the owner of a kids party space discovers who his real customers are and what you need to know about getting a copyright or trademark. what you need to know next coming up on "your business." ♪

♪ hi, everyone. i'm j.j. ramberg, and welcome to "your business." your company cannot gain traction if you don't know who your real customers are. that was the problem one new orleans-based entrepreneur had with his children's party space. while catering to kids he found out the hard way it was the parents he should be making happy. ♪ bouncy castles, gigantic slides, pizza. it looks like heaven to your average kid, and that's exactly what gene sauce was banking on in 2008 when he opened new orleans-based bookoo bounce, an indoor inflatable party place. after attending party after party where children were the

one and only priority, gene saw that he could do something different with his company. >> so often the party's experiences were not geared around the parent so it was hot, uncomfortable, unclean bathrooms, or for that matter safety. it really didn't seem to be an important element oftentimes with off-premise children's birthday parties. >> the kids may have been having fun but gene knew when it came down to it, but when it came down to it, they weren't making the decision on the party place. >> they could decide what kind of party they want, the theme, but the ultimate decision comes from the parents and what kind of budget they might have. >> with experience in the hotel industry, gene looked to bring what he knew about hospitality to his business. >> we wanted to have the cleanliness of a ritz-carlton, the hospitality of a house of

blues. >> amenities were included in both the design and business model to make bookoo bounce not just a fun place for kids but also a haven for adults looking for a little downtime as well. >> he has free wifi that you can connect your lap tap to, ipad, phone. he has televisions around so you can watch tv, watch a football game. he has comfortable seating. he also supplies coffee drinks, also, for parents. >> comfort alone isn't what keeps customers coming back again and again, the staff has made it a mission to take the guesswork out of planning. they've set and planned when you hold a party at bookoo bounce, everything is taken care of. >> i love that i didn't have to get my house ready for people to come over. i brought cake and pizza and the kids got to go play. i got to chat with the other parents and the kids had great time. >> gene's not the only one making parents number one.

every team member is trained to look out for what the adults want. the goal carries over into the interviewing process. when hiring staff gene thinks about who will interact with the adults best, not just who the kids will have the most fun playing with. >> they're a lifeguard out there making sure they're not hurting themselves, but at the same time they're servicing the parents' experience making sure they enjoy the experience. >> attention to the details has also opened up a new revenue stream for field trips. jason horne owns nearby martial arts school. during its summer camp a visit to bookoo bounce is always on the calendar. >> being a priority in his business, you get that feeling and sense as a parent myself and also as a business owner i'm in the care of other people's kids. so i'm bringing them somewhere where i don't have to worry about them because it's a safe environment. >> paying attention to parents

as much as kids also brings new foot traffic to the business all the time. >> word of mouth is huge. your reputation in a city like new orleans, people talk. it's a small town. it's an experience people have based on what people tell them about it. >> as gene looks to launch a second location in the near future, there's one thing he knows he'll be keeping the same. >> as we move forward, as we branch out and try to expand the business, parents are definitely going to be our primary focus, making sure that we're able to deliver to them what we've been delivering here for the past six years, and that is a full service turnkey birthday party experience for their child and for them. it's really not much more important than that. this is a question we get all the time in our e-mail and social media and when we attend small business conferences. do i need to copyright or trademark my product or service. so let's try and shed some more

light on this topic. expert after expert on the program tell us protect your intellectual property. a while back we met designer lolita healy who showed others why you need to copyright and the steps you need to take to accomplish that. ♪ >> i was elated. i think i jumped on my bed. and i didn't know what -- i knew it was, you know, protecting my design and my art, but i just felt so special. it still feels special when i get. >> she applied for a trademark when she was just 12 years old for a cartoon character she called doodle bug. >> i come from a long line of tinkers and investors. probably the most famous one is cyrus mccormick. he was the inventor of the reaper. i grew up hearing these stories

that it's very important to protect your idea because if you don't, someone will steal it. >> 20 years after filing her first copyright, lolita was inspired to paint on a martina glass after "sex and the city" made the cosmopolitan famous. after several hours of painting, she copied the design for that famous glass as well as every one she's created since. almost 700 copyrights later she knows better than anyone how simple the process is. >> you can do it online. for $35 for copyrights, all you have to do is attach an image, written work, it's just a matter of filling out your name and address and sending in a photo with whatever it is you're trying to copyright and usually within one to four weeks you get a certificate back in the mail. it's very simple. >> and if someone does try to copy you, you can file suit and get up to $30,000 if someone is copying you.

>> copyrights are ones that i use. trademarks is different. lolita, my brand, is different, it's trademarked. a trademark protects logos, brand names, slogans. "love my martini," that's my slogan. >> she realized it wasn't possible for her to hand paint all of the glasses herself anymore. in order to scale her business she would have to find someone interested in licensing her designs, removing lolita from the tedious task of manufacturing and distributing the product herself. the fact that her artwork was protected by copyright and her brand was trademarked was added value to lolita's fast growing brand. >> i wouldn't be a protected

licenseor to a protected licensee if i wasn't protected because it would put them at risk out there selling my product if i didn't have the copyrights on my designs. >> lolita has had this whole host of imitators that have come along in the last five years. i knows there been programs i've seen in major retailers that have been shut down overnight because they didn't realize they were buying an absolute copyright infringement and her legal action has stopped that. >> with a product line from stationery and pajamas to jewelry and towels, lolita's brand is stronger and more recognizable than ever. and thanks to ray, with products in major retailers like macy's and hall mamark, lolita now more than ever is digitally branding the copyrights. >> i sleep better at night knowing i have that protection. it's wonderful. we hear the term "trademark" quite a bit but what exactly is a trademark?

it is a word, a name, a symbol, a name that is identified as being from a particular company. think of the apple logo or nike swoosh. those are trademarks. now our guests are going to tell you things you need to do before applying for a trademark for your company. marry is the founder of traffic light, a site that has tools people need to identify and protect their intellectual property. it's so great to see you. >> nice to see you, too, j.j. >> you're going to talk to us about what to thing about before you think of the process so you can save money and time so you're not going in all different directions. >> or you're just getting started and using an online service or doing it yourself that could end up wasting your time or more importantly, your money. >> you need to decide where you live first of all. is this online or are you in a certain state. >> yeah. because what people don't

understand is that the trademarks that you get from the united states, patent and trademark office, those are for federal activity. you have to be across state lines. if you're going to operate something offline in your town, you don't necessarily need to get a federal trademark. >> how do you get a local one? do you go to the same thing, or a -- >> no, would go to a state or local authorities and then you get a business name application and it differs state by state. >> is there any reason not to get a federal one? >> you can't get a federal one unless you're operating across state lines. >> got it. check with the ustpo website. >> so if you're launching a website and you're going to be operating online or you're operating something that will expand nationally, go to the u.s. pto. go to the uspto.gov site. and under trademarks they have a place you can catch.

put in a name you're going to search for and don't freak out if you go on there and see someone else has a similar name. it will give you a whole list because the way a trademark works, it's for that brand. so for the apple computer, that means you're going to get a good quality apple computer but you could call your store apple if sold apples. >> so it's per industry. >> it's per industry. that's where you need to do your preparation and seek proper advice because that's where the people mess up on the classes and some of the other things and the proper advice will come from qualified professional. >> also do an internet search. just a simple internet search to see if there's anyone out there with my name or my symbol. you can do a search on a symbol, too. >> yes. >> or a logo. >> you can do a search on a logo on the u.s. pto, but a lot of people think, well, if no one has a federally registered trademark, i'm good. no, you have to look at google because somebody might be

operating in your state, just in your state. they might have a restaurant or something like that or they might have -- be operating nationally but they haven't done their trademark registration. >> make sure you know what's out there. >> yes. >> registering your domain name. this is one people always forget about. is not always the same. >> not the same. necessary to register your domain name, but that doesn't give you any trademark rights, especially -- it might lead to infringing on somebody else's. >> right. you have to be very careful about it. finally, i think a lot of people don't understand still the difference between trademark and copyright. once you have a trademark, in what circumstance do you need a copyright? >> you get a copyright when you express it in a tangible medium. so when you have created whatever it is, whether it's the logo or copy, you created -- you have copyright in that. it's different. you don't have to register it but if you do you have to

register it with the u.s. copyright office versus the trademark office. the trademark allows you to use it exclusively. the copyright says i own it and you can decide what others use it. very different. >> got it. we get so many questions i appreciate your coming on and helping us sort it out. social media is a great way to reach your current and potential customer base, but any errors can hurt your business's reputation. here now are five ways you can avoid making following mistakes courtesy of inc.com. one, giving the wrong people access. social media's greatest asset is a chance to share your voice, so make sure your post reflects your company's point of view. two, getting hacked. a compromised account can lead to losing your follower's trust. use a creative password and only

allow certain people to access. three, being on every platform. do a little research and just think with the network your target customer is on. four, spamming your followers. do not overshare. according to buffer, you should be aiming to post on twitter 14 times day, facebook two times and linkedin once a day. five, not using management tools. take advantage of sites like ho hootsuite so you can monitor results, but don't automate all your updates. followers will know if you aren't taking time to converse and engage with them. coming up. we have more advice about how to grow your business. we'll answer questions including recruiting and managing appropriately and some of our viewers tell us about their favorite online tools and resources. if i can impart one lesson to a

new business owner, it would be one thing i've learned is my philosophy is real simple american express open forum is an on-line community, that helps our members connect and share ideas to make smart business decisions. if you mess up, fess up. be your partners best partner. we built it for our members, but it's open for everyone. there's not one way to do something. no details too small. american express open forum. this is what membership is. this is what membership does. 80% owners of the company just recently converted 20% to the employees. and it gives us what we desire on the control side and the vision side. you know, people feel like now they have a piece of it. they have a piece in the growth

of this company and all the great things we do. >> the american hispanic business community continues to grow which is why we headed to the us hispanic chamber of commerce national convention in salt lake city this week. according to the chamber, the rate of startups for hispanic small business is three times the national average. one of the highlight us was the first latina to ever hold that position. contreras-sweet wants to become the new sba. >> we're out there to become the new sba what we call smart, bold and accessible, to make sure we're using smart systems to deploy the technology that's available today to make our interface with the banks easier so we have a quick

easy interface with the client. we're acting on bolder initiatives. bolder means we're looking for new ways in which we can help small businesses create new market opportunities. then the accessible, to make sure we're there for everybody that we're not leaving anybody behind. >> it's time to answer some of your business questions. let's get our board of directors in here to help us out. danae ringelmann is a co-founder of indiegogo, where she is chief development officer, and jen groover has created the butler bag as well as her lifestyle brand empowered by jen gruber. the first is about employees who remote completely. >> my question is how to best recruit and retain employees remotely when you have no physical presence or connection with them in the city in which they're working. >> i think this is a great question. i am in favor of employees

working in the office if they can, but there are some cases where you need someone in a different city. how do you manage them? >> there's some cases when you're looking for the best talent, you need to offer flexibility to get to them. we do four things. the first, we hire right. so what i mean by that, we look for proactive people. people who will lean in and reach out if they are working remotely you need that mindset to be successful. second we invest in communication technology so there's no reasons why you can't communicate. the third is we make sure there's a travel budget. the fortunate thing is we have things like google hangouts that make the communications system quite affordable so we take the savings and invest in a travel budget to allow people to come to the travel office and connect with other people and build that rapport and relationship. and the fourth thing we do is make sure our one-on-ones with employees and their managers truly happen. and it's not just about how they're doing with work but also to ask them about what's going on with their life and

everything like that because that type of conversation doesn't happen when you're remote. if you do those four things you'll be successful. we've done a good job so far. some of our top employees are people who work remotely. >> when you hire someone, it's hard. when you do an amazing job hiring somebody, it's a culture fit, boom, you got them. sometimes you hire someone and you're not exactly sure. hiring is hard. how do you get them into your culture and then continue to know they are a right fit if they're not there in the office? >> i think the first thing is that if you're looking for somebody to have this type of flexibility and not be present, you want someone's track record of being self motivated. i look for people who have done things in their life, not just professionally but personally, that shows they're a self-motivated person and takes

into account their own self responsibility, whether somebody is looking or not. that's the core principle of this. the ongoing conversations, the way danae said with technology that allows for communication is important so you can feel like you're part of it. i work with companies that are in different states, i'm constantly on conference calls with them and skype meetings, that allows me to feel connected and part of the team culture. another part is ongoing education, support of that. so everybody is growing and evolving together as a team. no matter where they are. so they have the mission statement of the company always part of who they are and how they're behaving. lastly is to get them to be at events together on a frequent basis, even if it's quarterly. that's important so there's a human connection on an ongoing basis. >> i like what you said about the mission statement. it's incredibly important, it requires having a company like yours, danae where it's a clear mission statement. the culture is clear. it's not as hard to transfer

that to people working remotely. let's move on to the next question about keeping you and your business focused. >> how do you keep focused on your core model as you see yourself growing and scaling into different areas. >> i like this. i think of this as the shiny object. how are you not always reaching and focus on the core model, go after the ones where there's potential but not every one. you must face this all the time. >> since the beginning there has been shining objects everywhere, especially since the day we launched, we were the first platform, we were discovering what we were and what we were offering. over time what has worked for us is to look at all opportunities as a nice problem to have. the fact you can get more opportunities is great. so get more opportunities, filter it through your long-term mission and vision. a perfect example is indiegogo

is helping business owners create and raise as much money for their businesses as possible. there's all kinds of things to help people do that. for a long time we had feedback from customers who said they wanted more analytics tools on the back end. that had nothing to do with raising money. when we looked at the opportunity and saw by providing data to customers t would help them be more successful in testing tactics and raising more money, we decided to do it. so far it's worked out great. a great example of us not doing that is in the early days when we had feedback that said we want an events module. we did it but asked the question how does this help people raise more money? within a few months we were getting no traction and we got rid of it right away. we learned that was a waste of time and money to do it. in the end you have to listen to customers. you never know where an idea

will come from. take that recommendation and filter it through a lens. >> in your case you can use a minimum survival product idea, see if they launch quickly, gain traction and kill them if they're not. >> his question made me think about if you're gaining traction in something that was not your core business or product, maybe you should be looking at it and saying that's what my business should be. >> ability lawsuitly. this goes back to the agility statement we said earlier and understanding that your customers are going to dictate where you need to go. i get the shiny object syndrome. how i stay focus, i have a core intention. this is somewhat like a mission statement but my intention that impacts what i choose to work on or not.

sometimes when we start this process we forget what our intention and mission is. if you stay focused on that, you can do a litmus test for that. for me, as i grow my businesses, i make sure whatever i focus on as a core business has an operational space in place so it's perpetuating, so when i focus on other projects it's moving at a certain pace with or without me. i use licensing as a core business model as well because of that. i like to build my brand equity in certain products or services, brands to a certain level and then license them so i can fulfill my shiny object syndrome and move on to the next project. that's what works best for me. it's different in different scenarios. licensing, i'm a huge proponent of understanding the value that licensing can add to each company so that you can expand and grow. >> danae and jen, thank you very much for coming on and giving your advice.

if you have a question for our experts, just go to our website. or you can just e-mail your questions and comments to @yourbusiness@msnbc.com. you probably downloaded a dozen apps on your smartphone and have a bunch of sites book marked to make your day more efficient, but which ones are worth going back to again and again? we asked viewers to share their favorite small business tools. >> google drive is a great way to store your content and important documents in one place so when you're managing a team of however many that may not be in one location or using one computer, it's a great way to get everyone on your team access

to all the documents, all the content, everything they need to collaborate, create new materials and make sure they're informed. >> we use linkit extensively throughout our organization. it's a virtual white board. it replaces a white board you might have in your office. it's so much more than what you can do with a white board. it has analytics, work flow, different members of your team you can see what they're working on. our hr department probably uses it better than anybody else. they manage our entire hiring funnel through leankit. >> we use yammer, it's an online desk top app and web app for your phone. it allows us to communicate with our other employees and everybody on a consistent basis. e-mail and facebook was nice, it was hard to get unison and share

files and calendars. for yammer, for us, it's instantaneous. we can create groups within it. writers can talk to writers, we can have a whole group that has everybody involved so we know when big debuts are happening. we can keep everybody informed of the projects we're working on and the goals we need to reach them. >> one we started using recently that the staff has enjoyed is slack, which is essentially like a private version of twitter where you can have multiple streams of conversations going on. >> that's create for collaboration when we have people working in different locations or out on the road, we can communicate through this one app. to learn more about today's show go to our website, it is openforum.com/yourbusiness. you will find today's segments and web exclusive content. you can also follow us on

twitter, it's @msn it's @msnbcyourbusiness. next week, the power of having a business with more than one location. >> i never thought we would grow to be new hampshire's place to shop for running gear. >> one small business owner tells us why having three stores have been good for her employees, company culture and bottom line. until then, i'm j.j. ramberg, remember, we make your business our business. if i can impart one lesson to a new business owner, it would be one thing i've learned is my philosophy is real simple american express open forum is an on-line community, that helps our members connect and share ideas to make smart business decisions. if you mess up, fess up. be your partners best partner. we built it for our members, but it's open for everyone.

there's not one way to do something. no details too small. american express open forum. this is what membership is. this is what membership does. they're called aeromedical biological containment systems. abcs. air ambulance service called phoenix air operating out of cartersville, georgia decided roughly a decade ago they would buy three business jet-style planes, called g-3s and they used to be owned by the danish air force but when phoenix air bought them it was so they could outfit the planes with plastic modular units inside. these things called abcs. apparently the company thought they're most likely use for the sars epidemic in the early 2,000s. they did not ever get used for that. what they have been use ford a