be more open to a green-focused enterprise; and look for someone or some people to invest in my idea. The concept was sound, I worked with Lowes and Home Depot and I believed I knew enough about how they operated to be able to get an endeavor like this off the ground. This was not one o f my small business ideas – I foresaw at least 20 store locations within the first 5 years and exponential growth after that.
Lambert’s Tree house does not exist. I was full of hope and glory and no business plan. The idea was not even realistic! Lowes and Home Depot are two giant retailers, I am a young man with no capital or networks. I did not do any of the research necessary to implement a new business idea. Did I know whether people even wanted a greenhouse experience when shopping for a washer and dryer set? Was anyone investing in new retail start-ups? Was there any room in the industry for another Lowes or Home Depot. These are some of the hundreds of questions to which I had no answers to. I also did not want a small business, I wanted to be a giant without dealing with the growth.
I did everything wrong with regard to Lambert’s Tree House except one: I dreamed of an idea and tried to make it a reality. The goal of an entrepreneur is not to try once, succeed, and stop generating new ideas? A true entrepreneur is an innovator, someone who never rests as long as there is another idea to try.