Marketplace Tuesday! (June 11, 2019) Entrepreneur |
- Marketplace Tuesday! (June 11, 2019)
- Almost tricked myself (again) into starting an unprofitable business
- How much would you pay for this laundromat? What's the best way to value purchase price?
- [UPDATE] Any freelancers looking to team up to create a super team?
- The Greatest thing I've Heard
- WOW - My Product was featured on a Netflix TV series, and I just got Commissioned for another Stan TV Series in production - Can I use screenshots in Ads?
- For the Serial Entrepreneurs: Motivation
- Does anyone who's ever launched an app have any useful out-of-the-box marketing tips for getting the word out before launch?
- Telling the team that I'm not going to work 100% with our Startup, need some advice.
- 1,000 Emails Sent |9 Deals Closed | 48 Hrs | Here Is How I Dit It...
- Creating a business around mindfullness
- Best place to find a mentor
- Procrastinating - Multitasking
- If you had to choose 3 reason as to why your business failed, what are they?
- REGISTERING A U.S. COMPANY TO DO BUSINESS IN CANADA
- Advice for purchasing my first ATM
- Daily Routine
- What would YOU do if you had 3 million followers?(Instagram)
- Dropshipping from alibaba to B2B customers
- Any Entrepreneur who wants to be my mentor for the program Erasmus for young Entrepreneurs?
- Has Google AdWords been worth it to you?
- Hi everyone! Any experience with e commerce?
- Confused about LLC's/OA's - Need to do an operating agreement for business I am about to join
- An amazing thing came out of what I thought was going to suck. Now I am finally doing what I have been wanting to do for the last couple of years!
- Did you ever go into some debt while starting up your business?
| Marketplace Tuesday! (June 11, 2019) Posted: 11 Jun 2019 06:12 AM PDT Please use this thread to post any Jobs that you're looking to fill (including interns), or services you're looking to render to other members. We do this to not overflow the subreddit with personal offerings (such logo design, SEO, etc) so please try to limit the offerings to this weekly thread. Since this thread can fill up quickly, consider sorting the comments by "new" (instead of "best" or "top") to see the newest posts. [link] [comments]  |
| Almost tricked myself (again) into starting an unprofitable business Posted: 11 Jun 2019 09:06 AM PDT In looking back at all of my failed business ideas, there's a common theme: I tricked myself into thinking they were potentially profitable businesses. My flawed logic always was some version of this: "I'll build this app, and then people will use it and like it, and then I'll charge money for it." As obvious as it sounds, when you start a business you need to make money as quickly as possible. Companies that make money stay in business, and then you have the luxury of time to fix things, scale, or hire people to do those things. As Paul Jarvis says: "If you're a company of one, you're not relying on massive influxes of cash from investors, so every minute you spend getting set up and started is a minute when you aren't making money." If you don't have funding or another source of income, you also don't have time to develop a product that might make money. You need to get customers with the smallest possible upfront investment. I've only done this once successfully (and many more times unsucessfully). When I was building Code-Free Startup, I was consulting at the time (additional revenue), but the software project I was working on was ending in two months. So rather than getting another consulting gig, I gave myself two months to get profitable. After recording the first three courses, I built a very shaky platform to host them and launched the product. About 20 days before my project finished, I launched on ProductHunt and the Bubble forum (where I had built up some credibility) and in one week built up to just under $3k MRR, enough to barely cover my living expenses (thanks, SF rent). Now that I didn't have to consult, I focused 100% of my time on it, and in the next two years recorded nine more courses, grew to 15k students and eventually sold the company last December. So you think after all this, my next idea I'd stick with what worked and work on 'profitable from day 1' ideas. But nope, I fell into the same trap because apparently I'm incapable of learning this lesson. I'm reminded of the great Feynman quote, "You must not fool yourself, and you're the easiest person to fool" - because I just lost a few weeks and almost fooled myself. The problem starts with falling in love with an idea. In my case, a learning app that solved a problem I had and was really excited about solving. I daydreamed of the potential, the growth, and how I'd build and scale it. And in the back of mind, somewhere, was a small rational voice saying "well what's the business model?" and I thought back (but didn't say out loud because that would be crazy) "well I'll build V1, and then get traction and then charge for additional features for pro users". And that was enough to start building it. The only reason I was able to snap out of it is by holding myself to the rule "companies I start need to be able to make $1000 in the first three months." It sounds harsh and limiting, and it definitely is both. But a principle like this one, that helps you filter ideas can be your best friend when you're fooling yourself about possible earning potential. It seems like the best types of online businesses to achieve that rule, and quick profitability, fall into three categories, ranked below from easiest to hardest to make successful: - Productized services: this can start out being glorified consulting. Also, it's one of the smoothest ways for people working full-time jobs to reach full-time entrepreneurship. Ex. your full-time job is to work in Excel to make X easier for your boss. Productized: you make a landing page offering to make X easier for other people like your boss in different companies. - Specialized business software: B2B apps solving a very specific problem tend to need fewer customers and make more money in a shorter period. Instead of charging $6/month and hoping every digital nomad subscribers to your consumer product, solve a business need, and get rewarded $400/month per seat. The reason everyone isn't doing this: it's hard to find these ideas unless you're drawing on inside industry knowledge. You can interview people and find bottlenecks, but sometimes this is just a result of realizing something like "hey Salesforce makes it really hard to convert X to fields, maybe I can build on that" (there are hundreds of highly profitable companies based on that one idea because Salesforce is a monster). - Consumer app so helpful people will pay for it over the next best free option: this one is difficult because I'd like you to think of the consumer apps that you pay for. For most people, the list includes Netflix, games on Steam, and that $4.99 app that you thought would teach you French. Consumers get bombarded with high-quality free things, and social media dominance by FB/Twitter has made it quite challenging to build a business that breaks through this noise. As a general rule, a consumer app needs to be 5x more useful to be able to be profitable (ex. weather apps - Dark Sky can charge because their radar/forecasting is at least 5x better than the next best free option. NomadList can charge because it's travel information is at least 5x better than TripAdvisor for travelers in that niche. Plenty of more examples, but a lot of successes in this category are highly niched. So now I've abandoned my unprofitable idea (for now) and am back to the drawing board. I've got a couple of productized service ideas and one B2B idea I'll try out, but they aren't as exciting on paper. Maybe that's a good sign :) [link] [comments]  |
| How much would you pay for this laundromat? What's the best way to value purchase price? Posted: 11 Jun 2019 02:57 AM PDT Hey all, I'm looking into buying a laundromat. Curious how much you would pay for one with the following numbers. I know it's very market dependent (e.g. HCOL cities like Boston and Los Angeles will be more expensive). This laundromat is in a busy part of Boston if it makes a difference. Monthly Revenue: -$14k from washer and dryers -$11k from wash & fold -Total: $25k Monthly Expenses: -$4k Salaries -$4k Utilities -$4k for Rent -$500 for taxes, licenses, permits -$500 for repairs and supplies -$200 for internet and alarm -Total: $13.2k Net Income: $11,800. Current owner works at the laundromat full-time each week. [link] [comments]  |
| [UPDATE] Any freelancers looking to team up to create a super team? Posted: 11 Jun 2019 07:59 AM PDT I posted on here a few weeks ago about creating a mini-network of freelancers in different roles, so that we could refer work, exchange ideas and collaborate on projects. Perhaps creating a Slack workspace or Discord server. I got loads of DMs with people who were interested (so thank you!), to the point where I had too many people apply for the same role. Rather than turn away these people, it gave me an idea to create multiple teams for other freelancers so they could all benefit from the same relationship. So I've created a (basic) service where freelancers can apply to join a 'squad' with other freelancers to get more clients and work as part of a team, whilst maintaining the freedom of freelancing. I'd love to get your feedback while it's in beta, in particular how the application experience is. Thank you so much for your help and feedback so far. Check it out here: https://www.freesquad.team/ [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 11 Jun 2019 09:15 AM PDT "... The only fallacy (of partnering with larger companies to try and make your company look like a large company for your initial consumers) is that you assume your first customers are going to be mainstream customers, when in fact, your first customers are crazy people just like you!" [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 10 Jun 2019 05:29 PM PDT Hey all, So some exciting news - Some of my products were featured in a Netflix series, and I just confirmed a commission for another TV series being developed by Stan. Question is - Can I use screenshots of the TV series to use in Adverts? Or since it is certainly copywrited by them I can't do this? Is there anyway I can use this material to promote my products? Cheers all [link] [comments]  |
| For the Serial Entrepreneurs: Motivation Posted: 11 Jun 2019 10:10 AM PDT I've started four businesses since 2011. One didn't even get the chance to start (despite having the bank commitment letter) due to a life-changing event, one failed due to market conditions (real estate), and another failed due to high advertising expenses. However, a tiny project that I thought would never amount to much has had a few wholesale orders and numerous online purchases -- all without any advertising. And I'm now awaiting word from 7 major retailers including Home Depot with plans this week to submit proposals to Walmart and Target. I'm not posting to tell you what the product is or how I did it. I'm posting to tell you not to give up. Those retailers may not be interested in my product and I may fail again. That won't stop me from trying again. I dropped out of an MBA program because I wanted to be my own boss. Yes, there are times when I'm not sure how I'll pay the bills, but I always figure it out. Here are some great quotes on perseverance: https://www.inc.com/jayson-demers/35-quotes-about-perseverance-and-never-giving-up.html. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 11 Jun 2019 01:50 PM PDT For a little background the app isn't a gaming app. The app is a sports app that combines real world sports with gaming. The app lets you earn money any time you play sports outdoors or at a gym, rec center Sports that you play in real life in your free time. Outside of the usual the usual being Standing in traffic, Posting on Facebook, Crrating a Facebook group of 15K plus, having 12K+ followers on Instagram, running a kickstarter, business cards, in person marketing being at a gym, school, barbershop, etc Any outside of the box ideas that I could be missing that's staring me in the face? [link] [comments]  |
| Telling the team that I'm not going to work 100% with our Startup, need some advice. Posted: 11 Jun 2019 01:47 PM PDT Hi, So where do I begin? I have had this app idea for a long time but never managed to pull the plug and start to work with it and a year ago I casually talked about it with a person who has experience with startups and we discussed it a bit further and understood that the idea was very good with no actual competitors worldwide. Fast forward a couple of months later and we now have a team with 1 person whos really good skills with programming and entrepreneurship, one guy that has a lot of sales experience and two more that have startup experience with a couple of great exits. Now to the thing... We need a "motor" to accelerate the Startup and someone to work with it full-time. We agreed that it would be me with the start in August this year. The problem is that I have family, loans, etc and we settled with a decent salary for me to survive and somewhat provide for my kids. With that salary, we would need to get financed again in 6-8 months and to add extra "salt" I just got a really good offer from a company that I have accepted. My main points are that my new job is really free and they know about my sideproject..the bad thing is that I have told the team that I would onboard our Startup in August. With me not onboarding we would have a longer cashflow and we would be able to work with our MVP better (testing, market tests, and other stuff) I'm really stressed how the team will take my sudden U-turn but I really feel that we shouldn't burn our first "seed round" on salary and it would be wiser to jump in it when we raise more capital. Do you guys have any advice? [link] [comments]  |
| 1,000 Emails Sent |9 Deals Closed | 48 Hrs | Here Is How I Dit It... Posted: 11 Jun 2019 01:46 PM PDT Watch The Video So You Can Understand Step by Step. Exactly what I Did Here is the link👉 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7WoAUYeb2I&t=6s [link] [comments]  |
| Creating a business around mindfullness Posted: 11 Jun 2019 01:31 PM PDT Hi there, I'm extremely new to this sub and am currently thinking about creating a business around mindfulness. What would be the best way to go about this? I've thought about creating a facebook page, Insta and promoting via there, creating a website and printing out cards with a nice well designed logo, perhaps even marketing myself by wearing a tee with my company name on at places like the gym. As you can see I'm very new to the idea of creating a business, let alone a successful one. What would be the best and most efficient way to going about starting and growing a business like this? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 11 Jun 2019 01:24 PM PDT Hey guys, I'm a part time entrepreneur (full time job 'real' job). I'm starting an indie skincare company. Our niche will be spa products driven almost entirely online, providing spas with high quality natural products. Phase 1 is everything in house (manufacture, bottling, shipping) Phase 2 will be outside fulfillment. Phase 3 is automation using contract manufacturers (with our formulas). I've spent the last 6 months perfecting our formulations and testing the market and I think we are finally at a point where we are happy. I'm looking for a mentor, I don't need someone who has all the answers but someone I can talk to a bounce frustrations off of. What would be the best place to look? I've tried local forums (Kijiji) but I've not had any luck. There is local business resources but I don't want to go their until I have a product I'm actively selling. Thank you for your advice. [link] [comments]  |
| Procrastinating - Multitasking Posted: 11 Jun 2019 01:23 PM PDT Here are things entrepreneurship doesn't allow us to do. Somehow, some people can handle it easily. Can you? I would like to do it too. [link] [comments]  |
| If you had to choose 3 reason as to why your business failed, what are they? Posted: 11 Jun 2019 01:20 PM PDT |
| REGISTERING A U.S. COMPANY TO DO BUSINESS IN CANADA Posted: 11 Jun 2019 01:07 PM PDT I own a startup currently based out of Brooklyn, New York and is a Delaware corporation. Given the abundance of government grants available to Canadian businesses by their government, I am thinking of incorporating in Canada (British Columbia) as well. Anyone here who has a US company and has incorporated in Canada later? Would love to know about your experience and would appreciate your help :) [link] [comments]  |
| Advice for purchasing my first ATM Posted: 10 Jun 2019 11:06 PM PDT So right now I am a cash runner for an ATM route. So I am familar with the schedule and time demands for this business. So I have the opportunity to purchase and place my own ATM. I understand that part of my proceeds will be going to the business owner of whatever location I choose. My main question is does anyone reccomend a certain transaction service company to go with? I am familar with switch commerce, but was not sure if there is better alternatives? How much do they charge as a service and what may be some other expenses that may not be obvious from the start? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 11 Jun 2019 01:00 PM PDT The forever organising theme... What are everyone's daily routines? I have found articles about what succeasfull people do and it is really interesting to me. I would like to hear what people here get up to on order to stay balanced and productive! [link] [comments]  |
| What would YOU do if you had 3 million followers?(Instagram) Posted: 11 Jun 2019 01:00 PM PDT So I have a pretty straightforward question, if you had an Instagram meme page with 3 million followers what would you do to monetize it ? Apart from selling advertisements, dropshipping and affiliate marketing. Looking forward to seeing your guys ideas. Cheers ! 🍺 [link] [comments]  |
| Dropshipping from alibaba to B2B customers Posted: 11 Jun 2019 08:33 AM PDT Hey guys! Sorry about my bad English, but here we go. Does anyone have experience/knowledge about dropshipping from alibaba to B2B customers? I don't have much start capital so I was wondering would it be doable to set up a website for quotes and then contact the supplier after the customer has paid for the product? The difference to aliexpress dropshipping is that their order could be bigger (like 100 units+) and order in bulk for them, since not all businesses are aware of alibaba existing. I could also include private labeling and such. Thank you for your time! [link] [comments]  |
| Any Entrepreneur who wants to be my mentor for the program Erasmus for young Entrepreneurs? Posted: 11 Jun 2019 12:00 PM PDT I'm a 30 yo, male from Italy, willing to partecipate to the Erasmus for entrepreneurs. It means I'll work for 3 months for an established entrepreneur and he will be a mentor to me. I choose the US for this program, since I never lived there and I think there are more business opportunities than in Europe. So, are there any established entrepreneurs who wants to teach me the way? If you want details about my skills and my cv just pm me! You can check details about this program here https://www.erasmus-entrepreneurs.eu/ PS: if Im super interested in an Entrepreneur in Europe I can do it here. [link] [comments]  |
| Has Google AdWords been worth it to you? Posted: 11 Jun 2019 11:45 AM PDT I'm building a web-app that's 75% complete. When I'm ready to launch, I'm hoping to use Google AdWords to help market. Has anyone been successful using this to generate business? And has it been profitable? For example, if i spend $500 on ads, but get $700 in business, it'll be worth it. But I have a feeling it's not going to be a 1:1 relationship like that. How effective has AdWords been for you? [link] [comments]  |
| Hi everyone! Any experience with e commerce? Posted: 11 Jun 2019 11:39 AM PDT So if I wanted to build a charging device, how do I know if I can use certain suppliers to make it and sell it? Will there be patent or trademark issues? If so, how do I find out of there is? Did apple patent the lighting cable and female port? [link] [comments]  |
| Confused about LLC's/OA's - Need to do an operating agreement for business I am about to join Posted: 11 Jun 2019 11:33 AM PDT Sorry if I sound like a total noob, I am just trying to figure this all out. A friend (We'll call him John) has a business he would like me to be a part of. He already has the business running but has not setup an LLC for it (so I guess it is technically a sole proprietorship). John said he is good with making me a business partner but my Boss recommends against it. My boss recommended that I setup an OA (operating agreement) to make sure all the details are covered. It is messy to do taxes if I am technically a partner (I think it's the K-1 or some other form). Apparently it is easier if we just have an OA but still receives my share of the profits via being paid as an employee. He said an LLC doesn't even need to be formed for the business, the OA is the more important piece. The business does not have a physical location and there is no high overhead costs like holding inventory etc. It is a very very low cost of operations. I am looking up templates and they all say "LLC" Operating Agreement templates. I am confused because my boss said technically he doesn't need to setup an LLC for the business, we just need to have a OA (Operating Agreement) filled out to make sure we're covered. Is it okay to use the "LLC" operating agreement templates and fill it out does John need to create an LLC for it? Should I just fill out the LLC OA templates? Should I become a "partner" instead? Thanks for reading and for any advice. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 11 Jun 2019 11:22 AM PDT Hey guys! I am extremely excited for this year as I am finally doing what I have wanted to do for the past couple of years. A little backstory. I have been in marketing for a couple of years now. Worked for some clients, worked full time, etc... Just two weeks ago my full-time job went down the drain. At first, I was freaking out a little bit. I just got married, moved into a house, then a week after my boss tells me to stop working for him. Obviously, this got me stressed for a day but then me and my wife went over finances. With my existing clients and money saved from the wedding and such, we can luckily live for the next 4-5 months or so...Yay! This happened about two weeks ago, but you know what's crazy? This has been my happiest two weeks in a LONG time. My full-time job stressed me out way more than I realized (the work environment was shit). This kind of kicked me in the butt and made me understand how I want to live my life, so I started doing what I really have been wanting to do. Start my own Digital Marketing Agency, and start my own Podcast. I already have a team for my marketing agency lined up and waiting for clients. Now I am focusing on my Podcast to bring value to small/mid-sized businesses. The Podcast is going to be about businesses and their marketing tactics/how they grow. My hope is to provide value to listeners by showing them how different businesses started marketing, how they are marketing now, what is their goal within their business in the future, and how they have learned from their successes and failures within marketing. I already have 6 or 7 businesses interested in being a special guest for the podcast, and I even have some business podcast hosts which are interested! I am super hyped and ready to get this going! I want to pump out as many as these as possible to keep bringing value to followers of the podcast so I am constantly looking for more business owners who would like to be a special guest on the podcast! If you are a business owner interested in being a special guest, hit me up! I would love to have you on my podcast. It does not matter how small or how large your business is. As long as you have been a business for a little while and actually have some experience to talk about. Also, if you do not have a professional mic, no worries. Skype on your phone works just fine :). [link] [comments]  |
| Did you ever go into some debt while starting up your business? Posted: 11 Jun 2019 11:19 AM PDT Long story short I'm about 1500$ in debt. I technically have a large emergency fund but I don't touch that. The people on other subs have made it clear that I should pay for everything in cash and while that is solid advice I don't think I've ever met an entrepreneur that had all of the funds right away. I have about 700$ more or less of supplies to buy that I need for upcoming projects. Is it reasonable to take the hit now? When you started up your project did you ever have to take a hit financially? Just to be clear if I was ever in a life or death, collapse of everything situation I could get out. This is just debt in terms of the next few months. [link] [comments]  |
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