Today we’d like to introduce you to Ina Jones and Lena Dorsey.
Ina and Lena, please share your story with us.
Lena and I had the idea for an event planning company in the exact same week! I think I may have even dreamt it, lol. I called her to tell her and she’s like OMG, I just thought the same thing 2 days ago. From there, we ran with it! That was in January of 2016, right before I went back to work from maternity leave.
We dived right in, which isn’t uncommon for either one of us. We both have started small businesses before individually and with each other, and although none have reached the success of Induo, all were awesome learning lessons!
Eight months after the initial idea, we had our first Induo event. It was our Makeup & Marshmallows at Makeup First School (special shout out the school’s founder Jill! She allowed us to use the space for free for our first event. She’s all about women helping women! And is still one of our favorite people!) We love to come up with cute and creative names for our events! We think it adds a little something to them. The event was awesome! We couldn’t have asked for a better first event. After this we decided to have a women’s expo, actually 2, back to back. We worked our buns off for these and the turnout was dismal. Even had cute names for both of them… Pampering Parade and Fashion Frenzy. It almost crushed us. But being the troopers we are, we didn’t let that stop us. Present day, we now have expos and events all over the Chicagoland area with attendance in the hundreds! We’ve trademarked our most popular events, Pampering Parade and our Mom & Mini Day out! We continue to plan and host fun, unique events and have plans to go regional in 2019!
Has it been a smooth road?
Definitely not a smooth road! We’ve had expos with very small crowds and angry vendors. We’ve had to cancel events because little to no tickets sold. We’ve lost money. We’ve had key partners for some of our events just not show up. Ever heard of Murphy’s Law? LOL. But despite all of the negatives and setbacks, we still continue to strive to be the best event planner for events for ladies!
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Induo Events story. Tell us more about the business.
We turned nothing into something! That is really what we are most proud of. We took an idea and ran with it. We are proud that we can positively impact the lives of so many women! We just started our charity arm, Induo Amare, a 501c3 and are super excited to get that going!
Our focus has always been on the everyday superwoman; the lady who wears multiple hats and has SO many tasks & to-dos to juggle. It is our mission to help this amazing woman to gain more access to the fun, inspirational, and relaxing events that are so desperately needed and so easily pushed to the side. We understand the needs of these everyday superwomen because that’s who we are!
As far as we know, there aren’t any other event planning companies that solely focus on events for women. We are lazered focus on this!
How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
We think this industry will continue to grow. Experiences are what people seek, what makes them feel good, happy, etc! Doing fun, exciting, new things with our families and friends is what we live for!
Contact Info:
- Website: www.induoevents.com
- Phone: 872.302.7256
- Email: hello@induoevents.com
- Instagram: @induo_events
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/induoevents
- Twitter: @induo_events
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