Thank you Thursday! - (January 03, 2019) Entrepreneur |
- Thank you Thursday! - (January 03, 2019)
- My founding story
- The Apparel Industry - How to get started
- How to bring an idea into production?
- Brand Strategy and the Importance of Positioning
- I have a restaurant that generates more than USD 600.000 a year. But 0 profit.
- So my wife and I pulled the trigger last year and started a little side business making wood signs. We made a few thousand dollars but I need some ideas in finding new markets.
- What do you listen to while you work?
- Here's the YC application that got me in the door
- Niche Instagram Accounts
- How many of you guys blog?
- There are a lot of bad mentors out there
- How can i setup a monthly subscription website
- For the B2B SaaS side hustlers, when do you add your company to your linkedin profile?
- Starting a new business
- Does anyone else care less about making money and more about creating a positive difference in people's lives?
- Started a new business but having trouble getting traffic
- Hiring a developer vs CTO for scalability
- So, in 11 months I purchased 40 rentals, here's how I located them and what I paid
- I'm worthless to the market
- When to bring in a CTO?
- Should I start my company even if I live in Venezuela?
- How much does it freaking cost to create a professional looking product video ad
- I have a list of +700 LGBTQ sports teams/organisations in 40 countries on six continents. I'm looking for some different ideas how to make this useful. I want whatever I do with this to be worthwhile. What would YOU do with this?
- Your Take On Customer Success In 2019
| Thank you Thursday! - (January 03, 2019) Posted: 03 Jan 2019 05:05 AM PST Your opportunity to thank the /r/Entrepreneur community by offering free stuff, contests, discounts, electronic courses, ebooks and the best deals you know of. Please consolidate such offers here! Since this thread can fill up quickly, consider sorting the comments by "new" (instead of "best" or "top") to see the newest posts. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 03 Jan 2019 10:51 AM PST I'm just an average dude from a middle class family in the midwest. While an undergrad in college in 2011 I bought a $3k cargo van on craigslist and started offering pickup and delivery storage services. The first year my partner and I acquired about 50 customers. We grew the business and expanded to a few schools each year and did a lot of the work ourselves. We didn't bring on any outside capital and fully bootstrapped the company. We slowly built processes and hired a team and took ourselves largely out of the equation. We eventually invested most of our profits into real estate development (self storage) and we now own two facilities and have two more projects in the pipeline. This past year (2018) we serviced over 10,000 customers and generated about $3M in revenue. I'm officially a millionaire before the age of 30. I could work as little as 2 hours a day from anywhere in the world and continue to out earn most lawyers for the rest of my life. I work a lot more because I love building and the adventure of it. I don't say this to brag. Its now my mission to convince other smart entrepreneurs to focus on service based businesses that you can start up with little money and little risk. You can generate real wealth and you can leverage it into other opportunities for even greater wealth down the road. In college I connected with a lot of other entrepreneurs and of the 20 or so people pursuing tech startups not a one succeeded. They all went and got real jobs. All of the richest people I know who are self made got started in sweaty and gritty businesses. Get out there and make it happen! Let me know if you have any questions for me! I want to help! Edit: I share my story and basically everything I've learned on my podcast and my blog. [link] [comments]  |
| The Apparel Industry - How to get started Posted: 03 Jan 2019 07:54 AM PST I have been asked a bunch of questions recently about the apparel industry so I thought I would write this to answer the basic question of "How to Get Started" with your own apparel line. Most people are saying they have an idea for a clothing line, a logo, a certain style they like, or a great graphic for a tee shirt. They then ask how do they get started. I am not trying to be a dream killer, but I have to be honest and say if you know nothing about the industry, it can easily become a bottomless pit of expenses from the amount of mistakes that are possible. There is a lot that goes into building a clothing line. Having an idea is a good start, but if I were you I would suggest trying to connect with a businesses in your area that is willing to talk to, or mentor someone. Even offer to do some part time work just to learn. I have spent time in factories all over Asia, dealt with small factories and small productions all the way to large state of the art factories and PO's in the millions of dollars. Everything that can go wrong does...all the time. Having a mentor can save you untold amounts of issues and money. It is worth trying to make connections and learn from people that have already made the mistakes. Having said that, here are the first few steps I have given out to others.
Once you have done steps 1 to 3, get the information to a professional in the industry to shoot holes in it, and then refine it. If you get to that point and still want to move forward with everything you have learned, the next step is a formal business plan to look at marketing, sales, operations and take your plan to the next level. Good Luck Everyone! [link] [comments]  |
| How to bring an idea into production? Posted: 03 Jan 2019 01:51 PM PST I've never tried to bring a product to market before, but I had a amazing idea a few days ago, done some research and no one is doing anything like this. I put a quick prototype together last night and it works great, I just picked up supplies to build a more refined prototype and it should be done this weekend. How do I do this without someone stealing my idea? Obviously I have to file a patent, but can I do that with my prototype? Would I be better off selling the patent to a big company or trying to find a manufacture to build it and ship it for me? I don't really have the time or space to deal with large amount of inventory, I run a business and work a day job as is. If I do sell the idea, I should work in some sort of royalty clause into it? Any other advice for going from prototype to retail would be great while I do my own research, thanks! [link] [comments]  |
| Brand Strategy and the Importance of Positioning Posted: 03 Jan 2019 11:22 AM PST I've worked in the brand strategy and marketing field for nearly a decade within corporate America… and honestly, I'm feeling a bit burnt out and unfulfilled. I'm grateful for the experience I've gained along the way, but in the past 6 months I've been doing a bit of free consulting on the side for a few solopreneurs and the experience has really helped me feel *alive* again professionally. I'd love to continue in that line of work and discover new opportunities for me to add value to people's lives with what I've learned. I'm currently exploring ways in which I can condense my knowledge into actionable steps to help people learn how to develop their brand strategy in an empowering way that ensures they'll get noticed. Let me know if I'm wrong here… but… One of the biggest challenges I've noticed in the small business world that the corporate world is dramatically less distracted by, is that in a world with so much marketing *noise*, entrepreneurs and SMBs are succumbing to the overwhelm on two fronts: #1 – They're feeling massively outpaced/outproduced by their competition and are entering the market without brand positioning (something that larger corporations spend tens – if not hundreds – of thousands of dollars and months developing). As a result, they get swept up in what *everyone else* is doing and attempt to mimic and copy them, and unfortunately get lost in the mix of everything else that sounds the same. *I won't discount that larger corporations typically do have the ability to leverage much larger budgets to cut through the noise as well – but they're laser-focused on adhering to their positioning and strategy throughout their campaigns. And #2, they're getting lost in the marketing *noise* that's promoting to them about the next "best" thing to do from a marketing tactical perspective (FB ads, Blog, YT, SEO, etc.). They, unfortunately, have no blueprint – no contextual strategy - to work from that will help them determine which tactic will be best for them to implement and when. So the program I'm looking to develop would seek to achieve 2 primary things: #1 – Teach people how to create and develop a unique strategy and positioning to help them stand out in the marketplace #2 – Demonstrate how to translate that strategy and positioning they've created into creative marketing executions For the business owners in the room – would you find any value in this? And if not, what would potentially make it more valuable to help you succeed? Thanks for your thoughts! [link] [comments]  |
| I have a restaurant that generates more than USD 600.000 a year. But 0 profit. Posted: 03 Jan 2019 01:23 PM PST |
| Posted: 03 Jan 2019 11:07 AM PST So it's been a really fun journey actually starting something and learning from our mistakes and actually making a little bit of money. For the longest time our only income was Etsy but at the end of the year we had a few little christmas boutiques and in the 3 we had we made more than we had on Etsy the rest of the year. So my question is, other than looking for more boutiques and maybe craft shows I wanted to see if you guys had any ideas for a unique market that maybe I'm not thinking of. I've seen some people make nice home sold signs for realtors and some signs for shops but I thought I'd tap into Reddit and see what you guys could think of. Thanks in advance guys. [link] [comments]  |
| What do you listen to while you work? Posted: 03 Jan 2019 01:16 PM PST Looking to get 2x productivity by listening to a podcast/audiobook Not sure if this will be to mentally intensive, but would like to hear ideas. Thanks! [link] [comments]  |
| Here's the YC application that got me in the door Posted: 03 Jan 2019 12:50 PM PST Here is the YC App that got me an interview. I didn't get accepted. Here is the reason YC gave following the interview:
I was at a bar in Mountain View hoping for a phone call1, but saw this email instead. It was rough, but not "give me tequila" rough. I tried to not get my hopes up, but I got my hopes up. Once I got the invite for the interview, I badly wanted to get into YC. When I arrived for the interview, I was "nervous talking" with some of the other applicants and it was clear they were way further along than I was. Most had other actual people working with them on their insane scheme. I had yet to convince any other insane people to work with me. The rejection reason was generic and unhelpful. I had only started the company2 a few months before and it seemed to early to judge it by our current growth. Most people would not have launched yet considering the state of the product, but I wanted to start a feedback loop with real people. I posted this because I applied to YC on a whim. I still had a full time job and had thrown together the company2 over a weekend a few months before applying. I'm sure there are more people like me who are on the verge of building something great, but think "I have a mortgage", "I have kids", "I have a stable job" and never take the leap. I have those things and this is a gentle nudge3. You can do this. A few months after being passed on by YC, I got accepted to Techstars NYC. YC is prestigious, but going thru TS with just 12 companies was intimate. I also live close to NY, so it was a better program for me and my family. This post is by no means a declaration to quit your job and start a company this instant, but I do encourage you to be less critical of yourself and put your ideas in front of others. I've had a ton a fun4 building our company and if you are a similar breed of nerd, you will too. I had the incorrect notion that it was different type of person (e.g. early 20's, graduated from Stanford, sort of genius) that built startups, but that's not always the case. If you feel the itch and have the means to do it, do it. 1 - YC calls you if you get in or emails if you don't get in. I had a flight booked for late that night hoping I'd be able to cancel it, but instead had to hurry to catch it. 2 - There was no company when I applied, just an idea and a little revenue 3 - I had a bit in savings before starting the company, which is one of the reason it was easy to start a company. It would have been hard to start the company without this. 4 - I have an unusual idea of fun. What I find fun may not be fun to you. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 03 Jan 2019 12:35 PM PST I have a niche Instagram account (faith-based) that I've grown to 12k followers with good engagement (~700 likes/ ~15 comments/ ~75 saves/ ~50 shares per post). I recently noticed that 2 other faith-based accounts are no longer active. They haven't posted in well over a year. They were once very active in the community and have a similar number of followers (15k each) with good engagement. I was thinking of reaching out to these account owners and see if they'd be willing to sell their account. I wanted to get input/advice on how I can take advantage of potentially owning these accounts. I really don't want to manage 3 different accounts. I'd prefer to grow my current account by utilizing these account's followers. I know you can't transfer followers over but what's the best way to do this? There might not be but thought I'd ask and see if someone has done something similar. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 03 Jan 2019 08:01 AM PST |
| There are a lot of bad mentors out there Posted: 03 Jan 2019 08:00 AM PST People who have had success and think they know it all. They live in a delusional world that their ego has created. You should fire these mentors immediately. How do you spot them? They tell you what to do. They make your to do list. They put you to work. They invest in your company off the bat or ask to join your board. They try to sell you something. They brag a lot about themselves. They talk often about their accomplishments and their wins. They make up facts to support their opinions. Fire these mentors. Get them out of your life immediately. Look for the mentors that ask the right questions. That don't tell you what to do but help you frame your thought process around the facts and how to get to those facts. They use logic. They listen. They don't brag. They use concepts and frameworks to tear problems down to simpler parts and analyze them for what they are. They don't directly answer your questions but they help you learn how to think about things and find the answers yourself. [link] [comments]  |
| How can i setup a monthly subscription website Posted: 03 Jan 2019 10:48 AM PST So im looking to start up my first business. Its a fitness related subscription business where you get a new workout daily. I already have loads of people interested so that's not the problem. I'm Trying to figure out how/which website is best/capable of setting up a monthly reoccurring tap for a subscription service. I wont need to physically ship anything as its all handled through email. Thanks for any insight! [link] [comments]  |
| For the B2B SaaS side hustlers, when do you add your company to your linkedin profile? Posted: 03 Jan 2019 02:12 PM PST I currently work in corporate, and will start getting customer feedback on our MVP in the next month. Do you think business execs would potentially dismiss our product due to no linkedin social proof? I am boot strapping for now, while still working my fulltime job. I take my personal laptop to work during lunch, and then work in the evenings. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 03 Jan 2019 02:03 PM PST I have some questions about starting a store. 1. How much does it cost (on average) to get a business license for going into retail? 2. How much does it cost to start up a website for selling and shipping products? 3. How much does it cost to rent retail space (on average) in a moderate sized city? 4. What are the laws for a minor owning a business/having a business license? If anyone can answer any/all of these questions it would be greatly appreciated. If you have any further questions please feel free to ask. Thanks in advance! [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 03 Jan 2019 01:33 PM PST Of course making money is important. Everyone has bills to pay. But lately I am losing interest in the idea of just "making money" for the purpose of being rich. I really would rather genuinely help people by creating some sort of product or service that improves their lives. Is anyone else like this? And are there any groups out there specifically for entrepreneurs that want to create positive change, not just make money for money's sake? [link] [comments]  |
| Started a new business but having trouble getting traffic Posted: 03 Jan 2019 01:31 PM PST I started a Korean skincare ecommerce business but I'm having trouble getting traffic. Any tips and/or advice? I tried giveaways, and IG influencers so far but it doesn't seem to be working. [link] [comments]  |
| Hiring a developer vs CTO for scalability Posted: 03 Jan 2019 01:24 PM PST i recently posted a thread and it raised this question. While many were suggesting i outsource to a developer to build my MVP, how will this affect me scalability? Im not saying it will happen, but id want the possibility of scaling the app (and subsequent website, brand etc.) to as far as it could, whether thats a value of 1p or 1 billion, would outsourcing allow this kind of scalability? [link] [comments]  |
| So, in 11 months I purchased 40 rentals, here's how I located them and what I paid Posted: 03 Jan 2019 01:13 PM PST I've been buying investment properties for a little over 5 years now. Within a 11 month timespan I nearly doubled the number of rentals i owned while increasing my bottom line a great deal. It was a bit more than I can handle so from early 18 till now I've only purchased two apartments and two laundromats while I get caught up on this whirlwind of property buying. Here's the video : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AaiiecbFCNY [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 03 Jan 2019 01:07 PM PST No skills, no talents, and not smart. This is more or less a rant but also a serious problem I want to talk about. I know with the title and first sentence this looks like a pity party. Honestly it kind of is since I'm not making the best decision to do something about this rather than complain to entrepreneurs. However, I do want to learn from others in my field or see what this is like from another's point of view. That title wasn't an exaggeration I seriously have no talents, no skills, and I'm not knowledgeable about anything. I do have a passion but I can't really fulfill it yet since that passion is travel and adventure and I'm a high school student who lives with his parents in a poor family. I'm an entrepreneur who's working on my first investments which are my current 2 companies, but it's only happening since I have help. Plus I've never left my country or state. I've never had an actual adventure besides going in the forest as a child. I know that talents are natural while skills can be learned and knowledge can be obtained. I have a little bit of shiny object syndrome when it comes to business. You know whatever makes $10k a month or millions or whatever it is. Just something to get money in the bank. I'm starting to loose that mentality and develop a skill, and I'm aware that mastering a skill or learning something requires practice, patience, and education. Some might even say a slight interest, but that's not always true in most cases. But in my scenario I feel that I'm wasting my time and running out before it's time for me to graduate since I'm a senior. I know this is all my fault for being an idiot and overthinking everything, but I want to change this I know I will need a lucrative and valuable skill or type of knowledge set to survive in this world. I'm just super fucked up to be honest I don't really know what I'm doing but if you met me in real life you'd think I'm doing great and everything's peachy because I'm good at faking that. I'm just so tired of living this way, I'm not too sure why i ended up posting this. But fuck it I'm done with this stuff even though I feel useless I refuse to let this be the final result I must figure things out and quickly because time won't be kind to me at all if I go on this way. Acting so foolishly. Well I guess at this point I just want your guys perspective on the situation or really anything at all, this is just a post after all. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 03 Jan 2019 08:22 AM PST I have learnt a rudemental amount of Java and such to allow me to code my Android application. It is fairly basic, and is useable. However, I want someone who knows more than me to make it more efficient, update it so it looks better and works better. I would also expect them to lead the future features I have planned which are more complex. I will be dealing with developing revenue streams, branding and so on isn't the mean time, which is crucial as the app is a new advertising platform/source for brands. Should I bring in a CTO to improve the prototype into a solid MVP, or should I try and outsource/hire someone (possibly a friend) to reach MVP level but not bring them on as a CTO? I would then find a CTO after the MVP is out. How would hiring a CTO at each of these stages affect the equity I give them? I would prefer (obviously) to keep a sizeable portion of the equity, at least 55 percent, though if the app grows to what I expect, this would eventually have to be diluted for any funding rounds we might reach. Is 55 percent fair? [link] [comments]  |
| Should I start my company even if I live in Venezuela? Posted: 03 Jan 2019 12:05 PM PST My brother and I spent the last months designing an app wich can be uses to order food, it works kinda like Uber but with deliveries. The problem is that here in Venezuela starting a company is very hard bacause of the inflation and lack of public services. Should we do it? And if we should can you give us some advise? [link] [comments]  |
| How much does it freaking cost to create a professional looking product video ad Posted: 03 Jan 2019 11:15 AM PST Every online entrepreneur I have spoke with, especially those in e-commerce, has stressed the importance of utilizing 'video' ads. But when I think of 'video' ads, I immediately think of 'highly professional' and 'big budget' and I get immediately overwhelmed because I don't have a giant budget like the big, established companies do. So what do I do? So I was wondering - is there a more cheaper route into hiring someone who can create a video ad that displays/uses my product and highlights the benefits on it? I'm guessing it's going to cost me at least a couple thousand dollars but of course, I can be wrong.. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 03 Jan 2019 11:12 AM PST Background: After going to an international LGBT sports competition last year and seeing how many teams were struggling to market themselves, I wondered if this was specific to that sport or a greater problem with LGBT sports teams. LGBT sports teams have a few different challenges in how to position themselves, promoting their team/ethos, and attracting new members. As I had some time off in 2018, I used that time to pull together a comprehensive list of LGBT sports teams/organisations from around the world (+700 teams/clubs in ~40 countries). I have brainstormed ideas of what to do with this list, but none that gave me an "a-ha!" moment (as in would be sustainable, efficacious, and worthwhile). How do YOU think this could be put to good use? Some key points: - The list has the team/club name, full contact information (including contact email addresses, websites, social media links, etc.) - While 40 countries may not sound like a lot, they are on every populated continent - All the teams/clubs listed are current/up to date - Other directories I have found online tend to be specific to a city, a country (such as the US, UK, FR, etc.); only a few other websites span multiple countries (such as the EU) but those tend to require clubs to be a member to be listed on such sites, meaning they are not comprehensive. A few sports have multi-country/global listings, but that is the exception. Many existing directory sites are woefully out of date. I'm just after other perspectives and ideas that may not have come across my radar. [link] [comments]  |
| Your Take On Customer Success In 2019 Posted: 03 Jan 2019 11:06 AM PST I was talking with my team about how we can improve our customer success strategies in 2019 and it got me thinking -- how far along are other companies with integrating CS across teams. I put together this short survey to get your responses and plan to share the results later this month. Would you mind giving an honest assessment? [link] [comments]  |
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