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Entrepreneur: Montana Celtic Treasures for your hard-to-find items

Need a new corking kit for your bagpipe? Down to your last drop of bore oil? Looking for a blowpipe valve or a new drone brush?

Maybe you’ve been daydreaming about starting the bodhran or bouzouki, or listening to a CD from someone who already plays those instruments.

Gazette Staff

All of those items and nearly everything else you can imagine rooted in Irish, Scottish and Welsh tradition are available from Montana Celtic Treasures, a Billings-based Internet business.

Patrick Bjorndal, a bagpiper, and his wife Adrienne are owners of the business and for years they have traveled to Celtic festivals around the region selling their products from a booth. For a long time, the festival booths catered mostly to bagpipe players, who mostly were men.

Then Adrienne got an idea that has helped their business boom.

"I would see women walking around these shows bored to tears. There wasn’t much there for them" Adrienne recalled. "I thought, they’re the ones with the check books, the credit cards. They’re the ones who love to shop. We need to include items for them."

So, the couple added Celtic-themed gifts to their booth, like CDs, jewelry and Christmas bulbs. Since then, those items have been their biggest sellers.

The company’s Web site is located at http://www.montanaceltictreasures.com. Here’s what else the couple had to say about starting up an Internet business:

Nature of the business:

Montana Celtic Treasures celebrates proud Celtic heritage with unique gift merchandise and Celtic music supplies. We provide our customers with Scottish, Irish and Welsh products from all over the world with excellent customer service. We operate out of a trade booth at various events in the region. We also have a Web site with a full catalog for online shopping.

Why start this business?

While on our travels to various Highland and Celtic festivals, we discovered a need for unique gifts of heritage with great prices and superb service. Patrick plays bagpipes and other musical instruments and listens to Celtic music 24/7, which gives him the expertise to market our musical product line. Adrienne has a marketing/management degree and wanted to blend her business expertise in marketing our giftware product line.

Where did start-up funding come from?

Funds came from a bank loan.

How long have you been in business?

Montana Celtic Treasures celebrated its first anniversary in June of this year.

Biggest challenges in running the business?

Patrick still holds down another full time job as a project superintendent for Martel Construction of Bozeman. His biggest challenge has been talking his boss into letting him have time off for his "dream job." Adrienne’s biggest challenge has been getting used to operating a home-based business.

What is being done to expand the business?

We are constantly expanding our product lines. Being just a year old, we have put profits back into the business for operations and merchandise expansion. Shopping for new products has been the best part.

Your worst business mistake?

Not starting the business sooner.

Advice for someone running a business?

Research before you start. We did extensive research for a year and a half before diving in to the venture. We continue to research new suppliers and venues. Know your competition. We stay up-to-date on competitors’ prices, marketing techniques, and product lines. Keep suppliers and customers happy.
Number of workers?

Adrienne works full time at Montana Celtic Treasures and Patrick works part-time in the evenings and on weekends.

What’s your five-year plan for the business?

We plan to travel farther to larger Celtic events all over the country. We also plan to continue expanding our product lines for the most unique Celtic products around.

A question you would ask other entrepreneurs?

When do you get to start working 8 to 5?

If you weren’t doing what you are now, what would be your dream job?

This is Patrick’s dream job – he would just like to be doing it full time. I love what I do, but my dream job would be writing full time.

“Entrepreneurs” appears regularly in the WorkWeek section. The feature will help readers become familiar with new businesses, as well as educate others in the challenges of starting a business. If you have been in business for at least one year and would like to tell your story, please contact:

Chris Jorgensen

Billings Gazette

401 N. Broadway

Billings, MT, 59101

657-1311, office

657-1208, fax

[email protected]

Copyright © The Billings Gazette, a division of Lee Enterprises.

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