Thank you Thursday! - (June 28, 2018) Entrepreneur |
- Thank you Thursday! - (June 28, 2018)
- Amazon is hiring entrepreneurs to start delivery services.
- Some of the best businesses are built offline
- I'm looking for a little inspiration. Do you know of any high revenue, low maintenance business that aren't online? I have a couple of good examples inside.
- Make money while traveling????
- Recently redesigned my website, could use some feedback!
- giving and receiving is key to building our businesses
- Best resources on how to pitch?
- Advice for a 22 year old CS Student.
- List of free business tools from Marie Forleo
- Helpful Video I Found for Tax Advantages from Renting out my RV
- Understanding the WHY of your website: a questionnaire
- Have an idea for an app? How take that idea to an actual app [Video]
- HubZone, SDVOSB and the Government Contracting Set-Aside Myth
- What are the best books to read about start-ups in creative industries?
- Team up?
- Looking for a good and simple CRM
- New opportunity with restrictions
- Non-eCommerce Business Ideas
- Second cohort of Data-driven Startups graduate from the NetApp Excellerator Program
- What to do if a product already exists but not for the target audience/specific use that I think it could be used for?
- Do I need to trademark my logo for start up company
- Is there steps you always take before starting a new project?
- Business Ideas
- Seeking Feedback &/or Contributors - Dig3st
| Thank you Thursday! - (June 28, 2018) Posted: 28 Jun 2018 06:06 AM PDT 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. [link] [comments]  |
| Amazon is hiring entrepreneurs to start delivery services. Posted: 28 Jun 2018 05:00 AM PDT As little as $10k start-up you can make $75k-$300k annually. Seems interesting... [link] [comments]  |
| Some of the best businesses are built offline Posted: 28 Jun 2018 09:55 AM PDT It's easy to feel like the best way to get early traction with your business is to figure out a way to find customers online. The massive surge in online courses that claim to teach you how to "double you income" by selling Facebook marketing services to small business doesn't help things - mostly, it's just noise. The reality is that there are dozens of marketing channels available to anyone starting a business, and many of these are offline (ie: in person). That's not to say that your business wont benefit from online marketing channels, but it's important to consider all of the options to identify the most effective strategy, especially if you're just starting out. Offline marketing channels can be incredibly effective for one simple reason - especially in the earliest stages, you're still working to gain credibility, and it's much easier to be persuasive and build trust face to face. A few weeks ago I interviewed an entrepreneur who grew his business to over 500 food products and 7 brands, all with 0 outside investment. His main strategy? Meet customers face to face and build organic relationships by communicating his story and mission. He's confident that this strategy has been the main contributor to his success, and today him and his team fly more than 50 times a year to various trade shows, events, conferences, and meetings. Here are some offline marketing channels you can explore (just off the top of my head).
If you have other creative offline marketing ideas, please share them in the comments. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 28 Jun 2018 02:45 PM PDT A guy I know along with some long time associates started a trucking company in Northern Canada, despite having no experience in trucking. Their trucks hauled ore from a couple of nickel mines to the shore to be loaded onto ships, then picked up fuel to bring back to the mines. They started it with relatively little (and a hefty amount of financing), hired a guy to run the whole thing, made great money over the next ten years then sold it for a surprising amount. Aside from a few strategy sessions and board meetings every year, it was mostly passive income. He admits that a lot of it was dumb luck though. Another is a friend of a friend that sells a type of plastic bag that dissolves in water. He imports them and sells them to hospitals across the country. The bags are used to line the laundry hampers so hospital staff don't have to touch the soiled clothes. Just toss the whole bag in the machine. He has a warehouse full of this stuff and has a couple of people that handled sending them out to hospitals. I've never met this guy and don't know anything about his business other than that. It just came up when I was talking about my old man's recent exit. Hard work and long hours are great and all, but there has to be something to be said for people that 'figured it out' like this. [link] [comments]  |
| Make money while traveling???? Posted: 28 Jun 2018 11:48 AM PDT My friend owns a business selling jewelry. She travels to different US cities setting up shop at festivals, farmers markets and pop-up shop events. She says that all of her travel expenses are tax deductible. Essentially she flies into a city on a Friday. Does an event on Saturday then parties at night, sight-sees Sunday and flies home on Monday. I assume she makes a small profit because she has a very relaxed lifestyle. Is it true that all of her travel expenses are deductible? Is this a feasible way to travel? [link] [comments]  |
| Recently redesigned my website, could use some feedback! Posted: 28 Jun 2018 09:45 AM PDT After recently discovering how awesome Webflow is, I decided it was time to stop pushing off a much needed website revamp. I just have the basic home, pricing, and blog template fleshed out, but would love to hear what you guys think. Here's the site: CryptoTrader.Tax
Thanks! [link] [comments]  |
| giving and receiving is key to building our businesses Posted: 28 Jun 2018 10:09 AM PDT Hello Entrepreneurs- Per the theme of this subreddit, it is a continual goal to help others thrive. Seeking a mutual accountability partner(s) to check in every couple weeks: share: challenges roadblocks victories obstacles general thoughts FYI, I'm in Los Angeles - open to connecting with people anywhere, provided we take it seriously [link] [comments]  |
| Best resources on how to pitch? Posted: 28 Jun 2018 09:23 AM PDT What have you all read that helped you create the most impactful elevator pitch? Would you recommend the same elevator pitch for in person and in an email? Thanks [link] [comments]  |
| Advice for a 22 year old CS Student. Posted: 28 Jun 2018 05:36 AM PDT Hello Reddit! I'm 22 years old and I'm studying Computer Science in college. I'm really interested in being an entrepreneur. That is my dream. I don't really know where to start though. In school, you study how to code, but you don't learn about how to start a business or manage things. I'd think the best way to get entrepreneur experience would be to find and talk with successful entrepreneurs. Does anyone have any advice where I should start looking? [link] [comments]  |
| List of free business tools from Marie Forleo Posted: 28 Jun 2018 03:02 PM PDT I was stumbling in her collections and found this gem! 322+ tools https://marieforleobschool.com/business-tools-list I've tested a few that I still use. If any of you have feedback on any tools to validate your startup, would love to hear it. [link] [comments]  |
| Helpful Video I Found for Tax Advantages from Renting out my RV Posted: 28 Jun 2018 02:35 PM PDT Renting our your RV is something I just started with. This video is all about the Tax Advantages you get from having an RV rental business. [link] [comments]  |
| Understanding the WHY of your website: a questionnaire Posted: 28 Jun 2018 02:31 PM PDT A while ago I realized something: some of my clients (and people I spoke professionally with in general), wanted a website, but they didn't truly know why other than to just have one because that's what businesses and individuals do nowadays. While this is true, you do need a website to actively grow your business in today's global marketplace. But, consider this: At the time of writing this, there are 644 million active websites in existence. Now, try to think about how many different websites you've visited just this year. A hundred? A thousand? Whatever the number, it's guaranteed to be an infinitesimal percentage of how many websites there actually are. The websites that you visit (organically at least, without seeking out because you know the person, etc.) were designed to be found. Websites don't just get built and left there to magically attract visitors. (I used to think this, so I promise I'm not judging you). Getting a website noticed requires lots of research, a content marketing strategy, comprehensive SEO, good user experiences, and a lot more. IT IS ABSOLUTELY CRUCIAL THAT YOU KNOW THE WHY OF YOUR WEBSITE. To help this along, I decided to develop a simple questionnaire. It's a questionnaire to help you gain clarity - from an art (design) aspect and from a science (SEO, target audience...) perspective. If you're already pretty clear on the WHY of your website, this questionnaire should only take you about 10 minutes. Maybe even less. But if you're looking to build a new website or update an existing one, you need to have solid answers to these very basic questions. [link] [comments]  |
| Have an idea for an app? How take that idea to an actual app [Video] Posted: 28 Jun 2018 05:46 AM PDT By the guy who started Vivino, the wine app. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmbIJj_HR-4
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| HubZone, SDVOSB and the Government Contracting Set-Aside Myth Posted: 28 Jun 2018 01:59 PM PDT When I first heard about set-asides was in 2014. Through some business networking I started interfacing with various individuals who owned their own government contracting businesses. As I saw how their businesses had grown rapidly in the previous 5-8 years, it really intrigued me. How'd they do it? They explained to me how helpful some of the set-asides could be in winning contracts and they encouraged me to start my own company. I thought to myself, I can do this. I'd heard the stories of the founding of their companies and honestly felt like I was already more set-up for success – they were in broader industries and more generalized NAICS codes and none of them had ever run a company before. They had shoestring budgets in the beginning and now had employees and healthy, growing businesses. I had previous business ownership experience and would be working in Information Technology and Cyber Security – extremely in demand fields by all accounts. For many months, I asked questions and researched what government contracting was and how it worked. I learned what conferences and resources were available and I kept learning while I continued gaining experience as an IT Project Manager. In all the conference sessions I'd attended over the previous year, I kept hearing "Get your SDVOSB certification… Get your HubZone… Maybe try for 8A." It's all anyone really wanted to cover. It was ingrained in every interaction with SBA, PTAC, OSDBU and elsewhere. Whether it was a more advanced session or beginner presentation, it was "Certify, Certify, Certify." When I started the process, I realized what a huge commitment it would be because of the rule that you cannot have outside employment and be certified. You must quit your job to participate. I put it off because of this because I had a family and student loans. After about a year, I felt like I was ready to take the leap and knew based on this guidance that I had to commit to this SDVOSB certification and quit my job. So toward the end of September 2017, I resigned from my role and jumped in with both feet. I didn't have a ton of cash saved (big mistake), but I felt like I could quickly gain some traction – I had a plan and had a couple commercial customers already committed. I had been to several small business conferences and outreach events by this point. I was taught in these sessions that since I was service-disabled veteran and I was in this high demand field, I was going to really be successful. I had heard it from so many contracting officers and small business development people that there were billions of dollars in IT contracts annually. I had done enough homework to realize that it would have been very difficult to just win a government IT or Cyber bid as a new startup. So I decided to try to be a sub. Having had all these years of observing others and based on my own research, I decided to see if I could find a prime to take me and our small team under their wing and eventually pursue a mentor protégé agreement. Primes would be eager to start subcontracting work to us, right? We were SDVOSB certified and we're real tech people. By this point, I had recruited some great cyber analysts and knew we had actual products and services the government wanted. I went to regional conferences and everyone there (contracting officers, OSDBU reps, current SDVOSBs) told me "Go to St Louis!" They were referring to the National Veterans Small Business Engagement – an annual conference of SDVOSB businesses. I spent about $1500 on this trip. I went to St Louis and I didn't waste a minute working the floor and attending sessions. I went with a purpose – to obtain a subcontracting opportunity. Sure enough, I met some terrific people and absorbed it all. At this conference, I heard the Department of Veterans Affairs talk about their Cyber Security needs. "We need Cyber," they said. "We want to be innovative, we want input from industry." While there, I established a relationship with a VETS 2 and VECTOR Prime and felt again like my company was poised to take off. I came out of NSVBE with the knowledge that the VA wanted what I was selling, that I had a prime to run it through and partner with, and I had the actual technical skills and experience to successfully perform Cloud and Cyber Security work. For the next three months, I sent hundreds of emails and made hundreds of targeted phone calls. I researched FPDS and Spending.gov. I used those sources (and tricks I learned at various contracting events). I had a sales system and CRM tool. I established partners in industry and I visited small business offices in several locations within driving distance of me. I felt like surely a Deloitte, or CGI Federal, a Lockheed Martin, would be interested in subcontracting some entry level cyber security work to an established SDVOSB chomping at the bit to build a successful relationship with them. (They have subcontracting and set-aside goals built into their large enterprise contracts.) I even saw them looking for people with cyber skillsets in hiring ads in my town! The opportunities never came though. As a new government contractor, I felt manipulated and lied to. The most humiliating experience was when I drove 3 hours to do a site-survey for a bid at a VA hospital. I got there at my scheduled walk-through time and was forced to wait for 3 hours until someone could take me to the data closet. I decided while I was waiting that I would try to make an introduction to the local hospital Chief Information Security Officer. After all, at the highly encouraged St Louis conference that I spent a thousand plus bucks on, the VA Cyber group said they wanted to partner with industry! The CISO accepted my impromptu meeting suggestion, but spent the entirety of the meeting questioning why I was there and who I was, and how I got his contact info. (It was posted on the wall in a public hallway.) He literally berated me asking why I was asking about their cyber program. I told him I was there because I wanted to help the VA as a contractor. He told me they had internal people and didn't need my help. I left realizing that the VA was not on the same page as the Small Business Office. Once I did get someone to help me with the site-survey escort by the way, I found that the existing contractor was well liked, had been consistently good and it was made clear to me I had no shot to win the bid. Driving home dejected, earning ZERO dollars for my 12+ hour day, spending my last $40 bucks for gas to try and make the cyber posture at the VA stronger, I felt horrible. As a disabled veteran - having sat through all their contracting events and that was the treatment I got? We may be "contractors" but we are people. And we're making choices and sacrifices to try and improve the government. I was so disheartened. My optimism prevailed though, I dusted myself off and I registered in every subcontracting portal I could find. I posted on LinkedIn and built an absolutely great network of folks that are in the government contracting business for IT and Cyber. But I got no work. I was frustrated. I had real tech skills mind you. I wasn't just expecting to be a pass-thru. We could do the work and were already doing it for existing commercial business customers. Yet no one had anything for us in the federal space. Then the Death Knell came for me. The VETS 2 contract which we had been looking and driving toward was supposed to go live in March, then it got delayed to May. I had spent a ton of time and money calling on the government and Primes, so my sales pipeline was only federal work. I had leads on things and possible partnerships. I also bid on about 12 different contracts – several of which we were extremely qualified for. This was all to the detriment of my local commercial sales pipeline, mind you. I felt confident that if we stayed the course, we could get an opportunity to do some cyber auditing or network assessments and have a steady source of work for our team. Then the call came, my Prime Partner told me they'd received bad news – VETS 2 wasn't going to have any task orders for 2018. It was being protested. My whole previous 8-9 months of scraping by financially all with hopes to VETS 2 participation was for nothing. It was going to be close to a year until I even had a shot to bill some work – if I ever got any work. This decision by the VA was devastating – catastrophic maybe – for my service-disabled veteran owned small business. I honestly have to say I think from a small-business or start-up perspective you have little to no chance to compete in government contracting - set-asides or not. OSDBU won't tell you this, because they don't know. They only know "Certify. Certify. Certify." I know this because I went as high up as I could through several agencies. They all had basically the same talking points about getting certified, keep submitting, submit to pre-solicitations, etc. – and it's all great advice. What they don't realize is that when you take two business days submitting to a pre-solicitation bid, you're losing the time you could be billing a commercial customer. Revenue is the lifeblood of a business and without cash flow, you die. So working for free by responding to RFIs, RFQs and pre-solicitations starts to add up when you do it day after day and never actually win a contract. I've decided to write this post in hopes that folks at the VA and other agencies read it. If I couldn't make it work with established SDVOSBs friends for guidance, with attending every proposal writing course and small-business outreach I could find, with a SDVOSB set-aside, with an established Prime relationship, with healthcare industry expertise, with a top-15 education and more than 15 years as both an enlisted Marine and as an Officer, with industry certifications, with credentialed employees with clearances, with previous government past performance as an employee of a 10+ year government contractor, with participation in a Veteran-focused start-up incubator – I honestly feel with all the resources and advantages at my disposal, the fact that I could not even land a role as a cyber security subcontractor is alarming. The procurement system is truly broken. If I couldn't pull it off – who is? I hope the government will dig into the data and be real with young, fledgling contractors. Tell us you need a pile of money first. Tell us you need an "in" already. Be real. The past years where having a SDVOSB set-aside meant contracting success are over. If they would start those outreach sessions with – Step 1: Save $200,000 because it'll be 2+ years before you bill your first dollar, Step 2: "Certify, Certify, Certify" they would save a lot of wasted hours of people thinking that government contracting could help them achieve the American dream. TL;DR: Military Vet with industry experience, a network and connections, spent a year chasing government contracts thinking SDVOSB set-aside was going to help bring billable work. Should have saved a boat load of money before I started to have a shot at outlasting the bureaucracy & red tape. edit: Added spacing to this long wall of text - sorry! 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| What are the best books to read about start-ups in creative industries? Posted: 28 Jun 2018 01:11 PM PDT Not looking for anything massively specific at this stage, but UK-focused would be ideal! :) [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 28 Jun 2018 01:05 PM PDT Looking for one sharp entrepreneur to jump blind folded into a non existent business with a guy from Finland and another one from America. If you are interested PM me and I can tell you more about this. [link] [comments]  |
| Looking for a good and simple CRM Posted: 28 Jun 2018 12:58 AM PDT We are currently using Office 365 for our emails, and finding that a lot of our enquiries are getting missed or going astray due to multiple possible respondents, so I think it is time for a CRM. Office 365's Dynamic is way too expensive considering how we need something incredibly simple. Any recommendations? EDIT: Just realised I also need Outlook for Mac integration [link] [comments]  |
| New opportunity with restrictions Posted: 28 Jun 2018 12:48 PM PDT Hi All, I've been lurking here for years with the dream of always being an owner of something, being my own boss just like most of you on here. Well, it finally happened, turned 30 this year and left my job. Have a bit of money saved up and the timing is great to finally let go of all excuses and just get to work. I've been working the 9-5 since university and I just can't take it anymore, it's not for me. Luckily I have a super supportive and believing significant other that is willing to allow me take the time to pursue my dreams. Anyways, I'm developing this ecommerce site and the main source of my products actually come from different manufacturers. They are mostly in Japan, and one of them which is the company I've had my sights, we arebuilding a very good relationship already. The problem is that they want to work with me directly and focus on online sales in Canada only. If I accept, I will not be allowed to sell to retail or distributors but I will get products directly from them, increasing my margins a bit and a bit of exclusivity in my area and channel. It's a totally niche market and I don't see this type of products being focused on too much, it's more of an additional revenue item to most merchants but I want to be the first really focus on it 100% online. I want to be the first to offer an online presence that hosts the most variety of this type of product online and provide good knowledge to the public about it. If that's my goal, it wouldn't make sense to accept the conditions to sell online only in Canada right? I know where they are coming from and they actually want to help me out as they see a potential here, but they are limited by their current distribution channels that have been with them already and they don't want to confuse them or make it difficult setting prices in Canada. At the same time, they already have a sole distributor in the US which they can't part with. My question is should I just accept and continue, grow as much as I can in Canada before revisiting the terms with the manufacturer or should I ask them to also allow me to buy from US distributors separately so I can also cater to that market? If I am willing to put all this effort into growing this product in this market, I really don't want to lose the opportunity to other people if I'm going to pioneer this a little bit. So I ask you guys, what should I do? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 28 Jun 2018 12:45 PM PDT I've recently been feeling that eCommerce is turning into an absolute shit show and becoming massively over-saturated in practically any niche you can think of. Do any of you guys have any ideas or thoughts on businesses that are NOT based on eCommerce: (no private label, dropshipping, FBA, Shopify etc). It doesn't have to be a physical location or IRL business. It could be something internet/online-based such as copywriting or lead generation. TL;DR Physical or online based businesses that don't sell products. [link] [comments]  |
| Second cohort of Data-driven Startups graduate from the NetApp Excellerator Program Posted: 28 Jun 2018 12:00 PM PDT Cohort 3 — Call for applications open to startups till August 5, 2018 [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 28 Jun 2018 11:48 AM PDT Thought I had a killer idea a few weeks ago and did some research. Turns out it already exists (for the most part, conceptually), but not for the market I intended or main use. (Although my use is already advertised as a "side perk" kind of thing for the product). I still think its a great idea and has solid potential, but how do I go about using something that exists for a different purpose? I guess in essence I am asking is it possible to take something exclusively sold to businesses and sell it to consumers with a cosmetic sleeker/home-ier design without getting sued? [link] [comments]  |
| Do I need to trademark my logo for start up company Posted: 28 Jun 2018 08:01 AM PDT Hello, I haven't really thought of this but someone mentioned it to me with my startup company. I just created the logo for it and I was wondering if I needed to trademark it and if so how do I go about doing it. I'm about to start the process of getting the LLC so I was wondering if this logo needs trademarked first or even at all. Thank you Edit: oh and it's for my Ad Agency. The logo is the company's name with a small image inside the O part of my logo [link] [comments]  |
| Is there steps you always take before starting a new project? Posted: 28 Jun 2018 11:22 AM PDT Just wondering if there are certain steps you take before you start working on a project. I always create two documents, one which I flesh out the roadmap of what I want to achieve and when I need to achieve it by and the other the business plan where I outline who my customers are, what my costs will be, how much runway I have with just my personal savings, how do I attract customers etc. And then I also have a spreadsheet where I update it everyday as I develop the application (todo check-list), I'm a programmer. I would really like to hear how you guys start a project and the steps you take in the planning process of your endeavour. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 28 Jun 2018 11:03 AM PDT Hey guys. Does anyone here know of any simple business ideas that can generate consistent income? For example, driveway sealing and lawn aeration.... Me and my buddy were pretty close to starting that up this summer but bailed last minute. Are there similar business ideas that are like lawn aeration and driveway sealing? In the sense that once you have the equipment necessary, money will come in? As long as you put in the hours? Thanks a ton. [link] [comments]  |
| Seeking Feedback &/or Contributors - Dig3st Posted: 28 Jun 2018 10:42 AM PDT Hey everyone, I recently launched an MVP for a community-driven insights platform called Dig3st (Dig3st.com). I'm aiming for simplicity but would love any feedback you have to offer. MVP is currently on wordpress. Also, for anyone interested in contributing a "byt3" related to venture/crypto (or any other topic you prefer), I'm running a writing contest thru August 15th with a $300 bounty. I also make it a personal commitment to get each new contribution in front of at least 1000 people whether that be through Reddit, Twitter, Telegram, etc. Looking forward to hearing some insights. [link] [comments]  |
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