SME ANALYSIS OF "BLOSSOMS AND STARS"

Name – Saleh Md. Sadi

ID- 1831757030
Course Title – INB 372
Section – 11

Submitted to
Mr. Mahmud Habib Zaman,
Full Time Faculty
Senior Lecturer,
North South University.
 Abstract – This case provides an overview of “Blossoms and Stars” owned by Miss Sarah Kabir. Miss Kabir faced

o paint. Painting is her way of relaxing and she is a master at it. During quarantine, when she had ample to do her pain

s positive influence on purchase intentions” (Ahmad Samed Al-Adwan1, July 27, 2018) . Consumers trust in these fa
Facebook has been around since 2004 but from around 2010, many based businesses
have grown to where it is today. “Such platforms (social media) have proved a boon
especially for startups having restricted budgets. Despite easy accessibility of social
media platforms, startups fail to maximize their p otential in favor of their
businesses. With the help of statistics, and their outreach, this study shall evidence
the significance of social media in startups and unleash its tremendous potential
and trustworthiness to promote businesses and even align it with business
strategies” (Siam, 2017). Miss Kabir is yet to boost her page but she plans on doing it in
near future. She has doubts in the fact that does boosting actually help in getting the
attention of the right audience. In spite of her doubts she plans on doing a strategic
boosting. “As one social manager said, Facebook boost posts are about trial and error
as you try to access what works best for your niche and audience. It is, therefore,
critical that you track the performance of your ads and adjust your strategy
accordingly. Consequently, it's advisable to start with a lower budget as yo u work out
the adjustments in your plan” (SocialPilot). The title ‘Blossoms and Stars” comes as
Miss Kabir believes blossoms indicate growth in a beautiful way and the stars from Van
Goghs starry night. Her favorite artist is Van Gogh and she draws inspiration from his
life and paintings. In the construction of this business, Miss Kabir had a lot of doubts
and challenges that she had to overcome. The most significant one being the quality of
her paintings, she always doubted that her paintings lacked in quality and also her
family members have never inspired her by praising her paintings. Her parents also told
her that she was just wasting money and time in painting and further suggested her to
concentrate more on her studies. She also had doubts about the culture regarding art in
Bangladesh, she thinks that people in Bangladesh like art but they aren’t willing to buy
art in exchange of money. She further thought that general people really do not
understand the value of a painting and the hard work that goes in the creation of it.
“Friends and family (or basically anyone who comes to know about your art skills) ask
you to just give them your art for free or with negligible compensation for all your
hard work. This can be quite infuriating and embarrassing since in most cases, they
make these requests in very public settings and all you can do is nod your head
unwillingly to avoid an awkward situation, while you die a little inside” (Khan,
2021). It was not easy for her
to overcome these challenges and doubts but when she got such positive views from her
friends, she decided to take a step further. With help from her brother and cousins, Miss
Kabir opened a facebook page. Her brother helped in the marketing department and some
of her cousins helped in creating posts and contents. She got most of her followers most
facebook based talent groups, where she posted her paintings and received a positive
response. Miss Kabir received her first order within 3 days of opening her page, the order
was worth 1600 tk. Following that she has received 20+ orders so far and one of those
orders is to set up paintings for a studio. The studio order is worth 10,000 tk. and also a
huge achievement for Miss Kabir, though she believes she has a long way to go.

Challenges and Barriers — Miss Kabir says, Art is her passion and she will always be
connected to it. But the major challenge she faces is maintaining a balance between
painting and her studies. She states “CSE stands out as one of the most difficult subjects
to study and I really have to concentrate in coding, it takes a lot of time from my daily
life. It is hard to paint when you are tired or have something else on your mind.” At the
moments she is not taking any orders due to a tight examination schedule. She says “I
cannot place my business over my studies as a degree in CSE promises a great future but
painting is something that gives me peace, so I will a1ways paint whenever I get free
time.” She believes her studies is restricting her, from growing blossoms and stars any
further. Another challenge she faces is, creating various and diverse paintings, she says
“A painting that stands out has a lot of depth and variety in it. It also reflects the deep
thoughts of an artist. I want to achieve that”. She further states that “As I cannot increase
the quantity of the paintings, I must increase the quality”. A painting that stands out will
fetch a greater price, so she might be doing only three paintings per month but earning
more than before due to the quality of the paintings. “When it comes to digital
marketing, quality trumps quantity and makes your brand more personable in the
long run” (Craig, 2018). But achieving that level of skills and ability is a great challenge.
Also reaching towards the correct audience is a challenge, she says. Boosting her page
will bring more audience but what number of those audience is actually interested in
paintings, she wonders. Miss Kabir ends with saying “When it is just your hobby, it is
not challenging but when it’s a business, it is a great challenge.”

Future Plans for Blossoms and Stars — At the moment, Miss Kabir does not have any
big plans regarding blossoms and stars. She is quite happy with how it is going right now.
But she wants to add new elements to her business. Elements like digital arts and graphics
designing. She also plans in bringing her cousin in her business who is a graphics
designer. She thinks there will be a great demand for digital art in near future, so she
would like integrate that in her page. “Graphic designing at present is more than just
creating attractive visuals. It has become an integral tool of online and offline
marketing” (Why Graphic designing is a rapidly growing industry!, 2018). As both
graphics designing and digital arts require technical abilities, she has an upper hand in
these due to her study material. She plans that that once her page reaches around 10,000
followers, she will only paint once or twice in a month but those will be of really good
quality. She wants to make a name for herself as an artist and a succe ssful woman.

Conclusion — Blossoms and stars is one of those businesses which was established
during lockdown. Miss Kabir stands out as an example of a young entrepreneur who
turned her hobby into a business. Yet the response surprised her and she has managed to
earn some bucks from blossoms and stars. Now the future of blossoms and stars is
completely in her hands, she has found primary success but the question remains will
Miss Kabir be able to make it sustainable?

LINK- https://www.facebook.com/Blossomsandstars
References
Ahmad Samed Al-Adwan1, H. K. (July 27, 2018). The Driving Forces of Facebook Social Commerce.
Journal of theoretical and applied electronic commerce research, 1.

Craig, W. (2018, May 8). The Importance Of Quality Over Quantity In Digital Content Marketing. Forbes.

Islam, M. Z. (2021, January 02). The Daily Star. E-commerce sales to reach $3b in 4 years.

Khan, A. (2021, January 03). Struggles of being a young artist in Bangladesh. The Daily Star.

Siam, W. S. (2017). Maximizing the Social Media Potential for Small Businesses and Startups: A
Conceptual Study. International Journal of Economic Perspectives, 241.

SocialPilot. (n.d.). Retrieved from Is It Worth Boosting Facebook Posts - When and How To Do It:
https://www.socialpilot.co/blog/worth-boosting-facebook-posts-when-and-how-to

Why Graphic designing is a rapidly growing industry! (2018, November ). Retrieved from Graphic Design
Junction: http://graphicdesignjunction.com/2018/11/why-graphic-designing-is-a-rapidly-
growing-industry/