Wantrepreneur Wednesday! - (July 10, 2019) Entrepreneur |
- Wantrepreneur Wednesday! - (July 10, 2019)
- We moved to an unlimited vacation policy and the surprising results
- I sold my business.
- Is Buddhism at all compatible with entrepreneurialism?
- What are some businesses that are focus on improving the world, but at the same time return a profit?
- Acquiring more “ Commercial Cleaning Jobs” and how to go about doing it.
- Anyone else having problems selling a business on Flippa?
- First time white label purchase on Alibaba, just looking to ensure a couple minor details correctly on the contract
- Checking back in: Re-Vamped my website, what do you think?!?
- 14 year old entrepeneur
- What software can help me keep track of "student" submissions?
- I don't get it. If i don't say anything, people step over me and bully me. However, if i say something i am a piece of shit and asshole.
- is there any angel investor/someone that knows one on reddit) that can help me with some questions?
- $93k/month selling Texas-inspired t-shirts.
- We are building new CRM for entrepreneurship , and we want your opinion
- Helpmefind: Software to digitize a roofing company workflow. Please help.
- best way to learn is from a mentor, having done multiple businesses, or really focusing/reading on a topic?
- Liability for IT Consulting/Service Business
- English on the go
- Vape shop failure
- Is it possible to trademark my business name and logo if I am not from the US?
- Can they hijack my domain? Can I register my business internationally?
- I just bought my domain :)
- 1099 help
| Wantrepreneur Wednesday! - (July 10, 2019) Posted: 10 Jul 2019 06:13 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]  |
| We moved to an unlimited vacation policy and the surprising results Posted: 10 Jul 2019 04:41 AM PDT So we moved to becoming a fully remote team. Around the same time we were thinking of moving to an unlimited vacation policy. The spark for this was that we wanted to make everything simpler avoiding problems we were running into with our existing limited vacation policy and also to make ourselves more attractive to potential new hires as well. But we were nervous so we did a lot of back and forth discussions over it. How exactly would it work, and what would the consequences be to our team's performance and productivity. Use it or lose it hurt usWe have a team of hard workers, we're lucky but because we had a limited allowance for annual leave what typically ended up happening is that around the end of the year the guys would suddenly go "Oh wait, I have all this vacation time I haven't taken I need to take it now". That's not so great for us as you have a stampede out the door and all of sudden we've got a lower capacity to do work. The unlimited vacation policy from the point of the view of the company would alleviate this, there is no use it or lose it so it would encourage people not do that. Or so that was the thinking. ConcernsThe obvious concern is abuse, it's going to be a free for all but that wasn't really an issue for us because we've got a good team of people who are considerate and responsible. We're very lucky but we wanted to put in a structure to ensure as we grow it won't be liable to abuse either. It was a few basic rules like you must give at least two weeks notice on taking leave, and try to avoid being off at the same time as another dev because we're a small team that's critical but it also again encourages people to spread the time off throughout the year. And, also it spreads the workload evenly between people rather than unfairly dumping it all on a few people. But let's say it isn't abused but people do take a little more time off, how would it affect productivity? The assumption would be they're not here so they're not working and they're going to be out of the loop so more than likely producivity might take a hit but the research suggests otherwise: https://realtimecrm.co.uk/img/marketing/hours-worked-productivity.png Other studies have shown that for every additional 10 hours of vacation time their employees took, their year end performance ratings from supervisors improved by 8 percent. It sort of makes sense, imagine being completely overworked, over stressed and basically mentally fried. You're not going to be firing on all cylinders. So it makes sense to set the conditions for a happier and healthier team with better retention of staff. The effect on our teamWhat became apparent was that because we had an unlimited vacation policy, and there was no use it or lose it incentive people were less inclined to take time off at first. That was the surprise - it could have been a function of the people we have in our company or it could've been a more general rule of thumb about how people behave. You don't want to look like a slacker or doing less than others. In hindsight stuff like this seems obvious but it's like dealing with bugs in code often times you won't ever have considered it until you run into it, what had to happen is that the MD and others in more senior roles had to lead by example and take time off thus making it OK in a way. It was always OK but sometimes you need to see it to believe it. And its not easy our founder Phil is a workaholic, we have to remind him to disconnect from everything when he's off. That's the kind of place we are where we have to tell people to just check out when they're on vacation and we'll man the fort whilst they're gone. So far in the year that we've had the unlimited vacation policy we've had no more discussions about the vacation policy. It works well for us, and we're still getting work done. In fact we've never been more productive producing new features in RealtimeCRM and pushing forward projects at a faster rate than before. It does require discipline and proper planning to make it work, and we'll be facing a new but interesting challenge where one of our developers will be travelling the world and working at the same time. From our point of view nothing will change except time zones, all it takes is planning work around that like moving weekly catch up meetings so we're online at the same time for example. If you want to hear about the why and the how of us becoming a remote team you can read about it here. Of course an unlimited vacation policy might seem pretty radical to you, it's just something that those weirdos in the tech space do. But that doesn't mean you can't be more proactive to ensure your people take some time off, in the long run it'll help your business and it's better to sort out a system that works with your business earlier on when you're smaller and more nimble than when you're bigger and experimentation is harder to do. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 10 Jul 2019 06:07 AM PDT I sold it to the right company and I was justly compensated for it. Why am I sad... [link] [comments]  |
| Is Buddhism at all compatible with entrepreneurialism? Posted: 10 Jul 2019 02:02 PM PDT This may be a strange question but it's something I've been thinking a lot about. The more I information I pick up regarding Buddhist beliefs, the more I realize how potentially beneficial it can be for my happiness and overall mental wellbeing. Entrepreneurship has always been a passion of mine but upon consideration, it seems like it'll be a special kind of hell for me. The reason I ask this is because the majority of the prerequisites necessary to become a successful entrepreneur directly contradict some of the core Buddhist beliefs. "Sweat, blood and tears" are the building blocks of all entrepreneurs but wouldn't that counteract the principle of "non-attachment" to worldly matters? The emotional attachment to the "vision" each successful entrepreneur has seems to be the key to success when one has to persevere through hard times or debilitating hindrances. How would one even work around that? What would then be the motivator? Sorry if this is a dumb question but maybe I'll get to hear some of your guys' thoughts on this. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 10 Jul 2019 11:44 AM PDT I was thinking about how many different companies out there have a product/service that has a positive effect on the world. At the same time though these products/services return on their investment. I was able to think of a few...:
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| Acquiring more “ Commercial Cleaning Jobs” and how to go about doing it. Posted: 10 Jul 2019 09:57 AM PDT Hello everyone, im back on the forum because every time I ask a question everyone is so helpful and I really appreciate it. I somewhat recently started a cleaning business and I've had some really big jobs but I'm always looking to expand. I currently have my cleaning website advertised through google AdWords which is going great. My main issue I'm having is I'm not really looking to do home cleanings. There a few reasons one of them is people seem to want woman to clean their homes (which I do intend to hire.) but also I'm just not a big fan of being in people's homes. I'm personally looking to large scale cleanings, office buildings, large companies, things like that. Even government buildings, which I've been searching for contracts in my area. Does anyone have any recommendations to help acquire larger jobs like this. I do have my google ads for commercial jobs but all the clicks seem to come from residential. I'm just having trouble getting these larger jobs. I've already done a few post construction cleanings and those are great. Just a large area, with homeowners not there so I'm able to do a deep clean. So in summarization I just need any tips to acquire larger jobs, if any one has had any success With it. ( even if anyone has ideas for cleaning that are not residential homes. I have all equipment necessary.) Thanks so much! [link] [comments]  |
| Anyone else having problems selling a business on Flippa? Posted: 10 Jul 2019 01:00 PM PDT When we made our listing on Flippa, one of their senior account managers contacted us. He made it sound like we were going to get personalized follow ups, but besides an additional touch point, it didn't really happen. We were contacted again weeks later, suggesting that we auction the business in order to increase exposure. We replied, but haven't heard back from the account manager in 3 weeks. Flippa support hasn't replied either and it's been a week already. Has anyone had issues like these before? We're also listed on Shopify Exchange, but it's a very dropshipping-dominant marketplace and it's harder to get noticed as a business with superior margins but lower revenue. Besides these two, does anyone have experience with listing elsewhere? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 10 Jul 2019 11:51 AM PDT It's our first purchase on Alibaba and a white label product. We paid initial 30% of order, sent .ai designs to them, they printed them and took a photograph of printed packaging and label. However, what they printed was unfortunately an initial design, not the updated version which included some needed changes. They are in the process of reprinting, graciously, but I received note that the reps grandma is ill and she will be out for a few days, but that everything is being printed and to send the rest of the payment ASAP and she'll let her guys know to continue on with the order and ship out. Fine, I get it, and not overly suspicious and overall I feel this entire transaction will go fine. However, I'm also not impatient and waiting a few days will hurt nothing. For my own knowledge bank though, what I need help understanding: 1) When in the process is it typical to pay the last 70%? We paid the 30% via Alipay with TA and used a CC. Protected from multiple angles. However, without further negotiating, is it typically expected that we pay the rest now before the product is actually made? I was under the impression we would be requested to pay after the product was produced, and proof of that production provided. This would also give us the option of 3rd party inspection, though we internally decided not to go that route as this is not a product that really needs inspecting (pet supplement). If I understand TA correctly, the last 70% is held in escrow anyways, and not released until they provide proof of shipping, and we still have the 50 days after shipping to make a claim against vendor, if necessary. Therefore, does it really matter when we pay? 2) They will be shipping the product via DHL Express, qty 300, about $280 is the cost, as they are small/light bottles. However the Alibaba contract states "Shipping Method: Express" but trade terms as EXW, which would imply we are handling all shipping logistics, not them. Since it is factory to door, and no port involved, I'm assuming EXW lines up with express courier shipping, and that is normal to see on the contract? Just want to ensure there isn't another term they should in-fact be using. Thanks to anyone that can help answer, as I know you are doing so voluntarily. If there is anything else I am missing, as implied by my questions, please let me know. If I should be demanding certain steps (pictures, documents, etc.) at specific points during the process, that would be helpful to know; I'm all about learning the process which is safe, and works, without being overly dramatic and inefficient. [link] [comments]  |
| Checking back in: Re-Vamped my website, what do you think?!? Posted: 10 Jul 2019 07:53 AM PDT Check it out, complete overhaul if yo guys remember what it was previously. Www.TravelPakRx.com [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 10 Jul 2019 09:20 AM PDT Hello everyone, I'm 14 years old and will turn 15 in 6 days. I live in the Netherlands and I think i can call myself an entrepeneur. I started on January 1st this year. It wasn't a new years goal it just happened that day. I started dropshipping Aliexpress products to buyers on marktplaats (the dutch version of eBay) I did not earn a lot of money with that (€70 in the first month and €60 in the second). In March I was mostly dropshipping phone cases and I sold my first supreme tee that month. (Profits were €170) In April, May and June things got big. I was selling a lot of Supreme and Off-White (also yeezy's etc.) In April i hit a profit of €240. In May i hit €500 profit (THAT MONTH ONLY!) June was also around €500. So that's a total of around €2000. I'm very grateful for that and have big plans for July (I've got 5 pairs of Yeezy's in the house and I'm gonna grab a lot of those Lundmark Yeezy 350's). I want to expand my knowledge and profits. I already thought about taking pictures for companies and then making a friend of mine take the pictures and split the profit. I'm also getting very interested in the selling of watches. If you guys have got any tips for me or want to say something feel welcome! Thank you for reading. [link] [comments]  |
| What software can help me keep track of "student" submissions? Posted: 10 Jul 2019 02:40 PM PDT Here's what I'm currently doing: Group of people that I send occasional emails too And everyone on that list sends me an email update once per week If they miss two email updates in a row I remove them from the list. So I track their updates in a spreadsheet Anything better than just Mailchimp and a spreadsheet that's still simple? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 10 Jul 2019 02:04 PM PDT What gives? I feel like my circle in all my aspects of my life is getting narrower and narrower. Anyone feel like they are the perpetual "nice guy" that is always in a lose lose situation? [link] [comments]  |
| is there any angel investor/someone that knows one on reddit) that can help me with some questions? Posted: 10 Jul 2019 02:03 PM PDT basically I am 20 years old I have €250.000 because of an inheritance+gift of which I want to spend 150k of this in angel investments. I have autism so it's somewhat hard for me to detect red flags easily out of my own. This is because I have no goal in life, but I have a university bachelor in Law. By the way, I am not a direct competitor for most of you(if that even exists) since I live in the Netherlands. Also I probably can't invest on any of the start ups in the USA(I am assuming most of you are Americans sorry for the racism here) after typing all this I realized it might not be the right subreddit to post to on...but I couldn't think of any other to be honest. [link] [comments]  |
| $93k/month selling Texas-inspired t-shirts. Posted: 10 Jul 2019 01:18 PM PDT Hey - Pat from StarterStory.com here with another interview. Today's interview is with Brian Wysong of Tumbleweed TexStyles, a brand that sells texas-inspired t-shirts and apparel. Some stats:
Hello! Who are you and what business did you start?What's up Y'all! My name is Brian Wysong and I am the Co-Founder and Co-Owner of a Texas-inspired apparel brand called Tumbleweed TexStyles. We are a lifestyle apparel brand that serves over 150+ retailers throughout Texas and the southern United States. We also sell our products online and at music, beer, wine and bbq festivals throughout Texas. In addition, a part of our business includes custom design work for bands, musicians, breweries, wineries, brands and other businesses that fit our style and niche. Our company sells an estimated 90,000+ products a year and have shipped products to all 50 states and to over 12+ countries. Our core competency is our uniquely hand-drawn designs sold on cotton/polyester softstyle unisex t-shirts. We also sell hats, stickers, koozies, glassware and home decor. Our flagship design is our Texas Towns design that my Co-Owner and Creative Director designed. Just like most of our designs, this is a hand-drawn or lettered work that we put on a t-shirt. People love seeing this shirt at stores or at events because they like to look for their hometown. What makes it so fun, is that not all of the Texas towns are included. Only ones we as a team had some sort of experience or connection with. This has been our bread and butter for our brand since day one. Our business makes an annual 1.2 million in sales. My role in the business is Co-Owner and I oversee all business, operations, branding and marketing of our company. The most interesting part of our business is that we were started by two high school teachers. I was a marketing and business teacher while my business partner was and still is an art teacher. We decided to combine our talents and experience to create our brand. Still till this day, we hold the education field as a core component to our motivation behind why we do what we do. A portion of each sale is donated to our local Frisco Education Foundation. Our donation helps scholarship two graduating seniors each year pursuing a college degree in business and one pursuing art or fashion. The donation also helps support teachers in the classroom and students in need. Co-Owners, Jeb Matulich and Brian Wysong presenting 3 graduating seniors with scholarships. We also hire teachers to help us out with art, events and sales. We love to support students and teachers in any way we can. What's your backstory and how did you come up with the idea?Growing up, in Fort Worth, Texas, I have always had a passion for business, sales and fashion. I loved getting the latest pair of shoes and making sure my outfit was top notch going to school. I also loved the idea of selling my ideas and trying to negotiate deals with my parents or friends. My childhood buddies would agree that I was a sweet talker, hard worker, highly competitive and a very disciplined person in life, athletics and work. All these traits and interests led me to pursue a degree in Business Administration with a focus on Marketing at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas. While in college, I was blessed to have multiple experiences, jobs and opportunities to live out my passion for business, marketing and hustle. These provided great experience and work opportunities to meet great people and learn the craft of business. After graduating with my marketing degree, I moved to Dallas to work with a branding and marketing agency. This experience provided me a wonderful opportunity to learn about branding, digital marketing, social media marketing and strategy. Although, I had a bigger passion to help people. So, I decided to change careers and serve as a marketing teacher at Liberty High School in Frisco ISD. This is what lead me to meet now business partner, Jeb Matulich. I saw him drawing a design of Texas during a teacher inservice meeting. I pitched to him the idea of doing a side hustle with his artwork. We evaluated various options, but finally agreed to launch his designs on t-shirts. My wife owned a professional photography business, so we utilized her skills, Jeb's art and then my sales and marketing experience to launch Tumbleweed TexStyles. We started by opening an ETSY store, invested $700 total, $350 each in our first run of shirts. In a short few weeks, sold enough shirts where we took back our initial investment. We then agreed to continue to just reinvest the remaining profit back into the company. Screenshot of our website from September 2012 © Tumbleweed TexStyles, LLC To fast forward, this little $700 investment quickly grew to 1.2 million in sales in 2017. We agreed that we only wanted to design, create and sell products and a brand that fit our lifestyle and personality. We wanted to remain family friendly and school friendly, because our biggest passion beyond our product was and is to give back to our community and to educate our students that will be future leaders in our society. So, we decided to scale our business to follow the wishes of our wholesale partners. We now carry lifestyle goods including decor, glassware, stickers and more. Take us through the process of designing, prototyping, and manufacturing your first product.Back in 2011, our very first design was created by my business partner and co-owner, Jeb Matulich. We were actually sitting in his classroom when I saw the sketch of the design in his sketchbook. We went back and forth on how that design would make for a great t-shirt. So when we finally decided to launch our small side hustle of a hobby, we decided to send the design to print. We really did not know what we were doing, so we found a small t-shirt printer based in Denton, Texas made up of some college students working out of their garage. So we drove out to Denton and met the guys in their home. They showed us various garment types, colors and options and educated us on the process. From that meeting, we quickly knew what next steps we wanted to take. Jeb took the sketch in his sketchbook and gave it to my wife, Hillary to digitize and save in the correct file needed to send to print. From there, we worked with our printer to create a screen to be used on our t-shirt. This then launched the process of printing our small run of size small through 2XL shirts. We drove out to Denton to pick them up. We were so stoked about it. We actually stopped halfway between Denton and our town of Frisco to crack open the box of shirts to see what they looked like. We certainly had a sense of pride, excitement and a new passion for the process. The startup cost was pretty minimal. At this point, we were just printing a design on a t-shirt. We were not private labeling the shirt. We truly boot strapped our first few years of creating t-shirts. Since the laws are pretty blurry and gray with protecting graphic design to be printed on t-shirts, we decided to not spend the money to protect our designs. We wanted to create, launch and then quickly create and launch again. Our focus was and is to be a few steps ahead of the competition so when the copycat companies are launching our design, we are already moving onto the next product launch. Since then, we now have a more formal process to launching our products and designs. We now utilize our research and development team to be on the lookout for the latest and greatest trends that will sell well on our t-shirts. Our design team then goes into a brainstorming and sketching phase in creating rough concepts in a sketchbook. We then take the best options and digitize to put into a library of ideas. We are then able to create digital mockups so we can see various color options. We take these best ideas and pitch them to the team or even with our wholesalers. We are able to test the waters on what will and will not be successful. We then push forward the winners by creating unique skus and codes to represent each product by size, color and design. We then push our digital assets to our production team that will create screens and do test runs on the colors and size of print. Fast forward to the end product, we will have a t-shirt with a private label, sewn hem tag, and a branded hang tag with our companies' story. All entered into an inventory management system by sku with a picture to represent the mock up, a detailed description of the product and the necessary information to push out through our marketing and sales channels to our wholesalers and b2c online website. Describe the process of launching the business.We really bootstrapped our business. We launched our business by utilizing social media and word of mouth. We created a Facebook group to promote our newly created brand. We then gathered every email address we had from our friends and family to put into one email list. We then created an ETSY page to be able to sell our products. During the process of setting up our ETSY website, we realized we needed to set up a bank account so the money from those orders would be hitting a neutral account and not just our own personal bank. As we went through the process of setting up a business bank account through our local credit union, we learned that we had to make our business an official business with the stated for tax and legal purposes. We decided to create a general partnership to launch our brand as an official business in the state of Texas. Jeb and I threw in our initial investment of $350 each to be able to purchase our first run of $700 value of t-shirts. We did not use a credit card nor any type of loan. We literally took out our own personal cash to start the business. We launched the business by sending out a personally written email to our family and friends. Then we sent out personal Facebook messages to our friends inviting them to join our brand's group. We directed people to our ETSY site so friends, family and co-workers could place their orders. As we received orders, we would quickly email our customers thanking them and encouraging them to tell their friends. We then started reaching out to our friends that were influencers to help promote our business. We sent out a few free t-shirts for our friends that were influencers to post on social and link back to us. This guerilla marketing tactic really was catalyst to our growth. We connected with local musicians, athletes and bloggers to help get the word out. In a short few weeks, we made our initial $700 investment back. So, we decided to withdraw that money and take back our $350 each. From that moment forward, we just kept reinvesting money back into the business. We did not take a salary nor personal income until we felt like the profits could run our operations and inventory management successfully without having to reinvest our own money into the company. Patience, hustle, relationships and strategy was key to the launch of our business. Now that we have some experience under our belt, we have looked at expanding into other niche markets or creating other lifestyle brands. One brand is a Christian-inspired lifestyle brand called Refine Outfitters. We partnered with a few friends that could reach a younger demographic to launch this specific business. We have not put a lot of time and effort into it yet, but do have plans to take it to the level of Tumbleweed TexStyles, but in the Christian or Inspirational space. We do not hustle our business just for money. We enjoy the game of entrepreneurship, but only when representing a lifestyle, passion or cause that we believe in and actually live out ourselves. Since launch, what has worked to attract and retain customers?The key to our growth has been our story. We created a brand based on our education roots, our teaching background and our family friendly product and marketing. Also, we genuinely live out the life we portray in our products, photography and marketing. So our lifestyles are truly walking billboards to our brand within our community. Credibility is and has been key. The second part to our success is building genuine relationships and putting people first. We do what we do because of people and our customers. We also find more joy in giving back to our community than selling t-shirts. So we try to constantly tell and show our story through all of our branding, marketing and sales. Effective and clear communication is key. We have a customer service manager that is quick to respond to our customers when they need something. If there is ever a product or service issue, we always put the customer first in trying to fix the problem or find a solution. Kill them with kindness is key. We constantly are learning more about our customers. Extracting data from orders, email marketing, social media and events has been key to truly understand our customer. We then use that data to retarget advertising campaigns and our email marketing communication. We want to provide our customers with a product, lifestyle and purpose to buy so they want to keep coming back. We also put more value in a returning customer than a new lead. So we try to reconnect with customers often by sending personal emails, follow up communications and even thank you cards. It is all about building community and providing an experience. Giving customers something they want to come back for more. Provide the customers with talking points so they want to share with their friends and family. Also to establish a habit. We want our product to be an annual Christmas gift or the t-shirt an entire family wants to wear on their summer trip. By dropping new products and designs often, it keeps our customers coming back for more. All of these things can then all come back to the main objective, that each customer knows they are helping scholarship a graduating senior, helping a teacher in need or some other social cause with each purchase of a Tumbleweed TexStyles product. How are you doing today and what does the future look like?Our business is growing each and every day. We continue to beat the previous months and years sales. We are also expanding our business model to fit the demand and business opportunities. As we look to grow our business, we are putting our focus on creating and then upgrading our systems and then training our team. Our greatest assets are our people and the systems that help maintain flow and organization. As we develop the right structure to handle growth and expansion, we have been strategically expanding our product offerings. We are growing the selection of designs to build more of a lifestyle brand verse a t-shirt business. Over the last few years, we have been building our product line to include decor, glassware, stickers, koozies and hats. At this point, we are increasing our digital advertising through Facebook to retarget our current social followers, email marketing subscribers and customers. We are also targeting look-alike audiences to reach new hot leads. We are able to utilize user generated content to create quality images to hit specific people to maximize our opportunity for click-through rates. Facebook pixels and data generated by our online orders have been one of our greatest assets thus far in our marketing campaigns. We have grown our wholesale partners from just a handful to over 150+ across Texas. Our credibility has grown due to our success and attention to detail. We never intended to grow our wholesale business, but it just happened. I guess we got very lucky. To start, we had a couple of friends that showed interest in carrying our shirts in their local boutique stores. My goal was to provide quality service, so I would hand deliver orders whenever they needed new product. At this time, we had no organization besides receiving emails or calls for orders and then entering details into spreadsheets. I would create a digital invoice through a word document. We would only take checks for payments. We then realized how we could scale our business and print quantities if we build up our wholesale business. So, I started randomly emailing stores that I felt would be a good fit or I would cold visit the store by going in and dropping off a few shirts to showcase. I did this in our town of Frisco, but then on trips throughout Texas in predominantly tourist locations. We quickly grew our wholesale business from 1, 2, 10, 20 and then to over 100. This was a great opportunity, but we also learned that it was and is very tough to manage a wholesale model. It is impossible to make all people happy. We were and still till this day have to constantly chase down money owed to us. Also, there is far more risk in wholesale, since we have to carry a larger inventory quantity which is a financial risk. Retailers require so much more than the average customer. Retailers have no desire to build a brand, they just want to push sales in their store. So we decided we needed to create systems such as accounting program for invoicing and tracking, a contact management system to help us stay more organized with our customer inquiries/communication and then a system so wholesalers could actually order on their own instead of using email or phone. We also realized the more I was working with retailers, we were doing less proactive building to expand our brand. So we decided to hire some teacher friends that had a passion for fashion and people. They served as our account managers. Due to our success with the smaller boutiques throughout Texas, we finally caught to attention and interest from larger retailers. At this point, we decided to expand our wholesale business by hiring an account manager with experience with systems, technology and data mining. We also hired a sales representative that would get our product into the fashion market (Dallas Market Hall) and other trade show markets throughout Texas. This quickly expanded our brand to large retailers and higher volume clients. For that reason, we have grown our wholesale partners to outside of the Texas market to states such as Minnesota, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Louisiana and more. We take state pride designs like we do for Texas, but customized to those specific states. We hope to continue to expand out success beyond the Texas state lines. Our success with our own brand has also gained the attention from businesses, musicians, influencers and brands across Texas. For that reason, we have grown our custom design work from small local businesses to large corporations wanting to hire us for our style and understanding of our niche. Beyond our own product line, custom work and expanding our team, we are also scheduled to open our first brick and mortar store which will serve as our flagship location in Frisco, Texas in the winter of 2019. At this location, we look to scale our product offerings to be able to carry high quality products, limited edition designs and to build out the lifestyle offerings we hope to carry. This flagship store will also serve as an opportunity for our team to build an experience. A place to maintain community as well as build personal relationships between our owners and customers. We hope to make this store a destination location in our city. Through starting the business, have you learned anything particularly helpful or advantageous?No one is really prepared to own a business. I had a marketing degree with work experience in the field of business and marketing. I was even a teacher of the subject matter. Those things helped me get started, but the day-to-day experiences and the process of trial and error has really been the true tale of our success. The most important thing I have learned is that successful businesses are driven and focused on people. Whether it be the customers, management or staff, people are the most valuable asset a business can rely on. For that reason, the most important area to invest money, time and strategy is in people. The second critical component to a businesses' success is quality systems. Early on, we struggled staying organized. Our decisions were based on emotion and passion. To breakthrough the clutter and to become a highly profitable company, we had to let the data define our decisions. For that reason, building quality systems specifically in the areas of accounting, inventory management, marketing analytics, project management, team communication and customer relations is key. We currently use systems such as Asana for project management, slack for internal communication, Quickbooks for accounting, Stitch for inventory management and Klaviyo for email marketing. These help us stay organized and guide our priorities. The other areas that we have learned is the importance of quality partnerships. Unfortunately, it is hard to find good people that can be trusted in the business world. A key component to building quality relationships is to always protect yourself. We have a lawyer that helps protect us. Having contracts in place regardless of who you are working with is imperative to protecting the business and sustainability of a business. Bringing focus back to partnerships, we have found it is critical to value character and credibility far more than anything. Our partnerships are like family. We work with influencers, businesses, media and people that are willing to go to bat for us and help positively impact our company. Sometimes bartering or trades are far more valuable than the immediate sale. For example, we have build some partnerships where we trade our design services for a social media influencer to give us a shout out for free through social channels. This ends up being a win win because of the value of our service and the value of their influence. Many times, these types of opportunities only come when we already had a strong relationship with the person or company. The last piece of advice is to understand that as an entrepreneur, sleep, rest and a social life might be hard to come by. If you can find a way to connect life with business, it will make things far more enjoyable. Great things come with great sacrifice. Also, the little details matter. Always work as if you are trying to build a small business into a large multi-million dollar company. Build the right systems from day one even if it seems unnecessary at the time. As quoted from Jim Collins, Good is the Enemy of Great. Never settle nor give up. Great people and great companies find ways to make things happen with the resources at hand. Then can take what they have and scale it by working hard, grinding and strategically adapting to the environment and economy around them. As quoted by Mark Cuban, "Luck is the residue of hard work". Entrepreneurs must be willing sacrifice, work hard, build relationships and humble themselves. Success is not guaranteed. Although, success is more likely to be achieved by those that work harder, smarter, more efficiently and for those that are willing to seek advice, guidance and help. Never underestimate the value of education, experience, training and a mentor. What platform/tools do you use for your business?.Tools and systems are critical to the success for all businesses and brands. Over the years, we have utilized many systems that worked well, didn't work well or that we outgrew. To me, there is no perfect system. Although, there are systems that can be very valuable in seasons of time. A few systems I'd like to share help us day to day achieve our accounting, sales and project management goals. We utilize the Shopify platform for our b2c online sales. Through the Shopify site, we use multiple 3rd party applications. Although, the most beneficial for us are Stitch inventory management system and the Shipstation shipping and logistics app. For accounting purposes, we utilize Quickbooks since it can be synced with our bank and website. Quickbooks helps our accountant keep things clean and organized so we can see a real time snapshot of how our financials look. For social media, we utilize Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Twitter is great for quick communication or news. Maybe even to crack a joke. Instagram has been great for us to build a story through images and video. Facebook is great for building community and family. We use Google Analytics to make wise decisions and to help us see what advertising and marketing campaigns are working. This then allows us to bring more focus, time and money to what is working and less to those areas not working as well. Internally, we utilize slack as a communication tool for our team and then utilize Asana as our project management tool. Both are valuable in keeping things organized and out in the open for the team to see. We also utilize Google Drive for our documents, notes and spreadsheets. Our art team utilizes Dropbox for keeping our creative assets organized and filed accordingly. What have been the most influential books, podcasts, or other resources?Knowledge is power. I am an advocate for not being a copycat and that success cannot always be duplicated. Although, there is great value in learning from people, books, podcasts and all other forms of education. There are a few books that I think all business owners should read. One is Good to Great by Jim Collins. This book helped me better understand the importance of systems and management style. A teams greatest assets are their team members. It is about getting the right people on the bus and then putting those people in the right seats. Utilizing people in their strengths and areas of expertise can truly make or break a company. The second is Raving Fans by Ken Blanchard. This has greatly impacted my view on the development of systems and customer service. The greatest asset for a company is their team. The greatest external asset is a customer willing to passionately advocate about your business. The third book is Traction by Gino Wickman. Building an effective entrepreneurial operating system is the key to taking a business or organization to the next level. This is the first step in scaling a business. In addition, I find value in almost any book by Marcus Buckingham, Seth Godin, Dale Carnegie, Gary Vaynerchuk, John Maxwell, Jay Conrad Levinson, and John Acuff. I also listen to a lot of podcasts including Seth Godin, Gary Vaynerchuk, and [tart Up Camp. Advice for other entrepreneurs who want to get started or are just starting out?The best advice is to gain experience. Step out of faith and learn by trial and error. Find a mentor or a person willing to allow you to shadow or gain knowledge, experience and understanding from. Read. Be a master in your field. Know as much as you can so you are not taken advantage of. Fake it until you make it. Everyone has to start somewhere. Do not play the victim, nor blame game. Stay focused on your object and stay driven to that one goal. Be open for change so you are capable to adapt when it is necessary to stay afloat or to gain a competitive advantage. Be prepared to fail. Get up and try again. Don't be a fool though. Learn from your mistakes and strategize a plan to attempt things in a new and improved way. Don't let success derail you from your pillars and personal standards. Be true to who you are and what you believe in. When you die, the only thing you will keep with you is the impact you had on people and the legacy you leave behind. No one wants to leave a legacy of deceit, lies and crime. Be a person of integrity and a man/woman of your word. Be patient. Success does not come overnight. Each thing you do, say, learn or eat is and will be an investment or a detriment to your future. Take everything seriously, because it will affect you later. Have faith. Be hopeful. Have fun. Enjoy the game. Are you looking to hire for certain positions right now?Yes, our company is looking to hire. As we grow, we will seek out people that can fill holes or areas we are in need of filling. I believe in staying lean until it is necessary to fill a position. Finding people that can do jobs better than I can. Scaling so we are able to put people where they are strong, so I can serve in the areas I am best fit to serve. We will be looking for sales associates to work in our store as well as a general manager to lead the store's employees. We will also be looking hire designers, product managers, account managers and event specialists. Of course, these positions will come in time, but we definitely have grown to a point where these roles would add great value to our company now. We do not have any job postings public at this time, but I am sure we will in the very near future. Ultimately, we are looking for honest people that are hard-working and highly passionate about what they do. We need people that get the job done and find a sense of pride in their excellence. Where can we go to learn more?Tumbleweed TexStyles
Liked this text interview? Check out the full interview with photos, tools, books, and other data. For more interviews, check out r/starter_story - I post new stories there daily. Interested in sharing your own story? Send me a PM [link] [comments]  |
| We are building new CRM for entrepreneurship , and we want your opinion Posted: 10 Jul 2019 01:11 PM PDT Hello everyone , First of all I hope this post it's not against the rules of this sub We are team of Developers & Designers and we are going to build a new modern custom CRM ( Customer Relationship Management ) and we are really interested about your opinions on what are some of the extra features that would make your job easy as entrepreneur We want to build this project from your personal feedback Thanks for being part of this ! [link] [comments]  |
| Helpmefind: Software to digitize a roofing company workflow. Please help. Posted: 10 Jul 2019 07:07 AM PDT I work at a roofing company that has recently expanded and we need to digitize our workflow. Problem: a customer calls and speaks to receptionist 1 about an issue, she makes note of it but doesnt share with everyone. customer calls back a different day and speaks to receptionist 2 and receptionist 2 doesnt know what was talked about with receptionist 1. What we would like is some cheap or free software that is very easy to use. It doesnt need a million features. We are just all trying to be "on the same page" so to speak [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 10 Jul 2019 12:54 PM PDT In a general sense the best ways to learn are things that can't be taught. And the second best way is to really focus/read many different things on a topic? The idea of just memorizing things like college is not correct, and is more like learning a skill, it has to be trained over years? [link] [comments]  |
| Liability for IT Consulting/Service Business Posted: 10 Jul 2019 12:46 PM PDT Hello all, Looking for a little info on liability for IT consulting/service businesses. If I were making good profits, I would happily get some insurance, but to start out I was planning to have something like the below in contracts with clients. I will also bounce this off a lawyer, but very curious how others have traversed this?
This was kind of my plan if I spun up something on side. I am not trying to "pull one over", but frankly IT consulting and services feel pretty volatile. I could do work, everything's great. As a result, I blocked CEO jackass son from Fort Nite, and he stole an admin password. He then makes changes, breaks fuck all, moves back in with mom, doesn't tell anyone, and suddenly I am to blame? I have had to read multiple SOW, ToS, and other vendor/legal agreements for my employer, and I was surprised many have the equivilent of: "¯\_(ツ)_/¯" or something like the above nullifying them of most liability. Not all vendors or liability, of course, but most. Its not like this is a service that requires permits and certifications, e.g. electrical, plumbing, contracting, etc. So it feels like its still very "wild-west" and potential for a lot of risk. Any insight is much appreciated! tl;dr - How have others that have IT consulting/service business dealt with minimizing or eliminating liability? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 10 Jul 2019 06:34 AM PDT Hi fellow entreprenurs. I recently started an education agency with my friend. We live in a non-English speaking country but both have MAs in teaching and translation. We want to do this Project where we basically take kids (elementaty school age) to different locations and offer on-the-spot English classes related to the given subject, such as museums, institutions od culture, history etc. The classes would be held twice a week. I wanted to know what you think about it. We need to submit our proposal next week [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 10 Jul 2019 11:49 AM PDT A year ago I decided to start a business with something I truly loved. Vaping. I know it has its stereotype of being douchy but it got me off cigarettes and ultimately down to a couple of puffs a day. The business started very well on the positive side of finances. I structured my business so that I always profited if even just a tad bit on every transaction because well, that's the whole foundation to a successful business. As obvious as that previous sentence is, I have heard a lot that you have to go into a large amount of debt out the gate which might be true because I am now at the end of my rope. So what's the point of this article? I want to answer any questions you may have with your shops so you avoid my mistakes. Everyone talks about their successes but I like sharing my failures so that you can hopefully create something better for yourself. The number one thing I hope you get from this is for you to be aggressive with studying your industry. Read articles, books Reddit posts. Watch youtube videos. Listen to podcasts. You should treat the search for knowledge as a job working in overtime whenever possible. Free information is out there but a bit of advice. Eccomerce has a lot of videos that are 20ish minutes long and it's a stroke fest. I drive this, I live here, look at where I'm at on vacation and only 2 minutes worth of actual good information. Wade through their personal celebration and pull out what's useful. (Off subject, those videos are designed for you to fall for their "proven" method so that you buy it. Operate on facts alone, never on a flashy advertisement.) Hurdle 1 All business have hurdles you need to overcome to get to the point where you can turn an actual profit and the vape industry seemingly has more than any I have seen due to the nature of the product. My first hurdle was finding a way to get paid after Shopify banned my payment gateway within a week. I had to seek out someone who was willing to take the risk for my transactions which meant higher transaction costs and having to deal with really unprofessional people. I remember hunting a payment gateway agency and while on the phone was put on hold so he could talk to his wife (nothing wrong with that) however, when he got back on the phone his first line was "sorry that was my bitch wife". I really don't think an employee from Stripe, Amazon or Braintree would EVER answer the phone in that manner. Needless to say, I went with a different provider. My current payment gateway put me at 3.5% + .50cent per transaction which you might be able to negotiate down. Keep in mind these issues are online issues only as I have personally seen Paypal, Stripe and other terminals in physical locations. The threat to accepting online payments is that you truly do not know if there is an underage person buying your product. This opens your business to legal issues if your website isn't appropriately labeled and effective age checks are not in place. Hurdle 2 Advertising? Nothing traditional will let you advertise. The big channels that when used effectively can get the right eyes on what you are selling is off limits and rightfully so as we see what is currently happening with Juul and teens. So when it comes to getting your products out there to the right customers you need to create content. Content is king for this industry. You need youtube videos, social media accounts, and blogs. Good blogs with great SEO keywords will get you better rankings on Google and get you more customers. Why didn't I do this? I attempted this but in order to keep up with the big boys, you need tons and tons of content from what I gather. This is a weak point in my business as I hired individuals from Fiverr to do some of my social media and it came riddled with grammatical errors and very corny not appropriate for my demographic style posts. There are tools that I use to peek into your competition and see their rankings, how many backlinks which sometimes are in the millions, their best-used SEO words that got them traffic, so on and so forth. Hurdle 3 Shipping and suppliers. Some of my competition gets their inventory from China which creates long shipping times. We all use Amazon and were all used to the 3-4 days of shipping. Find yourself good suppliers that have American warehouses that not only you can get on the phone quickly but also count on CONSISTENT shipping times and availability. If your supplier doesn't have a feed to keep inventory synced, you're going to have to outsource this to a Virtual Assistant or simply do the work yourself. I updated my stock and fluctuated prices manually because it was something that I could still handle at my level. Shipping times can exceed 3 weeks whereas American warehouses have never taken me more than 24 hours to get an order dispatched. This was a huge huge issue for me. So when I started to get orders in, my supplier, (I requested no identifiers on the packaging to which they agreed) would send orders clearly labeled with their information. So when I obtained 2 clients that were B2B they received the devices and juices and circumvented me as a middleman leaving me with a 4k monthly gap abruptly. With no legal agreements in place, I lost 2 clients that were businesses that could have allowed me to supply my marketing tactics to another level. I brought it up to my supplier and they brushed it off as a part of doing business. I tested the packaging twice by sending orders to my own personal residence that had both their invoice and their personal branding. Hurdle 4 Since content is king, I hired 3 people to help drive organic traffic and it all felt incredibly fake. After days of searching for people around my budget and attempting to diligently do research on them, I still failed to get over this hurdle. Their reviews I feel have to be incentivized in some sort of way because they did not reflect the work done. I focused on Instagram and every post was liked up to 100 likes at minutes apart at almost the same time every single day. I can safely assume that this isn't normal human behavior and that a bot was adding those likes or part of a like for like program the hired person uses. I currently sit at 1.2k followers which I am sure 75%ish are fake. I talked to a lot of people in DMs on Instagram and I believe that 75% is a good assessment to the authenticity of those followers. How do you avoid this? Hire professionals with a proven background. If they have a website, use free tools to see their traffic. If they are charging $2,500 for their minimum package and their traffic is 1 visit every other day, avoid that "agency" at all costs. There are tons of people claiming they can get you traffic and get you sales. So the thought process is, if you can get me all this traffic, why aren't you replicating it effectively for your own business. My business is currently still open but I am having a hard time putting her down as you can imagine. So much time invested, sleepless nights and coffee driven results but everything must always come to an end. I've learned a ton from this venture and fully expect to use all the lessons I have acquired to hopefully guide my next adventure to my perception of success. Good luck to all of you and feel free to ask any questions, I'm an open book. [link] [comments]  |
| Is it possible to trademark my business name and logo if I am not from the US? Posted: 10 Jul 2019 11:09 AM PDT And is there an option to trademark it internationally so that it covers all the countries? Like, what are the costs? Does anyone have experience with this? [link] [comments]  |
| Can they hijack my domain? Can I register my business internationally? Posted: 10 Jul 2019 10:58 AM PDT So there's this name I really liked. I checked whether it was available 3 months ago. It was. Then today I found out it had been bought. I bought a .org domain and other variations of my name. Can they take away my business when I become successful? I checked DCMA take downs and they could take it down if someone tries to spoof. But what if they weren't spoofing but just registered my business name with a different enough logo? What can I do to register my business name so that it is valid internationally? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 09 Jul 2019 07:06 PM PDT A shoutout to this great community who selflessly helps one another [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 10 Jul 2019 10:32 AM PDT I own a small web design and management business and recently one of my customers insists that I personally be given a 1099. This is strange to me as no other customer has ever suggested this and they have spent thousands of dollars with me. I have a LLC but do most (not all) of the work myself. Can some explain if this is okay or if I should insist on using my standard service agreement instead? [link] [comments]  |
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