NooB Monday! - (February 04, 2019) Entrepreneur |
- NooB Monday! - (February 04, 2019)
- An ad with World-Record Egg on Instagram could cost $10M
- Be frugal where it doesn't matter so you can invest where it does
- How My Amazon FBA Product FAILED BADLY
- Good Copy is Expensive - But "Cheap" Copy is More Expensive. - A Look at One of the Most Common Problems A New Business Owner Has.
- When do you cut your losses?
- What were some businesses that benefited from the 2008 recession?
- How to know whether you're entrepreneur material
- Discord group with 134 members and counting!
- Friend trying to start business in Kenya...citizenship and patriation questions
- 15 year old, dying because I’m waiting to turn 18 to start my business.
- What is a simple product that is mediocre and needs to be made better?
- What was your first business?
- Business owners - do you find yourself sifting through dozens, if not hundreds of resumes every day just to find the right person for the job?
- fashion bloggers - am i out of line here?
- I want to consider partnering with someone on a Shopify store I started. let's just say I'm someone more so on the vision side of things
- What promo materials do you place in your shipped packages?
- Royalty Loans
- Facebook Marketing Question (Pages & Groups)
- Sales multiples
- Need Suggestions On How To Grow A Community On Discord.
- A University Is interested In Licensing My Platform.
- How to start a recruiting company
- Manufacturer help
- How to find CPG wholesale distributors? Looking to buy bulk cheetos & oreos among other things :)
| NooB Monday! - (February 04, 2019) Posted: 04 Feb 2019 05:07 AM PST Please use this thread to ask any newbie questions. We do this to not overflow the subreddit with newbie questions, so please try to limit the questions 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]  |
| An ad with World-Record Egg on Instagram could cost $10M Posted: 04 Feb 2019 04:44 AM PST Hulu was the first company to do a deal with World-Record Egg. Now the Egg has a Hulu tv show. The people behind the Instagram account struck gold [link] [comments]  |
| Be frugal where it doesn't matter so you can invest where it does Posted: 04 Feb 2019 07:04 AM PST Run a lean business and you will have a huge advantage in the long run. Buy your vehicles and equipment used. Avoid splurging on meals and entertainment. Avoid an expensive office by working remotely or using a co-working space month to month. Outsource non essential tasks vs hiring internally. Keep your monthly overhead as low as possible and flexible so you can manage your expenses if things change. When purchasing anything ask yourself - is there a way to spend less money on this and get the same return for the business? If there is then do it. Don't fall victim to lifestyle creep. As your income rises keep your expenses steady so you have more funds to invest when opportunities present themselves. Don't finance the new Audi after a few profitable months. Don't buy the house with the extra bedroom you don't need. Learn more by checking out my podcast The Sweaty Startup. [link] [comments]  |
| How My Amazon FBA Product FAILED BADLY Posted: 04 Feb 2019 11:36 AM PST Here is my Amazon fail story. Selling on Amazon is definitely not as easy as all the guru's make it look. Hopefully this will prevent people from jumping in right away. I used to sell these magnetic drawing boards on Amazon. So these drawing boards have these little markers that you can use to stamp the board. I knew these were small parts and could be a risk. So after a bit of research, I found out I had to put a warning label on the product:
So no problem I figured. I contacted my supplier that he needed to add this warning label to the packaging and I would be good to go. So the product was selling fine, and I was in my 4th order. I could finally put in some large orders ( around 5k units ), and things were looking great. It was at this time that the forwarder told me that my shipment was being inspected. Now the real horror starts.
How is it possible that I missed this? I had a picture of a kid <3 years on the packaging and that is why they caught me. I felt horrible. I tried to email back and forward with the customs for months that the product targeted to kids 3+ years. I mean I had the warning sticker on it, right? They sticked to their point and I never received the shipment. I lost all the products in that container: $15,000 lost with FBA right away. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 04 Feb 2019 12:29 PM PST First off, anyone who is unsure of exactly what a copywriter does, or why they can command a high fee, please read my post from a few days ago. So you've just started a business. You're not a designer or a writer, so you pay some people to get it done for you relatively quickly and inexpensively. You look over the site design, it's what you want. Copy on the site looks fine, too, shouldn't be any problems. Right? Dead wrong. The copy on your site is about to lose you business. Let me explain. When you take a look at a website as a consumer, it might look fine. "Yeah, I'd be interested," you might say, and move on from there. When you look at that same site as a business owner, you should be able to see a lot of things that a consumer doesn't.
If your landing page doesn't have all of these things, you are going to lose money. Full stop. Even if your website brings in some clients, let's take a look at how you're losing money with shoddy copy. We'll make up an imaginary business here. Let's say we're selling toothbrushes. So, you pay somewhere between $50 and $100 for your landing page copy. Pretty standard as far as the cheaper side of things goes. Our website gets a thousand hits a day, and sees sales of about 5% on a $5 product, so we're making $250 a day. Boom, profitville. We're already making money on our site after just one day. Easy peasy. However, this also means that 95% of visitors aren't convinced. That's $4,750 in sales getting away from you every single day. So, what do we do? Pay the guy another $100 to redo things and hope it works out? If that level of copy is netting you a 5% conversion rate, why on earth would you pay someone else at that level to write you new copy? But, inevitably, it will happen. You'll test a few different people out and that $250/day will grind itself out with few problems. You may even be able to double your conversions after a few renditions and be making even more money. So, some simple math here: 250 * 30 = 7,500. Minus $100 for the initial copy, we won't even add in the costs of the website or the rewrites in here. So, you're looking at a revenue of $7,400 for the first month, and $7,500 thereafter. Let's look again. This time with the more expensive, higher quality copy. This time, we talk to a copywriter who has a fair bit of experience. We get quoted sales copy at somewhere between $500 to $1,000. Let's even go on the higher side at $1,000 firm. So, we pay the guy $1,000 to do our copy. It takes a two weeks. Holy SHIT, man. Two weeks for some damn words? Yes, two weeks (sometimes longer). Good copy takes time to write, and it shouldn't be rushed. After the wait, we throw the copy up on our site and start selling. Now, pretty much every good copywriter can tell you the types of metrics they have come to expect from their work. Let's say this particular guy expects a 15% conversion rate in our niche, and that he falls short and you're only getting 10%. Back to some simple math. 100 conversions a day at $5 each = $500 a day. 500 * 15 = $7500 (because the copy took 2 weeks, right?). So, the number turns out the same. Actually, it's lower, because we spent $1000, so we're sitting at $6500 for the month. What the hell man, I thought this was supposed to be less expensive? This fucking guy clearly doesn't know what he's talking about - paying 10 times the price for copy that's only twice as effective is stupid, right? Well, you won't have to pay for rewrites or editing of any kind, so there's that. But then, you realize that the copy lasts forever, and is expected to make you $15k/month instead of $7.5k. That sounds like way, way more money to me. That's a straight profit increase of 100% month to month. So in order to increase your traffic further, you hire that same guy to do SEO for you (because if you can't do SEO, you can't write good copy, period) every month and your traffic (eventually) doubles. Traffic doubles, revenue doubles. Simple math, right? One last point on the subject: Hiring a budget writer to begin with might sound like a great idea, then you can pay an experienced copywriter more later. But by that time, tens of thousands of potential customers may have turned away. A couple of things to note:Low prices are undoubtedly attractive. Prices do not always denote quality of work, but good copywriters usually know what they are worth. When I say you're going to lose money, it's because the low-budget writers are not writing conversion-driven copy, and you are losing money by not getting those conversions. So take a breath, think for awhile. You might not have a huge budget to begin with, but a lot of good copywriters (like me, for example) will work with you on a payment plan if you're a small business and are just starting out. Invest in yourself, and in your future. For the love of God, get a good copywriter to help you succeed. Now for the traditional plug: Lol, no plug. Just trying to get some information out there. Also, I know a good copywriter if you need one, I guess. Reposted on account of /u/vontwothree and /u/-Photoshop- letting me know it read like an advertisement, not at all what I was going for. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 03 Feb 2019 10:31 PM PST Hey there, I think I have a serious case of sunken cost fallacy and I don't know if I should just kill my entire store or try one last time. I will try and be as brief as possible with what happened. This is for products that are in the $200-$350 price range. -Started store In October and spent countless building the foundation of the business. Everything from product SKU spreadsheets, creating a beautiful site, finding suppliers etc -November I hired an ad agency to take care of ads so I can focus on my main business. Ad agency was extremely poor and I ended up having to do most of the heavy lifting. Ad creation, copy writing, ad strategy ect. -December I tried stepping back to let them do their thing, as they ran ads to work up to BFCM, they told me everything I wanted to hear. It was a complete failure and they were unable to achieve a single ROI. -January I told them to stop all ads so I can try on my own. Got some sales but still was not profitable. Seems to be possible to make the site work but it's extremely competitive. The ad agency spent $9k USD with zero sales and I spent another $1.5k and made 1k gross sales, so around $500 or so net. So basically I'm down 10k USD (I'm from Canada) and I don't know if I should try one last time as the tax return season can be really hot for my niche. I was thinking about giving myself another 1k budget to try as I've already invested so much. Is this a dumb idea as I'm already way into the negatives? I can also focus on my primary business which would most likely create a more profitable outcome, but at the same time I was building a brand for the other store. Any advice or comments is greatly appreciated. Been stressing hard and I just can't decide on killing my baby. [link] [comments]  |
| What were some businesses that benefited from the 2008 recession? Posted: 04 Feb 2019 12:56 PM PST |
| How to know whether you're entrepreneur material Posted: 04 Feb 2019 03:46 AM PST Hey guys. I have two questions. I ran a real estate and travel business for a couple of years. It was my baby and I thought it was going to become big. It didn't. It got to the point where it was like flogging a dead horse. That point when you should shut down the business but you don't. Eventually, I did. I've always felt that even if one is employed, they shouldn't depend on it 100%. But I recently read an article that said we cant all be entrepreneurs. Who's going to be employed in those businesses if we're all entrepreneurs? My first question is, how do you know whether you are or are not cut out to be an entrepreneur? I enjoyed running a business but it was also heartbreaking when it failed. Perhaps I'm not cut out to be one. Secondly, when is the right time to start a new business when you've already failed at one? I have a business idea that's low cost to start but I have lots of doubts. I'd appreciate all the advice that I can get. Thank you. [link] [comments]  |
| Discord group with 134 members and counting! Posted: 04 Feb 2019 01:56 PM PST Hey all, A couple of months a go I posted an ad here advertising the launch of this Discord and we saw a lot of interest in it. I'm back to push it further to try and build our member count and encourage further conversation amongst entrepreneurs from all niches. We have several channels to cater for all and can create more if we see demand. Feel free to join here: https://discord.gg/nSWnUsM [link] [comments]  |
| Friend trying to start business in Kenya...citizenship and patriation questions Posted: 04 Feb 2019 01:52 PM PST My buddy is an American citizen but has lived in Kenya his whole life. He has a great business idea he wants to start there, but it will cost him about $10,000 to get citizenship and start a business as a citizen. If he does not get citizenship he will be paying a few thousand dollars a year to run the business as a non-citizen, which is naturally prohibitive. Either one is a huge hurdle because $10,000 is a lot of money in Kenya. The business is a service business for tourists. If 100% of his proceeds are coming from tourists and they are paying online, is there a possibility for him to incorporate the business in the U.S. and just deliver the service in Kenya? Not have to make it an African business? I apologize that I don't know how to word the question better. I'm just trying to think of ways he can get going without the huge initial barrier of citizenship costs. [link] [comments]  |
| 15 year old, dying because I’m waiting to turn 18 to start my business. Posted: 04 Feb 2019 01:48 PM PST Seriously, ever since I was 13, I've been waiting to turn 18 so I can start my ideas. I live in an unpopulated area on an unpopulated street so it's very hard for me to start anything local. I want to start an e-commerce business and get mentored, but I have no money. I want to start getting money, but I can't drive. Help. [link] [comments]  |
| What is a simple product that is mediocre and needs to be made better? Posted: 04 Feb 2019 01:43 PM PST Yeti coolers was founded in 2006 and before then coolers kind of sucked and didnt keep food/beverages cold for long periods of time. Yeti developed a cooler that worked much better and did a great job at marketing their simple product. What is another product that needs to be improved besides coolers? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 04 Feb 2019 09:56 AM PST Additional Questions: 1) How old were you when you started it? 2) Was it successful? 3) Why was/wasn't it? 4) How many tries did it take before you finally became good at what you were doing? 5) What was your biggest takeaway from the experience? 6) What was your biggest "I don't ever want anyone to know I messed up this bad" mistake? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 04 Feb 2019 01:30 PM PST What do you do to solve that problem? Is it such a big pain point to where you have to have dedicated HR/resume reviewers to do the job of sifting/picking out the resumes that would be the most ideal candidates for your job posting? I used to work at a startup where we would get hundreds of resumes a day. Unfortunately, we didn't have the man-power to get through all of them so it would sometimes take up to 2-3 weeks to get back to a candidate (I know, not the best thing to do). And I was wondering if others here have similar pain points. What have you done to deal with the issue? [link] [comments]  |
| fashion bloggers - am i out of line here? Posted: 04 Feb 2019 01:15 PM PST for those of you who work with fashion bloggers, i had a strange situation arise today: in my initial email to this girl (after SHE had contacted me to work with me), i told her i'd send her 4 items for free in exchange for a certain amount of promotion. i told her to let me know if there were any items in particular she liked and i would TRY TO INCLUDE THEM (i can't always include exactly what they want for various reasons). i substituted two items: 1 because it was the last one in stock so there's absolutely no point in sending her the last one to promote. and the second was a maxi dress that was a pre-order (so 3 weeks out to make and ship, and this is specified on the website - she had 100+ dresses to choose from & chose one of 6 that is a pre-order item), so i substituted for a similar maxi dress that i had in stock. she actually had the gall to email me and complain, and ask to exchange the 2 items. i told her to just send the entire promotional package back & i will work with a different blogger. this girl is getting over $200 in product for free in exchange for a blog post and a couple of pictures on instagram, and it honestly isn't worth my time to go back & forth with her figuring out what items she wants to exchange for & dealing with postage costs. she has a decent following that is local to me, but nothing huge. i have never had a "fashion influencer" act so entitled before. or is this a normal thing where i should be sending exactly what they choose and I'M the one out of line here? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 04 Feb 2019 12:34 PM PST So I would need someone that is like the other half of the coin. So we can be like a well-rounded team, a whole. (Or I can become the other half of the coin myself) All I'm going to say is I somewhat want to capitalize on sleeping. And this idea or business endeavor is not like my grand vision of things I want to do as an entrepreneur, just a start. I somewhat need a voice of reason type of partner. I understand the concept of pushing yourself. Like being your own parent and discipline yourself. I am not asking anyone to hold my hand, so please don't get me wrong. I just believe it is smart to consider a partner who picks up where you lack. And I understand the need to prove my worth. but hmm I don't think I really place myself into my vision for things, of like how I will achieve these goals. I'm just trying to put things in place to make it happen but I'm not doing that practically. Also, I'm not saying I want the world to be easier, I'm not complaining here. I'm probably being a bit naive thinking it will be easy to get a partner like this(my logic is why not?).i'm trying to get out of my comfort zone here. anyways, if you wish to start a Shopify store with me let me know. I have already begun, I'm doing the 14 day trial but I already bought a domain for the store and transfer it over. and I do have an idea for a marketing plan and for like the brand I had in mind. plus like a general business plan. but its all in my head. lastly, I'm 21 and male. and I'm just trying to learn by doing and gaining experience so I know what needs to be done and what's best to do. To get things done. I will keep this post up for a day, We can discuss things related to this post below, such as co-founders and talk about like entrepreneurial "vision", like if its a good thing or bad thing. And I appreciate you all for taking the time to read this post. [link] [comments]  |
| What promo materials do you place in your shipped packages? Posted: 04 Feb 2019 12:23 PM PST I'm running an online apparel company and I've been trying to think through creative low-cost ideas of what I can place inside our shipping bags. What do place inside your packages when you ship your products? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 04 Feb 2019 12:09 PM PST Do royalty loans get paid back only using the percentage or dollar amount agreed upon, or is that on top of a normal monthly loan payment? Example: Investor A gives me a $100 loan with a royalty of $1/unit. In the first month I sell 10 units. Do I only pay him $10 or do I also make a monthly loan payment? Such as, perhaps we agreed the loan would need to be paid back within 6 months, so a monthly payment would be $16.67. So this month I would pay him $26.67? [link] [comments]  |
| Facebook Marketing Question (Pages & Groups) Posted: 04 Feb 2019 12:00 PM PST hi everyone, i have a Facebook group, and a Facebook page. i have been able to link the page i manage, with the group i manage. it seems as if i can only add pages that i manage myself to the group through the "link page" function. what i cannot seem to do, is link someone else's business page to my group. i would like to introduce their business pages to the group, so when they post their local promos the post can show their page as the poster, and not the manager of the page. i don't think there is any way to actually do this, Google seems to only answer the linking of managed pages. i guess if i approve the post of manager of each respective business i have in the group would work, but want to avoid doing that if i can. if anyone has any experience with running a Facebook group for local promotions, advertisements, and marketing it would be nice to talk one-on-one about your experiences and advice. i'll even Venmo you for a lunch, or something for an hour or two of your time! thanks :) [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 04 Feb 2019 11:47 AM PST What's the highest sales multiple you'd consider paying for a debt-free highly profitable company and why? I'm negotiating the purchase of a business (that I know intimately and already partially manage) and my partners are nervous about paying over a 3x multiple. The owner hoped to sell around 4.5 sales which is obviously unusual and optimistic. I'm proposing offering 3x sales with earn outs up to 3.5x-4x sales depending on our growth over the next few years. We are unique in our industry, possibly the most profitable company in our industry nationally with several guaranteed growth tailwinds in the next few years. [link] [comments]  |
| Need Suggestions On How To Grow A Community On Discord. Posted: 04 Feb 2019 11:41 AM PST Currently in the process of growing a community on Discord that relates to social influencers and overall social media growth. I need some help/suggestions on how to potentially grow this thing. Not very many people are familiar with Discord yet unless they're in the gaming community. I was thinking maybe partnerships with some influencers and maybe subreddits. Not sure how to approach them though with only having 140+ people in the group. I do believe this group will bring a lot of value in the long run. Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated. I will drop the link below if any of you are interested in something like this or could potentially offer some suggestions on how the group is currently structured. (not trying to promote, just need honest suggestions) Thanks! https://discord.io/influencersociety [link] [comments]  |
| A University Is interested In Licensing My Platform. Posted: 04 Feb 2019 04:06 AM PST Hello, I have made a platform that lets students find tutors online using chatbots that work on telegram and FB messenger. Basically tutors can be online and offline at anytime they want. students can post pictures or write down the kind of help they need and it will be sent to these online tutors. Once tutors accept, they will be directed to our online whiteboard that works on any device, with audio and video feed. I was showcasing my idea to the public in a "innovator exhibition" when I was approached by a university that was interested in implementing this platform locally (into their student portal website) and they asked us to think of a number ($) so that they can start with some kind of a license deal with us. I have never done any kind of deal before, I do not know how much I should ask, or how do I come about to figure out a number. I have never thought about the possibility of licensing the platform to an educational institute. I appreciate any kind of guidance, thank you very much! [link] [comments]  |
| How to start a recruiting company Posted: 04 Feb 2019 11:37 AM PST Ok so I'm currently an engineer at a very large company. The company does not allow employees to have any side business that will create a conflict of interest, understandably. I want to start a recruiting company that finds and places engineers in my industry. I don't want to quit my job, but I also can't pursue this while working at the company as it would create a conflict, i.e. placing industry talent elsewhere. How should I go about this? Do you think the company would see it as a conflict if it did not interfere with my daily work and I ONLY recruited for them, not pulling talent to other companies? Would they even consider letting a new small company recruit for them? Thanks! [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 04 Feb 2019 11:19 AM PST I need to find a manufacturer who can make crayons with custom labels. I have tried some directories (ThomasNet, Kompass, etc) but haven't been able to find what I'm looking for. Most of the "manufacturers" I have come across are really resellers or dropshippers. Long shot but does anyone have any suggestions? Based on my research I think I will likely need to use an overseas manufacturer but would prefer a domestic one. [link] [comments]  |
| How to find CPG wholesale distributors? Looking to buy bulk cheetos & oreos among other things :) Posted: 04 Feb 2019 11:01 AM PST How do I find the people that supply OTC med, and snacks to these brick and mortar chains? I've spent hours on google and have gotten nowhere. I'm looking to source product for a roll out across the SE (TN, NC). Costco sucks pricing wise, and I've got the ability to spend $100k to start so hopefully order size isn't the issue. All I can find is various online forms of costco that have mediocre pricing [link] [comments]  |
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