Marketplace Tuesday! (February 06, 2018) Entrepreneur |
- Marketplace Tuesday! (February 06, 2018)
- How You Do Anything Is How You Do Everything
- Whoop Whoop!!! We just launched!!!!!!
- Hi r/Entrepreneur! Long time lurker here desperately needing some CEO advice/direction as we grow beyond $10M.
- Whats the closest service to Instagress?
- Does anyone else keep a business journal to keep track of progress and thoughts on how things are going?
- Are there any good videos/documentaries/movies about business startups or how they became what they are today?
- Anyone have experience starting a metal fabrication shop or something similar?
- Production
- 22yo, lots of investment capital, want to avoid 9-5
- Anyone owning a pet store(web)
- Post a playlist, a bit of fun.
- How Do I Explain Equity Allocation
- im stuck on payment options!
- Interested in reading more in 2018? I managed to read 105 books in 2017. Here are a couple things I learned in the last year.
- need to become a certified reseller to order some products from a website. whats the best route to go about this?
- Charged QST by error
- Landing page / list signup resources for a small software business
- I have been researching Facebook Marketing for the last week and I think I have a somewhat decent plan, would like input
- Niche v Broad
- Provisional Patents and are they enough?
- Is a credit card needed for Shopify?
- Looking for help to figure out if these are business expenses.
- How useful are BNI groups for growing your business?
- First purchase from Alibaba, company said they wont be able to start production until after chinese new year.
| Marketplace Tuesday! (February 06, 2018) Posted: 06 Feb 2018 05:06 AM PST Please use this thread to post any Jobs that you're looking to fill (including interns), or services you're looking to render to other members. We do this to not overflow the subreddit with personal offerings (such logo design, SEO, etc) so please try to limit the offerings to this weekly thread. 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]  |
| How You Do Anything Is How You Do Everything Posted: 06 Feb 2018 04:11 AM PST VIDEO"Pay attention to what's in front of you—the principle, the task, or what's being portrayed." - Marcus Aurelius It's fun to imagine the future and it is easy to dwell on the past. It's much harder to focus on the present moment and what is happening in front of you. Every single day you drive to work and you think about the thousands of tasks you have to do that day. You wash your hands thinking and you're thinking about your ex partner. You work in a temporary job and think "this is just a job - my work doesn't reflect who I am. It doesn't matter if I try or not". You are hardly every present to the moment. If the past has already happened and the future hasn't happened then the only moment you have is the present moment, and if you're not even in the present then where are you? Growing up my Mum would encourage me to make my bed first thing in the morning. When I reached a certain age, around 14, I stopped doing it. I didn't understand the concept - why "waste" time making the bed when I'm just going to get into it that very night? What I failed to see was it is not about the act of straightening out your covers, rather the habits that are created when you do it. If you start every day my making your bed you are starting every day with a reminder to take care of yourself. How you handle today is exactly how you will handle the day that could make or break your career/relationship/life. Ask yourself: how do I perform at work? What are my friendships like? How do I approach a challenge? If you are lazy at work then there's a high chance that this will carry over into your personal life. If you find yourself making decisions based on emotions in your relationship then this will carry over into your work life. Get the idea? Everything is practice for the big show. [link] [comments]  |
| Whoop Whoop!!! We just launched!!!!!! Posted: 06 Feb 2018 09:16 AM PST Hi everyone, My name is Tee. Ive been a long time lurker on this sub and have been inspired countless times by all of the posts in here. First, I want to thank you guys for giving me the courage to just actually do something follow through and finish it. Second, it would not have been possible with out my friend and business partner Sarah. She has been amazing to bounce ideas off of, feed off of each others positive energy, and we help each other keep the momentum going. We officially launched catcoffeecup.com yesterday!! We literally sell coffee cups with cats on them. Our target audience are people who either really love cats or white girls like ourselves haha. Also we dip into the funny/meme market since we sold six mugs yesterday of our 'not today isis' mug in r/murica.... (we got banned for selling) Alright time for the dirty deets. We are a dropshipping company. We profit about $4 per cup. Our overhead is $28 per month. So we got to sell at least 8 cups to turn a profit with in the month. Dropshipping might be fighting for peanuts but I honestly think we have found a small and active niche to take over. Now that we have products we are bumbling our way through advertising learning about adwords and ppc. Trying to up our Instagram game. Figure out the price point at what our mugs sell best for. (Today we changed it from $12 to $15) Launching is the first step and I am now realizing ther are so many more steps to come! Id, love it if you took a look at our website catcoffeecup.com. If you have any critiques to help us improve. Have any ideas on which way to go with marketing? I am all ears. r/Entrepreneur I sincerely thank you for helping me with the first step. If anything I have immensely enjoyed our time learning about e-commerce and starting an internet business. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 05 Feb 2018 09:49 PM PST A little background on me and the company, I started a real estate focused company 4 years ago and we built it to 100 people and $10M in revenue in 2017. The problem: I've become detrimental to my own company. I make moves fast, I listen and I solve problems and I implement changes same day. I negotiate deals and throw it on my marketing team quickly, overwhelming everyone involved. I'm a horrible manager, my leadership team isn't getting attention from me because I'm inconsistent and thrown in 100 different directions. I have multiple employees unhappy and that want to leave, and this kills me. Our turnover rate is unbelievably low. I think I've had maybe 4 people quit on me in the history of the company. In 2017 we went from 33 employees to 100, and did 2.5x revenue. Shit show is an understatement. We had to implement so many new processes and so much structure in order to support the growth. Every previous process we had in place pretty much broke, and everyone has been stressed. Our amazing culture has changed, or is going away, or something... something just feels missing. People aren't enjoying their work anymore. It feels like there is so much more drama, so much more complaining, and just unhappy people in general. So anyways, my position as founder/CEO has been a road of ups and downs. I'm a workaholic with trust issues, my leadership team is beyond capable but I can't help but dip my hands everywhere. But I'm spread too thin, and I'm just causing problems at this point. I know I need to "let go" if we truly want to grow, but I TRIED THAT. I went to Colorado for almost 6 weeks and came back and things were still the same. I'm desperately trying to change in order to be a better leader. It's just my day to day job is entirely different from what it used to be, it's no longer the daily grind it's now just 10 hours of meetings and talking to people. Lots of strategizing and big decisions. I'm not good at giving people direction and I naively expect people to "figure it out" like I did. I think I just need some guidance, but I've talked to a few consultants and it's just a lot of information but no direct focus. My questions: Is this normal for founders who become CEO's? and more importantly, Can I change? What resources are best for this particular situation? I've read a ton of books but I'm struggling keeping all the information organized and I have no idea what I should focus on or what I should implement. I just want to be the best leader for the company and I feel like I'm failing, despite having good numbers and a solid P&L... and those don't mean much to me if the people are unhappy. SOS -a struggling CEO [link] [comments]  |
| Whats the closest service to Instagress? Posted: 06 Feb 2018 01:46 PM PST Looking for an Instagram automation tool thats simple, cost effective and easy to use. It doesnt need to be hard work and complex, but somthing that will like relavent tags etc [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 06 Feb 2018 01:11 AM PST I've been keeping a business journal for about 6 months now and find it has worked wonders. Each evening before I go to bed I write down what I did that day to contribute towards my business' growth, the challenges I faced and how I generally feel about things to do with the business. I feel it gives me a sense of clarity on what I should be doing next and helps me go to sleep without hundreds of thoughts buzzing throughout my brain (something i've always struggled with). I've always journaled but thought it might be more beneficial for myself if I make it more business centred. I'm just wondering if anyone else does the same and how it helps you? Have you found any benefits with decision making and growth from using a journal? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 05 Feb 2018 09:33 PM PST |
| Anyone have experience starting a metal fabrication shop or something similar? Posted: 06 Feb 2018 01:44 PM PST I'm 22 years old and I work as a welder. I actually like building things out of metal and welding but I hate the 9-5 lifestyle, waking up at 6am, getting paid shitty, kissing boss man's ass. There's kind of a depresseing atmosphere and seeing these miserable middle-aged guys makes me regret dropping out of college. The guys that made me wanna get into welding in the first place were completely different. They were all self employed, did work they liked, made good money and worked on their own terms. The one that influenced me most was a one man show. He had a tiny little shop he rented out, a few welding machines, tools, and a truck and would do jobs for businesses and for individual people. My boss sends me to construction sites and I'll lay some welds down for a few hours and then the check I bring to my boss has thousands of dollars on it. It got me thinking that if I were independent then the whole check would be mine. I've also been thinking maybe I could using my metal fabrication experience to start manufacturing something, maybe one day even have a factory like the one I used to work in. I don't know anything about that or who I'd ask though. I have some ideas of what I could make and how it could be done but not who would buy my products or how to get in touch with people who would distribute or wholesale them for me. I wanna start small, maybe doing construction jobs and small fabrication jobs and stuff and work my way up to where I'm manufacturing a lot of a product that is being shipped out and hiring other people. Any other worn out Tradesmen say "fuck this, I'm doing my own thing?" What were your experiences? I'm still saving up money for all the machines and equipment. Honestly still don't know if welding is for me or if I'll end up going back to school or not though. Been reading a lot about passive income people get from real estate and online content and that sounds a lot better than anything I have going on in my life rn. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 06 Feb 2018 01:41 PM PST Some background: I'm a business newbie with a head full of ideas, experience in marketing but zero experience in production. My business revolves around the production and distribution of a somewhat unique/niche clothing item. The plans are all there and ready to go, but I have absolutely no hope of physically producing this item myself. How do I go about asking other companies to produce my items for me? I have no experience of the production side of business, so any advice will be gratefully received. [link] [comments]  |
| 22yo, lots of investment capital, want to avoid 9-5 Posted: 06 Feb 2018 01:09 PM PST Hey guys, So i'm a 22yo who was unemployed right after graduating from a top 10 business school last May. I had trouble finding a job so i put the money i earned from selling hype sneakers into crypto late August. Basically in the 4months I've ate, slept and breathed crypto turning 30k into 2mil something. Just recently last week, before the dip at 11-12k levels, I cashed out my profits and since then i've been bored, looking for something to do in the day time or something meaningful to start. I cant imagine working the 9-5 for pennies anymore, especially having tasted how easy it is to make money in crypto (for instance, if I all-inned on the dip at 6k levels yesterday, I would've been up 450k in less than half a day). I want to start something remotely in Los Angeles since i intend on settling here and i've thought about potential fields like Marijuana, Food industry (maybe a new food dessert craze/popup shop), Escape rooms, VR rooms, etc. I understand this may not be the best place to ask since it seems like to a lot of people in this reddit look at entrepreneurship as a possible means to get rich quick or etc. Thanks! tdlr: bored, lots of capital, looking for something I maybe passionate in. [link] [comments]  |
| Anyone owning a pet store(web) Posted: 06 Feb 2018 01:01 PM PST Hi, i am planning on getting into the pet store branch. i was wondering if there are people who are already in the industry and might have a few advises on where to get started. what are safe products to start with etc or any general advise. [link] [comments]  |
| Post a playlist, a bit of fun. Posted: 06 Feb 2018 01:01 PM PST |
| How Do I Explain Equity Allocation Posted: 06 Feb 2018 01:00 PM PST I'm in the process of starting a brewpub, with total funding requirements (startup + 1 yr expenses) of $500k (not actual numbers here for privacy reasons). My business partner and I are putting in around $200k. Two personal contacts have agreed to put in the remaining $300k, for which I offered a pretty generous 40% (that decreases to 30% at a certain milestone - they are looking for early failure protection). The 40% is calculated from a crude average of several methods - business cash flow & asset NPV, PE ratio, and NPV of investor cash returns. However, one of the investors is insisting that since they a funding 60% of the business, they should also OWN 60%. Um... no, that's not how it works. This hasn't been an issue in the several months that we have been working on the deal, so why I you all of the sudden bumping the share number up in the 11th hour? /rant I want to explain to him that you aren't going to get that full amount because a) you won't be working there 70 hours a week, b) assuming we are successful your returns will be much higher (valuation was based on 60% annual returns), and c) he's valuating the business at exactly it's investment value (as though I'm not going to make a single dollar after year one). However I don't want to estrange him for obvious reasons. So how should I approach this situation? Context: he's not a VC, but has been the founding CEO of two multi-billion startups (in a different industry) [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 06 Feb 2018 12:40 PM PST I have already lined up 5 or 6 people that want websites and told them i will be going live soon. Problem is, I'm not sure whether to do pay by month plans or just all at once. at first i did a pay by month feature, WITH the option to pay all at once so there is variety. but i dont want to be doing a crap ton of work for somebody for only 40 dollars a month for a site offering unlimited changes and stuff like that would be gimping me so i'm overhauling it and rethinking my pricing structure. I just dont want to be screwing myself royally to the point where I wont see that money till the end of the year. But with an upfront set price, I'll see the money right away. Plus I value my time very much so I see more companies these days doing the monthly payment things instead of one giant up front payment. Is that better in the long run? Because I'm also looking at it from a perspective of passive income. I will be providing services not just making a site and "...here ya go". I think the monthly option is great thing but i dont want to be doing a CRAP TON of work for say..4 people on their sites and only be getting 160 a month from it....i could charge 300 - 800 for a site depending on my plans and have that money up front already. I'm going back and forth and can't really decide on how i should price it. this is my last thing im stuck on. pls help! thanks :) [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 05 Feb 2018 03:40 PM PST Hi /r/entrepreneur, I know that many of you enjoy reading, so I thought perhaps some of you may be interested in my year of big reading. I definitely put in a lot of hours to accomplish it, but along the way I learned how to get more books in, find more enjoyable material and most importantly I found ways to learn more effectively from the material I was reading. Without going into too much detail, two years ago my life changed considerably. Due to familial circumstances I needed to be home more and had to give up most hobbies and social activities. The one activity that I could still pursue was reading. I have a full time job and small children (i.e. I did not stay home all day and read). Why 100 Books? My initial goal was to read 100 books and take notes on each of them. I did not only want to read, I wanted to learn. Taking notes of each book and then reviewing them was part of the plan. I ended up completing the 100 books in early December, and got through an extra five by the year's end for a final tally of 105 books. Why 100? I realize quality is better than quantity when it comes to reading, but I needed to prove to myself that I could still achieve something considerable, considering I do not have much free time. The Stats In total I read 105 books. Month with most books read: January at 20 Month with least books read: July/April at 6 I read an average of 8.75 books a month. Cost In total I spent $124.13 on 18 books. I bought 2 new books on Amazon.com for a total of $35.60, and I bought 16 used books on Thriftbooks.com for a total of $88.53. On a side-note, Thriftbooks.com is my new obsession. All of the other books were found at my library. I have also been told that it is pretty easy to find pdfs or epub versions of most books online as well. How I tried to read 2 books a week. I tried to read one throughout the week, and then one on the weekend. Fridays and Saturdays were when I got most of my reading accomplished. Tips Always have books ready to go. - If you want to read a lot, every day matters. A day or two without reading compounds dramatically over they year. Always have a stack of books around that you can draw from. If your library doesn't have a book, ask them to order it. - Most libraries will gladly order a book that they do not have in their catalogue, especially if it is new, and/or popular. When you finish a book, immediately start the next. - Starting new books can be psychologically intimidating, while picking up a book that you are already 10 pages into, is not. It is another way to keep the momentum going. Alternate between large, medium and small books. - I usually made a point of reading a short book after a large one. This was also just a way to keep my momentum going. Take notes - One hundred Index cards from the Dollar Store may have been my best investment over the whole year. I would use an index card as a bookmark, and as a place to jot down notes, thoughts/ideas, or other books mentioned while I was reading. It is impossible to remember a book in it's entirety, while it is a possibility to remember 5% by taking notes. Read with a purpose - There is a difference between reading for leisure, or reading with a purpose. I read to learn. Before I start a book I like to have mission or purpose for reading it. For example, if I am reading a business book and I am also looking for ways to market my own business more efficiently, I will read the whole book with that thought in mind. This way you can read for specific information or insights. This is the difference between active reading and passive reading. One is with a purpose, the other without. Since I read to learn, this is everything to me. Chase the bibliographies - Most of the books that I read were either recommended by a friend or found in a book I was reading. By the end of each book, my index cards would be filled with about 5-10 other books that I would look into acquiring. If you keep chasing down bibliographies you can get to some really interesting resources. Think of a bibliography as a family tree. See the good in every book - If I'm ever stuck in a book that I am not into, I switch into my defensive reading mode and try to understand: Why I don't like it, what makes it so terrible, and most importantly, if this is a popular book, why is it so popular? By asking these questions you can get a better understanding into: how to discriminate between choosing what books to read, what makes a good book, and how to market better (i.e. if this is a best seller, there are reasons why it is selling so well). Always keep a book on you - Fifteen minutes here and there add up over the course of a year. Make it a daily habit - Wake up a bit earlier, or go to bed a bit later. If you can get through 50 pages a day, you will end up reading about 73 books a year (with each book being 250 pages). Favourite Books
If anyone is interested in reading a longer summary of my year, please check it out here: thesoftreset.com Also if you are interested in seeing the full 105 list of books please see here: 105 books of 2017 Also, if anyone has any favourite business books that are at least 20 years old, I would love to hear some recommendations! [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 06 Feb 2018 12:02 PM PST so i work in the IT world and run a company that primarily does a type of computer repair but don't exactly sell anything besides the service itself. I need to order some hardware from MaLabs but they require me to be a "reseller" and i have never gone down this road before so i could naturally use a little guidance from those with more experience. any information on the best route to go with attaining a reseller license and/or dealing with MaLabs would be greatly appreciated. thank you for your time and consideration. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 06 Feb 2018 11:52 AM PST I have an e-commerce website through Shopify and recently I've added new products for sell but I forgot to remove taxes when people buy the new products... I don't charge taxes (I'm not registered for QST (Canadian) because my sales are under $30k) So today I accidentel charged QST to a customer ~$8.00 ... What should I do ? Refund the taxes to the customer ? [link] [comments]  |
| Landing page / list signup resources for a small software business Posted: 06 Feb 2018 08:00 AM PST I saw a site about a year ago that had a huge amount of information on this topic, including free templates. I can't find it now, any recommendations for something similar? I got my first customer and need to put up a barebones web presence to hopefully capture emails for my second customer and beyond. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 06 Feb 2018 11:03 AM PST It's always been extremely obvious to me that Facebook can be a really great place to advertise, but I never understood it at all or how people used it successfully. A lot of my time was spent wading through crappy blogs with no information. Here's some of the more helpful research I found: https://www.reddit.com/r/Entrepreneur/comments/4xvo6e/heres_exactly_how_to_grow_your_service_business/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Entrepreneur/comments/574kfs/ive_seen_a_lot_of_facebook_marketing_posts_that/ I am planning to look into facebooks blueprint stuff to learn more about their tools and how the technical stuff works on their end, as well as Jon Loomers blog. Here's what I came up with, I could be way off the mark on this and would really appreciate any guidance or feedback. My business is in the service industry with a long sales cycle. 'Engagement' is classified as any action someone took on one of your ads (preview, like, comment, etc...) This is the general plan to build a targeted audience, all ads run with goal of engagement: Anyone that engages with any of these ads are moved into a new audience for the next stage
Some issues I can see coming up: * What to do with non-converters? * What to do with people that don't engage past a certain point? * How long between each stage? I am thinking about 4 days to a week * List could become too small by the last stage to be effective? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 06 Feb 2018 10:31 AM PST Is making a broad site unwise compared to a niche? I feel with a broad site I can provide more valuable information because I'm only making one or two posts about a particular topic. On a niche I'd have to make 50 different posts about the awesomeness of hot tubs, which feels fake. Yes, it will bring in money but I also want to enjoy what I write about. Also, how do older posts rank in Google on a broad site? Let's say Lifehacker makes a post about hot tubs in 2014. Will it still rank in 2018? I think this question and how to accomplish it, if possible, is key if I want to get affiliate sales in such a post. [link] [comments]  |
| Provisional Patents and are they enough? Posted: 06 Feb 2018 10:29 AM PST I am in the process of creating a prototype of a product which I would like to either manufacture or license out if possible. To get anywhere I need to prove the concept and test the market. How do I protect my idea before filing a full patent and is there a safe way to do it? For example, a provisional patent can be filed relatively cheap and and will give me a year to do my research. However, what are the dangers of going this route and how safe is my idea considering the whole process is done by my self, online, in a few minuses and without a professional input. [link] [comments]  |
| Is a credit card needed for Shopify? Posted: 06 Feb 2018 10:27 AM PST They say theres a free 2 week trial... but i tried it and if i remember correctly it needed a credit card before any sales could be made. Appreciate the help if anyone is willing to give it. Thanks. [link] [comments]  |
| Looking for help to figure out if these are business expenses. Posted: 06 Feb 2018 10:26 AM PST I'm trying to get better with tracking business expenses this year. I was wondering if y'all could help me understand what in the following scenario is an actual business expense. I am small part-time manufacturer and sell products that I design and build myself. A popular "client" known for using my types of products reached out to me for a demo. I sent him a demo unit and he gave me some positive feedback. I don't expect to get the unit back and that's fine. His feedback and the possible exposure from him using it is worth it to me. He will be in a nearby town tonight and invited me to an event. I do not like going to events solo so I invited a friend to come with me. I'm going to drive an hour to his place and then we will take a $20 Uber (his words - never used Uber before) into the city. Our tickets to the event are covered but I'm sure the bar and food tab is not. So my possible expenses include my costs to build and send the demo unit. My travel to my friends house and the Uber into the city. I do not know if we plan to eat or drink or whether we would do that at the event or on the way. I plan to take some photos at the event to post on social media so I might get some simple advertising or at least some social media content out of it. Full disclosure: before the invite I was also considering attending the event but the invite helped me make up my mind. So...at the very least I thought I could keep track of mileage and possibly the cost of the demo unit. It seems like wishful thinking to assume I could write off any drinks or food or the Uber. I know I was the one to invite my friend but I honestly would not have done it solo and I plan to offer him a drink or two for coming with me. To clarify my rambling. I'm trying to recognize when I'm doing things that could be considered as doing things for my business. I hope to network and get some nice photos out of attending. Maybe even talk with my "client" about new projects together. [link] [comments]  |
| How useful are BNI groups for growing your business? Posted: 06 Feb 2018 10:08 AM PST I've heard mixed things about BNI (Business Network International) groups but recently received an invite to a local one nearby. Could definitely use a boost in clientele but it's $600 to join. I can justify 10 bucks here for a networking event and 20 bucks there but $600 is steep. Is it worth it? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 06 Feb 2018 10:05 AM PST My partner and I sent our deposit via paypal. They said theyd begin production and asked if we wanted our logo on the packaging. They also stated earlier it takes about 7 days to produce our order. Now theyve came back and stated they have to wait until CNY, as the workers go home during the holiday. CNY is over 2 weeks away. What can we do. [link] [comments]  |
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