Making it Work

A fledgling small business owner, Zoey Rawlins will tell you that anybody can come up with a good idea, but translating that idea into a viable business takes discipline, perseverance, and sweat. “It's 1% idea and 99% hard work,” says Rawlins, owner of SHOP DC, a local media publication that became so successful it was recently bought out by Washington Post Newsweek Interactive less than a year after the launch of its first issue.

Rawlins, who graduated from the Dingman Center in May 2005, is an excellent illustration of how the Dingman Process works. She began the Ideation phase by first kicking around the concept of an urban, male-directed publication that might be a counterpart to Bride magazine. But when Rawlins assessed the feasibility of the idea (Phase 2), she wasn't confident the magazine would have a strong market in DC. She did, however, believe that there was a market opening for a niche magazine. She just needed to find one that would work. “The retail scene in DC has really taken off recently,” says Rawlins. “I knew there was a lot of under-retailed space. I had been interested in the retail business, and I knew something about it because I'd had a lot of casual experiences with the scene. I knew it was an underserved market.”

SHOP DC perhaps best exemplifies the “Iteration” or fourth phase of the Dingman Process, where a viable business concept is continually reviewed, improved upon, and scaled for increased ROI. Rawlins' implementation phase was modest in scope, offering complimentary copies of the magazine to hotels. When DC residents started to become interested in the magazine, she repackaged it and put it online. In a third iteration, she significantly increased the magazine's market presence by staging style-related fashion and beauty events, ideal for DC shoppers who like to shop and network at the same time. Finally, the magazine was bought out by Washington Post Newsweek Interactive in October 2006.

Rawlins feels that the education she received at the Dingman Center mirrored her actual experiences as a business owner. “The Dingman Center was the best experience I had while at the University of Maryland. It's well funded, well managed, and well organized. They don't cushion you and, in that sense, it reflects the real business world. It's your first real initiation into venture capital. They support you, but it's up to you to make it happen.”