NooB Monday! - (March 25, 2019) Entrepreneur |
- NooB Monday! - (March 25, 2019)
- Free Tool - How I replaced a $500/mo Saas with a Google Sheet and some Python code
- How I overcame my biggest hurdle? Me and my ego.
- Graduating with “Entrepreneurship” business degree from johnson and wales university... did I just waste 4 years and $100,000?
- Why is it so tempting to hire friends/family?
- Starting a warehouse fullfillment business.
- Is paypal not letting you send money by the Standard (free) method any more?
- How to write the perfect cold email that won't be deleted
- Sharing my idea product to everyone
- $19k/mo selling emu oil.
- Software developement is undervalued in my (3rd world) country
- How do I handle a demand for reparations after the death of a dog on my watch?
- Artist with no Business sense - in over my head
- Platforms that provides a high volume of sales for sellers?
- [Help] Looking for guidance on planning out a local delivery route and determining a delivery person's capacity.
- Learning how set up figurine (collectible PVC toys) business
- Looking for a good custom sock company... any suggestions?
- Non-technical co-founder with 2 recent hires in "tech." How to optimize?
- Any contractors on here?
- Interviewing for COO role
- MSB Liquidity Loans
- Do you worry about competition?
- Garments manufacturers that print DTG in London, UK?
- Books and Education for starting out
- Don't hide behind social media or email - pick up the telephone.
| NooB Monday! - (March 25, 2019) Posted: 25 Mar 2019 06:15 AM PDT If you don't have enough comment karma here's where we can help. Everyone starts somewhere and to post in /r/Entrepreneur this is the best place. Subscribers please understand these are new posters and not familiar with our sub. Newcomers welcome! Be sure to vote on things that help you. Search the sub a bit before you post. The answers may already be 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]  |
| Free Tool - How I replaced a $500/mo Saas with a Google Sheet and some Python code Posted: 25 Mar 2019 06:34 AM PDT Monitoring social media and the web in real time is very useful whether you are doing marketing/PR for yourself or clients, the problem is that a lot of the software out there is extremely overpriced for what it does and that makes it out of reach for a lot of noobs. Mention for example runs $600+/mo for custom mentions and filtering A lot of people on r/Entrepreneur are just starting out and can't afford these quality tools, making it a chicken and egg type of scenario, you can't make money because you don't have tools but you can't afford the tools because you don't have money, so I figured I would open source my personal web monitoring tool Web Succ and help you out https://renaissancetroll.com/webb-succ-social-media-tool/ I've always liked the 80/20 rule and this tool is an example. It doesn't have all the features but it does the main stuff, which is collecting data and displaying it using a Google Sheet. Some use cases:
Right now I'm working on making things more user friendly for non-technical users and adding more filtering options as well as sentiment analysis. If you have any suggestions for features feel free to post them If anyone thinks of some interesting use cases and wants to write about it I'd be willing to link to your site/blog post in an examples/resources section on the quickstart page. [link] [comments]  |
| How I overcame my biggest hurdle? Me and my ego. Posted: 24 Mar 2019 07:56 PM PDT I own and operate a $1.2mil marketing company, own a new $300k small clinic and I am building an SAAS product. I have a small family, decent home, car etc. I started working for myself in my 20s. I would try do everything in my business and fit every role. I would feel burnt out ever two years. I had an unhealthy ego and inflated sense of self worth. At 34 I nearly lost my marriage, however, luckily I killed my ego instead. You see, 1 year ago I started seeing a psychologist to help with my anxiety, stress, my ego, my arrogance and fear of failure. My business would regularly decline in conjunction with the decline of my mental health and this impacted my total quarterly net profits, my attitude and my family. Over a few months, my psychologist helped me learn the importance of taking proper holidays, taking business less seriously and my health more seriously, splitting work and life, and importantly helped me understand that it's ok to quit or be defeated. The greatest mindset I learned was to trust people and rely on others, even if I get burned by people. Funnily, a combination of these things let me see how unhealthy I was and how I was limiting the growth of my own businesses and the comprising the integrity of my marriage. My advice: Seek advice from a medically certified psychologist and share your struggles with them openly. Mental health has a negative stigma that is generally perpetuated by ignorance, low income demographics and a lack of education. You are not crazy in seeking professional medical mental health advice. Furthermore it is perfectly normal for highly successful people to speak with professionals regarding concerns and feelings. If you are like me and rely on your brain and state of mind to make money and support your family, then getting a check up regularly will be a very helpful. Regular checkups will aid you in keeping your mind well serviced to ensure years of continued success, profitability and happiness. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 24 Mar 2019 07:54 PM PDT |
| Why is it so tempting to hire friends/family? Posted: 25 Mar 2019 07:34 AM PDT It's an age old problem, but the real quandary is: You can provide opportunity, and friends and family may be in need, how do you deal with this situation? How dissuade them from wanting to work with/for you? Thank you for your input. Edit: Thank you all for the input! Much appreciated. [link] [comments]  |
| Starting a warehouse fullfillment business. Posted: 25 Mar 2019 12:52 PM PDT Hi Everyone, hoping someone could lead me in the right direction. I have a 5000 sq ft warehouse in a popular local hub looking to start a fullfillment business to ship/package products for various industries. Any tips on leads or suggestions (like joining a existing fullfillment service). Thank you all very much. [link] [comments]  |
| Is paypal not letting you send money by the Standard (free) method any more? Posted: 25 Mar 2019 12:44 PM PDT The option appears on my screen, but it's not leeting me select it. edit I found a workaround, go to www.paypal.com/wdfunds [link] [comments]  |
| How to write the perfect cold email that won't be deleted Posted: 25 Mar 2019 09:10 AM PDT We get a ton of cold emails in our inbox, most of them we insta-delete because even the subject line is terrible and spammy. Often for the terrible ones we sometimes do open them just to see what the copy looks like - it's disgusting. You can tell they're not even trying, maybe they're going for the law of averages if I spam enough people I'll get a response. It's useful though to look at crappy cold emails because the things that you viscerally dislike about them will guide you on what not to do, and make you think about why you would ever read a cold email, let alone why you would ever respond to one in the first place. It takes some thought and a bit of trial and error but by doing so you'll be ahead of most people if our inbox is anything to go by. Get to the pointThis is the most important point. I don't care about you and I have limited time and many more emails to get to. That's the hostile environment your email is headed into. Therefore don't babble endlessly, your email should be short and sharp. A good rule of thumb is for it take one minute or less to read, maybe three short paragraphs at most in the body of the email. If you're writing a novel I'm deleting it. You have to make the email as easy to read as possible, you should be able to skim read it and get the point. Longer emails are for when people are invested in you and therefore willing to make the effort, this is an introductory email - always remember that. Some examples of what not to dohttps://realtimecrm.co.uk/img/marketing/cold-email-1.png Looking at the above example in the inbox of our MD Jamie that's not too bad, right? It's short and sharp but there's a very obvious way they've shot themselves in the foot. You should always personalise your emails to the person you're sending them to, there's nothing worse than a generic email with 'Dear Sir or Madam'. You're probably thinking that they have personalised it congratulating Jamie on his new role at RealtimeCRM, the problem is this email was sent about two weeks ago. Jamie's been in his "new role" for over six months. All it takes a little bit of research on the person to find useful information that'll help you. The worst thing you can do is not do your homework and send an email that has no relevance to the person you're sending it to, maybe there is a person in their organisation who would be interested but you wouldn't know that because you didn't look them up. Also at the bottom of the above example there was an unsubscribe link - so this definitely was a generic mass hit email and there was no attempt made to disguise that fact. So Jamie's on an email list somewhere that he didn't sign up to. That's the sentiment reached at the end of reading that email - not great. https://realtimecrm.co.uk/img/marketing/cold-email-2.png Firstly, the scare quotes around our name. Why? The next bit to note is the list of customers that we've blocked out but looking them up - totally different to what we do and then the big block of text in the middle there, has no relevance to us at all. There's no value there for us at all, many sales teams may rely heavily on outbound sales tactics but we don't care, most of our marketing is inbound and we go into great deal on our blog on what we do on this front. it's so obvious this is a generic block of text and no attempt has been made to find value they can provide specifically to us. Don't do what that email did, don't be vague. Instead, be relevant and specific. Subject linesWhen it comes to subject lines once again getting to the point and demonstrating relevance we've found works best. If you're trying to guest post on a site then put in guest post and the title of your submission into the subject line. Just make sure you're not sending it to the guy in admin but the lady in charge of their blog. Another way is to do your research and congratulate the person you're sending the email to on something they achieved recently or their company did. People love to be congratulated, it's a very quick and easy way to get them to just open the email. That's the goal of the subject line - get them to open the email. So to summarise your subject line should be short, sharp and be relevant to the prospect personally or to what they do, their job role. It's not complicated why would you open an email that obviously has no relevance to you? Whatever you do don't be bland and generic. Give them valuehttps://realtimecrm.co.uk/img/marketing/google-cloud-email.png We've already mentioned this before but it needs to be reiterated and backed up so you get it. Without this your email has no meat. The example above is an actual email we sent to an editor of the Google Cloud blog which resulted in us guest posting: How RealtimeCRM built a business card reader using Machine Learning The traffic we get from that referral converts at 5%. It's hugely valuable to us but getting your foot in the door at Google is not easy. They're a giant and they're not going to waste their time on anyone or anything if there's nothing in it for them. So the first thing we did was our research. We know why we want to post on their blog because its Google, for SEO purposes and for the exposure giving a behind the scenes look at us to a much bigger audience. But what could we offer Google in return? Well they have these awesome API's that allow you to integrate machine learning functionality into your products, we built our business card reader using them. So that's where the eureka moment came in as to how we provide value. We would not only be a case study for a real world example of using their APIs to do something useful but we'd give away the script so that others could use the Google Cloud APIs do build their own business card readers or whatever twist on it they want. There's the compelling value that we provided to them, and it worked we got a response and the rest is history. You have to apply the same process to your prospect and craft your email to get that value across to them. The other component is knowing who you're sending the email to. In this case we referenced a post by the editor we were emailing written on the Google Cloud blog, the post itself revolved around machine learning with a business application - exactly what we were proposing in our guest post. So we're demonstrating that we know this is something they're interested in and we know how they write about it. We're making it as easy as possible for them. Next, we provide some relevant proof to back up our call to action, in this case links to other articles we've written so they can check our writing style is suitable for them and then we've got a call to action which is very easy to complete, for the editor to let us know if they're interested. Your call to action should be obvious and not require a ton of effort. Remember, don't be too pushy but be explicit about the value you're going to provide them. Lastly, it's usually a good idea to acknowledge them and thank them for taking the time to look at your email - people are busy just acknowledge that. It's a really nice touch to end things with. Check it overRead your email back and if it's annoying, feels overlong or waffly, doesn't get to the point and provide value then redo it. If you can get someone else to look it over as well - do that, over time you'll get better at this and you'll be able to make judgement calls on what works or not yourself. A great rule of thumb when you're starting out is to not remake the wheel but learn from others who know what they're talking about with real life examples. Take advantage of their experience. To that end check out Dmitry Dragilev from Criminally Prolific and his amazing post 26 cold email examples broken down to help you write your own - it goes over how to personalise and spark interest for a bunch of different value propositions and also how not to violate CAN SPAM laws when sending your cold email which we have not covered here. Final thoughtsIt's really simple make the email about the prospect not about you. Before you even write anything down think about what they would gain from reading and responding to your email, if you can crystalise that into an awesome email you're almost there. Too many people always look at things from their point of view only and then are surprised when they get no response. Don't be one of those people. [link] [comments]  |
| Sharing my idea product to everyone Posted: 25 Mar 2019 10:05 AM PDT Hi all, I thought it might be best to get feedback from users about my project. Have you got feedback to provide. Receipts are generally hard to handle and maintaining purchases, so I thought of solving this issue with this product. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 25 Mar 2019 09:15 AM PDT Hey - Pat from StarterStory.com here with another interview. Today's interview is with Carole Rains of Emu Joy, a brand that sells emu oil based skincare. Some stats:
Hello! Who are you and what business did you start?Hi, I'm Carole Rains, the founder of Emu Joy. My product line features 100% natural products for skin, hair, muscles, and joints based on a unique ingredient: emu oil. Emu oil is a highly penetrating oil that's full of moisturizing and anti-inflammatory benefits. It comes from a thick pad of fat on the back of the emu bird, which looks a bit like an ostrich. It's useful for everyone from babies with diaper rash to grandmas with arthritis, as well as many other conditions for folks of all ages. Like many of you reading this, I had never heard of emu oil. Then one day while reading a home decor blog for my other business, Rustic Artistry, the blogger wrote an entire post about how much she loved emu oil, and how well it had worked for her eczema and joint pain. I was intrigued, so I started to investigate. After studying the research and reading everything I could find about emu oil, not only did I decide to use it myself, I also wanted more people to know about it so it could help them too. Seeing photos and reading about little babies with eczema sealed the deal for me. If there was a way to help them that their parents didn't know about, I wanted to get the word out. The result: I created Emu Joy as a source for reliable information and safe, natural products. I've now shipped more than 50,000 bottles, jars, and tubes of emu oil products, and the customer feedback makes me know starting this business was a good decision. Hearing from a mom who said "I got my little boy back" after the rash cream banished his eczema is what keeps me working hard to grow the business. What's your backstory and how did you come up with the idea?While the most common gender and age for ecommerce entrepreneurs seem to be males in their 30s, I started my business as a woman in her 50s. Leading up to that I had worked for 17 years in pharmaceutical advertising and marketing, followed by 17 years as a chef. Eventually, I wanted more flexibility of my time and decided to try out creating an online store. At the time there were a couple of resources that helped me get my store up and running. Steve Chou's blog My Wife Quit Her Job was full of tutorials and extensive information on ecommerce. Andrew Youderian, founder of Ecommerce Fuel, had published an e-course on how to start an ecommerce business that laid out the process step by step, including things like opening a business bank account and credit card, getting an LLC, and setting up a website. Having a list of boxes to check off was exactly what I needed to turn the idea into a reality. I've been lucky to get to know those two in person and now see them several times a year at the ecommerce conferences that each of them hold. I bootstrapped the business with some savings that I had, putting $5,000 into my business checking account to get started. Since then I've been able to fund the business from revenue, with only a few times where I had to take a "loan" from my personal checking account for a few weeks to pay for inventory. Take us through the process of designing, prototyping, and manufacturing your first product.When choosing a supplier for my products I reviewed the online information on several emu farms in the US and spoke with the owners. It was important to me that my emu oil be certified by the American Emu Association so that I could ensure its purity and quality. My other criteria were that all the ingredients in the combination products be only natural. I found the supplier I wanted to work with based on the quality of the ingredients they used and the way they care for their emus, but they weren't particularly interested, having had a bad experience in the past with private labeling for another seller. Just as I was about to sign a contract with my second choice supplier, the owner got in touch and said they'd decided to take a chance on me. Once that was established I brainstormed names for the brand and the individual products. I wrote the text for the labels myself, which was much harder than I had expected, knowing that I needed to get it just right before they were printed. I then worked with a graphic designer to have the logo and labels designed. Having worked for so many years in advertising I was very involved in suggesting and selecting fonts, adjusting spacing, and overall design, which was a lot of fun. Holding my first batch of finished products in my hands was one of the most exciting days of my life. Describe the process of launching the business.Emu Joy is my second online store, which I developed after learning the ropes through my first website, rusticartistry.com. That site sells custom furniture and home decor which can be quite expensive, so sales were sporadic. I wanted a business that would have daily sales and an emu oil line of products fit those criteria. Originally the business was called Emu Bliss, and the products were available only on Amazon so that I could test the market. When sales started to take off on that platform I added a Shopify site. I also applied for a trademark for Emu Bliss. Then the trouble came. My trademark application was opposed by a very large company called Bliss. They had a fancy NY law firm handling the filing against my Emu Bliss name, and very deep pockets, so there was no way I would be able to fight the case. Just when I had finally started to get some brand recognition I had to change my company name. That involved a getting a new logo, printing new labels, removing existing product from the Amazon warehouse and relabelling, and updating all the email campaigns, advertising, social media accounts, bank accounts, etc. Plus it was like having to change the name of your child when they're two years old. Fortunately the new name of Emu Joy was well received by my customers, and in the end it didn't hurt the business. But it certainly took up a lot of time that could have been spent moving the business forward. Since launch, what has worked to attract and retain customers?Emu Joy's sales are more than 90% on Amazon. There's a steep learning curve to sell on Amazon but once you get used to how the platform works it's easy to make changes to listings, set up shipments to the warehouse and track sales. One of the most important parts of a successful listing is the images, and not just having a top notch main image. Smart sellers use additional images as mini ads, with lots of callouts, specs and other information that tells the product story. I found an excellent graphic designer through FreeeUp to create my informational images. Because I have my brand name trademarked I was able to enroll in Brand Registry. This entitles me to include Enhanced Brand Content, which allows for more images and content in the product description section instead of just all text, as well as the option to create a Store Page that's like a complete brochure for the brand. Keyword research is critical in order to write effective listings and to use for PPC campaigns. It's fascinating pull the reports and see the phrases people use to search for products on Amazon. There are a number of providers who have excellent software to manage Amazon PPC campaigns, especially PPC Scope and Sellics. Of course, selling on Amazon is both good and bad. It's great to have a source for endless traffic, but it's always dangerous to be dependent on one platform, especially one as challenging as Amazon. Even when you run your business ethically and play by all the rules, there are issues that come up on Amazon that are completely out of your control as a seller. I don't know of a single Amazon seller that hasn't had a product, or even their entire account, shut down by Amazon for something they didn't do. I'd like to increase wholesale sales, and was happy to be approached by The Grommet, which is a shopping platform that features makers and small businesses with intriguing products. That starts soon, so hopefully, that will go well, and also drive customers to my own site. Another way I've grown my customer base is by looking for small, underserved niches that my products are good for. I have Google alerts set up for "emu oil" and often find articles that lead me to new uses. Some of the best information I get is by patient forums for specific conditions. This shows me the exact language patients use and problems they are experiencing. Based on this information I have made combinations of my products into kits that are targeted to these conditions, such as a Cancer Care Pack and a Soothe My Lichen Sclerosis Kit. I have information pages in the Learning Center section of the website to address various conditions such as piercing and tattoo aftercare, burns and eczema. Those have been successful at driving Google search traffic to my site. How are you doing today and what does the future look like?I'm proud to say that Emu Joy is a profitable business. After watching many episodes of The Profit on TV I know that that is often not the case. I attribute my tight control on my finances to the special system of allocating funds that I now use. Emu Joy's finances are organized using multiple checking accounts based on the method laid out in the book Profit First. With this system all revenue comes into one account, then twice a month it gets distributed in percentages to accounts specifically for Inventory, Operating Expenses, Taxes, Owners Pay and Profit. Once a quarter I take out a portion of the deposits made into the Profit account and celebrate. The idea is that a business owner should be able to enjoy the fruits of their labor. My bookkeeper, Cyndi Thomas of Bookskeep, just published a new version of the book: Profit First for Ecommerce Sellers, which lays out all the steps specifically tailored to ecomm folks. Since implementing Profit First I have a much better grasp on where my business stands financially at any given time and am able to take advantage of seasonal bumps in sales. Through starting the business, have you learned anything particularly helpful or advantageous?I've learned that the key to a successful business is relationships. Whether it's with my suppliers, customers, freelancers or fellow ecommerce entrepreneurs, developing a mutually beneficial relationship makes everything go more smoothly and efficiently, and makes going to work each day a pleasure. It's OK if you don't know what all those acronyms mean when you start. I was clueless about what PPC, CPC, SEO, LTV, ACOS and the rest of them stood for, but it's possible to teach yourself about all of it, even if you don't become an expert in every area. Mostly it's important to believe in yourself. Having attended multiple Tony Robbins events, where I walked over 40 feet of glowing hot coals and climbed to the top of a 50-foot telephone pole before jumping off towards a trapeze (we were harnessed!), I know that I can do anything I set my mind to. When I hit a bump in the road I remind myself that literally every business experiences that, and sometimes the mistakes and setbacks are the greatest learning opportunities. What platform/tools do you use for your business?Emu Joy is hosted on Shopify using a custom theme that was developed by Smart Marketer, Ezra Firestone's ecommerce training site. My landing pages are designed using Zipify app, also developed by Ezra's team. Email marketing is done with Klaviyo which has excellent segmentation capabilities. What have been the most influential books, podcasts, or other resources?Without a doubt the most important resource for me is my membership in the Ecommerce Fuel private forum. These brilliant ecommerce entrepreneurs keep me up to date on the latest developments and are generous with their time and expertise whenever I have a question. My favorite podcasts are Danny McMillan's Seller Sessions, and Mike Jackness and Dave Bryant's Ecom Crew. Advice for other entrepreneurs who want to get started or are just starting out?It doesn't matter what age you are when you start as long as you go in with an open mind and entrepreneurial spirit. Read blogs and books on starting an ecommerce business. Check out Facebook groups for beginner sellers to get an idea of the kinds of issues they experience.. Get on the email lists of the top marketers and attend their webinars. And remember that perfect is the enemy of done. You can fiddle with your website forever to make improvements but that first sale won't happen unless you push go. Where can we go to learn more?If you have any questions or comments, drop a comment below! Liked this text interview? Check out the full interview with photos, tools, books, and other data. Interested in sharing your own story? Send me a PM [link] [comments]  |
| Software developement is undervalued in my (3rd world) country Posted: 25 Mar 2019 09:22 AM PDT Hello r/Entrepreneur first time posting here. apologies if this is not allowed and will gladly take this down if so. Anyways, so we are a group of young engineers introduced in the starup world. we are trying to get local clients. sadly, softwares are waaaaay undervalued here. anything beyond ~$1000 for a fairly complicated system is expensive and not worthing investing. so no choice but to take shit projects to get us through hoping to resell in the future. however, this, to us, has been a rather unsustainable journey. We love what we do, no doubt about it. We are passionate about our small companybas well but it just doesnt py the bills. With this, we'd like to get some recommendations. Perhaps a way to join a bigger team of developers overseas is an option? But where do we find that? Or maybe connect with someone here who are looking for devs and could work something out? Any tips for us as a business is also well appreciated. thanks in advance :) [link] [comments]  |
| How do I handle a demand for reparations after the death of a dog on my watch? Posted: 25 Mar 2019 06:43 AM PDT I have been a full-time dog sitter for the past 7 years. Business has been great. I have regulars and great reviews. There have never been any serious incidents... until a few weeks ago. I received a request from a new client with a small poodle. I always ask 2 screening questions, one of them is "Would your dog be okay in a yard with a 4' ft chain link fence without any risk of jumping over?". Her response was: "Yes, that'll be fine. I don't think she'd try to jump." The client showed up for drop-off, I walked them over to the yard so her dog could run around, we chatted for a bit and then she left. Not five minutes later, this tiny dog jumped over the fence and bolted. We chased her for over an hour but unfortunately, she was hit by a car and died. The aftermath was incredibly disheartening. I cried, they cried, it was awful. At no point did they get angry with me, in fact they texted me the next day to thank me for working so hard to try to catch her and for the sincere empathy. Last week she texted me to say that she thinks it would be appropriate for us to provide monetary compensation to go towards the purchase of a new dog and for their pain/suffering. I wasn't completely opposed to this. I asked her for a number and she suggested $900-$1,000. Now, my first instinct was to insist that was way too much especially considering we were not completely at fault. However, the client has the ability, at ANY time, to leave me a review on the website where I receive all of my bookings. If she were to do that, my business would be buried (I make about $8k-$12k a year). In the same turn, she could still leave a bad review even if we did pay her the entire amount. A friend suggested we send her a NDA which I think is pretty intense. Another suggested I offer half now and try to delay the other half for a few months or longer to hold off any retaliation but I'm not sure what good that would do. Not sure if this is the right sub, but does anyone have any useful input? [link] [comments]  |
| Artist with no Business sense - in over my head Posted: 25 Mar 2019 10:21 AM PDT So I am new to Reddit and don't necessarily know all of the etiquette here, but I am hoping nobody is going to report me for bumbling my way through life. In 2009, a friend of mine told me she was getting married and couldn't afford a photographer, so I volunteered to take pictures. Borrowed 2 DSLRs, and read through a photography textbook in the weeks leading up to it, had a great time playing photographer and decided to keep playing with cameras. Started getting more skills, took pics for gf's little sister and her friends' graduation for free. Then requests started pouring in. I decided to start asking for money. $50 here and there. $100 when families started asking for pics, they would always give me cash. Wanting to look more professional, I made a really crappy Wordpress website, printed flyers, business cards, pricing info sheets, etc. When another friend asked me to photograph her wedding in 2012, remembering all the work it was last time, I asked for more money, and designed my first album. People liked it and I got more wedding requests, so I watched some wedding photographer boot camp program and brushed up. Things have been going pretty great, I have photographed about 25 weddings now and have had nothing but compliments every time. A friend works for a fundraising company (501c3) and says they really need a photographer to cover a big event, she recommends me to her boss, Boss and I talk about working together on the phone and agree on a price and all the details. Later, via email, she requests a W9 and an invoice. And that's when I realized that I have been ignoring pretty much all the legal parts of running a business. Flashback to 2011, my girlfriend at the time, who would photograph with me quite often, paid some company to form an LLC for us. I didn't do any of the research or fill any forms, we got a packet in the mail, and to this day I don't think it's been opened (not sure if I could find it or not). That tax season (April 2012) I went to a licensed tax person, and she wasn't very kind - kept demanding forms and logs, and all sorts of things that I had never heard of, and getting very annoyed when I didn't have them on hand. I got back $300 that year as opposed to $1200 the previous season. April 2012 I used TurboTax again and my refund went back up. Oh forgot to mention I live in Florida. So here begins my plea for advice. It seems like there are so many services that all want to take a bite out of small-business' profits. I want to know what's necessary, what's worth considering, and what is a scam. It has seemed so easy to just avoid all of the B.S. of bureaucracy so far *sigh* Do I have to pay every year to keep my LLC status? When? On the same date each year, or on December 31st, or another arbitrary date? Can I send an official government form in with $, or am I better off paying some company to do it? Any good experiences with a company that automates it, so it feels more like a subscription fee than a yearly chore? Where do I start learning how much to tax/what to tax, when/how do I submit my tax payments to the IRS? Also, I have heard varying information on whether photographers have to charge tax for services, or just physical goods, what's a reliable source for that info. Insurance. How much, what kind, worth it, any favorite companies? Ever had to use it, any funny stories? My first experience was not great with a CPA. Where can I learn simple bookkeeping skills so that when I show up to do taxes, I don't have zero of the 15 forms that they ask for. Related: A friend of mine has been paying me to help his (fully legit) photography company. He recently asked if I want him to send me a 1099 form at the end of the year, or if I would preferred to invoice him through my company for each payment. I have no idea what this means. Is he reporting the payment to the IRS on his end, and they are going to see if it matches up on my end? If so, how do I report it? I feel so far over my head, not even sure if I'm asking the right questions. I understand that some commenters will mock, and scold me. I'm fine with that, just try to include something helpful please. [link] [comments]  |
| Platforms that provides a high volume of sales for sellers? Posted: 25 Mar 2019 01:48 PM PDT I was wondering if anyone knew of a selling point for that has high volume of sales for sellers. Currently my biggest volume is on Tophatter, but I was wondering if anyone knew of another platform like that(Auction site) that would allow me to reach more people. Or would anyone suggest me building a website to drive traffic for my product? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 25 Mar 2019 01:41 PM PDT I am working on a business that will require same-day delivery of a product in a localized area (NYC). It's a weekly subscription, so the product would be picked up from the distributor in the morning and delivered to customers throughout the day, but only one day each week. I've explored outsourcing the delivery to something like Deliv, but the economics aren't there. I'm now considering hiring a part-time delivery person/team and having them pick up the products from the distributor in the morning and make the deliveries throughout the day. I am also considering starting with a limited geographic area (e.g. just Manhattan between 59th and 96th streets) and growing from there. This would allow me to focus both my advertising and my deliveries. Does anyone have any advice or guidance on how to gauge the capacity of a delivery person? How many deliveries can they make per hour. How many blocks can one team cover? Any other suggestions or thoughts? I'm at a loss as to how to even start estimating something like this. Thanks! [link] [comments]  |
| Learning how set up figurine (collectible PVC toys) business Posted: 25 Mar 2019 09:54 AM PDT Hi everyone, I was wondering if any of you have experience with toy manufacturing. I need some guidance on how to take my 3d toy models and turn them into figurines, I.e. collectible PVC toys, for gum ball machines and promo stuff. I have 3d models ready for print, a soon to be protected brand and product, and LLC. My question is really on the manufacturing and distribution side. Should I forge ahead with companies on Alibaba for are there US based companies that are turn-key and affordable for startup folks like me? And do any of you have suggestions for companies to consider? Thanks in advance!! [link] [comments]  |
| Looking for a good custom sock company... any suggestions? Posted: 25 Mar 2019 01:38 PM PDT So I did a Google search and there seem to be a ton of companies weaving/printing custom socks, but I don't know which would be best to do business with. I've gotten a few quotes and it seems that https://custom.sockclub.com/ is the most professional of all the companies I've talked to. Just wanted to ask if anyone had any input here? Anything I should look out for etc? [link] [comments]  |
| Non-technical co-founder with 2 recent hires in "tech." How to optimize? Posted: 25 Mar 2019 01:25 PM PDT I'll keep this is as concise as possible. Please let me know if i can give any further details. Context: My background is not tech. I have an MBA in supply chain management and did operations in the military along with a few other roles in marketing and law in NYC. I've been working on an app that tracks data in real-time with one other (also non-technical) co-founder for about a year. We're about to get our code back from our developers that we hired to create our vision. Since we're getting close to a viable MVP, we will cut ties with our dev agency and run with who we brought internally. With the new hires (for equity) 2 of them are "tech" and hopefully complement each other in the long-run. Concern: Both of the people we brought on are coders/software engineers, but both do things a little differently. We haven't declared anyone to be a CTO or anything yet as we're trying to see how the pieces fall. Once we get the code (this week) and they have the ability to sort through it and implement the changes we'll need to adapt prior to a soft launch, I want to be sure i'm best utilizing them to their capacities without an overlap on work. My thought was to create a spreadsheet that highlighted all of the "tech or "IT" functions that will be critical moving forward and have them tell me where they best think they fit. I also want to be sure i'm not missing any key areas that i'm probably overlooking. For example (employee 1): Task ---------------------------Own---------------Support-----------------Unfamiliar Architecture------------------ X System testing ------------------------------------- X Data Structures------------- X Info. Analysis ----------------------------------------------------------------------- X ETC ETC If i did something like that, i'd be able to tell that Employee 1 is able to own the tasks of app architecture and data structures while being able to support another team member in systems testing. This also highlights that we have an area that she is unfamiliar with. Ideally comparing this between both employees will leave no holes or highlight where i'll need to bring on further support. Questions:
Thank you for your time! [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 25 Mar 2019 09:09 AM PDT Just curious as to how most of you guys who run your own show do your marketing? and which you've had the most success with. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 25 Mar 2019 12:43 PM PDT If this is not the appropriate subreddit to place, can someone please point where I should post this. I am interviewing for a COO position at an established tech company (12 years of operations, ~25 people). I am curious to know what sorts of questions I should be asking the company in order for me to do my due diligence. I haven't been in industry for half a decade and I want to make sure I'm going about this correctly. edit: originally called them a startup (my own words). Changed it to "company". Also for clarity and simplicity. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 25 Mar 2019 12:40 PM PDT I'm currently an ATM operator and I'm looking to expand in a mall deal. I'm really having trouble finding a bank or credit union that:
2 Offer a business loan that would fit my business structure. Anyone else in the MSB business had growing pains? What were your solutions? Thanks. [link] [comments]  |
| Do you worry about competition? Posted: 25 Mar 2019 12:30 PM PDT I certaintly do. While I understand that it is important to have competition to become better. It cannot stop stressing me out. Is there a way to finally find peace with it, meaning working hard to be better but without losing sleep over it. [link] [comments]  |
| Garments manufacturers that print DTG in London, UK? Posted: 25 Mar 2019 11:52 AM PDT Hi, I'm a 25 years old lad that a little less than a year ago has started POD for a streetwear brand in London. After a good amount of grinding and investing in SEO I've realised that the overall revenue coming from it isn't the best I can aim for and hence I'm looking to move production locally in order to save on shipping and to raise value from the locally printed factor. Is there anyone here that fulfils garments (t-shirts, long sleeves, sweatshirts) and that prints on them with DTG technique on front, back, inside label and both sleeves? Also, is there anyone here which is in the same industry and has had a similar shift that could please suggest how to do this smoothly ? Thanks in advance! [link] [comments]  |
| Books and Education for starting out Posted: 25 Mar 2019 11:51 AM PDT Hello, I'm in my early 20's living in Canada. I've never been completely clear on whether or not a formal education/certification is necessary to start a business (restaurant industry in particular) and I have been looking into enrolling in online business education, online because I work full time already. Is this a reccomended step? Or do most skip the education and learn through experience? Are there any free alternatives? On a side note I'm wondering about any good texts on Canadian small business out there that are up to date and relevant? Looking for recommendations. Thank you! [link] [comments]  |
| Don't hide behind social media or email - pick up the telephone. Posted: 25 Mar 2019 11:49 AM PDT Whilst the age of the electronic communication is clearly upon us and all businesses have had to adapt to the myriad of outlets, websites, platforms, apps and forums that now exist there is one sales tool that has survived the test of time - the telephone. The telephone remains a fantastic weapon in the arsenal of a salesperson yet I find I am meeting more and more salespeople who show an alarming reluctance to pick it up. They'll happily spend hours trawling through LinkedIn or other similar sites for people to contact, they'll Like, Comment and Share others posts across social media and they will willingly send an email to someone they like they look of but there is a definite reluctance emerging when it comes to the telephone. Anyone who has ever had to do telesales as part of their work will know it can be a hard slog. Getting past the Receptionist or PA is one challenge and then you only really have a minute or two to get the attention of the target when you do get through - and even then many will say no without really listening to what you have to say. But it's part and parcel of selling. You have to get stuck in, you have to roll your sleeves up and remain absolutely determined. You have to disregard the knock-backs and try them again on a different day. Engaging with a human is, without doubt, an essential element of prospecting for new clients and it is vital if your objective is to make an appointment to visit your target. Now, I fully accept the role social media and electronic messages have to play in the life of a salesperson but they should be avoided as the initial method of contact in a B2B environment. That said, I thoroughly endorse a well written email that is sent before a sales call is made as it gives a nice conversation starter. I spend a good deal of time around underperforming sales teams to analyse and report to company owners where and why things are going wrong. One of the first areas of any sales process I will investigate is the telephone call data of the salespeople and there is, without doubt, a trend away from time spent at a desk hitting the phones. There's lots of excuses from the sales teams about why they don't make that many calls and whilst some have some logic, the majority are just irritating excuses. Time and time again the top performing people in a sales team are the ones who are constantly on the telephone, often making 100+ calls on days when they are in the office. They also hate missing an incoming call and book out segments of their working week for filling their diaries in the weeks ahead. Conversely, the underperforming people are nearly always the ones with the excuses and poor call data. Telephone calls are the fuel to the sales machine - if you don't keep fuelling the machine then sooner or later it is going to stop. What's more frustrating is the telephone is the best method of getting your opening pitch across, if provides the opportunity to address any reservations a prospect has and gives the opportunity to find out so much more information than any electronic message can ever do. If you're one of the salespeople that does everything possible to avoid making cold calls to potential clients then give yourself a kick up the backside and stop trying to kid yourself that you can be a success without getting on the phone. Sales takes lots of hard work and the best salespeople are real grafters that let little stand in their way - follow these guys, pick up the phone and get that diary filled and the rewards will soon become obvious. [link] [comments]  |
| You are subscribed to email updates from Entrepreneur. To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google, 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, United States | |
No comments:
Post a Comment