'Every baby quilt tells a story' - I love the adage and use it quite often because it's true and I believe in it. However, when you have an e-store full of baby quilts the story you hear has a different dimension. There are a lot of lessons to be learned and here are nine of them:

1. To take care. Handmade baby quilts are not precisely made, and we would not want them to be. But there is a difference between being handmade, homemade, amateurish and just unacceptable. Too many irregularities and the quilt isn't fit for sale. An e-business website is the same. One mistake may be OK, in some cases a 'hand crafted' appearance is appropriate, but if your site looks amateurish or just doesn't work in some way, your product just won't sell.

2. To have patience. Handmade quilts take time to manufacture. I have had to learn to be patient and that's been good for the business. It takes time to build backlinks and a reputation. Many people give up too soon.

3. To research. The best quilts use good quality fabrics and interesting designs. I have learned to do thorough research so that I can get the very best for my money.

4. Not to be naive. There are lots of people who sell 'handmade' baby quilts of dubious quality. You have to learn to tell the difference. There are also many 'gurus' of e-business who will happily take your money and provide little in return.

5. To trust one's senses. To make a quilt you have to study patterns and learn the quilting process. E-business is the same. You have to be willing to learn a lot of new techniques, but never surrender you own common sense. There's a lot of technology in e-business, but you also need good business sense.

6. To persevere. Because a quilt takes time to make and must be made with care, some people abandon the project before it is complete. The same is true of e-business. It's tempting, once you have a store to assume you'll make immediate sales and to give up if you don't. But stores are like quilts, if you pay attention to how it should be done, failure is actually very unlikely, as long as you don't give up.

7. To make mistakes. You might not think this is something anyone has to learn, but when you learn any new subject or skill you usually learn a great deal from your mistakes. The most important point is to be willing to make mistakes; otherwise fear of failure will stop you from doing anything at all. If you don't make the attempt, you can't succeed.

8. To manage a project. The totality of a quilt can be daunting at the start; the only way to complete the project is to divide the whole into manageable tasks and to perform those tasks one by one. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. E-business is the same. Starting out alone, the number of tasks you need to perform is nothing short of frightening. You need to break them down into manageable chunks and work on them one by one.

9. To outsource. When you make a quilt you can make the whole item from scratch, including drafting a pattern yourself. As an alternative you can buy a pattern or you can use pre-cut pieces of fabric, or add a ready-made applique or embellishment. The choice is yours, though it may be determined by the time you have as well as your budget. E-business is the same. Although there are a vast number of tasks, many can be outsourced, depending on the time and money you have available.

The lessons are here and it's up to us to learn and to improve. Are we good students? We hope we are, but the baby quilts will have the final say.