Angie Burton, creator of Application Bling, checks for orders on her new website.Angie Burton never wanted a small business.
She just wanted her daughter to get a job.
Nothing panned out as her teenager filled out job application after job application in the Chattanooga area. Burton could just imagine the applications getting lost in huge piles of papers on managers' desks. She needed a way for her daughter's application to stand out.
"A resume you put a cover letter with, but what do you do with a job application?" she asked.
A piece of paper can't be decked out with spinning chains or flashy pinky rings, but Burton found a way to give the applications some bling. She slapped a roughly two-square-inch removable, restickable sticker with bright colors and her daughter's qualifications on a few applications. Within a week, the teen had landed a job.
"It worked like a charm," Burton said. "This isn't something I ever wanted to do as a side venture, but everybody said, 'This is such a great idea.' I thought, 'How could I not do it?'"
Burton ran her business plans by a lawyer, enlisted the help of some co-workers at local advertising agency The Johnson Group and a short time and less than $10,000 later, she had a fully functioning online store, ApplicationBling.com.
Since launching a few months ago, the site has drawn plenty of traffic but no orders for 12 clings for $12.99, Burton said. She doesn't fault the clings themselves for the slow start, but difficulty quickly explaining how they work to website visitors.
"We're still working on [the site]. We want to test it and make sure it's as easy as possible," said Tess Ball, 23, who designed it. "We definitely are looking to improve it, grow a little bit and see how people use it."
Both Burton and Ball said they hope Application Bling takes off, not just to make money but to help and motivate teens just entering the job market.
"I'm part of the lazy generation, the generation of kids that feel entitled to things, and that just kind of bugs me," Ball said. "We're getting a bad reputation, and I wasn't raised that way."
Burton is confident if more people use the clings, more will get those entry-level jobs. So far, six of her daughter's friends have duplicated the girl's success.
"I really just want to see this help people get jobs and help the economy," she said. "It would be awesome if this became a standard, like a cover letter on a resume."