Wantrepreneur Wednesday! - (July 31, 2019) Entrepreneur |
- Wantrepreneur Wednesday! - (July 31, 2019)
- The 7 Fatal Mistakes a New Entrepreneur will Face
- Anyone interested in a B2B focused sub or slack channel?
- Former Special Forces Operator and CIA Contractor Provides Coffee and Content to People who Love America.
- $80k/mo with a screen printing business.
- How did you decide what kind of business to start?
- How I Made $10,000 on YouTube Before Age 18
- Travelers, could we make the world a better place? Hear my thoughts and drop some feedback below.
- Does anyone have any experience with owning a completely absentee-owner restaurant?
- Cheap email account for custom domain
- Interesting/Motivational Audio or Youtube Recommendations?
- Looking to Build a Team
- SaaS product
- As a US buyer, what's the best way to issue swift payments to a supplier in Europe?
- Idea: Hootsuite for eCommerce
- Looking for powerful, meaningful words that are related to Information Technology/Digital Media.
- Help me choose a name for my blog: YoGoFlights vs YoFlights. I will be reviewing flights with different companies. Please vote 1 or 2.
- What's the going rate for sales in software services?
- Naming a business?
- Why does Amazon rent out trucks for Delivery (i.e. Enterprise, Uhaul, etc.) instead of owning their own Fleet?
- 5 ideas for apps/ products
- Describe your first Entrepreneurial Move In One Word
- Start Up Idea - App that first filters all articles using snippets and short summary before reading.
- 0% taxes ?
- New to this - expectations of customers?
| Wantrepreneur Wednesday! - (July 31, 2019) Posted: 31 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]  |
| The 7 Fatal Mistakes a New Entrepreneur will Face Posted: 31 Jul 2019 01:42 AM PDT The 7 Fatal Mistakes a New Entrepreneur will Face My name is Franco Shaw and I own and operate a business with a rather interesting reputation. On one hand, our product kicks ass and we've been featured on Huffington Post, New York Times, The Today Show, Celebrities Worldwide and have even been in Drakes "KIKI" Video (Product placement). The interesting reputation comes from inventory fulfillment and terrible warehouse management. (Since of-shot this to a third party distributor to handle fulfillment) I thought I would write the 7 Fatal Mistakes that have tarnished my brands reputation over the years and help some new Entrepreneurs with situations that will arise for any new growing business.
2. Plan Ahead... but not too far Ahead
3. Know Your Industry
4. Love What You Do
5. Stop comparing yourself to other Entrepreneurs
6. Pursue a Healthy Lifestyle
7. Make time for Family and Friends
Overall, the messages written above are guides that I find to be helpful/would have been if I had read them earlier. As a first time Entrepreneur in my family I've had to fall flat on my face to learn how to build a business (and I'm still failing today). But one thing is for certain, and that is everyday I try to be better than I was yesterday. In business, in life, and in figuring out why the hell we're here in the first place. Entrepreneurship is a rocky road, but with the right shoes you'll be fine and will have the adventure of a lifetime. So buckle up and get riding! Thanks and I hope this helps. Frank @FrankyShaw @FrankAnthonySwimwear [link] [comments]  |
| Anyone interested in a B2B focused sub or slack channel? Posted: 31 Jul 2019 09:25 AM PDT Calling all consultants, agency owners, SaaS founders, and other professional services / product providers. I'm curious to see if anyone here has interest in a new sub or slack group focused on strictly B2B businesses. I find decent content on this sub occasionally, but it's pretty crowded, noisy, and spammy. B2B is a different beast from a lot of the consumer-focused businesses here: sales, business development, lead generation, B2B marketing, client management and retention, upselling, hiring, firing, finances, etc. These are the topics I'd like to discuss with other like-minded folks in B2B without all of the other noise and clutter found here. Open to suggestions on the right channel to host something like this, and other areas we could cover. If you're interested, post here and let's discuss to get the ball rolling. Would be helpful to know your background as well. As far as my background, I run a productized b2b service business in sales and marketing so my contributions / questions will mostly be focused around business development and growth strategies. Edit: I'll follow up with a DM to each person who replies to start getting the group set up! [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 31 Jul 2019 12:16 PM PDT Many companies steer well clear of divisive political stances. However, Black Rifle Coffee have used controversy to their advantage by creating coffee for a passionate niche. Proponents of the brand include the likes of Fox News presenter Sean Hannity. "I woke up one morning and Sean had tweeted about the company, it was organic. It took me a few days to get in contact via Twitter and thank him. Sean's been a great proponent of the company, and we're obviously fans of his. So it's been a great relationship for us. We have a paid partnership now. He transitioned from an authentic user of the brand." Between deployments in the Middle East, Hafer refined and combined his passions for coffee, veterans, and pro second amendment communities. Hafer's coffee beans have names fitting for the brand, there is "Sniper's Hide Blend," "Freedom Blend" "AK-47 Blend," and "Silencer Smooth Blend" . I recently got the chance to talk to Evan about coffee, companies and what success looks like. "I would rather create 100 millionaires than have $100 million. Wealth is great and people have to have aspirational goals. Sometimes aspirational goals are hinged to materialistic possessions, and I'm not naive to that nor am I immune to it. I would rather have money to do abstract and interesting things with our friends that creates value in our relationship than buy a private jet. If I'm just flying around a private jet by myself, it's really just f\****g stupid."* What got you started in the coffee industry?I wanted to start a coffee company probably as far back as 1997; I've always really enjoyed coffee. I was living in Seattle at the time, and it was just before the big coffee boom. I always felt that after the military, I would have a coffee company of some type — and when I say that, I was thinking about a small roaster shop in the northwest of the United States. Fast forward a few years when I joined the military — I was a Green Beret, then eventually went on to the CIA because I enjoyed serving the United States in conflict areas. I started roasting coffee somewhere between 2006 and 2008. For me, Iraq blends all together, so it's essentially one long memory, not a bunch of different memories. I was there from 2003 to 2009, for the majority of each year. The only way I can differentiate between timeframes is based on city. So, I was working in a city called Kirkuk, and I started roasting coffee between deployments. I got a small roaster and began making coffee that I could take overseas — this is when I started learning how to curate roast profiles. I did all this with the intent of developing a skill that I could enjoy, as well as discovering new and interesting things about coffee. At the same time, I was preparing myself for a future endeavor. A lot of coffee shops started to pop up in Seattle in the '90s, including Starbucks, did this inspire you?Starbucks really wasn't the best coffee shop in Seattle. The micro-lot roasters were starting to pop up. There were fantastic espresso and pour-over stations outside of Starbucks. So there's Caffe Vita and Vivace. Vivace's up on Capitol Hill — I still think they do espresso better than anyone in Seattle. The founder of Vivace wrote a book about espresso, and I bought it 20 years ago because it was interesting to me. Starbucks isn't putting out information on how to make better coffee or how to roast. Most of these other guys, I could go in and talk to and look at what they were doing. From Seattle, I went to the East Coast, and there really wasn't any coffee to speak of. Nobody that was doing it on an artisan level — I'm sure there was, but I just couldn't find it. And then going back between Iraq and Afghanistan, I ran into a guy from Denver who had a shop called Kaladi Brothers, and he was a coffee roaster. He was using an air roaster when I was talking to him. My history with coffee goes back 20 years — that's how long I've been roasting and talking to roasters. Between deployments, I would take a lot of time to go to coffee festivals — I would even plan my time back home around coffee festivals. So it wasn't just in 2014 that I decided I was going to be a coffee guy — I'd been doing it 20 years. How did you initially fund the company?I started with $1,800 and bought the roaster in 2007, built my own website, took my own pictures, roasted my own coffee, and we didn't really need funding. By the time I had that stuff up, I started making some videos. We ultimately started selling coffee based on a self-taught mechanism between marketing and the coffee-roasting function. I self-funded for two years, just rolling all the profits back into the company. What early marketing did you do for Black Rifle?Based on the authenticity of the brand — I was a firearms instructor for a while and have a background that's very patriotic — I think people resonated with the message. When we started making videos and making a social media presence, there were more people aware of the company. Based on our marketing position, people were attracted to the messaging. We were really just trying to create entertaining videos for our customers. It just happened that a lot of people saw the posts. How did the Sean Hannity partnership come about?I woke up one morning and Sean had tweeted about the company, it was organic. It took me a few days to get in contact via Twitter and thank him. Then we had a few conversations, and we flew out to New York to meet with him six months later. It was great. Sean's been a great proponent of the company, and we're obviously fans of his. So it's been a great relationship for us. We have a paid partnership now. He transitioned from an authentic user of the brand. I felt it was right to strike a marketing deal as he was continuing to push the product. You know, people love the company. For me, that's one thing, and I love that they push it. But, ultimately, you have to pay for people's time and work — it's the only ethical thing to do. So you create a relationship based on authenticity, and you develop a friendship and respect for each other that essentially turns into a business relationship. You could bypass the system with marketing; however, that relationship is always more of an employer-employee relationship. This way, we have a mutual respect for one another's brands, it develops more naturally, and it's a better advertising relationship because they don't feel like they're being forced to do anything based on a paycheck. Starbucks announced they would hire 10,000 refugees. Shortly after, you announced Black Rifle would hire 10,000 veterans. How did this come about?It was in response to an executive order requiring a 90-day furlough for refugees coming into the U.S. from the Middle East. Starbucks, in my mind, was making a political statement against the president — and they're a company, they can do that. My focus is that you would have to create a relationship with the U.S. State Department in order to sift through the approved refugees, and that it's not possible to hire that many refugees — it's not logistically even plausible. I say that based on the number of applicants who are accepted into the United States, based on how many employers are trying to hire refugees. One employer being able to hire that many people with official refugee status is an impossible task. Starbucks hadn't created that relationship with the state department — he (Starbucks chairman and CEO Howard Schultz) was just throwing it out there without actually knowing how to do it. So, I thought, if you're going to do that, let's bring the attention back to the veteran community. Let's not talk about things we can't do, let's talk about something we can do. And I shifted the national conversation — it wasn't even for Black Rifle — back to veteran hiring. Compared to the national hiring averages, veterans are underemployed across the board. Essentially, I'm saying we should start getting our house in order before we start going to our neighbours. And we owe a heavy debt to our service members for the wars we've been in for over a decade. I felt like it was a misrepresentation of where the national priorities should be. Are you opening any physical shops?Yeah, we're in the process. I think in 2020, we'll have 20 shops. Do they help with branding or also a significant revenue driver?Your first year after opening a shop, you're tacking on gross revenue but you're not tacking on profit based on the cost of the shop. They will drive revenue though. In 2020, they'll contribute around 20% of our revenue. Are you looking to expand internationally?I'm really focused on the U.S. I think you have to eat a steak one bite at a time — if you try to eat the whole thing, you're gonna choke. So for us, we're focusing in our own backyard. We've got a roasting facility just outside of Nashville, one in Salt Lake, another in San Antonio. So we're focusing on the United States with limited distribution and expansion overseas. You can only tackle so many things so often. How do you ensure you remain profitable while spending on marketing?I steer clear of print, I steer clear of billboards. Everything needs to be measured — when you're in startup mode, you have to measure your results and track them back to a positive ROI (return on investment). And if you can't, then you should probably not do it. Are you using Shopify for you backend?We are. We have a custom dataset that we built last year. So I can pull data from across the board, from our social channels to our ecom channels, our audio impressions, our digital impressions. I can see where and how products are performing at the touch of a button, and it updates every two seconds. How does Amazon perform for you?It's great for us. When looking at Amazon, you have to sacrifice a few things. You don't get your attribution data, you don't get your customer data — and I like to talk to my customers. If I want to pick up the phone and ask my customer how they enjoyed the product, I want to be able to do that. You lose that ability when you start selling your product over there. So for us, I always want to stay connected with the customer to make sure they're having an incredible experience. And if they're not, I also want to be able to communicate with them about that. So for me, it's far more important to be able to communicate with customers than sell on Amazon. Amazon does drive sales for us, but it's an insignificant percentage of the gross revenue. What does success look like for you?Success is creating a community. It's creating an ecosystem, and we've created a balanced ecosystem that's working toward the same objective. The community is your customers and your employees — it's one inclusive community. You're always working for your customer to create exponential value in your product, with a tertiary mission to employ and empower veterans. If everybody is in line on that, you're going to win. If everybody's not on board, that's where you start getting pulled in different directions. Maintaining mission focus is excruciatingly important. Do you get a lot of repeat customers? How is growth looking?We've been able to grow relatively fast. Our new customer growth constitutes roughly 30% year over year. Then there are the previous customers, who we have an incredible retention rate with. Our churn rate is lower that the national average by a long shot. Our customer growth is higher than the national average by a long shot. All the arrows in our data sets are pointed in the right direction. We have great customer service, we have great quality products. When you start getting red arrows, that's when you really start to think you're messing things up. What advice do you have for people starting out?I wrote a mission statement when I transitioned away from the military and into business. My mission statement was to transition out of government service to a profession where we live a happy and fulfilling life. Everything we do is directed toward that mission. And there's nothing about wealth in there, there's nothing about power, nothing about abstract eco-based objectives. It keeps me focused to this day. If I'm pulling left or right from the mission statement, I know something is wrong. These internal struggles are incredibly difficult for any individual. You have to conduct what I call "time triage" every day, and that allows you to continue to focus on your mission. The company is directly pointed toward my individual mission, and I keep it focused. Then our mission statement at Black Rifle Coffee is to provide coffee and content to people who love America. When you combine goals between your company and yourself, and your goals align, they feed your overarching mission. If you're indecisive and don't know who you are — and males are notorious for having fragile egos. They can't share, it's interesting psychologically. But I chop all of that stuff away — stuff that doesn't feed into the mission statement of the company or my own mission statement. Stay focused, and you have to sacrifice your ego on the altar of business. I've told that to people for five years. If you're in it for your ego or to create wealth or individual power, you're going to set yourself up to have a vapid materialistic life and you're never going to achieve your goals. The goal has to be something bigger than money, and if it is, you'll probably win. If it's not, you may be 80 years old on your deathbed and have a lot of money — but you literally have nobody that cares about you. I would rather create 100 millionaires than have $100 million. Wealth is great and people have to have aspirational goals. Sometimes aspirational goals are hinged to materialistic possessions, and I'm not naive to that nor am I immune to it. I would rather have money to do abstract and interesting things with our friends that creates value in our relationship than buy a private jet. If I'm just flying around a private jet by myself, it's really just f*****g stupid. If you enjoyed this post the original interview is here. [link] [comments]  |
| $80k/mo with a screen printing business. Posted: 31 Jul 2019 09:01 AM PDT Hey - Pat from StarterStory.com here with another interview. Today's interview is with Adam Tanaka of Life and Limb Printing, a brand that sells screen printing and merch production. Some stats:
Hello! Who are you and what business did you start?Hello! My name is Adam Tanaka and I own a company called Life and Limb Printing. We are a screen printing and full-service merch company that specializes in merch production for breweries, outdoor clothing companies, and restaurants with a little bit of everything else sprinkled in. In 2016, we became automated bringing on our first auto screen printing press which changed our output drastically. We went from printing about 120 pieces an hour on a manual press to hitting anywhere from 500 to 800 pieces an hour. Since officially launching the business in 2010, we had our best month last year in October 2018 at $80,000 and now we are set to hit 1M by the end of 2019. What's your backstory and how did you come up with the idea?I was all over the place with what I wanted to do with my life - anywhere from a radio DJ, to creating zines, then going to college for biology, dropping out, all the while playing music and touring in bands since I was 14. The music I listened to in the 90's played a major role in what I ended up doing as my career. I remember stuffing cash into an envelope and sending it to some of my favorite bands' addresses and within 2 to 4 weeks, I'd get a shirt in the mail. After opening the package, I would immediately feel the print and it was a mystery to me of how that print got on a shirt. In the early 2000's, I got a job here in Nashville with a merch company that did almost everything in house. I started out scrubbing the floors and cleaning the shop making $6.25/hr. It was a large enough company that they were busy year round and a small enough company that the owners were there most of the time. From scrubbing those floors to working in their eCommerce department, I learned the inner workings of the production side of the business and knew I was ready to figure out how to launch my own company in merch. I was working part-time at an art store, trying to play music and in 2008 at the age of 26, started printing small one-off jobs here and there for myself and for friends. I put music on the back burner to try and work my way to manager of the art store so that I could make more money to save up and spend towards my new venture. Somehow still being over $300 overdrawn in my bank account with more bills coming in and not enough being made, I still started a business. My first real customer was a Nashville brewery, who still prints with us today. I cold-called them making my company sound much bigger than it was. The name was a song from a favorite band of mine, Fugazi called Life and Limb. It was the first bit of text I saw when my customer asked me what my company name was and it just ended up sticking. I started printing on the floor of my apartment and curing shirts on a cookie sheet in the oven. Below is the first shirt I printed for Yazoo Brewery and a cassette tape insert of the Fugazi record The Argument that has the track Life and Limb. Even multiple-color jobs, I had to wipe down each screen every single time to align with the print and used a heat gun so the inks wouldn't stick to the screen. This was brutal and I don't know what I was thinking. Eventually, I moved into a 600 square foot garage, then shared the back of a building with another company, and a few years later landed our current space. All I knew was that I wanted to give my customers the best product ever, and something they could wear around and be proud of. About 6 years into the business, I hired my first employee and now have a solid team of 8 people. Take us through the process of designing, prototyping, and manufacturing your first product.Once the sale is made and the order is defined, we will take artwork either from the customer or create it for them and begin setting it up for screen printing. Any good graphic designer can take a concept and make it a reality, but not every graphic designer knows how to set the design up for screen printing. Once this is ready to go, we start by printing each layer onto films, going to a dark room, and "burning" the design onto screens. Then we are ready for setup on press and production. Our "blanks" are ordered through our suppliers and once received in, we'll cart them and place them in our production queue. There are so many variables here and anything can go wrong, so being able to get ahead of the issues before the order gets on press is ideal. The biggest challenges happen when there is a lack of communication and attention to detail. When I was doing everything by myself and running each part of the business, things could easily become lost in translation. Now having a team in place, a whole new set of issues can happen if the details are lost. Startup costs for this industry can vary greatly depending on your output or what you want to accomplish with your business plan. When starting out, if I didn't have the equipment, I would go onto a shirt forum and figure out how to build a temporary version of what I eventually wanted. I think one of the last things a business owner thinks about is getting your business set up legally with all of the proper forms in place with the state and federally because the focus is on growth and next steps. This was one of my biggest hurdles - keeping up with taxes, business license, and so on… But once you find a good accountant and a good lawyer, let them take care of this so you can focus on building your company. That was one of the few things I wish I had in place from the beginning, even when I wasn't making any money. Describe the process of launching the business.I wasn't even thinking about getting a website up and going or having any online presence at all when I started. I was calling, emailing, and going out every day and visiting businesses and asking if they need printing. After being asked several times about a site they could visit, I knew it was long overdue and quickly built a site through WordPress using a template with basic information and a contact. Also, that phone number is a non-working number now. I didn't have any source of financing or borrowing at all for the first 7 years of business. I've never had partners or investors and still don't to this day. If there was equipment or supplies I needed in order to function, I would work a part time or full time job and save money. Once I had what I needed, I would pay cash for it. I got my first business credit card and financed my first bit of equipment the 7th year when I brought on my first auto press and larger dryer. After launching the business, I didn't start seeing a big customer base for the first 3 years. I had no more than 10 customers at a time. With little to no overhead, I was able to get away with a small customer base, but I wasn't satisfied with the progress I was making at all. Once I moved into a small garage that was separate from an apartment, I had more confidence and didn't feel as embarrassed having customers stop by for consultations on what type of merch they wanted for their business. It was in my 4th year that I started seeing substantial growth to where over the next 2 to 3 years, boxes of shirts were spilling out of my garage into the yard and driveway. Again, having little overhead was huge but I knew it was time to crunch some numbers and see if it made sense to get an actual space that wasn't part of my house, which was terrifying. I kept asking myself "what if the business failed because I moved too early, what if I move into the wrong space, what if I think I can afford it but really can't" and tons of other anxiety inducing questions. Nothing went as planned with launching the business. I didn't have the systems set from beginning to end and it was all over the place. I was jumping back and forth between emails, to printing, to figuring out how to price an order, and there was no structure whatsoever. I was letting these failures get the best of me and had to step back to see why I was doing this in the first place. Realizing that connecting with the customer, building that relationship, and being there for them every step of the way was the most important thing and that became my foundation. Since launch, what has worked to attract and retain customers?One of the biggest first moves I made was hiring a printer, stepping out from behind the press, and focusing on sales. It was really hard for me to hand over that control and hope that the quality and output was the best it could be. Every time I would go out to do face to face sales or meetings, I would constantly have to drive back to the garage or call my printer to make sure everything was ok. I was always worried and stressed about not being there overseeing the production side, especially with this being my first time having an employee. I learned so many things within that year, that it felt like 10 years had already gone by. It became apparent that when deciding to bring on an employee, there would have to be clear expectations and processes in place. This seems like a no-brainer, but I was in the dark on how to do this. Without having the proper expectations set, this in turn sets your employee up for potential disaster. The second biggest move I made was bringing on an actual salesperson. That was a life-changer. I met my first sales guy and his family by chance at a photo shoot for a baby/kids clothing and supply company of mine. After a quick conversation, we both realized he worked for an existing customer of mine. I knew he was the right person when we had a phone call and he threw out several ideas for growth and next steps without knowing the entire process of what we did. I took about a week before jumping right in and talking with him a few more times, and finally offered him the position at a base rate plus commission salary. We get together the first of the month to discuss that month's goals and then another meeting mid-month to see where we are at and how to finish the month strong. As mentioned earlier, we make the connection and build that relationship. If we are a good fit for their brand or company, we will not only help build on their ideas but offer up merchandise consulting and product development if needed. Two days a week, my sales team is in the office building lists for leads, emailing, and making calls. The remainder of the week, they are out getting face time with current customers and potential leads. I now have an account manager who is there to answer phones, take care of any walk-ins, and close the sale that our Sales Development Rep brought in. I have found that doing this allows for sales to keep selling while those potential leads turn into customer orders. Being a service-based company, we don't utilize Amazon, Facebook, or Shopify for sales. Instead of trying to go out and print for as many people as possible, we close in on what we are good at and what industries we want to work with and go for it. We try and run a monthly promo/campaign or a monthly newsletter for discounts on their orders for specific events, holidays, special days, or just as a thank you for returning customers. As part of our face to face sales efforts, we have a small booklet with photos of what we have worked on and a brief rundown of what we do along with a free shirt to give out as well. Inside the neck of the shirt where the size tag would be, this is where we print our company info and size of the shirt. They might throw away the booklet, but not many people throw away a shirt. We try our best to keep our Instagram page up-to-date with various projects we are working on or highlighting a customer we have been working with. We also have a referral program set up where anyone can refer us and in turn, they will get paid a percentage of the job they referred over to us. To help ensure a returning customer, give them incentive and treat them as part of the team. Check in on them every once in a while, or have a cookie cake delivered to their workplace and written with the icing it says "Thank you!" Something to show that their loyalty to you means more than anything because they can go anywhere else at any time. How are you doing today and what does the future look like?The first year of being in an actual building, we lost a lot of money. Although I planned as best I could with a small cushion to fall back on financially, it was still difficult to gauge all of the other bits and pieces such as almost tripling in cost of utilities, our new auto press going down, other equipment issues, and a few other random things. We turned it around quickly and by the end of 2016/early 2017, we were in the black! Each year since, we have grown more than 60% and doubled our square footage in May of this year. Not having the systems in place from the beginning was a struggle especially when bringing on employees. There was a lot of trial and error and forming good habits, but we have clear processes and systems in place and smarter about where things go around the office and the shop, making everything much more efficient. Daily production meetings are a must and end of day reporting helps foresee any problems that could arise in the future. Through starting the business, have you learned anything particularly helpful or advantageous?Having had the business for 10 years and being in the printing and merch industry for over 15 years, I feel more than confident in what I do and I still love it. But I have made and still make some very poor decisions and some whopping mistakes. And even still, I feel like I'm faking my way through it most of the time. Early on, I kept hearing people say that failure is not an option and to keep pressing through it. I say right on, but also failure is an option and failing over and over again is what has allowed me to have just as many, if not more, successes. Early on in the business, I printed a very large quantity of shirts with a specific ink color that had to be matched with a Pantone. I eye-balled it and ran the job, the whole time saying out loud that I hope the customer is ok with it. It was a rush order and I felt like I didn't have the time to re-mix the ink (it would have taken a whole 10 more minutes to do so). They didn't like what I chose of course, and I had to redo the entire order, on my dime, loads of money out the door. Finding the right employees has been the most challenging. It is difficult to find someone with a solid work ethic ready to hit the ground running and is there to support your vision as the owner. That's just rare. If you don't have a system in place for setting up interviews, onboarding/training, and how their first day will go, it will more than likely fail. I have had this happen more times than I can count. I have learned a bit in the last 10 years and am still learning. Not giving up has been key for me. The simple words just keep going don't seem so simple when problems arise. It sounds easier to just get a day job, come home, and not have to worry about work anymore once you're off the clock. Learning to take each thing, whether good or bad, and handling it with a level head will make a big impact on your business and your staff. At the end of the day, employees will look to you to either fix it or make it better, but as an owner, being able to delegate tasks in order to focus on large scale growth is essential. What platform/tools do you use for your business?Printavo is by far my favorite tool we use. It's a cloud based solution that manages every part of the shop. All of my employees have a login and can see workflow from quote form all the way to order completion. Everyone knows what's going on at all times and each department of the business manages certain parts of Printavo. Even my production team can see all of the numbers so they know how the business is doing. If there are setbacks with production, the printers know what they need to do to hit their goals. Everything that is done within the system is documented and is somewhat of an accountability tool as well. They also have countless blog posts covering ways to better your shop, the departments, and overall business in this specific industry which is very helpful. I forget about this sometimes as it seems it isn't as important, but I am all about Google. We use Gsuite for our email platform, and everything else Google has to offer. Simply writing an email where I mention having an attachment but forget, I get an auto-response asking me if I meant to attach something. This has saved me more times than not. Like most businesses, we utilize Google drive every day. For any fulfillment services we do, Shipstation is the way to go for us. Their customer service is next to none and always responsive. Integration is easy and they make inventory management a breeze. We love it. What have been the most influential books, podcasts, or other resources?Built To Sell was a good one for me. It tells a good story about steps you can take to prepare your business to run where you can step away and bring more value to the company and eventually sell it and be profitable. Smarter Faster Better was motivating and gave me a whole new outlook on productivity. There are so many different industries mentioned throughout the book and how the person in charge handled specific situations. No matter the business, we all go through the same stuff and knowing what decisions to make that will allow us to work smart. I love the podcast How I Built This. My favorite episode was the interview with Yvon Chouinard, the owner of Patagonia. This one was very inspiring for me and after the episode ended, I felt even more passionate about what I do and how I do it. He mentioned how the company was growing too fast, so he decided to scale back…..the opposite of what you would assume a business owner would do. I agree to work like everyone is out to get you, because they are for the most part. But I also agree with the phrase, slow and steady wins the race. There is no race to be won in business, but there are goals, and rushing those goals could be detrimental to the well being of the business. Check it out here. Another shout out to the How I Built This podcast is the episode with Andrew Casalena who is the founder of Squarespace, which is the web platform we use for our site. This hit home for me because he briefly discusses his bout with anxiety during the beginning phases of his company. Generalized Anxiety Disorder and social anxiety has been one of the biggest hurdles for me even before starting the business. I felt like I was alone, dealing with the intense symptoms almost every day, but then you hear other people such as Andrew talk about the exact same thing and feel somewhat comforted and know it's going to be ok. Having constant interactions with my staff, customers, and trying to sell to strangers is part of the job and it is sometimes the hardest thing to do in hopes I don't have a panic attack out of nowhere. Advice for other entrepreneurs who want to get started or are just starting out?Focus on the solutions and not the problems. Wait as long as you can before bringing on your first employee and when you get to that point, interview as many as you can until you find the best for what you are needing and pay them well. Make sure you have clearly defined systems and processes in place early on. Don't obsess over your pricing structure. Obsess over bringing value to your customer and everything else will fall into place. And whether you are good at math or not, go ahead and find a good accountant that cares about what you are doing and lock them in. Set the business up from the beginning to where it could eventually run like a machine, on its own, so that you can get to where you want to be faster. You will be able to clearly define your goals and your 2 year/5 year/10 year plans can already be set in motion. Are you looking to hire for certain positions right now?We're not currently looking to fill any positions at the moment, but welcome resumes from anyone who has experience in the industry to hold onto for the future. Where can we go to learn more?
If you have any questions or comments, drop a comment below! Liked this text interview? Check out the full interview with photos, tools, books, and other data. 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]  |
| How did you decide what kind of business to start? Posted: 31 Jul 2019 02:04 PM PDT I know it's probably an odd question because it should be as easy as do something you enjoy, but for some reason it just isn't for me. I have so many ideas and it's hard for me to narrow it down. All tips are welcome. [link] [comments]  |
| How I Made $10,000 on YouTube Before Age 18 Posted: 31 Jul 2019 02:00 PM PDT TL:DR at bottom Video version if you'd rather. How I made $10,000 on YouTube before 18. Over 99% of the money was made from Google Ads running on my videos. I've added a screenshot of the YouTube analytics for proof, I also made some money from Amazon affiliate marketing, enough to put me over the $10,000 threshold, but a drop in the bucket overall. I started by making videos on just about anything and everything... I was really interested in how video editing works, and how it could be put to good use. I decided YouTube was the best and easiest option, because then I also get free feedback on how to improve. For my first 20 videos everything I made was terrible, just awful. You can tell a video is really bad when even the creator of it cringes at it when watching it back, but I uploaded them anyways, and promoted them on Reddit, because I had no idea how to fix them. The great thing about Reddit is that everyone either hates whatever you post, or everyone loves it, and when people hate things they love to tell you exactly why. Soon enough I was creating much better videos, they still weren't anything great, but a viewer could sit through them. It was at this point I hit my break, one video got almost 1,000 views in the first day off of Reddit (and basically no views after this), in a completely new niche to me. So what did I do? I deleted all of my other videos, and decided to just keep doing what was working. The next video got 3,000 views in the first day, once again, off of Reddit. I kept this up for the next five videos, but the seventh video was different. It got almost 3,000 views off Reddit, like normal, and then got another 3,000 views the next day, then dipped off, but not permanently! After that it got a huge spike, capping at 5,200 views in one day, and stayed consistent from then on at 2,000 views, until it hit ANOTHER spike, capping at 6,700 views in one day, then dipped off into the ~1,000 views a day range for good. I've attached a screenshot of the analytics for this. The main difference for this video was simple, much higher average watch time, and much better click-through-rate (good thumbnail and title). This kept up, about one out of every seven videos would do absurdly well for a long period of time, for about my first 70 videos. These videos make up for a majority amount of the income, as you can see if you looked at the previous screenshot, that video alone made $1,300. I spent just over 2 hours making that video, meaning I was making over $650/hr while working on it at 15 years old, because it's still making money to this day. And that's what I did, it was that simple. Almost anybody can repeat this exact same thing, and there are plenty of ways to make even more with YouTube, after all it is the second most used site on the entire internet, only behind Google. The method is easy, write down a list of things you are an expert at (or if you're good at bullshitting you don't even have to be an expert), they can be anything. I'd recommend a list of 10 or more if possible. Then, download the chrome extension VidIQ, and search all of those on YouTube, try a couple of keywords for each, such as for this channel that brought me $10,000, the niche's name is "Don't Starve" but "DS" also pulls up results. Look on the right sidebar for the VidIQ score, anything with a score of over 60 search volume, and under 30 competition is an easy win for views. Go through your list looking for the best scoring result, whichever one is best will be what you make videos on. If nothing is over 60 search volume, and under 30 competition, make another list, or if you can't even so much as make another list, give up, you won't make it if you can't overcome that small an adversity. Create a channel, and start making videos in the niche, post them even if they're terrible - but make sure to improve your video making skills with every video you release. Get feedback from that community through promoting the videos. Eventually you'll have a video do well, keep doing whatever caused that, and start to work on custom thumbnails, and SEO at this point. This will allow your videos to get recommended to people through YouTube itself, letting you tap into a massive audience for free! Now, if you want to make even more money, that's also possible, but it will be more difficult. Mostly because the easy niches are harder to find. The niche has to bring in money from something other than just Google Ads, my personal favorite is through affiliate marketing. Say for instance your niche is fitness, you could push people to buy your favorite workout gear off of Amazon or almost any other site you buy off of, and YouTube will send you millions of potential buyers for free. Even if you convert just 0.1% of 1,000,000 viewers, selling a $1,000 workout machine at a 10% commission, you will make $100,000 off of ONE VIDEO. TL:DR I figured out the formula for causing a video to go "viral" within a small niche, and repeated it over and over. The formula is high average watch time, high clickthrough rate, and at least 100 views on the video, within a niche that has low competition. [link] [comments]  |
| Travelers, could we make the world a better place? Hear my thoughts and drop some feedback below. Posted: 31 Jul 2019 02:36 PM PDT Rich people don't do much, so why don't we join forces to build some sort of travelers only all-in-one community for the unprivileged ones, for the talented ones and the unlucky ones. For all of them at once. No middleman. Everything could be blockchain-based and max amount to donate would be the equivalent of 1$. Travelers would become our ambassadors and submit new "cases" on the platform. Imagine the beauty of such a community. Networking, events, ideas. 💡 we could all have vlogs about our projects and use YT to raise awareness and so much more. I know this is a simple post on Reddit, but what if god damn it?! Dream with me... [link] [comments]  |
| Does anyone have any experience with owning a completely absentee-owner restaurant? Posted: 31 Jul 2019 01:43 PM PDT Just to start off, mods, feel free to remove this if it doesn't belong here. Also, mobile formatting, apologies in advance. I'm not sure if I'm biting off more than I can chew, but I've decided to finance a new restaurant. The place is rented but I'm paying for a brand new remodel including brand new kitchen equipment. It's featuring a casual, but premium dining room and bar. If you were to think about it in terms of a dress code, it would be 'work attire'- esque. Think office clothes, but if you wanted to come in your cocktail reception clothes, you wouldn't feel out of place. The place is cozy and has upscale upholstery, curtains, and furniture giving it a lounge-y vibe. I've done the research concerning the demographics of the area and the demand for such a place and I feel like it's more than feasible — in fact, it seems outright PROFITABLE. My problem arises from the fact that I plan on the restaurant being ran by itself. I don't have too much expertise in managing restaurants, and I do plan on being the absentee-type owner. My question is, does anyone have any experience or stories with owning absentee-owner restaurants? I would love to hear some of the pitfalls and issues that arise with running something completely absentee so I know what to avoid! Educate me please! [link] [comments]  |
| Cheap email account for custom domain Posted: 31 Jul 2019 01:43 PM PDT I would just use GoDaddy but $5/mom seems expensive I'm looking for $5 or $10 per year Low use Thanks [link] [comments]  |
| Interesting/Motivational Audio or Youtube Recommendations? Posted: 31 Jul 2019 12:42 PM PDT First, a little tip for anyone who doesn't know... you can download any youtube video and convert it into audio online. Just search 'convert youtube to mp3' and there's lots of sites that can do this for you easily... I've listened to so many great interviews etc in the car downloading from youtube :) Ok so I read a lot and listen to a lot of audiobooks but I'm starting to lose inspiration for what to listen to next. I have a lot of driving time coming up so hoping for recommendations on good youtubers, audiobooks (through scribd & kindle unlimited) or any other way I'm missing to pour knowledge into my ears. Thanks! [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 31 Jul 2019 08:04 AM PDT Hey everyone! My name is Nick, I live in Los Angeles, and I currently run a small digital marketing agency. Right now, I manage about 70 client accounts solely on Instagram growth. I am looking to start diversifying into content creation and Facebook ads, and want to build a small team of people who are looking to grow with me, because I do not want to do this alone. Ideally, I would want 1-2 people doing Facebook Ads, and 1-2 people working on content creation. By mid Spring 2020, I'm looking to rent an office space to where clients can come in for monthly meetings of how their numbers are looking, schedule photo shoots for models and artists, etc. Please comment on here or private message me so we can exchange ideas on how we can build this into something great! [here is my website](www.raigemarketing.com) [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 31 Jul 2019 11:39 AM PDT My product just completed beta phase. Now, I am looking for some growth hack and considering to launch my product at ProductHunt. Does anyone have experience of it? What you guys suggest? [link] [comments]  |
| As a US buyer, what's the best way to issue swift payments to a supplier in Europe? Posted: 31 Jul 2019 02:35 PM PDT Started working with a new supplier in Italy but they only accept swift payments. I'm used to using paypal for int'l transfers but they don't offer this option (before you ask, they aren't shady). Any recommendations on how to do it without getting killed on transaction and FX/conversion fees? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 31 Jul 2019 02:35 PM PDT Basically an app that allows you to search for product names, the app crawls websites for exact and wildcard matches so you can compare prices outside of the Google Shopping and Amazon choke hold... Phase 2, make it social and create lists, generate revenue from people clicking on your lists as an affiliate I'm probably not going to pursue it, just wanted to write it down and se eif anyone wants to pull it apart. [link] [comments]  |
| Looking for powerful, meaningful words that are related to Information Technology/Digital Media. Posted: 31 Jul 2019 02:31 PM PDT Hi All, Actually, I am planning to start a company tried to find cool, powerful and meaning full word but they are all already being used. Can you please suggest/advise to find a word with great powerful eaning Ex: Avant-Garde Preference is for an English word. Thanks in advance. ✌ [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 31 Jul 2019 02:20 PM PDT |
| What's the going rate for sales in software services? Posted: 31 Jul 2019 01:49 PM PDT I'm a solopreneur and i want to expand. My background is in CS and I've been into this the business for the past 15 years. I love my job, my projects and the people i work with. I'm not great at sales and tbh I'm not interested in it. So my question is, when seeking a business developer partner, what qualities should i look for and what perks should i offer (except the salary/retainer fee)? Percentage of the business (s)he/brings? Thanks! [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 31 Jul 2019 09:55 AM PDT Hey everyone, I have a very infrequent side gig of teaching 3D CAD and 3D printing. I'd like to name it something a little more official and start advertising to hospitals and engineering companies, mostly in the midwest through online tutorials, webinars and maybe some traveling. Problem is, I suck at naming. How do you guys come up with them? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 31 Jul 2019 01:27 PM PDT So, I guess this is more of an Amazon business question, purely out of my curiosity. Most Prime deliveries I've seen are made by Enterprise rent a vans, or truck. I wonder what the business sense is in renting this out, as opposed to owning their own trucks/fleet, etc. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 31 Jul 2019 09:37 AM PDT
For more ideas check out https://www.fiveideasaday.com/join [link] [comments]  |
| Describe your first Entrepreneurial Move In One Word Posted: 31 Jul 2019 01:19 PM PDT My first move towards Entrepreneurship was "Gutsy", you? [link] [comments]  |
| Start Up Idea - App that first filters all articles using snippets and short summary before reading. Posted: 31 Jul 2019 12:36 PM PDT We all get bombarded with articles, some interesting and worth further reading, but most are junk or hyperbole pieces.Recently, i've been considering building a time-saving app where all articles are first filtered showing a brief excerpt and short synopsis/summary of the info contained within (without readers having to drudge through multiple paragraphs of text before learning it just wasn't worth the time invested).I compare this to watching a trailer of a movie, or reading a foreword on the inside cover of a book before deciding to invest more money or time.I've found many apps that allow you too copy/save articles (like Pocket), or aggregators (Google News, Flipboard), but none so far that actually helps me save time by summarizing the slew of articles coming in from various sources.So, is this idea nuts? Is someone else already doing something similar that I've overlooked?Thanks! [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 31 Jul 2019 12:12 PM PDT So I'm a resident of a country where we online workers don't pay a dime in taxes . I'm intending to start my digital nomad journey by spending a year in one of these two : Netherlands / California. My question is , will i be paying taxes ? Because I've seen nomads that travel but still paying taxes to their home country. [link] [comments]  |
| New to this - expectations of customers? Posted: 31 Jul 2019 11:55 AM PDT myself and a (business) partner are planning our first business right now and doing tons of research. we're pretty competent people, but inexperienced when it comes to things like making deals with customers. The business will be selling a particular cured meat, initially directly to restaurants (and perhaps delis, farm shops) and then eventually we aim to expand to larger retailers. We want to keep our day jobs to begin with, so that we can avoid taking out loans or seeking investment early on - and if the business got to the point that it could sustain us then one or both of us would go full time so we would ideally be making deals and delivering our product on weekends, or perhaps week nights after work - is this something that is normal to customers? e.g. a buyer for a restaurant? or will they be less confident in our ability to deliver since we're still working full time - e.g. if there's a problem with an order we can't rectify it very quickly is it best to be up front and explain that we are part time for now? [link] [comments]  |
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