Can Carolyn Blakeslee Have It All?

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In the first few months of this year there were rumblings of new competition, but so far similar publications are doing random listings of events, maybe one-twentieth of what Blakeslee runs each month. ArtCalendar is based on publicly available information, and "by its very nature," admits Blakeslee, "it invites competition." She's been looking into what's copyrightable, and is even considering litigation against publications that are lifting her edited summaries verbatim. But the best strategy may be to ignore competitors and put the money into solidifying her own market position instead. She's not sure.

The third reason to grow is to build equity -- so Blakeslee can one day sell all or part of the property. To see if she had even the option to sell, she spoke with a business broker this past spring. He advised her to get circulation up to 20,000 -- what he termed "a magic number" in the industry -- as a necessary first step. Blakeslee thinks it's doable; more than half her subscribers are people who make most of their income either as artists or as arts-related teachers or administrators. There are a good many more such people, Blakeslee is sure.

Blakeslee also is considering developing new products. Three years ago she, Steis, and another friend coproduced a book of detailed profiles on the art galleries in and around D.C., and she wants to develop similar books for other cities. She envisions other publications for the visual-arts market, maybe a magazine on artists and their studios. "I do have enough sense not to embark on those projects right now," she says. But expanding the business into a kind of publishing house could make it a more valuable property, even if none of the titles did more than break even. The downside: every project would divert attention from a product that still very much needs Blakeslee's expertise and energy.

In addition to circulation and new products, Blakeslee is grappling with whether to grow by adding new people. Part of her thinking comes from an awareness of the need to develop a venture that looks to be, for all the world, more than the product of her efforts alone. That can be a crucial step for any small, one-person business at some point in its growth: creating a worth beyond one person's efficiencies. Separating her self from what the business is would be particularly important if she wanted to unload the publication. But even if she's not grooming it for sale, experts contend that the discipline and intelligence brought to bear when thinking about a business that way helps make a founder smarter. Looking at a business as a dispassionate seller -- or, better yet, a dispassionate buyer -- uncovers inefficiencies that can be corrected and strengths that can inspire confidence.

All of this is, for Blakeslee, a new way of thinking about the business. It fights what she's liked about the venture so far: the informality of how, and even why, business decisions are made, and the intuitive way she can balance family choices and business choices. Taking advantage of the options now open to her may mean having to create a new kind of operation -- and a new kind of personal life. Which is why this turning point is so complicated for her and is likely to be just as complicated for legions of other company founders with small-scale ventures that have come of age. Blakeslee, like so many of them, sees her business as the best way to combine work and family. The business may be changing, but she doesn't want it to rip up her life.

As big a question as growing the business is for Blakeslee, just as nettlesome is her conflicting -- or at least potentially conflicting -- desire to pull away and make more time for her family and her painting. "Having a baby really changed things a lot," she says, somewhat sheepishly. "I'm rather surprised I'm so into being a mommy. It's taking a lot of my time, and it's wonderful, and I really love it. My goal is to have more time with Sheila."

For more than five years Blakeslee's life and work merged quite nicely, giving her schedule the elasticity she sought. That's not to say ArtCalendar didn't take up more time than she'd ever anticipated: Blakeslee invested a good 60 to 75 hours a week in it before the baby arrived, and has spent 30 to 40 hours per week since giving birth, last December. "On the one hand, I look at myself and feel I'm spoiled," she says. "I'm making enough for my expenses. I can get out of bed and hit it running, or I can slack off for the morning. I'll think, I'm so lucky. Then I'll think, I'm so busy."

There are few role models to show Blakeslee how to further shape that amalgam of life and work. She wakes up, makes coffee, feeds the baby, and spends a couple of hours editing listings and answering correspondence. She plunks Sheila in the car and goes to the post office and the bank with yesterday's checks; she comes home and bikes five miles on a stationary bike while opening the mail; then she enters new subscriptions, does books, and prepares deposits. After lunch it's more of the same, although she occasionally pauses to gaze out past her front yard to a fenced-in field where her two borzois run during the day. "I'm a hermit," she says. "Once in a while I feel I'm not getting enough stimulation or companionship. Not very often, though." She's fashioned a growing business and a life that suits her, but both are being challenged by the business's growth.

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