smay - dean - boo // about

Hej!

It has been about a year and a half now that my husband John and I have been kicking around the idea of starting a website-based home business...We've spent many, many hours adding and deleting sections to the business model, trying to clarify the purpose, compiling the laundry list of practical tasks and working out the logistics...and though we are not Quite there yet, it feels like the best way to get something started is to Do It. This page is more or less "Base Camp" as we hammer down the specifics of our company, begin taking the first steps and (hopefully) -- get 'er up and running by next summer or so.

But first! The introductions...
My name is Rebecca - I am a 24-yr-old (girl? Feels like...) from Chicago who moved to Copenhagen, Denmark after high school to attend a Bible School in Nordvest, the "north west" suburb about 10 minutes (by bike, of course) of the downtown area. I fell in love with the city, and subsequently, the Danes...and on June 20 of this year, married one of them :) So now I am Rebecca Glitfeldt, American wife in Copenhagen - poor, but happy, and in love! The paperwork for my utidsbegrænset opholdstilladelse (permanent residency) is being processed, and I am not allowed to work until they are approved, so I am trying to maximize this time to really throw myself into SmagDinBy.dk, our website.

The Concept:

SmagDinBy.dk (which translates to "Taste Your City") is a website geared towards Danes in the Copenhagen area, and primarily students as we start out, which makes it easier for them to get into the city and eat out more frequently, for less.

Danish students are among the wealthiest in the world for a number of reasons. A university education is free for them, so there are no tuition costs; and they receive payment from the state while they are studying (for as many as seven years), so they are able to pay for rent, books and food without any worries, allowing them to focus primarily on their studies. On top of this, they often take part-time jobs, and enjoy plenty of income on the side to spend out in the city, which is where you will find a good number of them on any day (or night) of the week.

This love of being "out" and "in the city" is so characteristic of Danish culture - Danes are always up for a little "hygge", which is the word for "coziness," descriptive of a time when they are able to gather with friends, relax and enjoy each other's company, often over coffee or a meal. Knowing that Danes love their hygge, and that they have the kroner to make it happen, we wanted to find a way to facilitate that experience.

Copenhagen is a city that is almost too beautiful, and is so full of life and energy! Even for Danes who have spent their entire lives here, there is always something new to see, a new little shopping street to chance upon, and a new cafe to discover on that street. In any season, the restaurant and cafe life in Copenhagen is one of the primary pulls into the downtown area. John and I love going out for a meal, and being able to enjoy the city from new perspectives -- but it's not cheap. As much as we and others adore our city, the luxury of spending nights out at a restaurant or cafe is often too expensive to attain.

Until now.

SmagDinBy.dk will be a site where people like us who live to be downtown can search for their favorite restaurants and cafes, purchase a certificate (fx: pay 150kr/30usd online and receive a credit for 200kr/40usd at the cafe), and save when they go out. This is an all-around good idea -- The restaurant is able to dictate the times and days of the week the certificates can be redeemed (fx: Mon-Thurs only, which might fill some "dead" time), and they are also able to have their menus and locations online in an easy-to-access format, which doubles as an advertising tool. The purchaser is able to save some kroner on the outing and is therefore able to go out, enjoy the city and experience new restaurants and cafes more than before. The site will also be a forum for people to suggest new restaurants, rate and "tag" current ones (cozy/chill/trendy, etc) and share their experiences.

Our goal is to enable people our age, and later, as many Danes as possible, to get out into our gorgeous city more than ever before; to explore it, to discover new and hidden places to eat or get a latte, to tell us about them, and to let us tell everyone else! We want to start a restaurant and cafe dialogue in the city that makes it easier (and cheaper) than ever to find themselves eating out in all corners of the city, because that's what We want to be doing!

Some challenges ahead...

- John went to Copenhagen Business School and graduated with a Masters in Marketing and Human Resources Management. He has taken many classes about entrepreneurship and branding - but I have not. I am the highly creative, artistic one with the big ideas that don't quite fit into text books and may not even be realistic sometimes - and I have been blogging and making websites for about 8 years. In many ways, we are the perfect team for a project like this, with him being the practical brains and me being a bit of a dreamer with the design abilities. But we need to find the right way to balance all our assets (and shortcomings) and put together a water-tight business model.

- We have no money! I have been reading a lot about inexpensive or free marketing tricks, and feel confident that we can get the word out about our site on a limited budget, but this takes a solid know-how of marketing. Here are a few books we have been reading:

the new rules of marketing and pr

word of mouth marketing

guerilla marketing

There is a lot here that we can apply, but plenty to discard or forget immediately. Like, we are not placing an ad in the yellow pages, hah. What?? Do people even use those anymore?? So the task ahead is to sort through everything and pull from it usable, actionable ideas that will set us in the right direction.

Going forward...

What you can expect from this page is a lot of honesty. I will be talking through a lot of what I read and uncover along the way as we try to put this whole crazy project together and form it into something we can use to make some nice changes in the city - both for others and for ourselves.

The goal of this whole thing is to create an opportunity for John and I, and our kids one day, to spend more time together, both at home and in the city -- instead of doing the American thing and working our butts off outside of the house, which is something I have seen all my life. The Danish society is one that lays enormous emphasis upon time spent with the people you love, so I know we will fit right in.

I will post some sketches I have done that will hopefully develop into the site layout, as well as "glamour shots" from around the city that we might end up using on the page one of these days. In the meantime, I would love to hear advice from any and all about starting up -- We have lots to learn!

"På gensyn", as the Danes say -- Until we meet again ;)