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    Wantrepreneur Wednesday! - (August 28, 2019) Entrepreneur

    August 28, 2019

    Wantrepreneur Wednesday! - (August 28, 2019) Entrepreneur

    Wantrepreneur Wednesday! - (August 28, 2019)

    Posted: 28 Aug 2019 06:12 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.

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    Sold my company today

    Posted: 28 Aug 2019 09:01 AM PDT

    Just signed the contracts. I'll be on retainer for the next 6 months transitioning the company over to the new owners, and then I'm done. Retired.

    Can't announce it publically until next week so posting here is they only way I can say YEAH! I fucking did it.

    submitted by /u/foolkillercoming4
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    How we grew from 0 to 50,000 MAU with no marketing budget

    Posted: 28 Aug 2019 03:17 AM PDT

    Hi r/Entrepreneur I'm Sabba, co-founder of VEED.IO

    We have grown our startup from 0 to 50,000 MAU in a really short period of time so I wanted to share with you exactly how we did it, so you can do the same.

    When Tim and I started VEED like many others, we felt competent at building and designing a product, but had no experience of growing a product and no budget to do so.

    Now we have thousands of monthly users, growing 40% month over month and almost reached profitability, the holy grail of a self-funded startup.

    We often get asked for advice on growth and we like helping others so we normally say yes, but after many hour-long calls we decided to put this post together. In this post, I am going to show you how we grew to 50,000 MAU in just 6 months without spending a single penny.

    The truth is that it was hard... really bloody hard. We had to learn a lot of new skills and you will too if you are committed to growing your product. I have never passed English exams in high school and now I have written articles read by tens of thousands of people. Trust me, when I say I can do it, then you, dear reader, most definitely can do it too!

    Right now I work full time on growth and my co-founder Tim works full time on the product. I love building, coding and designing products, I have done it all my life. But someone has to get this growth shit done! Naturally, one person has to peel off from the product and start getting the fire burning and get users coming to your site.

    Why is growth so important for a startup?

    When bad man PG said Startup = Growth he was not messing around. It is way more impressive to have 10,000 users with an MVP product, than 0 users with a polished app no one is using. Trust us, we have been there before...

    Our product, VEED, is an online video editing app. It is far from polished, in fact you can't even add two videos together with it. This sounds like a pretty shit video editor right? Yet, we have hundreds of paid users who find value in using it. Here are the key benefits we have noticed from focusing so heavily on growth:

    • We get lots of feedback from users
    • Our roadmap is better informed by our users
    • The team are eager to meet our users' needs
    • The traffic makes us more productive
    • We have a bigger funnel of users we can charge

    There are many more points I would like to cover in this introduction but I assume you just want to get to the nitty-gritty so here we go!

    How does your competition acquire users?

    This is not necessary, but I think this is a good place to start after you launch. You have to always remember that the primary acquisition channel for every business is different. For us at VEED, organic search is key. By looking at other video editors, they all have pretty much the same traffic breakdown with more than 50% of the traffic coming from search. Yet for companies like BuzzFeed, the majority of traffic comes from social and sharing. Working this out early on will give you a good indication of where you should focus your efforts. Take this with a pinch of salt and but be careful not to miss out on an opportunity just because your competition has.

    The Technical Setup for SEO & Google indexing

    The first thing you should do Is set google webmasters and make sure Google can read your web pages properly. This is not always working out of the box for single-page applications so make sure it can be indexed. The benefit of having google webmasters set up is that it tells google you are a website and that your pages need indexing.

    I also recommend getting Google Analytics, Mixpanel and Drift set up so you can learn more about your users and where traffic comes from overtime.

    Landing pages

    Landing pages are great and have been a key strategy for us to acquire users at scale. Each landing page ranks with google so if someone needs to add subtitles to a video, they land on our subtitle page. Back in October last year we made over 20+ pages for every feature in our video editor, for example:

    Over the space of 4 months, these pages went from 0 hits to over 20,000 collectively. I would recommend getting them started asap as you will benefit from the traffic later. It will take about 3-5 months for effects to fully kick in.

    We also used Ubersuggest as a way to work out exactly what keywords we should target, for example, "add image to video" gets way more searches than "add photo to video". But, you know what, just make both. Why not try and rank for both these keywords, right?

    Now when it comes to links, notice how all the links are clear and readable. We use a simple routing convention, for example /subtitle-video-online. This is an added confirmation to Google that the page really is about adding subtitles to a video. Finally, make sure your landing page content is good. We have spent a lot of time making original content for each page as well as creating little video tutorials to go alongside them too! This also helps to avoid 'Duplicate content' google SEO issues which can negatively affect your ranking...

    You first 100 Users

    Now you are all set up, it time to start driving your first few visitors to your website. Getting your first users to your site takes time, but don't worry about the velocity at which you will acquire new users ramps up over time. For us, we managed to get our product off the ground by launching on product hunt and also heading over to Quora and owning over 100 video editing questions related to our website. At the bottom of each answer I write, I leave a link to our product. Quora still brings over 100 people to our website every month and I still work on it now! This is obviously not scalable with we are in the millions of users, but a great way to get started.

    It is also important to note that on average users coming from Quora are more likely to convert to using your product since they were so interested in finding the solution in the first place.

    But besides that, you should also share your product on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, discord, slack groups… I personally felt extremely self-conscious doing this, but over time it just becomes second nature.

    Blogging and content

    This is something we are getting better at, but not yet great at. Our blog posts have brought about 40,000 visitors to our site over the last 3 months.

    We set up the blogs with Ghost, it took 5 mins to install and it's a great open-source project too! We originally used gatsby but it was just taking too much time to style, edit, deploy. With Ghost, everything is ready out of the box, so we can focus on making good content! Ghost is also really well optimized for SEO and social media. Definitely give it a try.

    Make and write content your users actually care about and also things they might search for. Here is a good example - we rank really well for "Social Media video aspect ratios 2019". This is genuinely something our target audience might search for. Figuring out what is good content to make will involve a little bit of trial and error, but you will get there eventually. This is one of those instances where solving your problem or writing about the topic you care so much about really helps. We make the content we care about, just like this blog post you are reading right now.

    We feel fortunate to be in such a giving community and have pretty much learned everything for free online. Therefore we want to give something back too. Some of these posts do really well and hit the top of hacker news, others get taken down or just get negative comments.

    I like to think about content marketing similar to fishing on a boat. Your content is your bait, the more lines and bait you throw over the side of your boat the more chance you have at catching a fish..

    Content Formats

    When thinking about what content you want to make, it is a good idea to think about format. Popular game shows on TV can go on for years because it is a good format that is easy to reproduce over and over again. For example, a few years ago, I have experimented with making videos for youtube. I wanted to make travel videos, but that was difficult since I only traveled 3 times per year. I quickly realized that I needed a format that I could get better at quicker and reproduce again and again. I have learned that making fun how-to videos worked much better for me. I could make them in just a day.

    Sharing Content

    Finally, when you create a post, you need to share it. If you spend half a day making content, you should spend half a day promoting it.

    There is a fine line between spam and good content, so you need to know how your users talk, where they hang out and how you should fit in. I like to hang out in Facebook groups related to video editing and marketing. This gives me a good insight into what makes this industry tick. I even have a Trello board full of popular posts I have seen in some communities so I can take inspiration from the sentiment of their posts.

    With all my content I hit forums such as Reddit, Hacker News, Quora, email list, Facebook groups, Slack groups. Any relevant place I know where this type of content will be well received. Get to know how these communities work, think and talk as you need to fit in as best as possible. Over time you will get better at titles and making your links more clickable. When posting try and be as authentic as possible.

    Backlinks

    Now that you have good content and a great product it is time to get backlinks!

    Backlinks are the most important metric for Google's ranking factor. The basic idea behind backlinks is inspired by how academic papers are structured and written. At the end of an academic paper, you reference the other papers you have quoted, building a network of trust between different subjects. The simple idea is if you have a good paper others will link to it, then if you have an AMAZING groundbreaking piece, everyone will link to it.

    Many startups find getting backlinks hard as this is the one SEO parts that is out of their control. We have found strategies that have worked well for us.

    1. Directories

    Signup to all startup directories such as betalist, startup ranking, Crunchbase, Launching Next, Indie hackers… It is pretty easy and helps get things started.

    2. Build free tools

    Building free tools is a great way to start sending traffic to your site. The best thing about free tools is that they get shared a lot more than paid tools. We have built VYOO. A website full of free vertical stock videos and launched it on product hunt. As It is directly related to our product and most people that are looking for free stock videos, might also be interested in editing those videos too. It has been really popular and has found its way onto a lot of other blogs and websites.

    In the early days, we were still finding our feet and made a joke service called "Send a message attached to a pigeon" Yep sounds a little mad I know, it basically allows you to send a message stuck to a pigeon. Crazy I know, but to be fair, we have sold $600 worth of pigeons since it's been live and generated some BUZZ about us on social media. Here was out the little demo video.

    3. Use your network

    We asked our old universities if we can do a blog post for them, they gladly accepted as it inspires prospective and current students. I have also asked past contracting clients if I can do blog posts for them and they were more than happy too! You may need to write about topics that are not directly related to you, but you can always add a link to your product in your bio.

    4. Blog posts like this

    Although, blog posts are better for awareness and social it is also great to write interesting posts like this. Hopefully, others will link to this post and also share the content with friends, giving us more of a boost.

    5. Keep launching

    Launching your product is not something that happens just once, it should happen again and again. You can see from my product hunt that we have launched many times with new features and versions. The guys over at drift hit product hunt every other week driving thousands of new users every month for free! From these launches, we have ended up with a bunch of backlinks for other website!

    Final thoughts

    So in this post, we have covered (in brief)

    1. How to understand your acquisition channel
    2. How to build landing pages
    3. How to get your first 100 users
    4. Blogging and content

    Growth takes time and is more of a mindset you need to adopt, but once you get the wheels turning, the results are exhilarating! If you think others would find this article useful please do share it with them and if you have not already check out our online video editing tool VEED.IO

    submitted by /u/sab8a
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    100 Lessons Learned From Entrepreneurs That Have Built Billion Dollar Companies

    Posted: 28 Aug 2019 06:47 AM PDT

    We recently celebrated producing over 100 episodes of the Dealmakers Podcast. where some of the most successful entrepreneurs share how they did it. During this process, I have collected the most important lessons learned from entrepreneurs that have built billion dollar companies that appeared on the show below.

    ​

    1. Stay humble, and they are
    2. Stick with it, keep your eye on the end game
    3. The worst that can happen is you have to get a job again
    4. It's about people
    5. It's all about culture
    6. Culture is a competitive advantage
    7. It's not for the money. The first company Mohit Aron built is worth $7B and the second one $1B.
    8. An exit isn't just about cashing out
    9. You never stop growing
    10. It can be smarter to hire an outside CEO. This allowed Daniel Cane to sell Blackboard for $1.6B.
    11. Be careful who you pick as investors
    12. Raising money is about relationships is one of the constant patterns when I was thinking about the lessons learned from entrepreneurs that have appeared on the podcast.
    13. You're never too young to start
    14. You're never too old to launch another startup. Joe DeSimone was 50 and his business is worth now $2.5B.
    15. Early retirement doesn't work for entrepreneurs
    16. Entrepreneurship is addictive
    17. Money costs more than the interest
    18. Investors can bring a lot more value than the money
    19. You can bootstrap a really big company
    20. Now all your employees can work remotely. Sid Sijbrandij built GitLab into a $1B business with all 700 employees working remotely.
    21. Fundraising can take years but it doesn't have to
    22. Develop your network years before you need it
    23. There are a lot more billion dollar companies that exit than you probably realize
    24. A good college can pay big dividends in a valuable network
    25. You can build a great company with your family. Ben Uretsky and Mosey Uretsky built Digital Ocean into a $1B business.
    26. Successful people enjoy sharing with others
    27. Starting a company and growing it, is never, ever easy
    28. Take time out with family now, tomorrow is never promised
    29. One of the greatest rewards of a big exit is what it does for your team
    30. If you love problem-solving entrepreneurship is for you. Kristo Käärmann saw the problem with transferring money overseas and that led him to build a $3.5B company.
    31. There is always more to learn
    32. It doesn't matter where you come from and how little you start with
    33. Cold emails still work for fundraising
    34. Ideas are cheap, it's all about the execution
    35. Having a unique distribution channel is a massive advantage
    36. Nothing works until you've got product-market fit
    37. Big businesses aren't as evil as you think, once you sell to one
    38. The cliche about big businesses being too slow and lost in red tape are still true
    39. Long earn-out periods in acquisitions rarely work
    40. Second and third startups aren't always easier, nor a guaranteed success
    41. For fast-growth companies, local capital partners can make expansion easier
    42. Most M&A deals don't last, but they can
    43. Innovate or die
    44. Don't rely on one strategic partner or channel for your success. David Karandish sold Answers.com for $900 million but the company almost died when Google changed its algorithms on search.
    45. Your unique vision and application, is more valuable than the idea, just as these Uber and WeWork competitors have proven
    46. Most repeat entrepreneurs still raise outside money, even if they can afford not to
    47. Delayed gratification really pays off
    48. Nothing stays impossible when great teams let themselves dream big. Reggie Aggarwal had over 100 employees. He had to let all of them go except for 15 of them. He recently sold Cvent for
    49. Private equity seems to be taking more public companies private again
    50. Your first startup probably won't be your last
    51. You can't be discouraged by investor rejection, some like Henry Ward have faced 300 no's to build a $1B business
    52. It doesn't matter how much you start with, whether it's $800 in your pocket or going $200k in debt to make it work
    53. When it comes to exits, everything is negotiable
    54. Entrepreneurs often become angels themselves like Fabrice Grinda. So far he has invested in over 400 startups.
    55. Taking plenty of time to think and hone your idea is worth it
    56. There's little that can't be accomplished when you are committed to the mission
    57. A great M&A advisor can bring a lot of value
    58. The first offer you get for your startup probably isn't the best one. Josh Abramson declined a $9 million acquisition offer at age 18 when he was in the process of building Vimeo.
    59. Being the head of a public company is a different ball game to being a founder. Jay Chaudrybuilt five companies and knows this well with his last one valued at $10B.
    60. Silicon Valley is still alluring but you can do just fine launching your startup somewhere else
    61. Everything is always changing
    62. Talk to your customers often was another repeating pattern when looking back at those lessons learned from entrepreneurs
    63. A recession can be a great time to start a business
    64. It's a lot easier to raise money when you're not in a recession
    65. Take the money while it's on the table, it may not be there tomorrow
    66. You can build a multi-million dollar revenue business in less than 2 years. Michael Cammaratadid it at age 13.
    67. Great investors flock together
    68. Make sure you are in a really big market. Jeff Raider took this to heart and built not one but two billion dollar companies with Warby Parker and Harry's.
    69. Corporate partnerships can be a great gateway to an exit
    70. You can build businesses designed to get bought
    71. You can create a very content-rich podcast in a very short period of time, with the right introductions
    72. More successful founders use LinkedIn and email than any other communication tools
    73. It's really hard to go work for someone else, after the freedom of your own business
    74. Going to work with others is a great way to learn from the inside. Gene Berdichevsky was employee #7 at Tesla and then went out to build a $1B business.
    75. Successful founders are generous. This was one of the surprising lessons learned from entrepreneurs that have built billion dollar companies. If you are greedy the chances are slim to none when thinking about reaching the top of the mountain. It is a long steep battle and you need people that are loyal and well rewarded along the way.
    76. Successful entrepreneurs are good at listening to feedback
    77. You can never do it all alone
    78. The best entrepreneurs empower their teams and get out of their own way
    79. Top entrepreneurs love to read
    80. Surviving exit due diligence is rarely fun or fast
    81. Agreeing to an exit is rarely just about what the founders get paid
    82. Billion dollar companies are still often born in garages and cramped studio apartments. Just ask Jyoti Bansal as he recently sold his business for $3.7 billion
    83. A great legal team is a good early investment
    84. Strategic acquisitions can often justify billion-dollar valuations
    85. Companies are bought not sold, but you have a lot of influence over the appetite for and price of your business
    86. The IPO roadshow can be fun, but anti-climatic
    87. Great books can still be a game-changing factor in motivating to success
    88. Startups are raising more and more rounds of funding, a Series E is no longer uncommon
    89. Most of the best startups are born out of personally experiencing inefficiencies in the market
    90. The most mature industries are some of the most vulnerable to disrupt
    91. Your brand can be more valuable than your business looks on a P&L sheet
    92. A roll-up of the industry is common before a large acquisition or going public. Daniel Saks used the acquisition spree strategy to build a $1B business.
    93. Starting out in a consulting firm or investment bank is a common first job before launching a startup
    94. Most successful entrepreneurs focus on flying the business, not grabbing a parachute and looking for the nearest exit
    95. Travel and quality time with family are the top luxuries successful entrepreneurs splurge on when they achieve big exits
    96. How we handle our health is going to change a lot in the next few years
    97. No one regrets becoming an entrepreneur, no matter how hard it is
    98. Fundraising is a lot more efficient when you shortlist the best fitting investors first
    99. For immigrants, America is still very much the land of opportunity, and it's a good thing for America too. Many of those lessons learned from entrepreneurs were from those that were immigrants.
    100. You can win by having a big piece of a medium-sized company, or a small piece of a really big one

    You can go to Lessons Learned From Entrepreneurs for the full piece.

    submitted by /u/ov30
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    $2,000/mo side project selling cork maps out of my garage.

    Posted: 28 Aug 2019 09:00 AM PDT

    Hey - Pat from StarterStory.com here with another interview.

    Today's interview is with Nick Fortosis of Geo 101 Design, a brand that sells cork maps

    Some stats:

    • Product: Cork Maps
    • Revenue/mo: $2,000
    • Started: October 2017
    • Location: Zeeland Michigan
    • Founders: 1
    • Employees: 0

    Hello! Who are you and what business did you start?

    My name is Nick Fortosis and I am the founder of GEO 101 Design, a company that specializes in creating one of a kind cork maps with modern minimalist aesthetics. Our goal is to turn your love of travel into your own personalized home décor.

    Founded in late 2017, I run the business by myself and manufacture everything in my garage workshop in West Michigan. We have been steadily growing and are currently doing roughly $2000 a month in sales through our website and our Etsy shop.

    image

    What's your backstory and how did you come up with the idea?

    I am an engineer by day, but ever since I graduated college, I found myself looking for something to do in the evenings that didn't involve sitting on the couch watching television or playing video games. I started exploring woodworking and soon found a way to combine it with my electronics background through CNC machining.

    I purchased a CNC router kit and put it together in my basement. After I had it up and running I was left with the realization that I didn't have anything in mind to make with it! I slowly found little projects to make and started to increase my creative skill sets. I began to think about what I could make to sell, but still didn't have any ideas that seemed to fit.

    I made some marble hexagon coasters for my wife for our anniversary. While they didn't use the CNC, they were simple to make and were trendy at the time. I decided to sell some on Etsy. I was pretty paralyzed with indecision and lack of confidence in creating a product with my CNC so I used this as an opportunity to dip my toe in the water with a low risk product (started with $200 in supplies and have bootstrapped everything after that).

    It was slow for the first two months but then it took off (after adding professional photos). In the first nine months I ran that store (it was called Geometrikos Design), I had over $15k in sales. I put the shop on hold for the birth of my first child and started things up again a few months later, but by that time, people had caught on to how to make them and several competitors had popped up. It wasn't completely detrimental to my business as I had a better product and a streamlined production process, but the newcomers were pricing theirs too low to compete with (a common problem on Etsy). While I was still profitable and making sales, I was ready to find something with a bigger moat and bigger profit margins, so I shut the shop down permanently.

    As this was going on, I still found time to tinker with my CNC. Once my friends caught on to what my machine was capable of, the requests started pouring in. Many of them are avid travelers, and wanted something to show off their travels, so I started cutting maps for them out of plywood. They looked pretty good, but weren't very functional (needed nails to attach pictures or souvenirs) or very unique. This is when I got the idea to try and cut one out of cork. Cork is more visually interesting than plywood, plus cork is sustainably harvested and eco-friendly.

    image

    Take us through the process of designing, prototyping, and manufacturing your first product.

    I have a rather unorthodox method of designing a new product. I need to establish my constraints first. So I started with what my limitations were and worked backwards until I could configure a product to meet those restrictions.

    My biggest constraint was time. By then we were awaiting the birth of our second child and to maintain a work/life balance (since this is in addition to my day job), I started to give myself time constraints. I wanted to create a product and run my business using less than 4 hours a week. So the goal for me was to try and make as much money in as little time as possible. This is where the CNC shines.

    While the coasters needed significant physical labor, for my maps I could program the CNC and have it run while I worked on something else, potentially doubling my output. I spent a lot of time optimizing my design so it would cut faster and with a better finish.

    Then came the pricing. I didn't even make a prototype before I ran the numbers and found a material and price point I felt would be profitable and competitive. I used the popular pricing formula of (material + labor costs) x2 for wholesale and x4 for retail. If the end number was too high, I would look for ways to either make it faster or find cheaper materials.

    Describe the process of launching the business.

    Towards the end of my marble coaster days, I simply added my first US cork map to my Etsy shop. It didn't fit the shop theme, but I just needed to see if it could sell. Within 3 weeks I had my first sale. I only sold 1-2 maps a month that winter (late 2017 to early 2018), but as it started to increase in early spring, I began to look outside of Etsy where I could have more control of my product and audience.

    image

    In February of 2018 I bought a domain and started my website using Shopify. It was really slow at first. I was completely responsible for directing traffic to the site and I was not very good at it. My first design of the site looked cool to me, but it was not set up to convert well. I was almost going to give up on it, but I did a small redesign with a more straightforward style, and I started getting sales, mainly through my instagram account. Not many at first, but enough to prove that my product could sell.

    On a whim I posted a picture of my maps on reddit. My daily website traffic that day exploded from 20ish visitors to over 1500! While many of the visitors were more curious than looking to buy, I really didn't make any money off of the extra traffic, but it did open up some unique connections.

    Shortly after my post, I was contacted by Touch of Modern, a popular men's fashion/flash sale site. They wanted to feature my maps in an upcoming campaign. The catch was that I needed to have over 50 maps created and ready to ship before the sale started. I think I had only $1500 in my account at the time but I decided to go for it and spent $1200 on material to boost my inventory (I usually keep little or no inventory and make maps to order). The sale went live in June and I sold a grand total of 8 maps. At first I was pretty disappointed, but it ended up being a blessing in several ways.

    First, was it forced me to streamline my process. I was able to iron out all of the kinks in production and found a few tricks that significantly reduced my cycle time. Second was it gave me a healthy inventory which came in handy a month later when a bike accident left me with a broken collar bone and five broken limbs. Instead of trying to make maps with one arm and on pain meds, all I had to do was slap a shipping label on the box and set it out for pickup. Without that inventory I would have had to shut down my shop for 2 months while I recovered.

    Since launch, what has worked to attract and retain customers?

    First and foremost, I believe professional photos are absolutely essential to getting people interested in a product. Without them most ads are going to be completely useless and social media accounts will be dead on arrival.

    My instagram posts brought in a lot of initial business. I made sure to engage and like and comment on my followers posts and hashtags I followed. I found a lot of interest in National Park lovers and hikers, so I would find popular accounts and engage with the commenters on their posts.

    image

    I also started offering custom maps, since my CNC can basically cut any shape. I currently use an embedded Google form, but am working on a more streamlined approach.

    image

    I tried Facebook ads a few times, but even with doing research, my campaigns all fell flat. I got to the point where I had to admit that I am just not good at writing ad copy and am basically gambling with my ad money. I found Google Shopping ads much more successful and easy to use. No copy or creative content is necessary, just a product photo. I started using Shopping ads right before the 2018 holiday season and my orders exploded. I was getting an ROI of over 300%.

    image

    This last spring I tried out Instagram influencers with varied success. I had a few that I was able to turn a profit on, but it was pretty modest and the work to find and vet them was too time consuming, plus subsequent shoutouts from the same accounts produced diminishing returns.

    image

    How are you doing today and what does the future look like?

    My goal has always been to double revenue year over year. We are on track to double our sales this year and get to $30k annual revenue, and hope to grow to 60k next year. While everything is great now, I worried that I would soon hit a wall where my mediocre marketing skills would hold me back.

    image

    I recently contracted a local marketing firm to help increase my sales. My budget is on the low side ($500 a month) but the hope is to ramp up slowly and take advantage of the holiday surge and position GEO 101 Design to continue its growth rate into 2020.

    The biggest challenge I am facing now is designing a cork map of the world. I get custom order requests for it weekly, yet it has proved very difficult to design a map that matches the quality and detail of my other maps and still be reasonably priced. Just this week I think I had a breakthrough with a new material supplier and if it proves out, I hope to have something ready for production by mid-September, so stay tuned!

    I am also trying to create products at different price points. My current maps are high quality and have prices to match. I want to be able to offer something cheaper that may be an easier impulse buy. I also get a lot of requests from companies looking for very large maps (8ft+ wide), so I hope to figure out the logistics and necessary tools to make and ship larger products as well.

    In anticipation for the Holiday season and future growth, I have slowly been assembling a second CNC router. This will effectively double my capacity without adding any more to my weekly time allotment. According to my calculations, I should be able to scale to roughly $116k in annual sales before I need to seriously expand or modify my work schedule.

    The last thing I am working on is getting my website to generate more revenue than my Etsy shop. Last year it was roughly 30/70, but now I am approaching 50/50. At this point Etsy is easy money so I won't shut it down, but I stopped paying for ads and now push all new people to my website instead.

    Through starting the business, have you learned anything particularly helpful or advantageous?

    Running a business like mine is definitely a learning by doing exercise. The problems and obstacles I have faced, I never could have predicted. For example, the first year I had a large amount of maps that arrived at their destination broken or damaged.

    I had to scramble and figure out how to pack them better. There really weren't any resources I could find that had packaging tips or guidelines, so I basically had to keep adding padding and protection until the complaints stopped. Thankfully I finally figured it out and have had only 1 damaged map this year so far, but it took a lot of unforeseen work to get to this point. You will never be able to predict all of the problems you will face, you just have to get started and deal with them as they come.

    It's also very important to price your product wisely, leaving plenty of margin to account for unquantified costs. You are going to have to deal with customer returns, raw material price increases, fraud, shipping rate hikes, electricity, gas, and dozens of other costs you never planned on. You don't want any of these things to sink your business so you need to give yourself a cushion from the very beginning. I believe the formula I listed above is a good start, but each business is unique so do what works for you.

    What platform/tools do you use for your business?

    I have used Shopify ever since I began using my own domain. I have kept my toolset pretty minimalistic. To be honest, I think most of the third party Shopify apps are pretty overrated for businesses just starting out in ecommerce.

    I have no doubt they can help optimize and increase conversion rates, but if you don't have a solid product and good understanding of all of the built-in tools Shopify has, the extra plugins aren't going to make up for it.

    What have been the most influential books, podcasts, or other resources?

    I'll try and avoid the obvious ones that seem to get cited here over and over (for example, How I Built This)

    I have always closely followed the maker movement, which has influenced a lot I do. The Making It podcast is a great resource on setting up a shop and getting started selling your product.

    The Made for Profit podcast is even more focused on the business side of making, though they spend a lot of time talking content creation instead product creation.

    A book that I really enjoyed but I haven't seen mentioned here is called "Boss Life: Surviving My Own Small Business". It is the journal of an owner of a small woodworking business and goes into great detail about the day to day challenges of running a small business.

    Advice for other entrepreneurs who want to get started or are just starting out?

    Fail quickly. Don't worry about setting up the perfect website and the perfect product on day one. Focus on getting a minimum viable product to market as quickly as possible. And when you fail, figure out why and learn from it. Avoid just throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks. Your chance of success should grow over time if you continually improve and recalibrate based on your mistakes and failures.

    This also goes for money. You don't need a huge bankroll or enormous inventory to get started. Bootstrapping your business can be slow going, but the risk and stress you avoid is worth it and helps you grow sustainably. Plus it makes you think before you spend. Throwing money at problems rarely fixes them at this stage.

    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

    submitted by /u/youngrichntasteless
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    How I made $25k from one blog post (and $2.4k ongoing recurring revenue)

    Posted: 27 Aug 2019 08:34 PM PDT

    I've promoted over 100 blog posts.

    Most aren't this successful.

    This particular post was a case study reverse engineering the marketing strategy of a brand that our target customers look up to.

    Inside the case study I mentioned how the brand was using our product (a software tool that helps grow your email list) to grow their business.

    The product mention was only ~10% of the post, and positioned at the very end of the post.

    The $25k was made from people signing up for the software tool based on:

    1. The product mention towards the end of the post.
    2. New visitors becoming aware of the brand from the promotion of the blog post, then signing up.

    The key to the success of the post was in the PROMOTION.

    Here's the framework I used to get traffic to it, so you can copy:

    ---Free Traffic Multipliers---

    List Multipliers: Email List, Push Notification List, Facebook Messenger List, Outreach List.

    List multipliers are the distribution lists you use to distribute your content.

    Email List

    If done right, this can be your biggest source of free traffic.

    To grow our email list I use Sumo content upgrades on all our blog posts.

    These are bonus pieces of content offered as a free download in exchange for someone entering their email address.

    When I have a blog post I want to promote, I then:

    1. Link to ONE piece of content in the email.
    2. Tell an interesting story about the content people can relate to.
    3. Make sure I'm not linking to any images in the email (so Google doesn't detect the email as a promotional newsletter, and send it to the Promotions tab in Gmail.)

    Push Notification List

    This is a push notification sent to people subscribed to receive push notifications.

    To grow our push notification list I use a lead magnet on the main blog page. If people join the push notification list, they get access to the lead magnet.

    When I have a blog post I want to promote, I then use Sumo to:

    1. Link to ONE piece of content in the push notification.
    2. Use a 30 character headline for the content (if you use >30 characters, your headline will get cut-off.)
    3. Use a 30 character description (so the description text doesn't get cut-off).

    Facebook Messenger List

    This is a message sent directly to people's Facebook messenger inbox.

    To grow our Facebook messenger list I use an offer for content series updates on my blog posts. I set the offer to show inside a Sumo Scroll Box after someone has scrolled 10%.

    When I have a blog post I want to promote, I then use Chatfuel to:

    1. Address the person by their first name, use an image, and short teaser.
    2. Ask the person if they want a link to the content first.
    3. Provide a link and button to click-through to the content.

    Outreach List

    This is a list of people you build who have written about, shared or shown interest in the topic related to your piece of content.

    To build my outreach list, I search:

    1. Google for people who've written top posts on the topic.
    2. YouTube for people who've produced top videos on the topic.
    3. Twitter for people who've shared similar content on the topic.
    4. Community groups for people who've shared similar content on the topic.

    When I have a blog post I want to promote, I then:

    1. Link to ONE piece of content in the outreach email.
    2. Use a simple subject line that matches the content I'm sending.
    3. Keep my outreach to two sentences maximum.

    You'll be surprised how many people share and link to your content when you do outreach like you're sending a useful piece of content to a friend.

    Social Media Multipliers: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn.

    Social media multipliers are the social media platforms you use to distribute your content.

    Facebook

    My #1 method for amplifying content on Facebook is using a social multiplier magnet to incentivize fans to comment/share.

    Best practices for a high reach Facebook post are:

    1. You use at least one piece of social proof to give people a reason to click.
    2. You offer a social multiplier magnet for people who comment/share (e.g. pdf of the post, etc.)
    3. You use an image with high click-through rate elements (diagonal lines, recognizable objects, and high contrast color.)

    Twitter

    My #1 method for amplifying content on Twitter is using a Tweetstorm to either provide a summary of my content, or tell the story behind my content.

    Best practices for a high reach Twitter post are:

    1. You tell a story people want to retweet to their fans and tag one person who is part of the story.
    2. You give people the gritty, bloody, exquisite detail of your story.
    3. You link to your content in the last tweet of your tweetstorm.

    LinkedIn

    My #1 method for amplifying content on LinkedIn is using a teaser post.

    Best practices for a high reach LinkedIn post are:

    1. You attach something your market already knows and loves to the content you are promoting.
    2. You require people to leave a comment answering a question related to the topic of your content.
    3. You include a teaser image from your post to arouse people's curiosity.

    Content Multipliers: LinkedIn Article, Facebook Video, YouTube Video, Medium Story, Quora Answer.

    Content multipliers are taking your content and creating variations of it that match the context of different platforms.

    LinkedIn Article

    My #1 method for multiplying content on LinkedIn is using a viral loop that asks people to comment.

    Best practices for a high traffic LinkedIn Article are:

    1. You ask people to comment and include a link to your content at the top of the article.
    2. You use bullet points to tell people exactly what they will get.
    3. You ask people to comment and include a link to your content at the bottom of the article.

    Facebook Video

    My #1 method for multiplying content on Facebook is using a 30-90 second teaser video.

    Best practices for a high traffic Facebook video are:

    1. You keep it short (30-90 seconds).
    2. You tell people what they'll see when they access the full piece of content.
    3. You give clear next steps on where to access the full piece of content.

    YouTube Video

    My #1 method for multiplying content on YouTube is using YouTube Search Suggest topics to make a video related to the topic that gets search volume in YouTube.

    Best practices for a high traffic YouTube video are:

    1. You make sure it's a meaty 10+ minute video.
    2. You start your video with a summary of the topic, then jump into the meat of the content straight away.
    3. You use open loops.

    Medium Story

    My #1 method for multiplying content on Medium is using a big idea to transform a piece of content into an interesting story.

    Best practices for a high traffic Medium story are:

    1. Give your story a thought-provocative, curiosity-filled headline.
    2. Start and end your article with a story.
    3. Include practical takeaways inside the body of the story.

    Quora Answer

    My #1 method for multiplying content on Quora is using SEMRush to find a Quora answer on my topic that's in position 1-10 on Google, that also has greater than 100 search volume.

    Best practices for a high traffic Quora answer are:

    1. You write a unique, well-thought out answer (30 min - 1 hour goes into answering it).
    2. You use text, images, and sometimes even video.
    3. You link to your piece of content for people who want to go more in-depth into your answer.

    ---Paid Traffic Multipliers---

    Retargeting Ads: Facebook Ads, Twitter Ads, Google Ads, Outbrain.

    Facebook Retargeting Ads

    My #1 method for retargeting on Facebook is using a Post engagement ad.

    Best practices for a high click-through rate Facebook retargeting ad are:

    1. You clearly explain what the piece of content is about in two sentences.
    2. You put the link in the description on it's own line.
    3. You use an image with high click-through rate elements (diagonal lines/circles/recognizable objects/high contrast colors)

    Twitter Retargeting Ads

    My #1 method for retargeting on Twitter is using a Tweet engagements ad.

    Best practices for a high click-through rate Twitter retargeting ad are:

    1. You use a headline with curiosity and benefits.
    2. You use a Twitter card to increase click-through rate so when people click the image, they go straight to your piece of content.
    3. You use an image with high click-through rate elements (diagonal lines/circles/recognizable objects/high contrast colors).

    Google Retargeting Ads

    My #1 method for retargeting on Google is using a Website traffic display ad.

    Best practices for a high click-through rate Google display retargeting ad are:

    1. You use a 300x250 dimension Google display ad (because this is the most common ad unit, so you will get the most clicks without getting overwhelmed having to create 100s of banner sizes.)
    2. You use a short four word headline with curiosity and benefits, a one line description below the headline, your company name on the bottom left, and blue underlined "Learn more" text on the bottom right.
    3. You use an image with high click-through rate elements (diagonal lines/circles/recognizable objects/high contrast colors).

    Outbrain Retargeting Ads

    My #1 method for retargeting on Outbrain is using a content amplification ad.

    Best practices for a high click-through rate Outbrain retargeting ad are:

    1. You create three headlines for your piece of content (one is a list with an odd number, one is a question, and one calls out your target audience.)
    2. You use a 1200x800 dimension ad image with a lifestyle photograph, close-up picture of people faces, or an image of your target audience that matches the content.
    3. You let Outbrain's optimization algorithm find your highest click-through rate headline<>image ad combination.

    Social Media Ads: Facebook Ads, Twitter Ads.

    Facebook Ads

    My #1 method for running social media ads on Facebook is using a Mobile link click ad.

    Best practices for a high traffic Facebook social media ad are:

    1. You copy the post ID from your retargeting ad that has social proof built up.
    2. You target an audience closely related to your piece of content.
    3. You target mobile devices where clicks are cheaper, so you can later retarget on desktop devices where you are more likely to make a sale.

    Twitter Ads

    My #1 method for running social media ads on Twitter is using a Mobile website clicks ad.

    Best practices for a high traffic Twitter social media ad are:

    1. You use the same Tweet from your retargeting ad that has social proof built up.
    2. You target an audience closely related to your piece of content.
    3. You target mobile devices where clicks are cheaper, so you can later retarget on desktop devices where you are more likely to make a sale.

    Native Ads: Outbrain.

    My #1 method for amplifying content on Outbrain is using an Amplify campaign.

    Best practices for a high traffic native ad are:

    1. You aim for 0.50% or higher CTR.
    2. You use a list with an odd number, question, or call out your target audience in the headline.
    3. You use a 1200x800 dimension ad image with a lifestyle photograph, close-up picture of people faces, or an image of your target audience that matches the content.

    What I Learnt

    The key IS NOT to do everything and multiply your content across every single platform.

    Sometimes that can lead to spreading yourself too thin.

    First you need to have a clear way to track sales back to your content (this can done using tools like ChartMogul for first touch-attribution or Google Analytics Enhanced Ecommerce for last-touch attribution).

    The key is then finding the combination of free and paid traffic multipliers you can use to systemize the promotion of your content.

    Try each of them out, and double down on the ones that work best for you.

    Once you have that, you can start to get more traffic with less content (and know if your content is driving sales or not).

    There are screenshots of everything I did here if you're interested in seeing how I use every traffic multiplier.

    ✌️❤️

    submitted by /u/vonwilpert
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    Warning: Moving from ADP to Gusto Payroll

    Posted: 28 Aug 2019 08:31 AM PDT

    To start. Avoid ADP at all costs.

    My history: Used ADP for about 18 months. The second year-end W2s they mailed out were charged, paid, sent... And then they sent me to collections. After I finally caved and paid collections, I got a refund check from ADP for over payment...

    I chose to move us to Gusto back in April because I was tired of the constant run around and inconsistency with what I was told and what was actually in their contract.

    As soon as I hinted to leaving for Gusto they shut my entire account down, leaving me stranded with no way to Port our previous payroll tax history over.

    I've been in limbo since April trying to work with these fucktards, and now it's going to cost me even more to hand everything over to a CPA to reconcile all the taxes so we can finally get it to Gusto and start doing payroll properly again.

    This is just a warning for anyone shopping or looking to move away from ADP.

    submitted by /u/Pokey_The_Bear
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    What percent of your instagram audience is from USA/UK/AUS

    Posted: 28 Aug 2019 01:56 PM PDT

    I'm guessing first world countries like one listed above are more valuable than lets say India or China, so i'm just wondering what percent of your audience is from these countries.

    (Top 5 countries and percentages would be appreciated)

    submitted by /u/SpeedWisp02
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    Total Lack of Fulfillment

    Posted: 28 Aug 2019 01:47 PM PDT

    I've been working full time scaling my company for the last 4 or 5 months. Not something I'm really passionate about but make pretty good money from. I work remote and don't have constant human interaction like I have in previous jobs. I have a great group of friends but they all work 9-5 and my days have become very mundane it's starting to bring me down mentally. I'm very grateful but it's a double edged sword

    ​

    Any tips on how to deal with this? I've thought about picking up a bar tending job or something to fill up my free time

    submitted by /u/Terpenes
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    Trying to order furniture from China

    Posted: 28 Aug 2019 01:25 PM PDT

    Trying to order chairs from China. They are telling me they require a 20 ft container filled up due to the risk of stuff breaking.

    Is this legit? Or can you talk them out of having to fill up a 20 ft container? I've had multiple manufacturers tell me this.

    submitted by /u/UA2013
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    Company Naming?

    Posted: 28 Aug 2019 01:16 PM PDT

    If I wanted to start a business selling infused cooking oils. Is it better to have a more chic sounding name or a tongue and cheek fun name that could be utilized for creative advertising?

    submitted by /u/starshine8316
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    Qestion About Shipping / Marketing

    Posted: 28 Aug 2019 01:00 PM PDT

    Say I have a clothing brand, with a base in Australia, production and manufacturing overseas Pakistan / China, and my customers are from any where in the world.

    Do I ...

    A. Have shipping costs for customers be $15 $25 ( what it costs me usually to send a shirt or hoodie overseas )

    B. Have the products price marked up by say $15 - $25 depending on the weight of the item and charge customers no shipping costs to have the free shipping incentive

    C. Have direct shipping from the manufacturer to the customer? I have no idea how to do this and I'm not sure if this would lower Quality Control, and I'm sure finding a manufacturer who does this will be easy / affordable

    I'm new to this but this is a challenge for me right now and any input or advice is really appreciated, if there's another solution for this I haven't thought of please let me know, Thankyou

    submitted by /u/vlone69
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    Sold up for $900,000. Retired. Happy. But please read this if you're looking to sell your company... It may save you as MASSIVE headache and lots of money!

    Posted: 28 Aug 2019 12:51 PM PDT

    I sold my company for $900,000 two years ago.

    However this is far from a bragging post trust me.

    I'm here to warn you all about: Online brokers because they can be great at the start. They'll promise you the world with the following:

    • Don't worry your money's safe
    • 30 day inspection period (lies)
    • Super fast support

    Unfortunately once you've signed the ND and contract you're doomed if the buyer decides to play games.

    Example: Seller waits until the final day of the inspection and suggests there's something wrong. Once done the brokers will quite down and start getting sloppy with replies.

    If you ask for any communications to be fed back to you: nope!

    You see brokers hold back when things get border line (legal) because they'll tell you to find yourself a legal representative, and to have them send emails.

    Brokers are not able to release your funds (held in escrow) in most cases until BOTH parties have confirmed the exchange. So if the seller is playing the stall game you're forced to use a legal representative as the broker will tell you.

    So, now you're paying out a large % to your broker, you're taking a hit on the taxes and whatever else but to add insult to injury you're paying THOUSANDS out to your legal representative.

    My advice: Avoid online brokers. Don't take the risk because if the seller decides to play games you're losing out on the % + legal representative. On top of that brokers will NOT respond well once things start to get out of hand.

    submitted by /u/BroadGeneral
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    Looking for a name for a: Cheque Cashing company.

    Posted: 28 Aug 2019 12:47 PM PDT

    I am looking for something modern and brand able. I would like to scale up in the future.

    submitted by /u/Saffar412
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    Starting a lottery business (UK)

    Posted: 28 Aug 2019 12:41 PM PDT

    After reading that around 70% of all UK adults regularly play some sort of lottery I thought about creating and marketing my own lottery. Being a very lucrative and low risk business I have done a lot of research into the laws regarding starting a lottery as I am very interested in doing so. There are various laws and licences required to launch this plus there are many giant lottery companies already out there so making mine stand out to people would be a challenge. All in all I would just like to hear people's opinions on starting a lottery business and perhaps if anyone has tried creating their own lottery? Also, how I could make my lottery stand out and succeed? Eg - perhaps promoting to a local audience and making it a local lottery at first would help more than targetting random people from all around the world. All in all I would just like some advice and opinions on the matter

    submitted by /u/noekD
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    Service based businesses - What are ones someone can start with no experience in the actual service?

    Posted: 28 Aug 2019 12:14 PM PDT

    I see a lot of posts around here promoting service-based businesses of all sorts which is great and I get the premise (low-cost to start, generally not overly saturated, etc.) but how does one start a business in a particular sector with no experience on how to carry out the actual service?

    submitted by /u/imadamantium
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    Glassdoor for Saas pricing

    Posted: 28 Aug 2019 12:00 PM PDT

    I like trying to find the playbooks for various startups and companies. One is take knowledge that is obtuse or hidden and make it public.

    Just saw https://capiche.com/ on product hunt. They are trying to do that with Saas pricing. Could be really interesting.

    submitted by /u/JoshGreat
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    Trying to pick a website URL for my 2 store brick-and-mortar, but there is a kink in my plan. I could use some help.

    Posted: 28 Aug 2019 11:54 AM PDT

    So I have a licensed business, and part of the licensing agreement is that they give us a website to use. The problem is the website is not SEO optimized, it's not mobile optimized, and it's not doing the job for us.

    Our current site: www.americasmattress.com/frontrange

    Which isn't horrible by any means, but it can't be SEO optimized. It's the same cookie-cutter back-end that the other locations use (keeps it simple).

    We've decided to create our own website, with permission from the licensing company, but I'm having a hard time figuring out what URL to choose. Our business is named, "America's Mattress", and Obviously that URL is taken. I'm having a hard time figuring out a URL name that ties into America's Mattress, isn't too long, make sense, and ties back into our business all together.

    Any suggestions would be great. Not necessarily asking for a URL, but maybe ideas how to tie it in or whatever you have to offer.

    I appreciate any suggestions and comments.

    Thank you all so much!

    submitted by /u/FoCoMattressGuy
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    Commercial Auto Loan?

    Posted: 28 Aug 2019 11:49 AM PDT

    Who will lend to me to get a pickup truck for work? Credit Unions (at least my credit union) won't lend for a business. And Chase seems to have high interest rates.

    Does anybody know any lenders that want to lend to successful businesses? Kind of odd, considering I get loan offers in the mail every day, but can't seem to find anyone that wants to do these loans.

    submitted by /u/pestman
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    Questions for anyone here who makes money from a YouTube channel

    Posted: 28 Aug 2019 11:31 AM PDT

    I'm looking to start a youtube channel and hopefully build it to where someday it can be my full time job. I'm sure there are people in this sub who run a youtube channel, whether it be a side thing or main focus. Some questions I have for those people are:

    How many subscribers do you have?

    What's the category or niche?

    What's the typical view count for a video you put out?

    How much money do you earn from it?

    How long did it take you to build it to where it's at today?

    I would really appreciate all the info you guys can give. If you don't want to be super specific, you can just ballpark some numbers. Or if you want to even give your channel name that would be cool too. Thanks!

    submitted by /u/dreamcity10
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    KPIs vs Metrics

    Posted: 28 Aug 2019 11:22 AM PDT

    Please, ELIF. I'm having trouble understanding how they differ.

    submitted by /u/Geeks_Rock
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    How to best monetize locally concentrated instagram account?

    Posted: 28 Aug 2019 11:10 AM PDT

    I run an instagram account that has about 25k followers (about 11-15% engagement rate), with 90% of them being located in the city I live in.

    Currently I'm working on starting a local photography business to promote through the account. What are some other things I could do to maximize the earnings potential of the account?

    Edit: I should also mention that the posts consist of 'comedy' videos that are relatable to the community.

    submitted by /u/lllasangnaaa
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    Is Facebook Business Manager/Pixel ever dead wrong for you guys?

    Posted: 28 Aug 2019 11:08 AM PDT

    Hey guys,

    A bit of a simple and possibly dumb question but...

    My Facebook business manager has never been correct in reporting the number of sales I got per day, week, or month. Some days I'll have like 59 sales but Facebook says it recorded 68 or some other number.

    This gets into my next question: Where does Facebook count my sales? If I got a sale today but it's from a customer who clicked on an ad 3 or 4 days ago, I'm guessing that Facebook counts the sale on the previous date. That's why the average cost per purchase goes down as the days pass by, right? Please answer this, even if I'm right.

    So why does Facebook say that even today I have X amount of sales, but I actually have less than X? I'm almost positive I set up my pixel properly but there is definitely a chance I screwed up. How can I check this and be absolutely sure my pixel isn't double during for purchase events sometimes??

    submitted by /u/HAQERIF
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    As a Small Canadian Business, is it worth selling into the US?

    Posted: 28 Aug 2019 11:03 AM PDT

    Considering the wayfair decision by the US supreme court which now means that each state can impose it's own sales and income tax laws on foreign online businesses, even if they don't have any presence in the state, I'm wondering is it even worth selling into the US?

    Considering a nexus study to figure out if you need to file taxes in each state can cost thousands of dollars I'm wondering how any of you navigate this problem? If I'm only going to be able to sell a few thousand dollars a year into the states for now seems like the whole venture would be a waste and risking being not compliant also seems like a costly endeavor.

    submitted by /u/CanBurritosFeelLove
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    Putting all focus on one goal (cutting cost), or creating expertise(differentiation) or creating community?

    Posted: 28 Aug 2019 10:59 AM PDT

    There are brands out there that focus on creating skills to cut costs at all.. cost. Maybe like a Costco/Ikea/walmart. There are others that create expertise to differentiate(tesla). Then there are others that create a community (harley davidson). And others that do all of them like Nike. Almost all brands are a mixture of some of them in one way or another.

    In general as a standard people should try to cut down cost to the lowest in that category(toyota), or as low as possible while retaining luxury(mercedes). At a standard also it is to create expertise either further cut cost, again like toyota or create expertise to retain luxury like mercedes? And if it makes sense to be like Nike to create both low cost shoes, and high expertise for their performance/premium shoes, and their airjordan shoes, and their other offshoot products.

    Are these the things to ultimately aim for as archetypes and find some configuration thats custom to the company for its industry. After you figure that out, then its the 5 year, 10 year, 20 year goal and people can plot towards that?

    submitted by /u/ShoemakingHobbyist
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