Starting a home business from sewing supplies and cardboard paper may seem daunting by itself, but entrepreneur Michelle Young has done it while also raising two young children.
Young’s Bowie office consists of a tiger beanbag chair, a closet displaying 2-year-old Noah’s bathroom chart, a family TV and a computer desk covered with advice books and boxes.
The boxes are the core of Young’s Just-N-Tyme LLC, which produces her Out-of-the-Box Memories Photo Albums. The box-shaped albums unfold into four storage photo compartments, each holding 10 photos, each 5 by 7 inches, and bearing an embroidered or silk screen cover. The albums’ patented design allows them to be displayed as keepsakes, all while providing a place to keep memorable items such as locks of baby hair, Young says.
‘‘I’m exhausted; it’s been a lot of work, tears and praying from my support team,” said Young, 37, a former special education administrator in Washington, D.C., and now a summer school teacher. Although she started Just-N-Tyme in 2004, she didn’t start marketing the boxes until March, when she felt she was forced to choose between her school job and her family.
The album has been featured on media outlets such as XM Radio’s ‘‘Oprah & Friends,” CNBC’s ‘‘The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch” and most recently ‘‘American Airlines Living Your Dream,” a radio series profiling successful black businesspeople.
The album grew from Young’s wish to make Noah something unique. She did this using a bed valance decorated in animals and scrapbook materials. This same custom, handmade approach is still popular with customers who want more than Young’s factory-processed albums, which start at $45.
‘‘There’s nothing like it in the marketplace,” said Lee Hayes, vice present of Lagrant Communications, which works with the American Airlines program.
So far, Young has sold more than 800 albums, including baby albums, wedding albums, general albums and custom albums.
‘‘People are always looking for new and different things,” said Anthony Marill, a photographer in Rockville. Even in a slower economy, he said, the market for fancy keepsakes hasn’t shown any signs of going away.
‘‘Am I a million-dollar business? Absolutely not. But I am making a profit from a turnkey operation,” Young said, without disclosing revenues. ‘‘The potential is amazing.”
Her other children, 9-year-old Justin and 21-year-old Loyd, can’t help but get caught in the rush, as Justin frequently pulls people aside to tell them about Young’s business.
‘‘It’s exciting but at the same time frustrating. I hear Mom talking with clients; it gets annoying. But my little brother is more work than this, and someday I’ll have my dream house,” Justin said.
Young has been working to make Justin’s hopes a reality, looking into trade shows and exploring the high school photo market. She said she wants to eventually retail the albums at stores such as Babies ‘‘R” Us and high-end stores.
‘‘I would love to sell the business later down the road. This was a gift to me,” she said.
Young is also spreading that gift, donating 5 percent of the first-year profits from her pink, blue, purple and green albums to the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, Howard University, Alzheimer’s research and the Lung Cancer Alliance, respectively.
‘‘I want this to be the box that keeps giving,” she said.
