Marketplace Tuesday! (May 01, 2018) Entrepreneur |
- Marketplace Tuesday! (May 01, 2018)
- Any developers want to make my app for 5% equity?
- I wrote a python script that will save my employer $25,000+ over the next few years. I want to help other businesses save money.
- I did some patterns and illustrations which you guys can use for free for your website
- Crosspost: An Amazon seller does some digging on fake reviews and discovers exactly how one large fake reviewer looks to do business
- Raising $650K on Kickstarter [13x the original goal]
- Betrayed by best friend and business partner. Stole a lot of my savings. My body has shut down. How to overcome mentally?
- How do I monetize my website?
- Here's a list of companies as examples for GDPR compliance
- Absolutely exhausted
- To Successful Drop Shippers : What is the best predictor of success for a drop shipping store?
- What's on your to don't list?
- Median income
- Successful fashion label owners
- E-Commerce Making $30,000/Month Selling Prank Greeting Cards
- Young guy looking for some advice
- Need a little help please
- Investing/partnering in small biz with little or no capital
- Do you consider a business degree more or less valuable than an engineering/CS degree?
- I’m a writer at Gusto and today I’m spreading the word that small businesses can help save net neutrality. We’re ONE Senate vote away from reversing the repeal. Join thousands of small business owners who are signing a letter to secure the vote and keep the internet free for all of us
- May is Mental Health Month! Don't make being an entrepreneur even harder on yourself by neglecting your Mental & Physical health!
- What would you write in the "why us" section of a business plan if you did not had any experience ?
- Hard-to-spot business opportunities hidden deep in some niche?
- Selling my 45k instagram account
- Need drip campaign / sales automation software recommendations
- Marketplace: I have been hustling non-stop to get the suppliers, but where are the buyers?
| Marketplace Tuesday! (May 01, 2018) Posted: 01 May 2018 06:07 AM PDT 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]  |
| Any developers want to make my app for 5% equity? Posted: 01 May 2018 06:41 AM PDT Okay, listen up peasants because this is going to be BIG! I need developers to build my new app on android and ios. You won't be paid upfront because I don't have any money. However, if you're willing to think long-term you can become a millionaire because I'll give you 5% equity in the business. So what's the app? Tinder for dogs! Dog owners can help their pet's find mating partners. Simply swipe left to dismiss, or swipe right to sniff the other dog's ass. If both dogs sniff each other's asses, it's a match! FAQ's How will the app make money? What are you, a fucking amateur? It doesn't need to make money. We're going to IPO this bitch so that's someone else's problem. Where is the job located? At present, you can work remotely because my mom won't allow strangers in the house. What will /u/akpaddy be doing? I'm the CEO. I will be doing the blue-sky thinking and managing you to make sure you meet my tight deadlines. How will the app get users? I will speak to a few of my friends who have dogs. After that, we will grow by word of mouth because the app is a awesome. I expect Shark Tank will reach out quite soon. After that, it's pretty much yacht money baby. Please only apply if you've worked for a company I've heard of like Apple, Facebook or Google. If you have knowledge of how to sell user's information for profit, you may also contact me. Warning: don't rip my idea off or my team of lawyers will hunt your ass down. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 30 Apr 2018 04:13 PM PDT Today I spent two hours writing a python script that will save my employer probably $25,000+ in the next few years (process takes 10 hours by hand, will need to be done 100+ times over the next few years, $25/hour labor). I want to start a company that works with businesses and identifies things that can be automated and then I would either automate them myself or hire a more experienced developer to do it. If I paid someone to do it, I would mark up the service and take my cut. The service more than pays for itself so I think its an easy sell to say to someone I can save you $25,000 if you pay me $2000. My only concern is that if I paid someone else to do the coding, they would just hire another developer to do the work to avoid my markup. I guess I could charge a "consulting" fee for working with them and helping them identify things that need to be automated. [link] [comments]  |
| I did some patterns and illustrations which you guys can use for free for your website Posted: 01 May 2018 10:51 AM PDT |
| Posted: 01 May 2018 08:32 AM PDT |
| Raising $650K on Kickstarter [13x the original goal] Posted: 01 May 2018 05:44 AM PDT Hey - Pat from Starter Story again, here with one of my favorite interviews so far. TLDR:
Hello! Who are you and what are you working on?Hi! My name is Braydon Moreno, I am a Co-Founder of Robo 3D. Five years ago, we designed our own 3D printer on a dining room table of our apartment, launched a kickstarter which raised $650,000, and now have three different machines, and an ecosystem around 3D printing that we have sold to over 4,505 cities across 101 countries around the world. Our mission is to inspire the passion within people...to bring out people's creativity with 3D printing technology. Our inspiration to start this business spawned from my business partner designing a prosthetic leg using 3D printing. It was not only an immense cost saving, but it also had the ability to be fully customized. We knew this tech was going to change the world. I also, simultaneously, had a mentor at the time who was speaking to me about the gold rush. He said, the people who were successful in the gold rush weren't the people seeking gold, they were the people selling the tools to seek gold. I knew 3D printing was a tool that I could help people bring ideas to life with. Today, with customers all over the world, we are being empowered on a daily basis by their individual stories - a firefighter designing things to improve his department, a 5th grade teacher implementing design thinking in the classroom, a father who uses his printer to teach his blind daughter about the world… The list goes on and on and we couldn't be more proud of the community of users we have built up in such a short amount of time. What's your backstory and how did you come up with the idea?The idea for Robo came up pretty organically. My business partner, while in college at San Diego State University, was designing a 3D printed prosthetic leg using an industrial 3D printer for his senior mechanical engineering project. When I saw what he was doing, and laid my eyes on 3D printing, it just made sense to me. I could see how this tool could be used in education, to bring product ideas to life, and to enhance the speed of innovation within businesses. The possibilities were endless. I knew from that moment that we needed to build our own machine. With a small budget of about $1,500, we started building our first 3D printer. After about six months of assembling this machine with wood and other makeshift pieces we found on eBay and from Ace Hardware, we created a home-grown video and launched our machine named the Robo R1 on Kickstarter.com. With a goal of $49,000, we ended up raising $649,000 in 35 days! This led to the beginning of Robo. Five years later, we have put 10's of thousands of 3D printers in the hands of students, makers, professionals, and designers across 4500+ cities and 101 countries. Describe the process of designing, prototyping, and manufacturing the product.Our design process has changed quite a bit over the years. When we were building our first machine, we created over 20 different concepts with a freelance designer and simply chose the one that we all thought was the coolest. We knew the framework had to be different than what was out there because we wanted to stand out in a lineup. We accomplished that with flying colors. As we came to our second generation of machines, we had already defined our brand and our target demographics and it was more about compiling features and a style that appealed to the specific needs of that user base. We had a lot of feedback throughout the process from prototypical customers and it drove quite a bit of the direction and feature set. Then we added more touches that were crucial into making our 3D printers simple and easy to use, which everyone would appreciate and find pleasant. In terms of manufacturing, it was no easy task, especially when you don't have the experience of designing, creating, and assembling a complex product from scratch. We learned as we went. Initially, when we went overseas to begin our assembly line, we didn't even have assembly docs on how to build the machine. It was embarrassing to say the least. Slowly, we began to see where our inefficiencies were and this led us to step up, get some help from experienced mentors, and burn the midnight oil to get together what we needed to actually produce a legit product at scale. 350+ parts in an assembly build was a phenomenal learning experience, and once we were able to take along to our two new smart 3D printers we launched last year. The cool thing about our 3D printers is that we can use them as a tool to design and prototype new products. "It's like a 3D printer that makes a 3D printer" as the memes would suggest. Then, once we are happy with the end result, we build the assembly docs with every individual screw and component, take them to our manufacturer or get them quoted out, and begin our first test build. This process can take 6-12 months to get moving, but every step is exciting. Describe the process of launching the online store/business.Being that we started on Kickstarter, we already had an initial customer base that really helped us get off the ground. After the Kickstarter, we begun building our first website from scratch using Shopify as the ecommerce platform and purchasing a template from their store that was in line with what we needed to accomplish our business online. I then took courses on Udemy to figure out how to build a Shopify store and learned how to do it all myself. I set up the proper apps to support some of the functionality we needed, and once it was all buttoned up, we were able to launch. We begun using Facebook advertising early on and creating lookalike audiences based on those people who had purchased our product via kickstarter and it really allowed us to grow the business pretty quickly. I reached out to our customers who had our product and asked them to film a quick 10 second video with their name, where they are from, and how they use our 3D printer and clipped it into a fun video. That single-handedly drove a majority of our business early on because people received validation from real users. The other thing we put an emphasis on early on was having great online support and live chat support. Being that our product was complicated and had a big learning curve, we knew it was important to be there to answer any specific questions that were necessary to make sure potential customers felt good about buying our product and going with Robo as their brand of choice. Since launch, what has worked to attract new customers?We have done a couple things exceptionally well early on to drive and attract new customers: Community: Our product is very technical and we knew people would be using it for complicated things so we wanted to build a community where people could go and communicate with each other. Our user community is now over 15,000 members and there was been over 110,000 discussions going on. It's quite incredible actually. This helps someone purchasing have a place to go to interact with other users and feel like they are a part of a movement — a Robo 3D printing movement. Facebook Ads: We used facebook advertising quite a bit as told above. Creating conversion ads to lookalike audiences of people who actually purchased our product has been very successful - it takes the right content and the right copy to pull this off, but we tested a lot of different things and found ones that converted best and scaled them up. Reaching out individually to every customer: The craziest thing I have been doing is actually spending my time when I can reaching out to every customer that registers their 3D printer. Not everyone registers, so it is manageable, but having a personal message come from the founder asking how their experience has been is really authentic, and I think 2018-2020 is going to be the years of authenticity that win. There is too much automation now, and people need to connect, especially as we become so disconnected with social media and our phones. I am going to connect as much as I can with customers so I can have a wave of word of mouth growth as well as understand what is working and not working with our product. How is everything going nowadays, and what are your plans for the future?The business is going well! We had a couple of profitable years and the last year and a half have not been profitable, but we also have built new machines and brought new technology to market, which is expensive. Now that we launched our new products and tech, we are scaling up the business and growing worldwide, which is exciting and I expect to have some exceptional years ahead for Robo. We took the company public in Australia in a reverse merger last year so this has allowed us access to capital to grow the business quickly. At the same time, we are in a tough market. The margins aren't extremely high and Chinese competitors are coming in with "me-too" products and under-cutting cost substantially, so we are focusing on winning with our software stack, user experience, marketing, and our world-class customer support. The machine, albeit it being beautiful and easy to use, is just the ticket to getting a customer into our ecosystem, which is something we recognize whole-heartedly. Through starting the business, have you learned anything particularly helpful or advantageous?As I always say, this business has helped from a knowledge standpoint more than anything. I have learned a ton putting myself out there and shooting for the stars. This industry is extremely touchy and it has created an understanding within me on what it takes to be successful and I am extremely proud and grateful for that. Here are the some of the things I did right: Perseverance and putting yourself out there. I had perseverance to the max and I never overthought things. Starting and growing a business is tough. So make sure you are starting with something you are passionate about, and just go. Stop overthinking all the things you need to do. Just get something made, launch a store, get feedback as quick as possible, and worry about the details later - you don't have to file a business license or spend a bunch of money getting a professional logo made. There is resources that will help you do all that on the cheap, which I'll talk about later. Launching on Kickstarter. I launched a Kickstarter campaign at the perfect time. Kickstarter was new, and there was a ton of excitement and buzz around the platform so timing was amazing for us on launching our campaign when we did. It really helped kick off the business and get us our first 1,000 customers, which is always the toughest goal of any business. Once you get those 1,000 customers, you nurture the hell out of them - they are your advocates that can help you take your business to the next level. We hit a trend at the right time. 3D printing was getting a lot of hype when we launched and the market was yearning for a low cost, easy to use, plug and play 3D printer, and we delivered one of the best options available in the market at that time. Which is why we did over $1,000,000 in sales in our first real year in business. Started focusing on the things I really liked to do. It took a couple years for this to kick in, but once I realized the things I didn't like to do in the business and brought on people to help with those things, I got a refresher in my energy as I could focus on the areas of the business I actually enjoyed- marketing, making content, social media, speaking about 3D printing, doing shows, and talking to customers. This is important to understand as soon as you can- put all your time and energy into your strengths within the business and hire out what you suck at. A little Gary Vee reference there. And some of the mistakes I made: Made a bad hire. I hired a consultant early on who told us he would help us do a ton of things to grow the business. We decided to give him equity in exchange for all the promises he made — we even wrote a contract. Yet it wasn't ironclad. When he didn't accomplish his side of the bargain, we parted ways and were served with a lawsuit, which we had to fight for a year amidst growing our business. Not fun. I suggest that you act extremely smart in bringing on older, "more experienced" people into your business. Be careful, do your due diligence on who these people are, and write clear contracts to avoid getting yourself in a sticky legal situation. Giving equity up front. Never do this. Even with your founding team. Make everyone's equity vest over a period of time or with milestones. The worst thing you can do is give away 33.33% of your business to some guy who gets a change of heart and wants to move on and then keep his equity. Equity is precious and you should conserve it as you grow to ensure you can make decisions about raising money or bringing on powerhouse employees. What platform/tools do you use for your business?Shopify is our ecomm platform of choice. My favorite tools:
What have been the most influential books, podcasts, or other resources?I like:
Advice for other entrepreneurs who want to get started or are just starting out?First thing I would say is to stop overthinking everything. Never spend money starting by filing your business with the state, getting a trademark, etc etc. Stop with the easy tasks that make you "official." Start the business with getting a prototype made (if it's a product) or customers (if it's a service). If you can start generating some traction, then you know you have something to build on. People tend to want to make themselves official before they put in the work to really determine if they have a tangible opportunity. My next advice would be to always, I repeat, always, go with something you are either passionate on or have a skill in. You will have a heaping load more of an opportunity to succeed if you do. People who chase a random cool idea that just came up that could be a thing are more than likely going to fail if there is no direct relevance to something you love or are good at. Another bit of advice is to look towards things that are popular, trending, or where technology is going. You would be surprised at how many opportunities can come up from there. For example, social media is breeding a whole new age of celebrities and "influencers" and these influencers require a number of different tasks for themselves and for the businesses that sponsor them - management, organization, negotiating, branding, and more. There is probably 10 core ideas in this realm. Just always be talking to people and keeping an eye out for where the world shifts. Where can we go to learn more?We are on a mission. That mission is to empower people to bring their creativity and ideas to life using 3D printing. Check us out: [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 01 May 2018 02:58 AM PDT I can give the details of the business if it's helpful, but basically I trusted my best friend and we got into a business deal together. He lied about everything and has stolen a large part of my savings. The betrayal has been so strange the way it has affected my body and mind. My stomach is in knots for days, my arms and hands feel tingly like they're barely there. I can't lift anything in the gym, I have no appetite. My thoughts are so vengeful. When I sleep, wake up, throughout the day this is the only thing on my mind. Has this happened to anyone? How did you cope? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 01 May 2018 04:18 AM PDT Hi, My site (www.filechef.com) has been consistently getting about 30-50k users per month for the past one year. It's a simple site which finds direct download links on Google. I can't use AdSense on it, and I don't trust other ad networks. Some info that might help: Google Analytics says that most of my users are techies, from India & USA. I have an art page on Instagram with ~30k followers. I was thinking of selling my art through filechef. Have already tried Amazon affiliates. No sales in 2 months, so removed it. So, what do you guys think. Ideas please. [link] [comments]  |
| Here's a list of companies as examples for GDPR compliance Posted: 01 May 2018 08:22 AM PDT One of the most common frustrations I've come across while talking to small business owners / startups about the GDPR was the lack of practical examples for GDPR compliance and what steps companies are taking to be compliant. So here's a list of the ones I've found, to use as examples for your own compliance or Privacy Policy:
Hope it helps! Don't hesitate to share the ones you've received as well so we can make the list more complete. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 01 May 2018 02:01 PM PDT So my wife and I are in the service industry, we own and operate a landscaping/pressure washing/ odd jobs business. It used to be a side income gig and now this year we have decided to do it full time. Working 10-11 hour days and managing phone call after phone call and keeping up our books and taxes and blahblah blah... How do we keep up with this we feel like the only way for us to be making the money we need to be making, we have to completely stretch ourselves thin. Any other small business owners going through the same thing? What did you do to keep things running smoothly without completely burning out? [link] [comments]  |
| To Successful Drop Shippers : What is the best predictor of success for a drop shipping store? Posted: 01 May 2018 02:19 PM PDT I started my Shopify store dropshipping tech products through Oberlo about 2 months ago. I did a lot of research before hand and continiously about the best marketing strategy. What consistently comes back is : Facebook Ads. I have boosted products posts on FB and promoted my website on FB but it doesnt work for me. It would be nice if a successful dropshipper could share his 2 cents on whats the winning strategy in marketing for drop shipping. ☺ [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 01 May 2018 01:58 PM PDT Here are some of mines:
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| Posted: 01 May 2018 01:32 PM PDT Census takes data and its all over the web, but i believe its all Pre-tax income. (in some ways is good seeing that social security, health care, unemployment ect) This makes it hard to compare yourself as an entrepreneur. How do you guys compare yourself? [link] [comments]  |
| Successful fashion label owners Posted: 01 May 2018 01:30 PM PDT How did you create a successful business in fashion What is some key advice you have for those who are starting? How did you find your manufacturers? What did u learn? How did you handle failure? Any other tips? [link] [comments]  |
| E-Commerce Making $30,000/Month Selling Prank Greeting Cards Posted: 01 May 2018 12:59 PM PDT Hey /r/Entrepreneur! I am Rich, maker of Failory, where I interview startup owners (the failed and successful ones). Today I published an interview with Travis Peterson, founder of Joker Greeting, an e-commerce that sells prank musical greeting cards and makes +$30,000/month. My friend Pat, from Starter Story, interviewed him a few months ago. However, in this interview, Travis focuses on his mistakes, disadvantages and failures.
Learn how did he came with the idea, built it, went to Kickstarter, raised a lot of money, kept growing it and achieved a 5-figure revenue per month! Hi Travis! What's your background, and what are you currently working on? Hey! My name is Travis Peterson. I make prank gifts but I am mostly known for musical greeting cards that have no off-switch and loop non-stop, on purpose, until the battery dies. The genesis of this company started when I was 8 years old and my dad called while he was traveling to tell me he won the lottery. Then he said, "April Fools!" Every year he had a new joke and I fell for it all the time. Joker Greeting started with making prank musical greeting cards but we now focus on all gifts and fun pranks. We prefer fun and funny gifts and not a**hole pranks. We want both sides laughing together. Joker Greeting is based in Irvine, California and we have some workers in Salt Lake City, Utah and my warehouse is based in Utah as well. The company manufactures in China and works with another team on product design. I am the only full-time employee, as well as the president and co-founder. I do it all: Building and maintaining the website on Shopify, talking with customers, business development with wholesale clients, creating videos for ads on Facebook and for the web, creating any new products, and managing the process towards launching of new products and categories. I could probably continue listing more jobs that I handle, with the exception of bookkeeping, packing, shipping and manufacturing. Most sells come mainly from my website, where I sell directly to my customers, but I also sell to other online stores and catalogs. It is a pretty basic business model. From there, I try to build out more product categories that are based 100% on Joker Greeting ideas. Right now, I have three product categories, but I should have two more really soon. Cross-selling should help me lock in new customers and grow organically. My goal is $1M in sales. This is very doable goal within two years. It's not Facebook money but I am okay with that.
What's your backstory and how did you come up with the idea? I have a B.S. in finance and have worked in two small investment banks in New York City for about six years. I used to love that job but I decided that I wanted to make stuff instead of watching other people make stuff. This was the beginning of me launching my "entrepreneurial" path. I had an idea for gathering personal stories through online collaboration. While building my first company I also decided to get a MBA and meet some folks who might want to join my venture. During school, I was able to build a beta website and beta mobile app, but that was the easy part. I used a lot of my savings and some family helped me too. I went to trade shows and talked with investors. However, after 2.5 years of hard work I could never get off the ground or find the right partner to join me. Ultimately, I had to stop trying. Looking back on my first venture, the problem was very clear, but I wasn't able to solve it. I think the rule of thumb is making a product 10x better than current solution and my product was like 2x-3x better. I had some traction but not enough growth. And that's why Joker Greeting took me by surprise and showed me what a startup really looks like; a solid idea grows organically and virally. Joker Greeting started as a funny project between my brother and me. We saw a musical doll at my mom's house and we thought that it would be funny if we made the doll sang a non-stop song. We pitched our dad because he is funny and he told us to make a greeting card instead. He was absolutely right. There was no business plan. There was no market research. This wasn't even supposed to be a business, it was simply a way to make $2,000, have fun and buy a PS4. Then I would move on. Instead, we raised $92,073.
How did you build Joker Greeting? This idea started in 2012 and didn't launch until 2015. Not because it was really hard, but because we were both distracted and working on other projects. However, this non-stop singing card kept coming back and I had to act on it. Once I started to do the work, it took me about six months to finish it. I wouldn't say it was hard work but there were no clear answers. I knew it could be done but, who would the right manufacturer be? And at what cost? And if I work with China, do I trust them? In this case, it was pure diligence or obstinacy that got me through. The initial prototype is what we launched with on Kickstarter. We didn't want a super sexy card. We wanted a card that looked totally innocent and a little bit boring or dated. The biggest complication was that ordering 1,000 units was super expensive so total cost was $7/unit. When we launched on Kickstarter I charged $15/unit and that's how I chose my price. No real challenges arose except for some timing issues. Originally, we planned to launch in February 2015 but it was apparent that was not going to happen. April 1 was coming up and I decided to just wait longer and launch on a great day. Although no one believed us on the day we launched it worked out better on April 2nd. Kickstarter launched on April 1, 2015. My brother shot the video in his house. We shot it in one hour and that was it. Luckily, he has a background in film directing and editing. I also went ahead and made some crappy iPhone videos but those turned out to be part of the success and shared more than our main video. In 30 days we were on ABC News, CNET, BuzzFeed, radio shows, and more and raised $92,073. While I had no plans to build a company it was apparent that I had. Halfway through the campaign I started the Shopify store, bought a domain, and did all the legal paperwork. Joker Greeting was officially born. I flew in ½ of the Kickstarter orders and put in my garage. The next ½ was being shipped ocean and arrived just in time when this was mostly gone. I packed and shipped nearly every single one of these orders with some part-time help.
Which were your marketing strategies to grow your business? Because the launch was so successful I had a few vendors contacting me to buy my cards at wholesale. And Kickstarter was a link to my new Shopify store so it was pretty seamless keeping the party going. In all, the Kickstarter was much more successful than $92,000 if the next 30-60 days were included. And we never spent more than $400 on marketing and ads (I probably should have). But no party lasts forever. I'd say the next 12 months were still pretty easy. But sales started to slow down I had to find ways to keep selling cards and do my own marketing. I tried Reddit ads, Google SEO, Google ads, StumbleUpon, Instagram, and a few small ad agencies. Facebook ads offered the best ROI. And quick videos 15-30 seconds had the most impact. I tried static images but I never saw many conversions. Part of my growth strategy was to continue to launch new categories on Kickstarter and rely on my Kickstarter community. This has worked pretty well. I launched a device called the Cricket and raised $15,000. I struggled to sell it after Kickstarter. I was sitting on inventory and nothing was moving, maybe 1-3 units a day. I decided to make new videos and show how I used the cricket; these videos transformed my sales into selling 30-50 units a day without changing my ad spend from before. My lesson; show the customer how to use the product in their life, don't tell them features. Example 1: How Card Works in Water Example 2: First Cricket Video That Spiked Sales
What were the biggest challenges you faced and obstacles you overcame? The largest obstacle was having every single unit become defective due to a bad batch of batteries. It was my largest purchase of cards and my vendors were placing sizable POs in the $20,000 range. I learned it was all defective about 4-5 months after selling thousands and thousands of units. It was painful and embarrassing. I hated getting up in the morning and reading my emails about complaints and my customers feeling cheated. Wisely, I had kept the money in the company, and slowly I had to refund every order and resend working units later on. When it was all done I didn't any money left, or trust with my vendors, or much else. I didn't even know if buying new cards would save me or bury me deeper. Obviously, I chose to keep going. My manufacturer did take the heat and offered to replace the units. But the damage was very severe. Shipping was costly, vendor orders shrunk significantly, and Amazon reviews were at one star. This Amazon effect crushed my direct sales as it was #2 on any search of Joker Greeting; a glaring 1 star. The party was definitely over. This was late 2016. Above all, I tried very hard to be patient with every single customer. I begged for a second chance and sent them free cards when I got new ones. I cut prices with some vendors to try and keep the relationship and keep them happy. And I had to fix my Amazon rating; I stopped selling that card and made sure no one else was selling that SKU on Amazon. I designed a new card and color and relaunched a new SKU on Amazon. On top of this, I had to get more reviews on Facebook and Google but I had to wait for all my defects and angry customers to stop complaining. Once I was able to fix my cards I was able to turn on a customer rating feedback and with 237 reviews were have 4.5 stars. Super happy about this! Other obstacles in comparison to this are small. Personal life and family (I have a wife and two kids now) is always a challenge but I don't think it's any more difficult than a normal job. It's just different challenges.
Which are your greatest disadvantages? I stink at blogging and writing and creating daily content. I can't Instagram or tweet very well at all. It's just not interesting at all. I do it but I don't think I am great at doing it. I do pay for help with writing blog posts. Blogs really do help and I wish I were better at it. I love being involved with my content but I know my limits. Joker Greeting is small brand and so many vendors just don't think I can sell units. Or they worry their customers won't get the joke or that it's too rude and no one will buy them. Being small has other advantages but when trying to work with vendors it's often not helpful.
During the process of building & growing Joker Greeting, which were the worst mistakes you committed? The biggest mistake was pushing other non-traditional ideas too quickly. I knew that Birthday and Christmas cards were selling really well. I should have really focused on those two a lot more rather than pushing my Baby Card, and I'm Sorry, and other cards that sell less often. I ended up with too many units sitting on the shelf and not enough of the units I sell through.
If you had the chance to do things differently, what would you do? I am not a regretful person when it comes to business. Things happen and I choose to move onward. Challenges and obstacles, I didn't see before were necessary to learn so I don't think I would change anything. I enjoy my job and for whatever reason, I get up every day and work in my office all day and I don't take as many breaks as I should. It's fun and I enjoy it. Many startups are fearful about talking about their idea as if it will magically work in someone else's hands better than yours. And quite frankly, if that is true, then you probably shouldn't be doing it. Be more open to ideas and don't worry about competition as much as you do. Tell more people than you normally would and doors will open.
Apart from mistakes, what are other sources of learning you would recommend for entrepreneurs who are just starting?? Books are very inspiring. Creativity Inc, by Ed Catmull explains the great way in which Pixar was built. I think this book taught me not to control the process but have the process (and people) speak up. Listen to them. And hire people better than you. I just finished Principles by Ray Dalio. A very deep dive into employee management. An absolute stunner beginning to end. It's almost more of a textbook than others. The Hard Thing about Hard Things by Ben Horowitz is a must read to scare anyone straight who thinks startup life will be fun. Lots of people tell me I am living the dream. I guess, if living the dream owning up to all the problems and taking all the risk. Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman is amazing. This helped me deal with customers better and think about my copy on the website and emails. I can't recommend this book enough but you definitely need to be willing to get science. A lot of these concepts are also covered by Ray Dalio. Other books I enjoyed but may not be as relevant to business, Aimless Love by Billy Collins (poetry), Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance, and Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power by Jon Meachum.
Where can we go to learn more? I encourage anyone to learn more at our website, and say hi or buy a card. I really do like helping anyone who might have questions. So just ask them below!
Original interview published in https://www.failory.com/mistakes/joker-greeting [link] [comments]  |
| Young guy looking for some advice Posted: 01 May 2018 12:59 PM PDT Hello All, I would like to start by saying thank you in advance for your help. I'm 21, just finished up my second year of undergrad at a large public university, and managed to land a huge gig at a local corporation doing some internal auditing for the summer. For the last year and a half I have worked at a local startup finding, scraping, and converting leads. IMO I did a great job and I loved the work I did there. Once I left I knew immediately that this specific startup wasn't the only one dyeing for leads and it got me thinking. Is lead generation a viable business model? Can I create a business solely on this concept? Would you ever outsource for leads? Best Regards! [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 01 May 2018 12:56 PM PDT Evening everyone, as many of you know I run a social network called SoSa (formally Social Savanna). I have entered a pitching competition with Virgin Media and to get the chance to win lots of £££ to help fund the business and even maybe pitch to Richard Branson I need votes. So i'm reaching out to everyone I can and asking for your vote vote: here It's free and won't take 5 seconds but could mean the world to my community and me. Thank you [link] [comments]  |
| Investing/partnering in small biz with little or no capital Posted: 01 May 2018 12:41 PM PDT Hi Guys, I have friends and acquaintances running small 1-3 person businesses. I'm talking general contracting, personal training, consulting etc. In addition to having about 50k in capital - I have sales and marketing expertise that these businesses are clearly lacking. If I wanted to invest or partner without actually doing the nitty gritty, but instead approaching several small businesses offering my sales/marketing help and limited capital of 5-10k a pop for some sort of stake - how would I structure it? I envision being invested in several small firms and contributing my time and money to make them grow. Anyone do something similar? [link] [comments]  |
| Do you consider a business degree more or less valuable than an engineering/CS degree? Posted: 01 May 2018 12:36 PM PDT I'm watching Stanford's "How to Start a Startup" lectures and in the third session Paul Graham describes business degrees as training to be managers for big companies. I'm currently a business major and slightly agree, but I have my reservations. I've learnt useful things from my classes, although I have definitely learnt more useful things by just doing. What's everyone else's thoughts? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 01 May 2018 12:34 PM PDT |
| Posted: 01 May 2018 12:24 PM PDT It's been said here before, but taking care of your health - mental & physical - is extremely important when trying to create your own business/chase your dreams/etc. The stress can wear on your mental health, the lack of sleep & bad eating habits all add up. Make sure to be aware of your habits, and try and create good ones for keeping you sharp & healthy. You can download an amazing toolkit here and see other ways to take care of yourself, so that you can continue to create the company & life of your dreams. Thank you! [link] [comments]  |
| What would you write in the "why us" section of a business plan if you did not had any experience ? Posted: 01 May 2018 08:25 AM PDT Hello everybody, I'm an over-motivated school leaver who is writing a business plan to get investors for the creation of an online platform. All was going extremely well until I saw the section " why us" in the business plan template. The problem is that I really don't know why they should trust in me ,I don't have any experience yet and don't even have a High School certificate.But I want to learn,I trust in my capacity to run the business and I'm super motivated. Do you think it's a good reason ? What would you write if you were in my situation ? [link] [comments]  |
| Hard-to-spot business opportunities hidden deep in some niche? Posted: 01 May 2018 11:37 AM PDT I'm interested in finding different business opportunities hidden deep inside specific niches. Stuff that most people will never encounter. Not to copy as such, but for inspiration. Do you have any to share? [link] [comments]  |
| Selling my 45k instagram account Posted: 01 May 2018 11:24 AM PDT Hi all I am not sure if I am allowed to post this here so please notify me if I am wrong but I would like to sell my instagram business (account with 45k followers in travel niche). It makes about $150 - $200 a month with advertisements. I have had it for around 2 years now and don't have the passion anymore to run it. Takes around 1 hour a month to manage. I will accept PayPal or any form of Crypto. Thanks! [link] [comments]  |
| Need drip campaign / sales automation software recommendations Posted: 01 May 2018 11:21 AM PDT Currently working on a project that is going to require some drip campaign / email automation software as we scale. We have a WordPress website and our operations involve the need to send a series of emails to respond to leads, guide users through processes, and conduct outbound sales. Specifically, we're looking for software with the following attributes:
Initially we would probably be using this to send 1,000 to 5,000 emails / month. Any suggestions or recommendations would be greatly appreciated. [link] [comments]  |
| Marketplace: I have been hustling non-stop to get the suppliers, but where are the buyers? Posted: 01 May 2018 07:14 AM PDT I have been running https://mentorcruise.com a little over two months now. It's a mentorship marketplace I have been hustling HARD to sign up 50 mentors from places like Facebook, Netflix, Yelp and co. and more are signing up every week. I probably (personally) reached out to over 1'000 people on Twitter who had open DMs, a few followers and were Software Engineers to find these people. Now I have the supplier side covered with over 300 open spots for mentees - but where are they coming from? I have around 200 mentees signed up, but only 10 have a mentor. I tried these things before:
What can I do? [link] [comments]  |
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