Accomplishments and Lesson Learned Friday! - (January 26, 2018) Entrepreneur |
- Accomplishments and Lesson Learned Friday! - (January 26, 2018)
- I watched dozens of our partners/entrepreneurs — and discovered 5 things all losers have in common. Then I found I wasn't different
- I got my first client!
- Losing $20,000 with a Bootstrapped SaaS
- Taking over machine shop - Help!
- Helen's Crypto List - critique our new idea and giving all Redditors 1500 free cryptocurrency coins
- If you had a job where all you do is sit in front of a computer how would you use that to make some extra money?
- Instagram Growth 2018: Free and Paid Video Resources by a group of people who have built an Instagram network of over 15 Million people.
- Profitable B2B SaaS For Sale
- Messenger app with twilio? Good idea or not?
- I need some honest opinions. I am just trying to get outside my brain.
- Need help with technology selection
- We're hosting a Live Stream of Arianna Huffington at USC today at 1:30. Discussing career, ambition and entrepreneurship. (periscope link in comments)
- The fulfillment center I use has gone downhill. Recommendations with good track records?
- Turning Side Projects into Profitable Startups by Pieter Levels (Jan 24, 2018 in Bali)
- Just launched a Chrome Extension you guys might find useful, looking for honest feedback.
- Interviews with Entrepreneurs: Tink Taylor, Founder of dotmailer
- [Serious] What's the most difficult situation you have had to deal with as an entrepreneur?
- Created a Landing page for the first time. Tell me what you think?
- Wholesaler and drop-shipper US & Europe
- Would Love to Have Community Support for This Campaign
- YouTube channels
- I started a SaaS last year. Have some questions about taxes/ hiring a new employee
- Validate a small business idea?
- Is There A Bias Against Businesses Centering Around A Physical Product?
| Accomplishments and Lesson Learned Friday! - (January 26, 2018) Posted: 26 Jan 2018 05:07 AM PST Please use this thread to share any accomplishment you care to gloat about, and some lessons learned. This is a weekly thread to encourage new members to participate, and post their accomplishments, as well as give the veterans an opportunity to inspire the up-and-comers. Since this thread can fill up quickly, consider sorting the comments by "new" (instead of "best" or "top") to see the newest posts. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 26 Jan 2018 06:30 AM PST Here is the thing. We run a pizza franchise and provide all our franchisees with an equal amount of support. They all undergo the same training. Everyone gets identical instruments for their business. Not everybody gets identical results. After a while you can't help but see a certain pattern. You might think of a franchising business as a social experiment that can help you determine which strategies to avoid if you want to succeed. Because those who don't have a lot in common. I've shared my observations in a post. Here's the most important part. 1. They always shift blame onto others Our most successful partners rarely take part in long, drawn-out conversations in our closed online community about how this and that side of our product is far from perfect. Unlike them, unsuccessful partners tend to dwell on imperfections that are out of their control. 2. They focus on the wrong things and make poorly timed decisions Less successful partners often fail to determine the area in which they have to focus their energy to get the best results. 3. They don't stick to the plan Highly unsuccessful partners give up easily. They try one thing to spur their sales, and when they don't see immediate results, quickly switch to the next gimmick. Only to see it turn out fruitless again. 4. They think short-term You have to be an optimist to invest money into your future. You have to believe that eventually, it will pay off. Unsuccessful entrepreneurs never do such "stupid" things. More than anything else, they are interested in today's profits. Strangely enough, soon they find themselves with none. 5. They trust nobody Our company was based on trust. Trust needs courage and strength. It's a path for winners. People who fail never follow it. They don't trust their own employees, their partners, their customers... I do hope that those of our partners who have recognized themselves in this post won't hold a grudge against me. Because I found out that I myself am prone to these faults as much as they are. And it made me less successful I guess :) If you need explanations and some more details, check out the post. And I'd love to hear your opinion on that. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 26 Jan 2018 12:37 PM PST It was someone who I used to work for several years ago, but a client is a client right? I'm excited! [link] [comments]  |
| Losing $20,000 with a Bootstrapped SaaS Posted: 26 Jan 2018 10:23 AM PST Hey everyone! I am Rich Clominson, co-founder of Failory, a website where we weekly interview failed startups. Today is a big day as we have just published an interview with Rohit Nallapeta, the owner of Eloquis, a SaaS that invested $20,000 and couldn't carry out a single sell. The problem? Rohit arrived too early to the party and approached the wrong people.
If you have any questions, I will happily answer them below ;) Hi Rohit! What's your background, and what are you currently working on? I am a builder by heart, while I continue to consult and build things. I started out as a programmer, evolved into an analyst, e-commerce manager, engineering manager, and product builder. I am currently working on a product idea called Market Canvas - think ProductHunt for marketing software. A discovery engine that helps in finding the right and new marketing tool easy for a marketer.
What was Eloquis about? How did you build it? Eloquis was all about bringing personalization to mobile apps. What I saw was that the web evolved from being hello user to "Hello Bob, it's great to meet you on a wonderful December day" - whereas the mobile app was the same except for the social app e.g. FB, Twitter, 4Square etc. The rest of the apps treated the user very transactionally. We thought a way to remedy that was to offer a personalization platform and humanize the apps.
Which marketing strategies did you use to grow Eloquis? Unfortunately, we didn't have a strong marketing strategy. Our strategy was to get a set of small user groups in the mobile dev world to adapt our product. Once we did that, we started with email outreach and LinkedIn outreach which had very less impact.
Which were the causes of Eloquis failure? We spoke to a few interested parties initially and the feedback we received were:
Which were your investments? Did you achieve some revenue? Did you lose any money? Our investments include:
We lost about 20,000$ and a countless number of productive hours. We achieved no revenue.
If you had to start over, what would you do differently? A few things:
What did you learn? 🗂 I will use some expressions to summarize my learnings
PRO Tip: Mechanical Turk your business solution just to ensure you're not drinking your own Kool-Aid
Apart from failures, what are other sources for learning you would recommend for entrepreneurs who are just starting? I believe that we're all inundated with quite a lot of learning/how-to articles than we care to read or manage to read. However, being selective and choosing your learning sources is something that I actively do now. My key goal is to learn from anything I read and listen.
Here are a few blogs that I think are amazing:
And some podcasts:
Which entrepreneur book would you recommend? Here are some books that had an impact on me and some that are on my to-read list:
Read & Impactful:
To-Read Books:
Original interview posted at https://failory.com/interview/eloquis [link] [comments]  |
| Taking over machine shop - Help! Posted: 26 Jan 2018 11:18 AM PST so my small business gets our two products made at a small machine shop now. they are going under so we are buying out all the machines we need for a tiny price(CNC mill, manual mill, manual lathe, saw, etc.) taking over half the building/rent (they will still be there doing other work) and hiring the one employee. we are not making products for other businesses just ourselves. i would love some tips on how to prevent the maybe inevitable bloody noses we might run into by officially owning machines/machinist. L&I stuff? employee specific like insurance, liability? disposal of waste? (we only really use PPS, AL and SS) any other thing you can think of? i know we're going to have to get to know tooling and etc. if anybody has anything that would be so helpful! trying to keep small businesses alive! [link] [comments]  |
| Helen's Crypto List - critique our new idea and giving all Redditors 1500 free cryptocurrency coins Posted: 26 Jan 2018 09:55 AM PST After failing with most of 3000 side projects/sites I am launching a new one publicly on reddit and will give out 1500 free coins to every new subscribers from reddit (regular subscribers get 1000 coins). the site is Helen's Crypto List We started this site with my friend (Helen), we are trying to do something like Scotts Cheap Flight but for cryptocurrencies New innovative cryptocurrencies are created every week. The companies behind them need new holders of those coins to get the word out, we'll send you some of their coins, and in exchange, they get people to try out their applications. It's a win-win for everyone You can unsubscribe at any time, we never ask for money or for private details. We would love feedback on the idea, what to change on the copy and overall anything on your mind. If you don't want to subscribe but want 50 free coins instead of 1500 feel free to post here your Ethereum address and we will send some your way too! *Here are a few Q and As: * How much does it cost? Nothing Why on the website says 1000 instead of 1500 coins? Don't worry, we can see you came from reddit and will transfer 1500, 1000 coins are for subscribers from other sources. Does the Helen's Crpto List Token (HCL) hold any monetary value? The HCL was created as a welcome gift for the community and to introduce you to the world of cryptocurrencies in case you never owned any coins :) The HCL will never be listed on cryptocurrency exchanges and in fact its value is $0 per coin and will always be. The HCL will be exchanged in the near future for iPads, other crypto currencies, t-shirts and give aways to the community. To what wallet we'll get the coins? The coins can be transferred to any ethereum wallet, it's an ERC20 token like 70% of all cryptocurrencies. Why do you give out free cryptocurrencies... is it a scam? No! companies give out free cryptocurrency to our subscribers. In exchange they get exposure and new users holding those coins. You get free cryptocurrencies whose value can increase and they get free marketing. Win-win! How much money can I make from the cryptos that I will get? Your new cryptocurrencies can have a value from $0.01 to $xxx per coin.With time, those coins might become more valuable and you can exchange them for money. Remember when Bitcoin was at 0.005 cents per coin? Well now its at $11,000 + How much do I have to participate in the community? It's totally up to you. Sometimes cryptocurrencies will be offered without any strings attached, at other times you might be requested to post a message on social media, and only then will you get a specific coin. If you don't like the project or vision of that coin you can always skip that week and do nothing... remember, you are always in control. When can I get started? Right away! you will receive an email to provide a public Ethereum address where we can send you your first cryptocurrency which is going to be 1,000 HCL (Helen's Crypto List) Tokens. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 26 Jan 2018 10:43 AM PST |
| Posted: 26 Jan 2018 01:41 PM PST |
| Posted: 26 Jan 2018 01:25 PM PST Apologies for posting this in the /entre sub. If there is a more appropriate sub to post this, please let me know! I have a very talented developer friend who built a B2B SaaS a few years ago that he's looking to sell. It's currently driving $5k in revenue off of an existing customer base and overhead is around $2k/mo. This business has been funded & then acquired in the past when it was larger, but he reacquired it after the original acquiring company was itself acquired and since then has been attempting to build out features and grow it himself in his spare time. It's a bit complicated, but the short story is he identified something IT teams could use for time-tracking/development, bootstrapped the business with low 6 figure funding and was then acquired within 2 years. Eventually, buying it back when the option presented itself. He is not a marketer. He's a highly sought-after Dev Ops/Lead Developer, which leads to the reason for the sale. He just signed a non-compete with one of the largest companies in the Enterprise space for a substantial amount of money. He doesn't want to have to sell his company, but it's a requirement for the job and he doesn't feel he's giving it enough attention. Basically, he can't pass up the money this job is offering and he's decided to let his baby go. This isn't a business just anyone can run. Ideally you'd be a Python programmer with some Django experience or have access to one on a PT-basis. Also helpful if you knew some JS as the front-end is primarily React. Many of the people on this sub are highly intelligent and while not skilled programmers, still may have the aptitude to learn enough about development and the product to hire this out and continue on the product roadmap. I'm not recommending you take this on just because it's passive income, you should know that all businessess take work. However, I will say that this is no "entry level business", you should be familiar with this space and have a passion to grow in it. My Take On It The Good
The Not-As-Good
If you're genuinely interested I can pass on your information to him and you can schedule a time to go over details and learn more. This isn't my business, I have no vested interest, just trying to help a good friend. He told me that he envisions the new owner being a "bored developer that wants their own project and has some crypto laying around to throw at it" - Loosely translated. If you're the type of person that invested in crypto years ago, stayed on the cutting edge of new technology and are really bored typing away on other company's projects - this might be a good opportunity for you and he's accepting crypto as a payment option as well (BTC/ETH/LTC) PM me if you're interested or know someone that might be. [link] [comments]  |
| Messenger app with twilio? Good idea or not? Posted: 26 Jan 2018 01:23 PM PST Apps like wire and facebook messenger are popular, but you can only send messages to people who have the app. I was thinking of making a messenger app where you can send messages over wifi too but also through a phone number with twilio. Maybe with calling too. It would be cheaper per text and per minute than using your carriers plan. Any opinions? [link] [comments]  |
| I need some honest opinions. I am just trying to get outside my brain. Posted: 25 Jan 2018 05:52 PM PST So last year I quit my good paying day job and decided to risk my savings and try and build my own business. As most ventures go it has been a tough journey, and I have learned so many invaluable lessons, but that is a whole different post. The gist of it is the original company that I built, ran into some issues that were unforeseen from a financial and ethical standpoint. This also made me do some internal evaluations that brought out some surprising results. What I realized is I want to pursue a passion of mine that I have been doing on the side for the past three years now. Here is the website to give you some context. Website Link. I never thought I would desire to monetize this website. So it caught me off guard when that thought came to my mind, but I realized I love this topic and want to do everything I can to make it something that can support me. Things I don't want to do to my website. * Fill it with annoying adds. * Sell shitty products. * Make the products the focus of the website. I have always intended for the free content to be the focus. What I am looking for. * Creative ideas for products I could sell. * Any tips on books, podcasts, or resources I should check out. * Ideas around making online courses for personal development tracks. I have been thinking about doing a 5-week course on Assertiveness, Confidence, or Goals. I have never created an online course, but I am up for the challenge. * Connections. Do you know anyone who is already in this industry? I would love to talk with them. * Your thoughts. Mainly I have been stuck for the past few weeks, and I am trying to get some outside opinion to jumpstart myself. Thanks for taking the time to read this and if you have any questions or thoughts I would appreciate hearing them. Cheers. [link] [comments]  |
| Need help with technology selection Posted: 26 Jan 2018 01:00 PM PST I'm overwhelmed, to say the least. I am starting an online and brick and mortar store. This store will have inventory that can be purchased in-store or online. This store will offer workshops/classes that will need to be registered for online. I would like to offer a loyalty program as well. Shopify - Pros: UX is nice, it's easy to use and it integrates with almost everything. Cons: Monthly fee for all plugins adds up QUICKLY. Woocommerce - Pros: I am very familiar with wordpress and have done many sites myself. No monthly fee. Plugins are one time charge or free. Cons: The UX isn't as good, in my opinion. Then, there's inventory and POS. I have been looking at Quickbooks to manage it all, plus some. The only problem... I really want to get this right on the first pass. I don't want to have to migrate, do-over work, etc. I want to make the right decision up front. If I use quickbooks, I know it will integrate with both Woocommerce and Shopify. But Quickbooks POS seems expensive ($1900 up front for all the features I need). Additionally, I plan to use a marketing automation system like Spently and an email marketing program like Mailchimp. I will likely use Zapier to connect some of these things as well. Help! What technology do you use to run your ecommerce and Brick and mortar stores? What do you use for inventory, loyalty, marketing, emails, POS, ecommerce, etc? Does a true inexpensive all in one solution exist? I really don't want to get stuck! Thanks! [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 26 Jan 2018 12:44 PM PST Hi R/Entrepreneur! We are rolling out a series of talks with entrepreneurs and creators and wanted to include anyone who is interested! Tune in to see Arianna Huffington live at USC's Town and Gown hall here: https://www.pscp.tv/w/1BdGYMEwqgvGX In the coming weeks, we'll also post some of our favorite interviews from David Belasco's "Taking the Leap" featuring entrepreneurs from every domain and covering not just the business skills but also the mindset behind entrepreneurship itself. [link] [comments]  |
| The fulfillment center I use has gone downhill. Recommendations with good track records? Posted: 26 Jan 2018 12:41 PM PST Looking for recommendations for ecommerce fulfillment and would love to hear from those who've used and been with a company for a long while. Often it seems many of these companies start out well and then both service and accuracy deteriorate as time goes on. Thanks in advance! [link] [comments]  |
| Turning Side Projects into Profitable Startups by Pieter Levels (Jan 24, 2018 in Bali) Posted: 26 Jan 2018 08:46 AM PST Many of you are probably familiar with his projects. I saw Pieter tweet about his latest talk and thought many of you would find the information valuable. [link] [comments]  |
| Just launched a Chrome Extension you guys might find useful, looking for honest feedback. Posted: 26 Jan 2018 12:28 PM PST Long time, first time here. The problem I wanted to solve was being able to easily save and sync my browser session between my work computer and home computer. I found myself copy/pasting the URL's and e-mailing them to myself. If you're like me and you have 3 windows with 17 tabs open you know how annoying this is! So I built Sync Hero, it's my first digital product, and attempt at building something with JavaScript. Right now you can save it locally, or on the cloud to sync it with another device. Right now I want to validate this product. If it's worth it I want to expand it to mobile, so you could sync a browser session between your PC and phone. And create a website/app so you can recover a session on a device without having to install the extension (if you're going to the library for example). I haven't fleshed out how monetize yet. I'm leaning towards eventually offering a premium version at $1/month for example. I welcome any feedback, be it for the design, the function, etc. And looking for any advice for how to market it, and provide more value to users. Also if anyone has any questions feel free to ask. It's made using JavaScript, jQuery, HTML/CSS, and firebase for the database (I really recommend for an MVP as it's free to start). Thanks! [link] [comments]  |
| Interviews with Entrepreneurs: Tink Taylor, Founder of dotmailer Posted: 26 Jan 2018 12:16 PM PST It is Friday again, which means I'm publishing my latest Interview with Entrepreneurs. My background: I'm a 20 year entrepreneur veteran, have have launched 4 successful companies, including eDataSource which I launched from my garage in 2003 and is now one of the leading email intelligence companies in the world and Only Influencers, a community/publishing Conference company, and producers of the Email Innovations Summit. A few months ago I launched Only Founders, a labor of love: a community for entrepreneurs and startup founders and each week I interview a one of the top entrepreneurs working today. Since I'm also a long time entrepreneur, I think I'm able to get folks to open up in a way they wouldn't do for just any reporter and so far, the interviews have been fantastic, insightful and filled with great information on launching a company, building a team, dealing with funding, building company culture, and the entrepreneurs lifestyle. This week I interview Tink Taylor, who went from teaching Wind Surfing in Greece to building one of the top brands on the London Stock Exchange: dotmailer. Hope you enjoy it: Interviews with Entrepreneurs: Tink Taylor, Founder of dotmailer [link] [comments]  |
| [Serious] What's the most difficult situation you have had to deal with as an entrepreneur? Posted: 25 Jan 2018 09:56 PM PST I've recently hit brick walls in my ventures and found it much harder than I could anticipate. A business is truly like a baby, or at least I hope a baby isn't harder. [link] [comments]  |
| Created a Landing page for the first time. Tell me what you think? Posted: 26 Jan 2018 08:27 AM PST |
| Wholesaler and drop-shipper US & Europe Posted: 26 Jan 2018 12:09 PM PST Does anyone know a good wholesaler or drop-shipper company for Men, women and children products in the US and Europe? I need a company that sells quality products. Please let me know if you know any good one. [link] [comments]  |
| Would Love to Have Community Support for This Campaign Posted: 26 Jan 2018 11:57 AM PST Hi everyone, I really enjoy the R/Entrepreneur community and would love to have your support on a new campaign that my company is launching. We are currently prepping for what we call the $.02 campaign. Essentially, we are going to be creating 30 quick actionable tips that marketers and entrepreneurs can take to improve their marketing efforts. You will receive one email every morning for 30 days. We will not be selling any services, etc..., just providing actionable tips based on longer articles that we wrote. Please take a look at our sign-up page here: http://www.visualfizz.com/twocents/ and sign up if this is interesting to you. Thanks! [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 26 Jan 2018 11:43 AM PST So there's these YouTube channels, Im mainly looking at the fortnite highlight ones right now, like this for example https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvwEgg8aQZyWgBl1aOpeM4A/videos?disable_polymer=1 as you can see they have a lot of views, and in turn will be making a lot of money. I started one myself, I have good titles, really good thumbnails since im a graphic designer, I try to tag well, but none of my videos do good at all, maybe 40 views max on any video, whether its fortnite highlights or other twitch streamer compilations, some channels you see only created a month ago, getting quite a lot of views already, even on the very first video they post, am I doing something wrong? Like this one for example https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqYpO1ElohHT66M4ZycuuOg has very few videos but insane views, nothing really stands out about his videos to me, bad thumbnails, tags seem average and everything else is average. Anyone got any SEO tips or tips in general about YouTube videos and these highlight channels? [link] [comments]  |
| I started a SaaS last year. Have some questions about taxes/ hiring a new employee Posted: 26 Jan 2018 11:40 AM PST I started a SaaS around June last year. It's a monthly subscription and we started slowly and now earning around $5-6k/month. There's little to no overhead costs. Servers, hosting, advertising, and I recently hired an employee this week (incoming question). This year I plan on scaling really heavy. Last year we only grossed $25k. Right now I just run it as a Sole Prop. I talked to a tax attorney and he talked really complicated. How do I file taxes for this $25k. How do I write off taxes (have to go back and see what I spent, but how do I actually write them off?) Is it good to be a S-Prop, or should I file as a corp and be on payroll? I'm in my 20s and always was on W-2 before this year. For my new hire, how can I pay him legally (not through cash)? I've heard about a 1099. He doesn't work hourly, just when needed M-F. How can I get him setup on this? How can I pay him? Right now we just process all our transactions through a Payment gateway and I store in a bank. I'm also starting to use another Payment gateway. No contracts. Cancel whenever. Any light you guys can shine for me? I really don't want to fuck up my taxes and would also like to pay as least as possible. Is a tax attorney worth it? Appreciate any help :) [link] [comments]  |
| Validate a small business idea? Posted: 26 Jan 2018 07:52 AM PST Hi all, just looking for some input on a small business idea I have. I don't have any experience in entrepreneurship so just looking for some suggestions. As background, I am a student and have interned for a number of small consulting/financial companies in a large metro area. I later wanted extra experience working independently with nonprofits but realized it took them forever to set up interviews, create work plans, and generally get the ball rolling for me as an intern. I learned nonprofits, especially smaller ones, have lots of projects they need help on part-time (research, writing grants, survey analysis, create marketing materials) but are unable to put time and resources into effectively recruiting. On the other side, there are plenty of competent students in this area from 6-7 colleges available and seeking experience in business, marketing, graphic design, fundraising, etc. Ideally, we would work in the vein of a staffing agency by qualifying and presenting 2-3 student candidates for a position needed at a small organization/nonprofit. Then, possibly take it a step further as needed, by developing a structured internship program for the company or completing training as necessary. The only fee would be charged one-time at hire. I spoke to one director at a nonprofit where I experienced these issues and they told me there's definitely a market for this idea in the field. I have mostly been fine-tuning the idea but should I take it and run with it to see how profitable it even is? I reached out through cold-emailing a few contacts but haven't heard anything yet (I know this can be very useless). I think the best way may be discussing it further with this director and seeing if they can point me in the right direction, but I am open to any new ideas on how to get this off the ground, even cold-calling local organizations. Thank you in advance. [link] [comments]  |
| Is There A Bias Against Businesses Centering Around A Physical Product? Posted: 25 Jan 2018 11:31 PM PST I'm not sure if it's due to the difficulty of producing a quality physical product or higher cost per unit of production, but it seems like most start ups are not product based. I know this is a generic statement but please bear with me. It seems many influential entrepreneur here and on the net have created their main cash cow business through a combination of designing for a software, marketing, and/or service orientated business. However, rarely do I see many influential entrepreneur build a physical product business. It seems like most of the businesses on indiehacker are not based on physical products. https://www.indiehackers.com/businesses Is there a compelling reason or bias against starting a business centered on a physical product? [link] [comments]  |
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