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    Home Unlabelled Thank you Thursday! - (January 25, 2018) Entrepreneur

    Thank you Thursday! - (January 25, 2018) Entrepreneur

    January 25, 2018

    Thank you Thursday! - (January 25, 2018) Entrepreneur

    Thank you Thursday! - (January 25, 2018)

    Posted: 25 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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    $350k/mo selling flip flops.

    Posted: 24 Jan 2018 07:12 PM PST

    Hi /r/Entrepreneur, it's Pat from Starter Story again, where I do interviews with successful e-commerce entrepreneurs.

    edit: Starter Story is on Product Hunt today! Check it out and show support if you can.

    Here is my interview with Matt Griffin, the founder of Combat Flip Flops, a footwear company with a great mission behind it.

    Matt has a really unique story. He was inspired to start the business after some of the things he experienced while deployed in the military. He is grossing up to $350k/month. He also had success on Shark Tank!

    Background

    My name is Matt Griffin, and I'm the CEO of Combat Flip Flops--a team of people that believe we can bring sustainable, peaceful solution to armed conflict with education and economics.

    Combat Flip Flops is an e-commerce company employing artisans and entrepreneurs in Afghanistan, Colombia, Laos, and the United States.

    With a team of five, Combat Flip Flops distributes products direct-to-consumer through our website, Amazon, and a handful of boutique dealers. Collectively, we refer to our customers, dealers, and supporters as "The Unarmed Forces." In 2017, The Unarmed Forces (UAF) funded 217 years of school for Afghan girls and cleared 2814 square meters of landmines in Laos.

    As the CEO, I manage the corporate team to help drive messaging, social media, and sales. Alongside me is Andy Sewrey, President, and Donald Lee, CMO.

    Photo of me on Shark Tank

    How the idea came about.

    I'm an army brat and a single child of divorced parents. I bounced around a lot as a child, but I claim Iowa as home. When I was 18 years old, I left Iowa for West Point and started my career in the Army. As a member of the class of 2001, life quickly transformed after September 11th, 2001.

    The attacks drove me to become a part of the Special Operations community with the 75th Ranger Regiment. In the Regiment, I learned what is possible with a team guided by values and driven by purpose. After four deployments to Iraq (1) and Afghanistan (3), I saw the futility of Armed conflict to defeat radicalism and left the military--with a desire to take the teamwork and leadership lessons learned in the Army to help those in need.

    Before Combat Flip Flops, I held a variety of jobs. I built homes for a national homebuilder. After the market crash in 2008, I worked for Remote Medical International, coordinating clinics and medical care in "difficult" regions of the world.

    From there, I began designing medical and rescue systems for Special Operations Command. When those contracts ended, I was the Vice President of Operations for 10-20 services, an equipment cleaning and restoration company focused on saving money and resources for the military by cleaning and restoring personal protective equipment.

    On a trip to Kabul, I was invited to visit a Combat Boot Factory supporting the Afghan National Army. What I witnessed there changed my view on our impact for that nation.

    A single factory employed 300 people and supported nearly 2000. That factory built a community--the first positive outcome I witnessed from the war after eight years of fighting. When I asked the factory manager what would happen to the factory after the war ended, he quickly responded, "We'll shut the factory down. Nobody wants to buy anything made in Afghanistan." My elation turned to fury. How could we abandon this nation in the same way we did in the 1980s?

    In that moment of extreme anger, I looked to the table on my left. There was a combat boot sole with a flip flop thong punched through it. It was ugly, cool, and something Americans would buy. Combat Flip Flops was born.

    The idea was to convert a Combat Boot Factory in Afghanistan to provide sustainable commercial production to keep the workers employed after the boot contracts ended. After launching our company in January, the factories lost their boot contracts in February and shut the doors after making one run of footwear. We quickly learned the logistics behind building footwear in Afghanistan created a product priced at a level the market would not support.

    We moved footwear production to another country fighting a narco-financed insurgency--Colombia. Since footwear didn't work in Afghanistan, we moved to a product line with more simple logistics--textiles.

    The product line continued to grow in accordance with our mission statement: Create forward-thinking opportunities for entrepreneurs affected by conflict and enable the mindful consumer to manufacture peace through trade.

    We found our niche by finding like-minded people. Veterans with multiple combat deployments that also felt the futility of the war--knowing that jobs and education were the true answers to the conflict(s). We positioned our messaging to show a path to jobs and education, learned to distribute that message through social media, and figured out how to deliver high-quality products to keep the cycle going.

    It feels like my entire life led to Combat Flip Flops. The company has been the application of the lessons learned from high school to the keystrokes in this interview. But if I were to tag one specific incident, it would be September 11th. Without that world-changing event, this company would have never happened.

    Creating the product

    The process took three years from idea to launch. It was a team effort from a large number of people to make it work. Specifically Donald Lee, Fellow Ranger and CMO and Andy Sewrey, Brother and President, as well as friends, family, and mentors.

    The idea first happened in 2009 and my fellow Ranger, Donald Lee, registered our website name. We sat on it over a year until my sister-in-law married Andy Sewrey.

    Andy learned about the mission, started working on designs, and helped us bring the idea into a digital rendering form. From there we started floating images and messaging on Facebook. Followers gave us feedback and input until we had a design good enough to prototype.

    We contacted some friends in the footwear industry and they helped us design our first footwear and tooling in Asia. In mid-2011, we had nine pairs of flip-flops sitting on my kitchen island. Once we picked out our favorite features and whittled it down to three pairs, we sold everything of value in our house to purchase 200 pairs of sample footwear to take to trade shows. This was in January 2012.

    In the beginning, the product looked very similar to what it does today. Our first product, the AK-47, is still our number one seller. Over time, our materials, process, and fit improved based on feedback from customers and friends.

    Building Combat Flip Flops definitely had it's fair share of obstacles. We wondered: Will people actually buy our products and be in support of the mission? Given the crazy media state of the world, we had doubts if we could gain enough volume/momentum/following to make it work.

    Seriously, there are problems and obstacles in any business. Our most highlighted failure was the 100% rejection of our first run of footwear in Kabul, shutdown of three factories to make footwear and the subsequent production of our first footwear in a garage behind my house.

    We leveraged everything of value to get it going, got hustled by companies trying to take advantage of our media, and dealt with the family stress as a result of doing something so difficult.

    As far as pricing the flip-flops, we started with keystone pricing to support retailers thinking that they would want to buy our product (Nordstroms, Army Exchange, Navy Exchange, etc). Using Keystone pricing actually priced us above our competitors. Retailers weren't buying our product and neither were consumers because of the price.

    When we dropped pricing to reflect healthy margins direct-to-consumer, we came in line with the competition, and volume skyrocketed.

    When we launched, we simply targeted bloggers and media sites that were willing to talk about our product. If you get enough of those bloggers, the clickthrough and conversion math equates to a functioning business.

    Our first customer was the Special Operations. We targeted servicemembers working in Special Operations units. Army Rangers, Navy Seals, Special Forces, etc.. These customers understand what we're working to accomplish, support the mission, have the funds to buy the product. They also hold an "influencer" status in the market. If they buy, wear, and support our product, the rest of the market will follow.

    Because of our background, messaging, and media access within that community, they were our first big customer. It was extremely validating to have their support because they believe the Combat Flip Flops mission is the right solution to armed conflict.

    We sold nearly 4,000 pairs in the first few weeks. At that time, it felt like a mountain of orders.

    How we attract new customers and grow the business.

    We're still an unfundable business because we don't get retailer POs and we manufacture in war zones. Diligent cash management enabled us to make the right products, at the right time, to reinvest back into growth.

    We promote our products through all social media channels, public relations, and media where we can get it.

    Social media:

    When it comes to social media, you have to pay attention to the traffic and revenue attribution. Why would you spend 25% of your time on a social media platform that generates less than 1% of your revenue?

    It's a constant ebb and flow between content for entertainment and advertising. Our primary platforms are Facebook and Instagram because that's where our target demographic interacts with media.

    Content and PR:

    What works for us is a mixture of ads, podcasts, media, and anything with "how-to" type headlines. For PR, we've been covered by a significant amount of major media, but the two that drove the most sales and revenue were Gizmodo and Shark Tank.

    SEO:

    As far as SEO, I've found that in consumer products, unless you have six-figure budgets to get on Page 1 of Google, SEO will be a struggle. Through free tactics, we hover on Page 2 for "flip flops." SEO has not yet warranted the full weight of our marketing team.

    Customer Service and Transparency:

    We grew our audience by being nice to them, standing up to haters in a comical way, and showing the impact they make with their dollars. It's taken five solid years of proof to get people to believe it.

    We believe that our stellar customer service, social media interaction, and constant product development are the biggest factors of growth for us.

    I also believe that being transparent is the best thing in any relationship. We've failed, let our customers know, and followed through on our promises to correct the issue.

    Shark Tank:

    When Mark Cuban, Daymond John, and Lori Grenier agreed to invest in Combat Flip Flops, the mission was legitimized as a solid business.

    The Shark Tank experience was life-changing on a variety of levels. First, it made us really focus on the mechanics of the business. Second, it took everything we thought we knew about our business and wrecked it. We saw 450% growth tied to media, and it imploded every process in the business. From the beginning, any time we saw a problem, we wrote it down, prioritized it, and then attacked it in order of priority in it's importance to sales and revenue.

    Mark Cuban is our most proactive investor. He's provided a great deal of advice and assistance. Mainly, he got us a gangster bookkeeper (highly recommended). Our main interaction revolves around weekly and monthly updates. We haven't sold enough flip flops yet to get Mavericks season tickets.

    What didn't work for us?

    Trade show booths and fairs. When you do the math and get down to the net profit after all expenses associated with trade shows, using your time to develop more effective online advertising is a better use of your time and money.

    There's no secret sauce when it comes to promotion, advertising, and social media. Every instruction manual to be successful in social media advertising is online. You simply have to put in the work. Learn how to create messaging that resonates with your target demographic and serve them the message through the most cost-effective means possible.

    What I would do differently if I could go back.

    I would have spent less time going after retailers. Trade shows, dinners, expenses for integrations, and low margin sales. Waste. Of. Time. And. Money.

    I would have spent more time understanding the relationship between CPM, CPA, and margin.

    I would have worried less about making everybody happy, especially on social media. There are people that exist to try and piss other people off. Trying to make them happy is a poor use of time. I have learned to focus on making my current and future customers happy.

    Dealing with competition.

    As far as Amazon and big online retailers, we don't compete.

    We simply do our best to improve daily. Focusing on being better than somebody else takes your focus away from where it should be--in your business.

    What differentiates us from the competition? We make our products in conflict or post-conflict areas and put girls in school with the profits.

    Where we're at now, and goals for the future.

    I'm currently focused on ensuring our message is more reachable to the mass market coupled with effective advertising.

    Our team is now five people. We are not currently looking to raise money. We're looking to hire as the positions are required. Our current North American market is big enough for now. We're focusing there.

    Nowadays, I'm constantly thinking about how can we break the "fear" mindset pushed upon us by the media. Nothing gets accomplished with a focus on fear. Less fear, more action.

    We are actively working to improve our inventory management. We've invested in software over the last quarter that's enabled Combat Flip Flops to take more proactive inventory management approach to maximize profitability from available cash.

    I still find the biggest struggle is finding time to relax. When it's your business, there's always something to do. Focused recovery time is critical to success.

    Our short-term goals include optimizing ad spend, a website update, and exceeding our philanthropic numbers set in 2017. We are going to accomplish the goals through review, planning, and execution.

    As far as long-term goals, we'd like to be operating at $500MM annually, funding the education of over 57,000 women and clearance of 250,000 square meters of landmines. We plan to accomplish this through diligent asset management, heavy focus on marketing, and seeking out exceptional humans to be a part of the team.

    Tools I use.

    We use Shopify. It does everything we need it to do (and then some) at an affordable rate.

    I'm a huge fan of the Google Suite. Simply put, Google provides the most cost-effective platform for small businesses to work and collaborate globally.

    We use Google Sheets more than anything. It's a free, collaborative tool used for forecasting, finances, marketing, scheduling, and schedule deconfliction. The key word is "collaborative." By working in a document, it keeps you out of email, dealing with distractions and errors due to version issues. Time and money saver.

    We recently started using the Shopify Inventory Planner app. It's enabled us to visualize overstock inventory for clearance and highlight the top products to procure as it relates to cash and profitability.

    Advice for other entrepreneurs

    Just Begin. You're going to fail. Be Gritty. Learn your numbers. Improve. Fail more. Repeat.

    Get a mentor. Sometimes you get so wrapped up in your own world that you can't see the mistakes your making. Sincere mentors invested in your success are priceless.

    Until you know how to do something yourself, don't contract it out. Do a task until you know the full details involved, look for a partner or employee to manage that task, and hold them to the standard of, "You need to be better/faster/more effective at the task than me."

    Be extremely conservative with your sales forecast. Know the intricacies of your Profit and Loss Statement. Cash is king.

    I fail regularly. We've almost run Combat Flip Flops out of business several times, but learn from failures, adjust and repeat. In the Army, I was gifted a parable, "People learn through one of four methods: Fear, Pain, Humiliation, and Repetition."

    As a business leader, you need to constantly push the limits of your skills and ability to reach new limits. There's a lot of fear, pain, and humiliation involved. Once you learn from those teachers, you're typically smarter, faster, and able to lead more effectively.

    Everyone makes mistakes! Fail forward.

    submitted by /u/youngrichntasteless
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    A Google Sheet add-on for a fast email address verification

    Posted: 25 Jan 2018 07:55 AM PST

    As a founder, i do both marketing and sales in my company. And number one tool i always start with is a blank Google Sheet with add-ons that can supercharge it.

    There are a few companies that let you find email addresses related to a domain, like Hunter and Clearbit. But i was looking for email address verification tool for my team. So we can search email addresses manually and verify them in a few clicks.

    We spent a week building such a tool and today it was approved by Google. Let me introduce you Email Verification Tool, a Google Sheet add-on. It currently provides real-time bulk lookups — up to 20 at a time).

    Here is a quick guide on how to use it:

    • Install the add-on.

    • Create headers to understand data: Add-ons -> Email Verification Tool -> Open -> Create headers.

    • Paste a list of email addresses into the first column.

    • Type =VerifyEmail function in the next column cell and pick first email address to verify.

    • Click and drag a handle, dragging down the column from the cell with a formula to execute the function for other email addresses.

    • Wait a few seconds for the verification process.

    Would like to get any feedback on how to make it more useful.

    submitted by /u/andygorezkyi
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    A thorough guide on how to create an online course

    Posted: 25 Jan 2018 08:45 AM PST

    Just stumbled across this guide from Podia and thought a few entrepreneurs might find this helpful.

    A few things they cover:

    1. Who should create an online course?
    2. How to come up with ideas that are profitable?
    3. How should plan your course content?
    4. How do you build said content?
    5. How do you price and package said content?

    Over 8,000 words in this meaty guide. Hope you find this as helpful a resource.

    submitted by /u/jdquey
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    I am hemorrhaging money and not seeing my business making any money. Really could use some advice

    Posted: 25 Jan 2018 01:32 PM PST

    I run a residential and office cleaning business in upstate new york, and I just can't seem to get it. I'm up every day at 7am go to bed at 2am and for the life of me just see everyone pass me by. NOTHING I'm doing is working, even after a bit of success for like a week. But I'm willing to do anything it takes and can use a second set of eyes to critique my business.

    Thumbtack: Did well but has gotten too expensive Craigslist: all spam Facebook: Does well but costs money to advertise and I've got no money right now.

    I'm taking L's left and right here, I have one commercial contract and have had 3 small cleans in 2 weeks. I don't know what else to do. I'd be happy to offer any more information if someone can please set me on the right path.

    submitted by /u/niggawitabadback
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    Business-to-Consumer (b2c) vs. Business-to-Business (b2b)

    Posted: 25 Jan 2018 08:54 AM PST

    This is a pretty generic question, but I'm curious to read what all of you have experienced in these different markets.

    Is b2b completely cold-call sales oriented? Or can you effectively use Facebook ads or something similar to snag business clients?

    Is one easier than the other to market for?

    Any other general thoughts?

    submitted by /u/IHaveAHugeNick
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    London based entrepreneurs

    Posted: 25 Jan 2018 11:43 AM PST

    Interested to hear your stories. I feel like it's not an Entrepreneur friendly city but that may just be me.

    submitted by /u/Poepholuk
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    How I started during my studies a letting agency for international students that grew to €250k/year

    Posted: 25 Jan 2018 01:13 AM PST

    Hey guys,

       

    One year ago I graduated from university in the Netherlands. During my uni years, I started a letting agency for international students and thought it was a good time to talk about how I did all of this!

    Here is a picture of me at the office one year after I started the business (we took an office only one year after we started the business), I was 20 so I looked pretty young! Here is another picture three years later with an international student starting a PhD.

       

    This post might help you know the following:

     

    1. How I started a business next to my studies & how I came up with the idea.
    2. How I grew the business from literally 0k€, grew it to €250k in revenue per year and which mistakes I did along the way.
    3. My thoughts on starting a business as a student / young entrepreneur.

    1. Starting the business & how I came up with the idea

    I had just started university and was, like a lot of university students, looking for a room to rent. I was super bad at it because I was an international student (even though my home in Belgium was less than an hour away from my university city, I did not speak any Dutch and also was badly organied to arrange viewings).

    I ended up going to an agency that didn't help me much, didn't speak good english, and charged me €500,- (+VAT) for their services.

       

    a. Realising there was a business opportunity

       

    I realised there were a lot of university in the same case. I had just finished my summer job (I was working in a slaughterhouse, it was a horrible job but well paid) and had one month free and nothing to do.

    I decided to buy a Wordpress theme, take the pictures from websites of other agencies in my city, and then would call the agencies myself to arrange viewings and tell them I had students looking for rooms.

       

    A few agencies asked me to stop this (they didn't like that I took the pictures from their website), but actually 80% of them were happy that I was renting their rooms. It was not a lot of money for them since they wanted to sell apartments or houses. One agency in particular made an appointment with me and I went to take photos of all their rooms.

    I also started a Facebook group helping international students and posting my rooms there which really helped to get the customers.

    b. My initial business model and why I changed it

       

    My first business model was: Pay for viewing. The concet is simple: We arrange viewings for you and you pay €30 (incl. VAT). It was good for students coming from far away (like Hamburg for example) who needed to have a productive day and see 6 or 7 rooms in one day and then pick one. I would call all agencies in my town, tell them to make viewings, and then go to the viewings and collect the cash (€30 per student was really profitable during the summer and winter terms since thousands of students would come to the Netherlands and some would even call me over Whatsapp and ask me to book the room for them).

       

    There were major problems with that business model:

    1. I wasn't always able to collect all the money (at some viewings there were 30 or 40 students and I had to ask all 30 for their €30 but obviously they didn't wait in queue to pay me).
    2. It was not satisfying all customers. Some students would pay but still, they wouldn't find a room.
    3. It was not profitable because in low season, I would have maybe to do one viewing with 1 person and €30 was not a lot.
    4. I was leaving money on the table in some case because 10 people wanted a room, and were willing to pay me more than €30 to have it, would have earned €300 but actually could have earned €600 since they were willing to pay me that much for my services.

    In conclusion : I realised I had the ability to generate demand, and match it with supply but did not have the right model in place. In other words, I was creating value but was not absorbing the majority of it.

    I then realised: OK, let's look at what the other agencies are doing: They are bad at their job but they have a better business model: They charge 1 month rent. I did the same.

    2. Growing the business

       

    The first summer I earned a few thousand euros net after taxes. A good income, but I really wanted more, especially since I realised how big the market was (even though it was a niche of a few thousans international students).

    I decided to grow and lock my distribution channels (I spent a lot of time on growing my Facebook groups). I bought an expensive camera to make awesome photos, I also started making videos so that I could rent to students living abroad and would rent before. I also started asking students when they were anticipating to leave their rooms so I could re-rent it in advance. I would also incentivize students by offering them free flights to Spain to tell them who their landlord was. I did every kind of trick possible to boost demand and boost supply. Within 3 years we grew from €60k year in revenue to €250k/year in revenue.

       

    The second summer, I felt I needed to go faster. I wanted to go global in the Netherlands and travelled to other cities in the Netherlands by train (Groningen, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Utrecht), and hired 4 part-time student managers. It did not work at all.

    After the success I had with the first city I just thought I was a god at business and that everything I touched would turn into gold. I would write a Google doc telling the student to do X, Y and Z and call landlords like wall street and that they would earn awesome commissions but it didn't work. I didn't take time to analyse the market there, I didn't understand the real motivation of students (some were just willing to enjoy their student life, but obviously a salary would not motivate them to reply at 2am to emails), and also had not built any distribution advantage. I did not rent a single room in the other student cities and lost 2 or 3k€.

    What I did right

    1. Starting something: Honestly I think I tried 9 projects before this, and the 10th worked. Just try things, think of it as a small project and it might turn into a relatively nice and profitable business later.
    2. Going niche & being focused: I solved a problem for a handful of customers in a well defined niche. That already reduced the error rate because I understood what problem I was solving, for whom, and more or less how much I could be paid for that. The opposite is hard to replicate if you have many different products or services for a large set of customers who are geographically distributed. In addition, going small and niche means you can develop inexpensive and unique distribution channels to reach customers.
    3. Not spend too much: I have always been super frugal. I took the office only after I knew I could pay it for year upfront. I only invested in what made sense(Facebook ads for example). But having a beautiful office with orchidea is not going to attract more tenants (maybe a landlord, and again I a not sure)

       

    What I did wrong:

    1. Over expand too quickly: I was 19 and really had no idea was I was doing. It is hard to expand a service business (especially if you don't have experience or a service blueprint). I knew how to run the business but it was impossible for me to communicate how to do it.
    2. Not delegating at all: I am a control freak and honestly this is my biggest mistake: I never delegated anything (apart from the landlord acquisition part) during my 3 years. I knew every single landlord, they knew me and only wanted to talk to me. One summer, I was too burned out and took a one week holiday to Italy which was not an enjoyable holiday at all. I was always on the phone with my team to tell them : "OK if customer X wants to rent this, landlord Y has many conditions X, Y, Z". I never focused on building a machine and was shortsighted by the appetite of profits. I never took time to step out of the business, and see how I could fire myself away from the business.

       

    3. Lessons learned

    I started a simple business during my studies: A service where landlords would tell me which rooms they had available, and I would find tenants for it. I would make beautiful photos of those rooms, post them everywhere on the Internet, have an awesome customer service for landlords and tenants, and would also enable tenants to book online with their credit cards. It was a niche market, something relatively simple to execute, a lot of hard work, but in exchange some good financial compensation & obviously a lot of learnings which I will write below.

    My main lessons learned are:

       

    1. Start as soon as you can.
    2. Starting with a niche means you can focus. A lot of people asked me during my business: Robin why don't you sell bikes? Or for example do welcome package for students? Sure, it could have brought money but would have been a distraction. I still wasn't perfect at just renting rooms (I think I had 20-25% market share only at the end) so why risk something new when you can already grow more?
    3. It is ok to do a business that doesn't scale or doesn't look perfect from a MBA point of view. Business school tells you to make business plans, have moats, defensibilities, etc etc. Sure, you have to and that would be great, but actually just starting something that may look imperfect at the beginning might be turned around and OK later.
    4. Stop seeking perfection - I have said that before but basically our office sucked. It was not clean, it was just some cheap Ikea tables. our site was not perfect, it was just "good enough". If you execute well, have happy customers and are good enough, this is fine. You just need to look for 90% of results with 10% of efforts, so that you can put time elsewhere for higher results.

    Final thoughts

    This business was my first experience in entrepreneurship (of course in high school I would sell on Ebay a bit but this was more like hustling). I built a brand, a base of customers and suppliers, and also learned a little bit about myself (as cliché as it may sounds) and that it was really important for my future entreprenership career :)

    I hope my story will help a lot of you guys to take the leap and get started :-) I was 19 and had no idea what I was doing, I did not invest any money and just worked hard, so it is possible. Find a problem you have, find a niche, try to start small and fix that problem. Also if you notice, I didn't spend anytime to build the business, I just started to fix the problem for a very small number of customers and expanded from there. Usually it is better to go that way, since you'll realise more urgent needs by talking to more customers. Do not worry if your business might seem small at the beginning, it might be bigger once you are into it and understand what is really needed to be solved.

       

    Currently I run another business and also post frequently on Twitter so feel free to follow me :-)

    submitted by /u/europeentrepreneur
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    Open letter: Businesses need Congress to undo the FCC’s net neutrality repeal.

    Posted: 25 Jan 2018 10:34 AM PST

    Since the FCC's December vote to kill net neutrality, startups and net neutrality advocates have been pressuring Congress to pass a Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution that would overturn the agency's repeal.

    If passed the CRA would restore protections that stop ISPs from blocking and throttling your sites and apps, or charging companies new fees to reach customers online.

    To get this CRA passed, business advocates are organizing an open letter from businesses. Click here to add your company's name and ask Congress to overturn the FCC's net neutrality repeal.

    The open letter is short and to the point. Congress just needs to know that you rely on net neutrality to do business, and that you support the CRA to put protections back in place.

    We have 50 votes accounted for in the Senate and just need one more to move the CRA on to the House of Representatives (where the it already has over 100 cosponsors). So add your company's name if you rely on the open web to do reach customers or grow your business.

    submitted by /u/jdtabish
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    Here’s the Magic Number of Likes You Need to Go Viral on Instagram (Fixed)

    Posted: 25 Jan 2018 04:25 AM PST

    I submitted this post yesterday but it ended up having some formatting issues (I'll admit I was a bit lazy) but since the content is pretty interesting (if you are into leveraging social media to build your business) I decided to spend an entire 3 minutes of my time so you guys could get to read it. Here it is

    We reverse engineered Instagram's algorithm to find the magic number of likes it takes to viral.

    Here's how we did it.

    The Setup

    We followed 31 different posts from popular Instagram accounts over the course of 3 days, tracking likes, comments, and views as our metrics.

    The accounts we studied had follower counts ranging from 168,000 to 2.4 million.

    Our goal was to evaluate the relationship between the number of likes and comments on a post and the number of views it gathered.

    To get more actionable data, we broke down our independent variables (likes and comments) by time.

    The results shed an interesting light on what it takes to go viral on Instagram.

    The Results

    First things first: likes and comments on a post trump follower count.

    Likes within an hour and total number of comments were the most significant factors in predicting the virality of a post.

    We also did an analysis to see if these two variables operate independently or if they compound each other.

    Our analysis found that the two act independently. A post can go viral based on likes OR comments; it doesn't necessarily need both.

    The Takeaways

    1. Evaluate at 60 Minutes

    The first, most obvious thing to note here is that the performance of a post in the first hour is a strong predictor of its long-term success.

    If you see a post light up within 60 minutes of posting, you can be pretty sure it will go viral. If it's still dead after 60 minutes, its chances are basically nil.

    In terms of actionable strategies, this means there's a lot to be said for deleting content.

    If a post hasn't gained traction within an hour, you're unlikely to lose anything by trashing it.

    Adopting this strategy gives you the freedom to test content without necessarily damaging your engagement metrics.

    All the pros delete low-performance posts. The data says you should too.

    1. Comment Baiting Can Work

    The next takeaway is that likes aren't the only way to the top.

    Our analysis indicates that likes and comments function independently as variables affecting total views. A post can have one or the other; it doesn't necessarily need both.

    To that effect, including prompts for commenters in your posts can be an effective strategy.

    While our data isn't as concrete here, if you can generate between 6,000 and 8,000 comments on a post, it's likely to garner more than 1,000,000 views.

    1. It's Not a Perfect Science

    As always, the big disclaimer is there are no foolproof rules.

    We still saw variability in our data set, and it could have come from a number of factors.

    One potential source is crowding in the feeds of followers.

    If a given account has followers who tend to follow a larger number of accounts, the individual feed of each follower will be more crowded, creating more competition for likes from that follower.

    This could introduce noise into the data and cloud the pattern.

    While we're confident in our analysis, you should take it with a grain of salt (like everything you read on the internet). We'll continue to update this post with new conclusions as we gather more data.

    We strove for accuracy and a reliable experimental design, but also acknowledge that the study is neither perfect nor exhaustive. There could be other things at play.

    For example, we may have found comments in the first hour to be a highly predictive variable. Likes after 60 minutes – say, during the second hour online – may be important as well.

    And finally, there's the subjective factor: content.

    No matter how much we crunch the numbers, the basic fact is that content is still king.

    The accounts we tracked tend to produce content their followers enjoy – but without a doubt, high-quality content is still one of the most important factors for virality.

    Test for Yourself

    At the end of the day, all of this data is circumstantial. What works for one account may not work for yours.

    But data like this can give you guidelines for what to test and how to shape your social strategy.

    Use this to inform your own Instagram strategy. But do your own testing, and continuously refine your content based on the results.

    I skipped an entire section with a lot of valuable bits of data because it explains a number of charts (which I can't add to the post for obvious reasons) so if you want to over those, here is the link to the original article http://blog.yobenlee.com/social-media-marketing/heres-magic-number-likes-need-go-viral-instagram/

    submitted by /u/KinleyMark
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    I am the owner of an office cleaning company: I need your opinion!

    Posted: 25 Jan 2018 01:06 PM PST

    I'm the owner of an office cleaning company. Right now i'm working on mastering outbound sales. I've been cold calling but am running into a roadblock. Lots of my calls are going to companies who don't even really need a service like i'm offering.

    I would ask this in r/ sales, but I think this is more creative/entrepreneurial.

    What type of companies would you target to sell for office cleaning services (trash, dusting, vacuuming, mopping) ?

    Or a better question, what type of companies need this type of service?

    submitted by /u/Crext123
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    What non-Ecommerce Business Have People On Here Started?

    Posted: 25 Jan 2018 07:51 AM PST

    I don't have anything against Ecommerce business on here, but I feel like most posts on here are about some kind of Shopify store or FBA. I just wanted to hear from people who are not in the Ecommerce space.

    submitted by /u/IsabelAlphonse
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    Review my ideas

    Posted: 25 Jan 2018 01:57 PM PST

    I love this sub, and the wonderful ideas, opinions that keep my mind churning.

    I have a few ideas I have been working on but I'm unsure where to start.

    What I do know is that I desire whole heartedly to be successful working for myself.

    So here are my ideas:

    1. I love talking to people. People love talking to me. I've had people that I barely know spill their deepest secrets and thoughts to me. Of course I never tell their business, ever! I've had therapist ask can I listen to them and give feedback. I've never met anyone that I felt was a stranger. I work full time and I'm constantly asked by friends can they call me when I get off to talk, of course I say yes. I don't feel comfortable charging them for this service.

    My question is how can I offer this service to the world without all the schooling of a therapist. I would more so be a conversationalist.

    1. My second idea is a niche T-shirt business. But I can't draw. I asked a guy I know to draw me some designs but he flaked on me. I'm not sure about how to contract this out and still own the designs. Plus my start up capital is low.
    submitted by /u/yesEyaass
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    I want to change the $60 billion dollar art market, and I would love to hear what you guys think.

    Posted: 25 Jan 2018 01:49 PM PST

    I would love you guys' feedback on my business idea, as well as the landing page that I created in order to gauge interest:

    https://www.bostonartexchange.com

    I want to start a business that solves two problems:

    1. Fine art as an investment is an asset class that is only available to exceedingly wealthy investors.

    2. The fine art market is highly illiquid with auction houses being the primary method of buying/selling, and they charge buyers anywhere from 12-25% and sellers around 5-10%. These fees are insane.

    The way I am trying to solve this is by creating a financial exchange (similar to NYSE or NASDAQ) that allows users to buy and sell shares of ownership in multi-million dollar pieces of artwork. For example, a $50 million dollar work of art could be broken up into 2.5 million shares that sell for $20 each. Now instead of having to physically go to an auction house and pay $50 million (plus a 12% fee) to get exposure to this asset, investors can click "buy" and "sell" for as little as they want to invest from the comfort of their living room, just like trading a stock on etrade or any other brokerage. Furthermore, instead of paying SIX MILLION DOLLARS in commission, investors will just pay a small fee per trade (probably around $7.99, but that still needs to be figured out).

    This solves the first problem by lowering the barrier of entry to investing in fine art, and it solves the second problem by bringing in a whole new wave of retail investors and allowing people to liquidate their positions easily through an app, rather than having to go to an auction house and pay those massive fees.

    I'm sure you have a lot of questions about where the art is physically stored, what happens if it is damaged, how the art is obtained, etc. Please read over the landing page because it might answer some of your questions. If it doesn't, I am more than happy to answer them here!

    My plan is to see how many people I can get to register for this site to try to gauge interest in the idea. If I can prove that there is interest then I will start writing code, looking for partners, and seeking angel funding. I've already spoken to some prominent art dealers who sell $1 million + works of art at auction houses, and the consensus seems to be that they are definitely interested. That being said, this doesn't matter unless retail investors are also interested.

    Please let me know what you guys think both of the idea, and of the website I created. Is anything unclear? Is the design okay?

    submitted by /u/BostonArtExchange
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    Are Tai Lopez's videos worth watching on YT?

    Posted: 25 Jan 2018 01:39 PM PST

    They look informative and some of them motivational, so I'm wondering if they're worth watching or remembering? Or is he still a complete youtube scammer?

    submitted by /u/never_trust_AI
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    Shopify offered me £75 free Google AdWords

    Posted: 25 Jan 2018 01:20 PM PST

    How do I use that money to drive sales and visits to my website as I have no idea how to use it. Don't want to waste it trying it out for no result. Is there any good guidance I can get to to get the best out of this offer.

    submitted by /u/houcine1991
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    Outsourcing my outbound lead generation and outreach

    Posted: 25 Jan 2018 01:17 PM PST

    As a solo consultant, I only have so much time in the day and there are parts that I need to outsource. Especially outreach. Here's what I'm considering outsourcing but I'd like opinions from those who've done this and what pitfalls or traps to avoid. And does it work for you? Why or why not.

    • Have someone stay active on Quora. Follow certain topics and reach out to professionals
    • Monitor google alerts, twitter, and a few other places where certain mentions are made and reach out to appropriate contacts w/ premade email templates
    • Scour Linkedin for contacts that I connect to.

    I'd like my person to be knowledge about my area of expertise (digital marketing) but that's probably asking for alot of a VA. Thoughts?

    submitted by /u/ericb0
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    My City is running out of water, how can I profit from this? (In a good/positive way)

    Posted: 25 Jan 2018 12:51 PM PST

    My city ( Cape Town ) is only a few days away from running out of water. See this video from TIME Magazine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJ4Z2bOh5jo

    What kind of entrepreneurial things could you think of doing if you were over here(Preferably things that will benefit people's lives and improve their quality of living)? Thanks for your time.

    submitted by /u/throwawayaccounthSA
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    Does anyone know TechDay? Aye or Nay?

    Posted: 25 Jan 2018 12:20 PM PST

    I received a cold e-mail from a marketer for Tech Day in NY. I've attended trade shows but never presented at one.

    I'm a software developer focusing on custom solutions in eCommerce. If I did go to a trade show, I know that I could put material together & even have demo software to ease people into the idea. The worst part about custom software is that it doesn't exist yet & people don't know what they're buying.

    In my shoes, would you do it? Does anyone know about TechDay specifically? Or about presenting at trade shows for non-linear items?

    submitted by /u/eCommerce_2015
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    Help with capitalizing on an idea alone with no skill set to compliment it.

    Posted: 25 Jan 2018 12:07 PM PST

    Does anyone have experience capitalizing on an idea alone? (Non-patentable)...I have an idea for a website that I believe could be very profitable, the issue I'm currently facing is I have no knowledge of programming or web design nor do I have deep enough pockets required to make my idea come to fruition. Also if anyone has any advice to give to an ambitious 19 year starting up his own company, please let me know.

    submitted by /u/YeezusAndJesus
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    Currently looking to invest £25,000 (cash) here in the r/entrepreneur community while documenting the process

    Posted: 24 Jan 2018 06:25 PM PST

    So a bit about me, i have been around this subreddit a while! 24 years old UK based.

    After my first failure in business i was able to have relative success on my second attempt, in the last year taking my eCommerce store to close to £800,000 in sales.

    Anyway i am still running my business and this year my main focus is on building multiple streams of income. I am now looking to partner up and go into other businesses. With someone who needs some funding and has a solid business idea and willing to put in work. I am open to any industry doesn't even have to be online! We would document the full process here..

    From initial partnering up stage, to the different stages the business is at and how the investment was spent etc. I would rather someone UK based, but if you are US/Worldwide based also we can sort something out.

    Drop your proposal below and what you intend to do with the investment and we can all discuss the idea :-)

    submitted by /u/Cumreal
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    Idea for a physical product, Not sure where to start.

    Posted: 25 Jan 2018 11:27 AM PST

    Hello all, A bit new to all of this so excuse my ignorance

    Sifting through this subreddit today and reading about shopify and various e-commerce ventures I managed to cook up an idea I feel is pretty good. Thing is I have no idea how I would turn this product into reality. Would I need to design the item(I have absolutely no design experience) and then contact a manufacturer in china? how do I even find a manufacturer in china? You can PM me this information if you don't wish to share it.

    Thanks all

    submitted by /u/Noxzeno
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    Blog-style website for a smaller languages

    Posted: 25 Jan 2018 11:05 AM PST

    Hi guys,

    I'm thinking about starting a blog-style website for a small country (4mil. people + ~10mil. people with similar language).

    I would like to write about tech, crypto, business etc. on my native language.

    Is it worthwhile to run Google Ads on such small country? Maybe run a blog for 6-12 month and offer advertising to local companies after I get some traction?

    submitted by /u/zokyffs
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    We're a 'go' on the US Income Tax discussion/AMA tomorrow at 1p at /r/smallbusiness.

    Posted: 25 Jan 2018 11:00 AM PST

    We have four qualified accountants so far with mod verified credentials. If you want to ask real questions and get real answers about what the tax code might do to business here's your chance.

    If you can't make it around 1p just post a question and we'll include it in the AMA.

    Details here: https://www.reddit.com/r/smallbusiness/comments/7sklwg/looking_for_accountants_to_do_a_mod_sponsored/

    Also to clarify: I am not an accountant and have no direct or indirect interest in any of these companies. People said they wanted brick and mortar issues addressed - this is one of them.

    submitted by /u/BigSlowTarget
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    Advice on monetizing my app.

    Posted: 25 Jan 2018 10:03 AM PST

    Hello /r/Entrepreneur

    Just three days ago I launched an app in the music space. I run a similar service on the web where I get about 200 visits per day. the first day I launched I made the app cost .99 cents from the start and while I got about 80 click events on the ad, there were no installs. It helps to also say my app is targeted for users in Latin America. Second, after I got a little discouraged, I decided that instead I would make the app free to download but charge after the second stream and this scheme instantly drove my installs to about 40 per day with google play ads bringing about 27 installs at 0.01 cent per install. I have a 20% CTR and a 30 percent conversion rate (people who actually install). After that first day I had about 20 uninstalls being that the service is basically a very short trail, however out of those 20 users left, I have yet to have a single paying user. I am a bit conflicted, I would like to start earning some cash from my app ASAP since I really don't have that much capital to keep developing it plus I want to know that it could make an actual business however I fear that I may not be doing even half as what I could to really drive those real conversions.

    There are some things I have yet to do for my app, but I'd really like to get some advice on what would really work before I spend more time and resources on it.

    -I don't have a promo video

    -I think my logo is a bit ambiguous

    -The app doesnt have an english version

    -I have three snapshots that were put together in a couple of hours

    -my trial period is too limited. Perhaps I should give users a couple more songs or make them share my app before I give away more songs (even though youll always have people who will simply never pay).

    Also are those ad numbers looking good? I want to optimize those conversion and click through rates.

    Thanks

    submitted by /u/apphut
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