Wantrepreneur Wednesday! - (June 12, 2019) Entrepreneur |
- Wantrepreneur Wednesday! - (June 12, 2019)
- How Nike sold its first 50,000 shoes
- I just closed my first sale and I'm completely terrified and ecstatic
- Anyone ever want to go against the common advise and quit their job to truly master a skill/business?
- Pay per sale email marketing
- How did GymShark suddenly just became big?
- Podcasting as an extension of your brand and marketing.
- Stop making products that nobody wants
- $108,497.03 last month DROPSHIPPING - Ask me ANYTHING!
- Having Trouble with Market Research
- 18 Months Later: How I started an e-commerce furniture company + the future
- Sick of 9-5 Grind , want to buy an existing business ..
- My first credit card. UK
- Please tell me what is off in my website.
- Sole prop lawn care business?
- You can’t start a business without a business plan, I am willing to help.
- Do you pay less taxes as a business owner than as a employee?
- Why Time > Money, but not quantity.
- People who turned themselves from non-hard-working to hard-working. How did you do it?
- Public company asking me to provide an acquisition range for my pre-revenue startup
- Advice after well known silicon valley accelerator behaves unethically.
- Can anyone recommend a site for mass-mailings (physical mail, not email)?
- Free CRM Software
- FB Advertising Issue
- How to have a successful launch on Product Hunt
| Wantrepreneur Wednesday! - (June 12, 2019) Posted: 12 Jun 2019 06:15 AM PDT Please use this thread to ask questions if you're new or even if you haven't started a business yet. Remember to search the sub first - the answers you need may be right at your fingertips. 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]  |
| How Nike sold its first 50,000 shoes Posted: 12 Jun 2019 02:42 AM PDT April 1964 Phil Knight's (the co-founder of Nike) first shipment of shoes arrived from Japan. He left his accountancy job and all that spring did nothing but sell shoes out of the boot of his car. To quote Knight:
EMPLOYEE NUMBER ONE Midway through 1965 Knight hired Jeff Johnson, his first full-time employee. And Johnson was an even more prolific salesman than Knight. In ten months he'd sold 3,250 pairs of shoes, which to quote Knight was a "completely impossible" feat. Johnson's selling strategy was similar to Knights. He'd go to track meets, stand on the infield and chat up high school athletics coaches. But when it came to building relationships with customers Johnson was on a whole new level. Every time Johnson sold a pair of shoes he'd create an index card for that customer. He'd jot down all manner of minutiae details: shoe size, shoe preference, favourite distance, etc … Johnson used this handcrafted database to keep in touch with customers. He'd send birthday cards, training tips, notes of encouragement before big races. Customers would write back telling him about their lives, their injuries, their troubles. Johnson had hundreds upon hundreds of customer pen pals. He had created the modern day mailing list but with a response rate of 95%. JOHNSON'S COBBLER Johnson wasn't just renowned for his mail correspondence. He went the extra mile in everything he did. Once a customer complained that the shoes didn't have enough cushion for long distance running. Johnson hired a cobbler who grafted new rubber soles into the shoes and sent them back a few days later. Soon after Johnson got a letter in the post from the customer saying he'd just posted a personal best at the Boston marathon. AN IMPOSSIBLE TASK In 1967 Knight set Johnson another impossible task. He had to single-handedly establish Blue Ribbon (which later became Nike) on the East Coast. This meant rebuilding his whole running network from scratch. What did Johnson do? Well, he worked through his index cards until he found a track star in the East who he'd shared letters with, drove to the kid's house and knocked on the door unannounced. Fortunately for Johnson, he was invited in and treated to dinner with the whole family. The next day they went for a run together and the kid gave Johnson a list of names: respected coaches, potential customers, local running clubs. Just like that Johnson's network in the East was up and running. CUSTOMERS BECOME FANS When customers become fans they start selling your own product for you. Johnson's great skill was turning customers into fans. Imagine you're scrolling through Instagram and you see an ad for a new running shoe. It's unlikely you're going to tell your friends. Now imagine you see Jeff Johnson out on the track. He sucks you in with his passion, grafts rubber soles onto your shoes, wishes you luck before big meets, eats dinner with your family, sends you birthday cards, Christmas cards, get well soon cards, free t-shirts. You don't just tell your friends about his shoes, you tell your whole running club. And that's exactly what happened. Nike sold its first 50,000 shoes on the power of word of mouth alone. A small sales team going out to track meets, talking to runners, turning them into customers, and then into fans. One by one. THE SAFETY OF GLASS OFFICES It's becoming easier and easier to come up with excuses to not recruit your first customers manually. "Well, if we're optimising for CPA, CPL, CR, CRO, CTR, CLV and of course CoCa, the value really is all online now" the suits mumble, from the safety of their glass-paneled office. All I'll say is this: Jeff Johnson started from nothing and sold 3,250 pairs of shoes from the boot of his car in less than a year. So, go ahead. Grow your Facebook page. Have fun with your follow/unfollow bots. Tweet until your heart's content. But you'll be lucky to get 325 followers in a year, let alone sell 3,250 pairs of shoes. Once you become a million dollar company it might all be online. But embrace the time you're small enough to talk to every customer and turn them into fans. One by one. THINGS THAT DON'T SCALE This story reminds me of Paul Graham's famous essay, Do Things that Don't Scale. He writes:
There's no better example of this than Phil Knight and Jeff Johnson. They went out and got their customers. They made Nike succeed. *And before anyone on Reddit points this out, technically these weren't Nike shoes Knight and Johnson were selling. They were Tigers shoes imported from Japan and their company was Blue Ribbon. Blue Ribbon later became Nike. Yo, thank you for reading and making it all the way to the bottom. If you liked the article I write about real world marketing examples (like this one) over on https://marketingexamples.com and each example is distilled into an easy to digest thread on twitter. All free. Just a passion project. Any questions, I'll be floating in the comments :) [link] [comments]  |
| I just closed my first sale and I'm completely terrified and ecstatic Posted: 12 Jun 2019 01:06 PM PDT I went and met with a guy. We met at a Starbucks. I had watched a metric ass-ton of videos on how to be a good salesman and how to come off as friendly rather than pushy. I read Jordan Belfort's "Way of the Wolf" like three times and I was ready to completely destroy this sale. I walk into the Starbucks and all the things I learned just completely vanished. It was like an out of world experience. I wasn't even the one talking, it was someone who looked like me and I was watching. I gotta be honest I don't even remember what I said. All I remember is that by the end, he signed and I just closed my first sale. I didn't know where else to put this information, but I just had to release it. Thank you. Now the biggest worry for me is will I be able to deliver. This isn't like my other clients, which have all been acquaintances or referrals from family. This is a random person who I sold my company's services to. I'm just worried to mess this up. Anyway, thank you for reading this release of all my adrenaline. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 12 Jun 2019 01:00 PM PDT I see time and time on this sub that you shouldn't quit your job and you should build your business on the side, until you earn enough to replace your current income level. I get that, especially if you are delivering a product based business, where you need an MVP etc. As a lawyer, I am programmed to be risk adverse, so it makes sense in my head. However, what happens if your business is a skill, like coaching, being a chef or basically a service based business where you want to truly dive into and master that skill, and by master I mean be one of the best in the world at your passion/skill. They say it takes 10,000 hours to master a skill. How can you get 10,000 hours practice working on evenings and on the weekend? It would take you decades. It just doesn't cut it. I wake up everyday and have this very strong urge to help people with their careers and really mastering my career coaching skills. I feel I can achieve this dream, I just need to go all in. I work 60-80 hour weeks in the firm, yet I come home and I read coaching, psychology, philosophy books to truly understand my clients and their mental challenges and hang ups. If I'm not reading, I'm listening to podcast, YouTube videos, you get the idea. I am working and coaching a lot of clients on top of this (but still not bringing in the levels my lawyer salary does, as I'm still quite cheap). In essence, every minute I'm sitting behind my desk at work it just feels like a waste of time, time I will never get back. I have no dependents and couldn't give a fuck about money (law and being well off has made me realise this). The more money I make, the more I move up the corporate ladder, the more miserable and the less freedom I get, the more trapped I feel. My reward for being a good lawyer and employee, is getting to do more what I don't like, and getting less time to do what I like, the only compensation is more money which to after a certain point really doesn't make you that much happier, if any in face of the extra problems and expectations that come your way. This isn't just me, I look around and see partners on 500k a year alcoholics self medicating. I see people burning out all around me. I don't want to be these people. I want to help these people. I have one drive and that is to master one skill in my life to help these people. Am I going crazy? Anyone have similar thoughts? Do I have the old grass is greener syndrome? I suppose, my question is, is it worth quitting your job to pursue a business or passion to put it all on the line, when the income isn't there yet but it could be, especially if you don't care about money. Even if you don't have a view on my query, it would be great to connect with entrepreneurs who are in a similar position. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 12 Jun 2019 12:48 PM PDT I know I'm probably asking to much but does anybody know of a good pay per sale email marketing company? We don't have a lot of capital to start with but we are willing to pay a percentage of each sale to the marketing company. Thanks in advance. [link] [comments]  |
| How did GymShark suddenly just became big? Posted: 11 Jun 2019 11:03 PM PDT I was reading some articles about this gym wear brand, and in summary:
Articles mention that he made use solely of social media fashion influencers, but that would have been AFTER Gymshark got some traction and went big. In 2012, these influencers stuff didn't exist and it was only after around 2015 when Instagram blew up that you start seeing every human and their pup become an influencer. When starting brands and businesses, the biggest issue is always with social proof and traction. It's a slow grind, a slow process. If it was that easy, then why is it that those guys who slap a logo onto their "brand" get 0 sales and 0 traffic after 1 year, and how did Gymshark just blew up? I think within the first year, they already hit a million. Even brands with revolutionary products take time to get "recognition", unless it's a cure for balding. Was there actually some big-wig investor behind the scene, and the 19-year old founder is only the "face" of the brand, in order to appeal to the "target market", which is young active millennials? Anyone knows the story behind this? [link] [comments]  |
| Podcasting as an extension of your brand and marketing. Posted: 12 Jun 2019 08:11 AM PDT Podcasting is here, not going anywhere and you should be utilizing it's power for your business. Why?? Because It's an incredible marketing tool that gives you the ability to establish an intimate relationship with a potential buyer like never before. Podcasts aren't bound by regulation or region. They're worldwide. Reaching a new audience that was otherwise unreachable is a thing of the past. As an expert in your chosen field it's easy to build trust and loyalty with a potential client just by talking about what you know best. You'll have the opportunity to network in a valuable way with a massive amount of professionals in your industry by having them be guests on your podcast. Podcasts are a superior form of content to other types. It's better then video and written because your audience isn't locked in one spot with their attention tied up in visuals. The content is evergreen, on demand and with one podcast you can generate much, much more value added content to spread across all platforms. For every 1 podcast episode 1 article to a trade or specialty publication 2 video clips 2 blogs posts (1 announcing up coming ep and another based on the content) 10 quote tweets 3 Facebook posts 3 insta posts 3 Pinterest graphics 1 LinkedIn article 1 webinar 1 e-book But the most important reason why podcasts are among the most powerful of marketing tools is because of the parasocial relationship that you build between you and you audience. And you won't even know it's happening until your audience starts to reach out to you. Like radio, listening to a podcast is a very intimate and enjoyable experience. Listeners feel like they're being directly spoken to and that they're part of the conversation. They'll listen so much that they'll begin to feel like they know you on a personal level. At this point you became and influencer and your opinions, expertise and interests become trusted. You'll be able to talk about your service or product throughout each episode right along side the value everyone craves. A well produced podcast along with a great service or product will win every time. Thank you for reading if you've made it this far. My name is Nick and I'm no writer, but I do help entrepreneurs, businesses and individuals launch and produce their own podcasts. It can be daunting and time consuming and I take the heavy lifting off the shoulders of busy people. What I've outlined above I've seen happen for almost all of my clients. [link] [comments]  |
| Stop making products that nobody wants Posted: 12 Jun 2019 09:12 AM PDT Hi Reddit, I have seen quite some posts here on this subreddit from people with cool ideas but it is always difficult to know if the idea can be turned into a business with traction or not. The big question is: is it even worth it to build an MVP to test traction or not. I have tried to validate quite some ideas myself and many failed. In order to be faster with testing I have build a fully integrated tool to automatically test an idea by quickly setting up a landing page and get quick traffic via ads and measure conversions. I realized that this tool could be a business by itself so that other entrepreneurs can use it too to lower their risk as well. Have a look at https://www.balloonary.io and let me know what you think about it. We are still in closed beta but if you want you can even subscribe now and get early access to the platform as soon as we go live. Thanks for your feedback [link] [comments]  |
| $108,497.03 last month DROPSHIPPING - Ask me ANYTHING! Posted: 11 Jun 2019 04:12 PM PDT Hey there fellow Entrepreneurs! Last month, I did just over $108,000 in revenue DROPSHIPPING. Many of you probably think the model is dead or way too hard to get into, but I disagree. I started in January. I'm 17 years old. I had very little money, and if I was able to do it, you are, too. I'd love to help as many people as possible. Please, feel free to ask ANY questions you have! I'll respond to all of them. Proof of Revenue (not that I care if you believe me or not, lol): http://prntscr.com/o0o81g [link] [comments]  |
| Having Trouble with Market Research Posted: 12 Jun 2019 01:50 PM PDT Quick question: What's the hardest part about market research for you guys? I'm having a lot of trouble with market research and finding validation for ideas. [link] [comments]  |
| 18 Months Later: How I started an e-commerce furniture company + the future Posted: 11 Jun 2019 10:58 PM PDT Hi, I'm Chris Webster and I've done something very dumb, because love makes you do things like that. I wanted to design, manufacture, and sell contract-grade furniture and also make it available to the public with transparent pricing. The best materials, environmentally friendly and sustainable practices. All online, without salespeople and the usual gigantic pricetag. A year and a half ago I drew the first sketch on the journey to solve this, and today I have strong brand ethos + social following, an optimized high margin product system and an efficient manufacturing pipeline ready to go, a pretty good marketing + sales strategy and most important for a physical goods company--very, very low overhead. I feel like everything is firmly in place and working now, but it took quite a lot, including a lot of personal tragedy to get there. So, I want to share my thoughts, mistakes, failures, successes so far, and talk about where I'm going now to get your ideas. Buckle up, this is gonna be long. Like, really long. If I was any more savvy I'd make a downloadable PDF with 5 quick summaries of this all just for the low-low-price of your email address, but I don't want to be publicly excoriated for self-promotion so... We'll do it chronologically. BY -8 MONTHS FROM START: Backstory. I graduated college with a B.S. in Industrial Design after 8 long years sharing the top of the class podium with a few others, for one of the best classes my school had seen--ever. It was a spectacular opportunity to be surrounded and driven by so many other talented designers but I was pretty sick and tired of it all. Bitter, even. I had started out as a fine artist and had turned into a commercial machine. I drank too much, smoked a pack a day, my personal relationships were a mess. I freelanced. I started a business. Won and failed at that. I managed to pick up an actual staff job in my school (with awesome, awesome benefits) to make my way through it all to avoid debt, but I sacrificed everything else. I barely remembered my own graduation from how tired I was. And here's a little secret all recent minted industrial designers have: they fear that if they're really successful, they're just essentially sending a bunch of plastic trash to the landfill when it's all done with. We should have gone into UX. Massive existential crisis right there! A lot of guilt! BY -6 MONTHS: I split with my girlfriend, left my super nice apartment, converted my subaru into a not-too-stealth adventure camper, and finally, finally got some sleep. I kept the school staff job for the healthcare, as even with part time I had accrued months of vacation. I took it and explored the entirety of the western united states. Pure joy. BY -1 MONTHS: After a few months of enjoying the moment, I started looking into the velvet black that we call "the future". Sometimes referred to as "what am I going to do with my life". I stopped the smoking and drinking and starting organizing everything. I didn't want to take a job and make somebody else money when my freelance rate was already 100/hr. I wanted to make stuff of substance, because I wanted to feel like I was a substantial person. I wanted to do it as sustainably as possible--which I felt was possible without that much extra effort. I wanted to save the world, blah blah blah. I really just didn't want to feel like the machine I'd been for years. I'm egotistical in that regard, I need to feel unique and special to exist. That'll come into play more later. Outside of work, I have a deep passion for the outdoors, our planet overall. Its a very special thing in the universe. I've been known to disappear into the wilderness for weeks just to reset. Carl Sagan, Steve Irwin, Mr. Rogers are my only heroes. Could I do something that they would be proud of, combined? I know a lot of businesses start with "I want to make a lot of money" or whatever, but passions are more important to me. I'm also lucky enough to say that because I've always had money...what's the saying? Money's like air, you only notice it when you don't have it? I'm quite thankful for it. The other big reason I kept that school staff job--I have full access to the entire department. Laser cutters. Wood shops. 3D printers. Extensive online resources. Physical space...for free. FREE! In a major US city! And I only really had to work like...5 hours a week, tops. It would have been dumb to leave. I had also been contacted and tapped to build out a new furniture company...and it fell through from the investors, but I felt like there was something there. I took my market research, my competitor research, initial proposals, and mixed it with my passions. Felt like making dynamite for the first time. I saw companies like FLOYD DETROIT that were really doing it. I saw the failures like Greycork and saw what not to do. I was going to start a furniture company that would be made out of plastic cleaned out of the ocean. It was gonna work. There's a few big problems to handle, if we're looking at the residential industry and not even talking about interior designers. On the customer side:
On the supplier side:
My angle was, if you take this worthless material and lock it away in a long-term product of value, it's much less likely to end up back in the dump. The people buying it get to make a legitimate difference. I would mark with every sale, "you took 10 kg of plastic out of the ocean and paid for 2 peoples education who collected it". Injection molded, even rotomolded furniture is also very quick to make compared to wood, albeit drastically higher startup costs. It would also be sold flat-packed online--my research was showing that channel was really taking off and gaining legitimacy across the board for ages and wages. So I began the design process and starting going balls-out, every day. BY 1 MONTH: I quickly made a bunch of prototypes that would have been vastly expensive. I started aggressively using my instagram to build a target audience. I hired a marketing service on Fiverr to start bringing in traffic. I started posting up design process and just being incredibly transparent with what I was doing. My first business involved patenting, and licensing--from which I learned building a brand is more important than the legal piece of paper for security--when it comes to a "style" thing like furniture. What came out of that was a really simple furniture system. The legs would actually have threads cut right into the wood, and would screw right into a matching, full wood socket. This reduced my dependency on specialty hardware, as typical metal leg threads look too commmodity based. We were going for luxurious, unique stuff. And it also performs super well on social media within my audience. BY 3 MONTHS: I designed and 3d printed workholding jigs to hold the components on my CNC router, and then designed and created a specialized thread cutter for my exact application. If somebody wanted to copy me, they could (and the idea isn't new anyway), but they wouldn't do it nearly as well as me. The system began to solidify. Things were designed with the raw materials and the processes in mind, to take rough lumber and bamboo plywood and turn it into a high end, CNC machined table within an hour of labor. It took quite a few weeks to find the right materials and suppliers--I wanted FSC certified hardwood. The table tops, I wanted the ease + strength of plywood without the ugly look. Gluing up hardwood boards into panels is very costly. Bamboo plywood came to save the day--I buy a sheet that's 1" thick and can essentially mill in the joinery for the leg sockets on the bottom, cut out the shape, and be done, and not need to "hide" any plywood edges or anything. It's solid. It's good to go. BY 4 MONTHS: I threw a few up on my instagram to sell and see what would happen. For the most part, nothing...but then out of nowhere, somebody desperate to have one got in touch. I quickly designed the packaging in CAD, placed an order for the boxes and cardboard from ULINE, drove there the next day, lasercut the packaging...and got the table in the mail. I shipped a table for 13 dollars, and paid 5 dollars for packaging. I recorded an "unboxing" video, posted it, and that got really crazy attention. When the customer got her package, she was ecstatic and posted her own unboxing all over her social media. This started developing the notion of the experience in my head--the "present" or "reward". And it really gave me a taste of the type of person who would go nuts over my product. I looked up the zipcode to see the neighborhood and livestyle and noticed something interesting--all the houses were these gorgeous midcentury modern homes. I found the architect, looked up all the tracts he built, and saved all of them, as well as similar audiences for direct mail campaigns. Interior designers were interested, and I got in contact with one of them for a photoshoot of LA-made local products. This was key, because I was a complete nobody that was all of a sudden sharing the same space as all the other veteran furniture people of LA. I got some great connections started with this. I also threw a few up on my instagram to sell and see what would happen. For the most part, nothing...but then out of nowhere, somebody desperate to have one got in touch. BY 5 MONTHS: Let me mention that I'm still working out of the school, and in the shops. I started helping out in the furniture class pretty often as an unofficial T.A.--I wanted to placate anybody and everybody who might question this guy who stuck around after graduating and always has his projects everywhere in the shop. Students started coming to me for help with their projects often, and some of them discovered my instagram. I heard sheepish requests like "if i could, uh, please maybe if you ever needed any work..y'know I could help you sand things...just in case" and "please I'll work for free I want to be a part of what you're doing." This was pretty powerful. Here I am, worried that I'm just in the way at the school, and it turns out everybody is just watching and secretly stoked. And slowly, I started taking over more of the shops. As I was staff...it wasn't too much of a problem...but I was riding on a thin line and I knew it. I wouldn't say I BRIBED anybody, but many coworkers did get free tables "just because it was a little nicked, wouldn't feel comfortable selling it, yknow." I definitely wanted to show my appreciation. I started investing in more semi-industrial equipment and installing in the shop "for the students". Technically the truth. It was around this time that I finally hired a student that I had taken a liking to working with, that I had vetted through random freelance jobs over the last year. Outstanding individual with the same passion for doing good work as me, and was willing to put in the hard work. I had found my shop foreman. I've begun planning out, in MINUTE DETAIL, every minute it takes to do every task of production, over hundreds of repetition to get an average. Every piece of sandpaper is counted. Every saw blade, cutter, whatever, gets accounted for in a spread sheet and I start building out a price calculator to determine my prices. I discover I can achieve a 187% profit margin on manufacturing. Not bad, but this doesn't account truly for shop rent, or advertising--fuzzier numbers that are yet to be determined. I feel like it's a good start though. BY 6 MONTHS: Around this time, I also found my future wife. I'd like to point out I was still unabashedly living in my subaru as a dirty mountain man always covered in sawdust and smelling like the ocean. She was(is) a legit New Yorker going for her doctorate who, unabashedly, would never consider that an acceptable way of life for her. You would think we wouldn't work. But...when you see the one you've always been looking for, there's no other option. It's like you find another of yourself, and instead of a being a burden, it becomes a new freedom you never would have known existed. Work, obviously, slowed down a bit. My pace of working from sunrise to sunset was balanced with the new investment into her. BY 7 MONTHS: Remember how I was also always in the shop, teaching furniture? One thing led to another, and I was made the offer to teach two sections of furniture design. I knew I would have regretted not taking the leap, even though it meant less work on my business. Work got even slower. Both the above commitments meant only focusing on the bare essentials. I had started to develop a storage system (like a flat-pack cabinet/shelving system) that I had to mothball as I got everything in life under control. I had gone from being bitter and tired, to being a happy house-less drifter, to becoming a figure of authority and maturity in my personal life. It was a lot for my personality, so I took my time. Business isn't everything, y'know. BY 8 MONTHS: END OF OCTOBER. END OF MY OLD LIFE Saying this was a big month was an understatement, in the worst way possible. My life, and many others changed suddenly and viciously on October 30th, 2018. My shop assistant, the one I had planned on making into my foreman, the one I became a mentor to, the one I was going to make rich and successful--she died after falling into a median and getting run over after a fight with a friend at a halloween party. I was happily carving pumpkins and on top of the world with my new life when I noticed a few missed calls from faculty. Then my boss. Then the department chair. Something had happened--either somebody got hurt real bad and/or the shop was on fire. I finished what I was doing, sat on the couch, and took the call. The very next morning, I went into my shop and cleared out her project materials left over the weekend that she never got a chance to put away. I felt as thin as the dim morning light coming through the windows. An hour later as my students came in to class, not fully knowing the details but knowing something terrible had happened. I didn't know what to do, for the first time in my life I froze and broke down in front of my class as I announced it. Her best friend was in the class--when my eyes met hers, I lost all chance of composure. I apologized and in the silence, said we all needed some fresh air. Something inside me broke that day, and something else started growing in its place. That death hit doubly hard, because two years prior, I had also lost a friend in a terrorist attack. Another star student. We held a large memorial attended by hundreds, and I said a few nice words to all of them up on the podium, made them smile, and many people thanked me and told me how much she looked up to me. Most of them didn't also know how much I also looked up to her. It was so soul crushing and I definitely had a personality crisis on my hands that needed handling. Everything stopped. ...BY 11 MONTHS: I started picking it up again. I had to keep moving, to keep my mind off of everything. Little steps. Too anxious. I found a great local supplier of professionally milled lumber, straight from local trees taken out by storms, construction, whatever. Essentially, reclaimed wood but new. This was a major break for me and I bought a shitload to turn into leg hardware. I also committed to a large hardwood purchase of the other species I wanted, Walnut and paint-grade maple to be painted to the designers taste. A little color started coming back into life, even if it was a little lonelier. By 12 MONTHS: I breezed through my year anniversary without noticing it. My instagram had turned into daily shop posts, and had a few thousand followers. Engagement was high, videos would get hundreds of likes and thousands of views. An initial run of 180 table legs and 60 table tops was well underway. I started also picking up good freelance jobs for CNC milling and design, which helped fund the business and pay people. I picked up a new intern. She wasnt...you-know-who...but she was helpful. I've been asked by the school to design a plaque commemorating it. By 13 MONTHS: The website was launched quietly without fuss. I decided on shopify to build everything, and refreshed my knowledge on CSS to create something special. I focused on turning this into a funnel with everything pointing to the two initial offerings--the round side tables. Lots of great feedback from people, lots of excitement over everything. I'm feeling good. I've been distracting myself with freelance to avoid dealing with the things my assistant was handling for me. I start to take deep breaths and start to move on. BY 14 MONTHS: I've been spending more weeks out in the desert, after a big influx of freelance work. It's time to finish the table legs and socket hardware, and start cutting the table tops. I begin thinking of creating a S.O.M of all the things required to make the tables, so I can either step back or sell it entirely. I also buy a 3d printer and start playing around with it as a creative outlet, and to see if I can work it into my original ocean plastic goal. You can see very clearly that got put on the backburner, with the goal of survival and profitability taking over. I lost so much flame for very good reasons, and I did everything I could to keep the pilot light burning. BY 15 MONTHS: I've developed a beautiful series of lamps harkening back to my studio days. They do well on instagram. I'm feeling some old spark as new things grow over old scars. I realize that these lamps have very, very profitable margins and start looking into it. Who else is in this space? How much would a farm of machines cost? How to market? I've begun to pick up steam again, I'm almost through my second semester of teaching. I feel old. BY 16 MONTHS: Finishing processes have begun for all the wooden components. This is by far the trickiest part of my whole manufacturing business. To correctly seal wood usually takes a long process and many coats, but I develop some special processes and find some great, industry leading processes. I can have 90 table legs finished and cured in 5 days. This is big. I begin to develop the storage solutions for all this product as all of this stuff is taking up a lot of space. It's worked into my social media strategy--the manufacturing is all very transparent, so everything has to look super slick. Even the work carts. This is also to start stablishing my business culture for future employees--self manufacturing means it's a necessity. I've reduced my need for labor down to machine loading, sanding, and spray finishing. Almost no highly skilled labor is required to create one of my tables, which is a testament to modern industrial manufacturing. I secure a loan to buy a key part of equipment to grow my business--a professional grade CNC router. This is a game changer. My profit margin shoots through the roof with this puppy. BY 17 MONTHS: I've finished the plaque for my assistant. She would have graduated this month. Summer starts, I've started going to therapy, and I'm exploding with productivity once again. In two weeks I get done what has taken me 4 months. I was just so afraid to pick it up again. When she died, I felt punished for trying to start my own company and becoming a mentor figure. I realized I didn't want any more employees and I retreated from forming new partnerships. I'm glad I took time to retreat and don't regret the time. Now I've been working on tables daily, and on lamps nightly. I take my future wife out for dinner often and take her for a Porche track day for her birthday. She's been an amazing support and I don't think I could have gotten through without her. BY 18 MONTHS (NOW): All 60 table tops and 180 legs are done. Packaging is finalized. I've fully committed and the brand is firmly planted in it's identity and purpose. I've always felt like if I could figure out how to sell high price tables, I could sell anything--and I feel like I've done it in a way that pleases my two main customers. I've decided to use the fact that I'm a small studio with scarce resources to my advantage--only a select few get the "privelege" of attaining my stuff. I want to drive up demand by the lack of supply. I want only the most fervent believers to be getting my stuff, and all the rest get nothing. I've begun negotiating better rates with my suppliers and vendors, to pretty good success. I'm still working out of the school shop, rent free. My total overhead right now, including my initial PPC market testing budget, is 270 dollars a month. I've managed to work out all the kinks in the manufacturing and achieve 200% margins. I've started to determine my maximum monthly thoroughput and it's looking promising. I start throwing up teasers of future products up on the site. Let's look at that initial list of problems and how we solved it. On the customer side:
On the supplier side:
WHERE TO GO FROM HERE? It's obviously been a very eventful year and a half, with some pivots. I've started a "soft launch" with very limited marketing spends to start seeing what sticks. I have a rollout plan-of-attack consisting of contacts at relevant design blogs and news sites. My CNC machining service has really exploded which has paid for everything already, but I'm going to break that off into it's own thing and automate it even more. I've started approaching instagram influencers and relevant pages. I'm going to start teasing collaborative designs made with bigger brands. I'm going to do a photoshoot of product out in the desert and then will come the press release and official launch. I have a long term goal of doing more content marketing--I have such a wealth of knowledge in my industry that I'd like to share, and being a teacher has really shown me how to present it. Selling luxury furniture is really a "farming" over "hunting" technique of sales. It's much more long term. And I think I'm just going to keep at it. The ocean plastic thing has definitely taken a backseat as I've realized this is more about building a brand first, and the interior design contract market. It'll come. I'll keep hustling, and none of it will come at the cost of personal relationships or health. No more of that for me. I really enjoyed writing this for the venting aspect, so even if nobody reads it, I still got to lay it all out in front. I would like to hear your feedback or any tips you have, but I might go hide under a rock after posting this from the feeling of public indecency from sharing so much. I'm posting this because I understand the power of networking, and community. I like coming on to the forum and blowing off some steam, answering questions, without all the fuss of negotiating pay schedules or contracts. Pro bono stuff in a sense, it feels good. So, I hope I can contribute. Thanks for reading. [link] [comments]  |
| Sick of 9-5 Grind , want to buy an existing business .. Posted: 12 Jun 2019 01:36 PM PDT About Me: I currently make $75k/year at a large regional bank ($57k take home after 401k, health insurance etc) . The pay is well above the median income for my area , however , as I'm sure many of you on this sub are aware, working 9-5 at a large corporation can be soul sucking . So , I want to quit my job and buy an existing business . Why an existing business ? Because I've never owned a business before and would like some guidance in addition to existing cash flow stability as I am the sole income earner for my family. Details:
I would need to make around the same as I make now. I could potentially make slightly less , and make it work. Questions/Comments : 1) Are these sites, such as BizBuySell reliable ? Are the reported cash flows / EBiTdA accurate ? 2) I'm not afraid to work substantial hours , or basically buying myself a job. 3) With my poor credit score Is it possible to find an owner willing to finance a portion of the deal - If I put down say 40% of the purchase price.? With my current credit situation I'm assuming SBA is off the table ? 4) Do I need a business broker as well as a lawyer and an accountant ? 5) what types of businesses are the most stable ? What businesses are high risk high reward ? I'm sure I have more questions but these are just a couple off the top of my head. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 12 Jun 2019 01:33 PM PDT So I have been building a little ecommerce business and want to invest more money into advertising. Credit cards sound good but I've always avoided them. Just seems like trouble is waiting around the corner. What are some of the best UK credit cards? I was looking at some of the amex cards because of the cashback and points you get. Is there anything I should look out for, avoid etc? I want to apply for one but I'm kinda nervous. Thank you! [link] [comments]  |
| Please tell me what is off in my website. Posted: 12 Jun 2019 01:19 PM PDT My business is HOA Management, and the home page is boring as heck. I need to write "my story" but I have no idea what to write. Any suggestions? Please visit SusqMgmt (www before, com after) and give me any feedback you can. If you want to critique my Social Media as well, I'm on FB and IG: Susquehanna Management, LLC. I'm not just looking for traffic, I have no one in my life to bounce ideas off of. I've done this all myself. You may see that I have an "Office Manager" but she's pretty much not involved, and not helpful with advice. Thank you so much in advance. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 12 Jun 2019 01:08 PM PDT I know this business has been beaten into the dirt, but please hear out my questions. First of all, I currently work for a manufacturing company in management. I've about had it with having employees and I'm looking for something that just me myself and I can do. I don't need to make a killing. I own my house, cars etc - just more worried about my mental health and not going home from work pissed off everyday. So with that in mind, anyone have any experience or know someone who goes at it solo in the lawn mowing business? I'm curious if it's something that's more of a pain in that ass than it sounds, what kind of money would be expected etc? I actually have good equipment already, and the means to purchase anything necessary for the job. I worked for a lawn care company way back in the day and enjoyed the work - so I know what I would be getting into. I haven't made any moves on anything - just really looking to start a discussion at this point. [link] [comments]  |
| You can’t start a business without a business plan, I am willing to help. Posted: 12 Jun 2019 01:04 PM PDT With this offer, I will provide a professional and concise detailed business plan, incorporating a detailed market research, 5-year financial forecasts which will include; a balance sheet, profit & loss, cash flow, ROI, break-even, investment analysis, business valuation, etc. Also, your plan will include everything you would expect in a business plan such as executive summary, competitor analysis, company summary, management structure, milestones, industry analysis, keys to success, market segments, objectives, marketing strategy, sales strategy, growth analysis, etc. Everything will be bespoke and tailored to your business. Whether you need a business plan to seek bank loans, secure investments or crowdfunding, I can help! I have a particular skill set in accommodating your requirements. Also, I can prepare a business plan as a working document showing where you can grow and inject capital. I've reviewed and prepared many business plans, so I know what works and what doesn't. I offer a top notch business plan tailored to your start-up or existing business. I will further provide an Excel workbook of your business plan financials to help you modify or update your figures as you please. Your business plan will include the following: Executive Summary Mission Objectives Keys to Success Company Summary Company Ownership Start-up Summary Products/Services Market Analysis Summary Market Segmentation Target Market Segment Strategy Market Research Marketing Mix Service Business Analysis Competition and Buying Patterns Strategy and Implementation Summary Competitive Edge Marketing Strategy Sales Strategy Sales Forecast Milestones Management Summary Organizational Structure SWOT Industry Analysis Personnel Plan Financial Plan Projected Profit and Loss Projected Cash Flow Projected Balance Sheet Business Ratios I charge $250 per [link] [comments]  |
| Do you pay less taxes as a business owner than as a employee? Posted: 12 Jun 2019 12:42 PM PDT Saw a video on YouTube that said, employees pay 40 % in taxes of their income, 60% as self employed (40% income + 20% on earnings), 20% as an employer and 1% as an investor. Is that really true? What are your expierences as entrepreneurs now compared to back when you were employees? Do you pay a higher or lower % than back then? [link] [comments]  |
| Why Time > Money, but not quantity. Posted: 11 Jun 2019 09:08 PM PDT Might be a bit confusing at first, but I'm here to potentially save you from wasting a ton of time on something that you hope will make you a lot of money and only waste time, which is more important than money, unless the quantity factor is high. At 25, my most profitable business is the one that I took and slowly worked on and added value to in small, but quality amounts. It wasn't an idea that I thought I was going to get rich of overnight, though there were plenty of those. Keeping this short, the bottom line is that if there's something making you money, don't waste your time on anything else that isn't. Scale up slowly but surely until You get to the point where you're making enough to risk and try out other things without losing time. You will know when that moment has come when the quantity of money you make is greater than the amount of time you're working for that pay as defined by majority as standard. This is the best advice I can give to all of the entrepreneurship's out there that I see years going by and they're still working in trying to make the same thing work in different ways and they're only wasting time and making 0 money. [link] [comments]  |
| People who turned themselves from non-hard-working to hard-working. How did you do it? Posted: 12 Jun 2019 04:52 AM PDT Most people aren't hard workers. Some people are hard workers by nature and upbringing. Some people deliberately turned themselves into hard workers in their adult life. I guess most everyone aspires to be in the third group. So those who successfully got there:
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| Public company asking me to provide an acquisition range for my pre-revenue startup Posted: 12 Jun 2019 12:08 PM PDT Hi all, I have a question on valuation and this seems like the best place to post. For 2.5 years I've been building a cloud-based product for a niche market. We've had a little traction, but it definitely hasn't been a homerun by any means. 6 months ago we began work on an ancillary product which has gotten extremely popular. So much so, that there is a large public company interested in acquiring us. We are sort of in the middle between being pre-revenue and having sales, so far this year we've done probably $75,000 in revenue, maybe slightly more. However, our ancillary product provides a very useful solution for this public company, something they do not have but need desperately. In fact, most of our sales have been selling directly to their distributors, so it's a natural fit. Anyway, they have asked me to provide a price range for an acquisition. I realize "he who talks first, loses", but I am unsure how to flip it around and get THEM to shoot ME a number? I've done projections based on how much they could sell based on their current run rate, and it looks like they could sell around $3mm worth of this equipment, with an EBIDTA of $1.7mm. I think a fair range to provide would be $1.5mm-$2mm for the company. They have already done a business case and know this is something they need, so I think it really comes down to whether they "buy" this, or build it themselves. If I'm looking for too much, then they'll just build it themselves, but I also don't want to leave money on the table. They have also admitted that, while they could do this themselves, it would be 6 months before they even have their requirements done, so I think there's value in us having done all that work, and actually selling it TODAY versus it could be a year or more before they could even start deploying if they started TODAY. Based on all the groups, managers, etc. that would need to be involved in building this, I can't see it costing less than $1mm for them to replicate, and at least a year so is it worth $500k-$1mm for them to just buy what my startup has since we are already deploying? Basically, paying $500k-$1mm to save at least a year of dev? Thoughts? [link] [comments]  |
| Advice after well known silicon valley accelerator behaves unethically. Posted: 12 Jun 2019 11:59 AM PDT Several months ago we applied to a well known silicon valley startup accelerator. We applied really early, got an interview, and after the interview we were invited to sit in the audience at the pitch day for their current graduating class, and meet the partners. While there, we discussed what we were building with several of the partners alongside a founder of a company that graduated from their program in a previous class and who had been building something different for several years. He said he really liked what we're doing and wanted to help us get in. It was clear he had some influence on the program as they called him up on stage to recognize him at one point. So we give him more details, show him a demo of our vision, our deep dive pitch deck, told him who has committed to our beta. We chatted over the next couple months and when the deadline for the accelerator to announce who has gotten in we get completely ghosted - no rejection letter or acceptance letter - no response at all. So a few days later the person we had been talking with announces on LinkedIn that he is pivoting his company to do something revolutionary - what we are doing. Anyone else have a similar experience or thoughts/advice? [link] [comments]  |
| Can anyone recommend a site for mass-mailings (physical mail, not email)? Posted: 12 Jun 2019 11:21 AM PDT I"m looking for a site that I can send a letter and spreadsheet of addresses to, and they print them all up, address them and send them out, postage included. I've used a couple sites like xpressdocs.com in the past for post card mailings, but it doesn't look like they offer the option for the letters I want to send out. Thanks for you help! [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 12 Jun 2019 10:57 AM PDT Good Morning / Afternoon Entrepreneurs I have recently developed a Customer Relationship Management software designed for small businesses, I want to give a free 6 month trial away to as many small businesses as possible. If you are interested please message me [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 12 Jun 2019 10:46 AM PDT Hello everyone, I'm one step away from publishing an ad on FB but I am getting the error, " Account does not have access to pixel". I've been trying to find out how I can fix the issue, but I can't seem so figure out the problem. Pixel is tied to my online store and is running fine. Any one come across this before? Thanks in advance. [link] [comments]  |
| How to have a successful launch on Product Hunt Posted: 12 Jun 2019 06:23 AM PDT Hello, everyone! We launched on Product Hunt and wrote an article summarizing our experience. We've prepared a list does and don'ts for launching your app there. In the article, our marketer Veronika shares our experience in posting OneSoil Map (https://map.onesoil.ai) on Product Hunt. There were some mistakes (she's telling how to avoid them 🏄♀️), challenges (they make you stronger) and sure success cases as so often happens in life. And in the end, we've won a Golden Kitty Awards! 🏆 Many of our colleagues said that this is the most comprehensive guide for those willing to boost at Product Hunt, so I'm sharing it here. It takes a while, but it's worth a read! https://blog.onesoil.ai/en/how-to-have-a-successful-launch-on-product-hunt-onesoil-map-experience [link] [comments]  |
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