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    Home Unlabelled Thank you Thursday! - (January 04, 2018) Entrepreneur

    Thank you Thursday! - (January 04, 2018) Entrepreneur

    January 04, 2018

    Thank you Thursday! - (January 04, 2018) Entrepreneur

    Thank you Thursday! - (January 04, 2018)

    Posted: 04 Jan 2018 05:06 AM PST

    Your opportunity to thank the /r/Entrepreneur community by offering free stuff, contests, discounts, electronic courses, ebooks

    and the best deals you know of. Please consolidate such offers here!

    Since this thread can fill up quickly, consider sorting the comments by "new" (instead of "best" or "top") to see the newest posts.

    submitted by /u/AutoModerator
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    Whats your favorite product oriented landing page? I'm currently working on mine and would like some inspiration.

    Posted: 04 Jan 2018 08:40 AM PST

    I've been googling variations of "top 10 landing pages" and have gotten great results, but most of them are geared towards web or other services that aren't a physical product.

    I'd love to find a few solid examples of single new product specific landing pages.

    Thanks.

    submitted by /u/SpecterCase
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    Bootstrapped from $30 investment to over $100k/mo in just six years.

    Posted: 03 Jan 2018 04:24 PM PST

    Hi /r/Entrepreneur, it's Pat from Starter Story, where I do interviews with successful e-commerce entrepreneurs on how they got started.

    Here is my interview with Eric Bandholz, the founder of Beardbrand, the wildly successful men's grooming brand and e-commerce store. Hope you enjoy. :)

    Background.

    I'm Eric Bandholz, the founder of Beardbrand. Beardbrand is a men's grooming company that makes products for your beard, hair, and body. In addition to that, we also create a significant amount of content on our YouTube channel.

    I serve as the Creative Director and make sure that the brand stays true to our original vision and is communicated appropriately.

    We've bootstrapped the business from a $30 investment to seven figures in a short period of time. We've been expanding our product offerings with the goal of getting towards that 8 figure mark.

    Coming up with the idea.

    Before starting Beardbrand, I was a financial advisor at a big bank. I felt the corporate pressures to look and behave a certain way and it was too much for me. So I left that career, grew out my beard and started a graphic design business.

    As I rocked a beard in the business world, I heard a lot of typical bearded stereotypes - Grizzly Adams, ZZ Top, and Duck Dynasty. While those are interesting people, they weren't lifestyles that I personally identified with.

    It was after attending an event with other bearded individuals similar to me that I realized there was an entirely new group of beardsmen. I coined the term "urban beardsman" to describe myself and people similar to me. An urban beardsman is a typical dude who doesn't fit the traditional stereotypes that come with a beard.

    Beardbrand was created to unite urban beardsmen and give them the tools they needed to feel confident about being themselves. That meant creating a lot of content (blog posts, videos, and talking on podcasts).

    At first, we started with regular posts on Tumblr because that was the easiest platform to generate a bulk amount of content quickly. In addition to that, I wrote a few blog posts and created a few YouTube videos, but it was a very modest community. I think we had 300 YouTube subscribers after 12 months and only a hundred daily visitors to our blog.

    After about a year of creating content, we launched an e-commerce store to sell men's grooming products and it's been a grind ever since. Gradually, I reduced my commitment to my graphic design business and put those efforts into Beardbrand as it got traction.

    The process of starting Beardbrand.

    We launched the Beardbrand e-commerce store a few days before I found out that my wife was pregnant with our first child. That gave me a tight deadline to grow Beardbrand to the point it could support our family or else I'd have to go back to the corporate world.

    In those very early days of Beardbrand, there was a bit of luck on our side. First, we were pretty much the only organization that took growing beards seriously (today everyone and their mom talks about beards & beard care). Because of that, it was easy for us to get noticed.

    In November of 2012, I was contacted by a reporter from the New York Times who was doing a piece on beards. I told my co-founders about it and suggested that we take advantage of the publicity and try to sell some products on an e-commerce store. It was at that moment that we decided to monetize the brand.

    We started our store by carrying a different brand's products. I was familiar with a small beard oil & mustache wax manufacturer (think Etsy level business). So I reached out to that person and asked if we could resell their products at standard wholesale prices. He agreed, and we added two types of beard oil and one mustache wax available for purchase on our website. I believe the initial order was about $100 worth of products.

    For the platform, we decided to go with Shopify and built the website with one of their free templates. I used the photography from our manufacturer and wrote the copy myself. Because I was a graphic designer, I was able to build the website in about two days. We launched on January 28th, 2013, just two days before the New York Times article went live. I made a post on Facebook, and ironically the first customer of Beardbrand was also my first customer of my graphic design business.

    Then the New York Times article was published, which ended up driving about $515 worth of sales over the next seven days and gave me the motivation to grow and expand the business. In these early days, I was fulfilling the products myself and running them to the post office. Eventually, we partnered up with a fulfillment house so that we could focus on our marketing efforts.

    We are a truly bootstrapped company - no outside money, no bank loans, no debt. My co-founders purchased their shares of the company as we launched and we rolled any profits back into the business. We didn't pull any cash out of the business for the first ten months, and then after that, it was a very modest salary.

    I'm fortunate to live a modest lifestyle, and my wife has a job that could support both of us. Without that, our story might be completely different.

    We were lucky to be the company to build a new industry - beard care. As the market leader, we were able to parlay that into copious amounts of PR which helped accelerate our growth. Our early wins were that NY Times article, but also we were included in some best beard oils articles that included our products. Those other articles ended up ranking well on Google and drove a good part of our business.

    Those articles were great, but our most significant PR event was appearing on Shark Tank on Halloween of 2014. The exposure from being on Prime Time TV is like none other. If you want to see what that did for our business, check out the write up I did over on Reddit.

    We've continued to have a lean mentality with our product launches and offering. We create small initial batch runs and modify our products based on the feedback from our customers. This minimizes risk and allows us to continue to grow as a bootstrapped company.

    It was about 7 or 8 months in that I felt the business had potential to support me and my family. We were doing about $25k/month at that time, but still not pulling anything out of the business. I've always thought Beardbrand has had potential to do 9 figures, so we are grinding away trying to figure out how to do that.

    Attracting new customers and growing.

    Our top priority for getting in front of new customers is through content creation. Currently, we are publishing one YouTube video per day, along with a matching blog post. YouTube has been an excellent platform for us. It's really the only social media channel that still has insane organic reach. The other nice thing about YouTube is that it's really hard to do well, so it keeps away a lot of competitors.

    YouTube is always changing the algorithm so it's important to understand their motives and create content that falls in line with what they want to share. As of this writing, that means content that grows user's watch time and is advertiser-friendly. You have to be prepared to change your strategy based on the platform.

    Example YouTube video.

    Once we get them to our website we then try to drive them into our Beardsman Quiz funnel which allows us to capture their email and get them in our email flow.

    We've always had a preference for owning our audience as much as possible. That means creating our own content and collecting email addresses. I think it's a longer and slower way to grow, but leads to a more stable business model.

    After people visit our website, we will also remarket to them using Google Adwords and Facebook. Currently, we don't have a channel that makes up a majority of our sales. This is a blessing and a curse. I think it helps level out our sales, but it prevents us from growing exponentially if we were exceptional at one of our channels.

    What would I do differently if I could go back?

    One of the internal themes we rolled out for 2017 was "focus" and I think that's something that I wish we implemented earlier in our strategy. We tried to do too much too quickly, and it spread us pretty thin. With our internal push for "focus", it meant the team could look at the things we did well, and figure out ways to improve it. Before, we were just trying to identify how to grow as quickly as possible. Now, we are able to improve profitability, inventory management, marketing tactics, product development, and project management. There's still room to improve, so that's why we'll continue to keep that them going.

    Our other big mistake was not committing to a hiring process and our reluctance to come to terms with being a business manager, rather than just a founder. A small team of 4 or 5 is easy to manage as everyone understands what to do, but when you get above that, communication becomes harder. If you don't have the right people in place, everything slows down.

    We follow the topgrading hiring strategy, and we've found it really helps us find the right team members for the company. I wish we started off with that from day one.

    Competition.

    You know, I can't really control our competitors. If they are infringing on our trademarks and copyrights, we'll have our legal team go after them, but otherwise, we focus on our customers and how we can make their experience even better.

    We've had a countless number of copycats, and last I checked there were 1500+ beard care companies. We simply try to do things that are 10x better than what anyone else can do. It's why we are pushing a video a day, blog posts all the time, and world-class customer service. Amazon will never be able to touch us with what we provide to our customers, and very few will be able to integrate handsome design, excellent customer service, and a bustling community for their customers.

    Plans for the future.

    We like being independent as it allows us to focus on our customers and what's best for them - rather than paying off debt or getting returns for investors. Personally, I love Beardbrand and being part of it. It would be fun to grow it to a point that I'm truly out of the day to day and can focus exclusively on the vision. We are still a few key hires away from that point.

    Our strategy now is to get better at what we are currently doing. We'll be integrating more analytical based decision-making processes as well as expanding our product offering. There's a bunch of products I want to roll out to feel like we have a full line of men's grooming products. In addition, I want to build the company to be thought of as a men's grooming company rather than just a beard care company. That's going to be a big hurdle, but I think we can get there.

    Right now things are pretty good for me and we've got a really good team in place. We still struggle with selling quicker than we expected, but that's a good problem. My other big project is to find a marketing channel that allows us to scale our business significantly. We've tested a lot of channels, but none are delivering the results I want.

    Tools I use.

    We are big fans of Shopify and are a Shopify Plus customer. That being said, I was a little annoyed when they jacked the price up significantly. Even at the higher rate, I think they bring a significant amount of value to the business. If they continue to raise prices, we'll have to re-evaluate that decision.

    Our email flows are built on Klaviyo and they are serviceable. They've been making some nice progress with their platform over the past couple months in terms of design and speed. Email marketing is a big part of our business.

    Speaking of email and website, one of our trusted vendors is Fuel Made and they designed our website, as well as set up our email flows. They are great at hitting timelines and delivering on what we ask. That being said, we do design mockups in-house and send it over to them; which will help with the production process.

    Reviews are crucial to the success of an online business and we are currently using YotPo. Like Shopify, they've jacked their prices up over the years which is a little bit frustrating, but right now it's serviceable.

    Advice for others getting started.

    It's as simple as Nike's motto - just do it. Nothing more than that.

    Link to full post on Starter Story

    submitted by /u/youngrichntasteless
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    What are you Goals for this year in your business?

    Posted: 04 Jan 2018 08:24 AM PST

    Switching from Mailchimp to SendGrid

    Posted: 04 Jan 2018 10:08 AM PST

    Does anyone use SendGrid for their e-commerce marketing needs?

    I have always used Mailchimp for my e-commerce (Shopify) marketing. I've just finished developing a SAAS app that uses SendGrid and it just hit me how much money I could save switching my e-commerce over to SendGrid. Has anyone made this transition? Any tricks/tips I should I know about? I'd love to hear about your experience.

    submitted by /u/MrDiou
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    Programmers that founded a startup, do you suggest a Co-Programmer?

    Posted: 04 Jan 2018 08:05 AM PST

    I'm about to tackle a decently simple program IMO, this isnt my first program either.

    I'm planning on taking my old business's infrastructure/back end and re-writing the php to be beautiful/perform necessary functions. I expect a functioning, beautiful Web and Android app within 2 months.

    I need to program iOS, and I might benefit from having another brain working with me.

    Should I spend equity/time finding an iOS programmer or should I do it myself?

    submitted by /u/throwawayTooFit
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    Any suppliers like Alibaba but from European countries?

    Posted: 04 Jan 2018 07:55 AM PST

    Specifically Italy is what I'm after. Can't use made in china for my luxury brand, and have after a B2B supplier from europe.

    Thank you!

    submitted by /u/eels_no1
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    How to keep up with follow ups and an insane inbox to close more deals?

    Posted: 04 Jan 2018 10:38 AM PST

    I'm doing email marketing and generating 10-20 solid leads a day. These leads will show initial interest and then drop off the face of the earth for the most part - which is fine but it means there's a tonnnnnnn of backlogged follow up required on my part.

    I'm still able to close 5-10 new customers a week off of the people who reply and agree to a demo right away (my product is a $99 subscription service). But there are still the stragglers, people who didn't reply, people who've had the demo and then disappear, endless follow ups who are just getting lost in my inbox.

    I know for a fact there's money in my crazy inbox I just don't know how to best get to it! Does anyone have any tips handling a similar situation? How do I cut through the shit and keep my follow up game strong?

    I'm using Gmass (excellent tool) to auto-follow up with people who don't respond to my initial blasts, and I've attempted it for people in my inbox but it gets extremely messy. Especially if someone emails me on a different thread and then they receive a drip reply a week later asking if they've seen my last email lol.

    Thanks for your input!

    submitted by /u/k1tti3z
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    What type of insurance and bonding requirements would I need to start a house cleaning company

    Posted: 04 Jan 2018 11:24 AM PST

    I would hire the cleaners after running the background checks and send them out on behalf of my LLC. What type of insurance policy and bonding do I need to protect myself and my other LLC?

    submitted by /u/confswag26
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    How do you pay your independent contractors?

    Posted: 04 Jan 2018 07:19 AM PST

    I'm about to start working with my first independent contractor. He has a small business like myself and is interested in taking on some of the manufacturing I do for my products.

    I read the Independent Contractor article on the IRS website and I am pretty confident that he will not be an employee.

    He lives one state over and will be using his shop and tools. I will be ordering and shipping the materials to his place for him to assemble my products and then they will be shipped back to me for final inspection and sales.

    I guess what I want to know is what is the best way to pay him (meaning physically sending him the payment for his services)? We have agreed on an hourly rate for his time and I will pay him when the order is complete. Does it matter if I do it on PayPal or credit card or do I need to send him a check? I do not have a business checking account yet but I do keep a strict budget that separates my personal and business expenses. I do however have a credit card and PayPal for my business.

    Or do I even need to differentiate expenses like paying a contractor from other business expenses or is it all lumped into the cost of doing business at tax time?

    Thanks!

    submitted by /u/particlelaunch
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    Experience as a Fulfillment Distribution Center

    Posted: 04 Jan 2018 06:20 AM PST

    I'm currently working with a brand as a distributor, but thinking of providing fulfillment distribution service instead. As a fullfilment distributor, do I charge per item shipped and/or item I received from the brand? Do I charge a monthly service fee as well? Thanks in advance

    submitted by /u/jsmoove888
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    [Question] What is the best platform for selling websites?

    Posted: 04 Jan 2018 01:50 PM PST

    Living in a small town, there are plenty of stores, restaurants, businesses, etc. that have really ugly, old and non-mobile friendly websites. I'd like to offer my services and build them polished, responsive sites that won't scare away customers but I am unsure of the best way to go about this. Is emailing them directly showing a portfolio proper? Or is door-to-door better? Or should I simply place an ad and hope they come to me?

    submitted by /u/Bonteq
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    How to Become A Better Entrepreneur and Step up Your Game

    Posted: 04 Jan 2018 03:49 AM PST

    Creating processes for your daily operation, especially in the world of business, is important in so many aspects. It helps you scale, point and locate the various areas that need improving, and help reduce the chances of error are just some of the advantages when it comes to establishing processes. Most corporate giants such as Google, Facebook, and Apple have been dissected and studied in order to uncover what makes these tech giants really successful in their corner of the market, and one prevalent trend has been found, they stick to their processes allowing their companies to become efficient at what they do and dominate their industries.

    An article I have come across a while ago talks about the mistakes most companies make that render their businesses inefficient.

    Here is a summary of that article if you do not have time to read the whole:

    • Not doing something to counteract your lack of experience. Whether you are a startup or have been in the business for some time it is imperative to always look out for trouble, or even better, to identify hazards before they become full-blown problems.

    • Refusal to adapt. Tides are always changing, this means your business needs to be agile and adapt to changes as smoothly as possible. There will always be new breakthroughs, either new business tools or practices, and you have to change your processes ASAP, lest it becomes the source of your inefficiency.

    • Track your people and avoid instances of cutting corners by turning your processes into tickable checklists for every step accomplished.

    • Document all of your processes. There will come a time when you need to change a few employees or they will opt to leave you, and they can even be your managers, the best way to not create any kind of bottleneck is when you have documented processes you can hand to your latest guy.

    What do you think of these tips? If you have your own you would like to share, let's discuss it here.

    submitted by /u/Kashish91
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    Where to find a cofounder for an ecommerce lifestyle brand?

    Posted: 04 Jan 2018 09:24 AM PST

    I run an ecommerce skincare company I founded 2 years ago. I started selling products a little over 1 year ago and I have really good momentum. I've developed products (starting with an MVP and now expanded into a line of products), proven my concept, and I have good traction in the marketplace. I've done almost all of this myself, and I'm more than ready to find a cofounder/equity partner. I'm not profitable yet and I am self funded, so I can't hire this out.

    What are some good places to post/look that would get a lot of exposure? I've tried Cofounder Labs but no one is biting.

    submitted by /u/pineapplehead27
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    Feedback for Designer & Fine Jewelry Ecommerce website!?

    Posted: 04 Jan 2018 12:55 PM PST

    Hi everyone!

    I'm in the early stages of creating/branding a resale brand/business for designer bags/fine jewelry and other luxury goods. (will expand product base as we see growth)

    Website: https://reluvme-sd.myshopify.com/ (currently optimized for mobile more so than desktop)

    Our website/branding is nowhere near finished, only about 40% complete but I'd love to get opinions on what we have done so far! We chose Shopify as our initial platform mainly due to the ease of use/reliability and streamlined Instagram shopping feature.

    The project was started about 20 days ago. We have 5 months and about $50,000 in funding to create a successful business/brand.

    We plan to populate the website with 500-1000 products for the initial launch and to market primarily through social media and fashion influencers.

    Please keep in mind that the website is still 100% in the "under construction" phase and will be for at least a couple more weeks.

    What do you think? Any feedback is appreciated:)

    submitted by /u/wolfgng97
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    Buying into an existing business?

    Posted: 04 Jan 2018 06:52 AM PST

    Hey guys, I'm making an offer to buy a business. They have some risk factors that would not allow me to offer a decent multiple if all cash up-front.

    So just to make the numbers easy, we'll say there is $100k/yr profit. Option 1= $125k cash up-front (1.25x multiple).

    I'd like to have a second option that gets to a higher multiple, like 2x, but reduces my risk. The seller has told me he is open to me "buying in" to his business, as opposed to purchasing it outright. How would that work? Would I put cash up-front? Would he hire me as an employee? What kind of offer would I make?

    submitted by /u/Idunnowhy2
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    Getting into Affiliate Marketing. Would You Recommend ClickBank or JVZoo (or something else entirely)?

    Posted: 04 Jan 2018 12:42 PM PST

    Hi, I've been selling coloring books since November; I've made over $200 in sales so far. I have 2 books out.

    I feel that I've gotten a bit too reliant on PPC ads (not sustainable). Doesn't mean I'll stop those completely, but I don't want to be so reliant on PPC ads for sales. Also, for the kind of sales I want ($10K+ per month), I don't think I can pull that off alone using PPC ads. So, I'm looking to start building a network of affiliates to help promote my products.

    I've been thinking of starting an affiliate marketing program. However, my challenge is even getting started. I've looked into ClickBank and JVZoo so far. I have ad materials set up. But, I'm thinking of which network would be most suitable for cartoon coloring books.

    Any advice? Thanks!

    submitted by /u/IVYkiwi22
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    How to build a brand?

    Posted: 04 Jan 2018 12:08 PM PST

    How do you build a brand? Any books? Pointers? Tips & Tricks will be appreciated.

    submitted by /u/aznology
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    I am the founder of a boutique health food business in Melbourne, Aus and as part of my plan to expand, I am looking to connect with distributors and/or sales reps.

    Posted: 04 Jan 2018 12:07 PM PST

    I am currently stuck and don't know the best way to approach distribution for a fmcg. Any advice around this topic is greatly appreciated!

    submitted by /u/angethebigdawg
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    Hey guys. I’m currently trying to start up my own distribution company. I was wondering if there were any good souls out there that has experience with alcohol distribution in particular. Anything helps, love you guys.

    Posted: 03 Jan 2018 07:15 PM PST

    How bad is it to have a hyphen in your URL?

    Posted: 04 Jan 2018 11:46 AM PST

    I'm currently trying to decide between two names/urls. Is having a hyphen in your website name an issue if the page is vacant?

    For the sake of this post let's say the two names are. "Trustworthy Productions" vs "Trustworthy Effective Movies".

    For the first name "Trustworthyproductions.com" is taken and sits with nothing but a blank page on it, I spoke to the owner he said he'd let it go for $1000. However: "trustworthy-productions.com" is free and costs $12

    For the second name I was going to go with "TEMDirect.com" which is $12 and for the sake of argument sounds better aloud.

    TLDR: Is it a bad idea to have my website be Genericdescriptor-word.com if the URL Genericdescriptorword.com is taken? the other URL is only used for backend.

    submitted by /u/Dacendoran
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    I have an idea for a product that theoretically would work, but I do not have the time (and perhaps experience and money) to patent and sell it.

    Posted: 04 Jan 2018 11:42 AM PST

    I'm a highschool student with an idea for a product that I've never seen before, and it's a product that I personally would use and I know a lot of people would. I doubt it's revolutionary or anything, not something I think millions would be made out of, but it's something I would like to try sell.

    It's a piece of technology however and I'd need programmers, app designers, a factory to give it to (I forget what this is called), ect and that's after I'd need to patent it..

    But the thing is I'm in highschool and that takes up lots of time (and honestly mental energy).

    SO, is there another way to make money out of an idea for a product like this? Is there a way to sell an idea or business plan?

    Apologies if I come off as extremely inexperienced and ignorant on this topic, truth be told I am. But I've always wanted to get into business.

    submitted by /u/cherrychapsticc
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    Top predictions for the Future of Work by the VP of Learning and Development at LinkedIn

    Posted: 04 Jan 2018 11:31 AM PST

    A lot of interesting thoughts in this interview but I specifically agree with this one: "Recruiters of new talent will shift their focus away from the potential employee's current skills and capabilities and instead focus on learning agility, passion, and fit"

    submitted by /u/ketodnepr
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    Subscription plan for all kind of companies

    Posted: 04 Jan 2018 11:18 AM PST

    Currently I offer graphic and web design service, here and through my website.

    This is not an unique idea but I kinda like it. I was thinking to offer companies/people monthly graphic design subscription. Idea is to give 22 designs (of any kind - logos, posters, social media posts, ads, banners...) per month. Subscription would be $1500 (2 months) or $6000 per year.

    I know there is a cheaper options and they give unlimited designs, but I don't believe in those designs. Also, how can they complete the work if they get ''3000'' orders from multiple clients?

    Do you think this is a good idea? Is it too expensive (can be cheaper than hiring a designer every single time or hire full time designer in your company)? Is anyone here that runs any type of business that would like to subscribe to this?

    Thank you.

    submitted by /u/netdom
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    Here are my strengths... What can I do?

    Posted: 04 Jan 2018 10:26 AM PST

    I am big into exercise and training. I studied Exercise Science and played soccer in college and semi professionally and am currently a personal trainer. I want to supplement my income with an online business but don't necessarily want to get into online training because of how saturated it is. So, any ideas of what type of business I can start. I have been brainstorming over the last few weeks/months but have not come across a solid idea yet.

    submitted by /u/smueller26
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