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    Marketplace Tuesday! (October 15, 2019) Entrepreneur

    October 15, 2019

    Marketplace Tuesday! (October 15, 2019) Entrepreneur

    Marketplace Tuesday! (October 15, 2019)

    Posted: 15 Oct 2019 06:07 AM PDT

    Please use this thread to post any Jobs that you're looking to fill (including interns), or services you're looking to render to other members.

    We do this to not overflow the subreddit with personal offerings (such logo design, SEO, etc) so please try to limit the offerings to this weekly thread.

    Since this thread can fill up quickly, consider sorting the comments by "new" (instead of "best" or "top") to see the newest posts.

    submitted by /u/AutoModerator
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    I’m a serial consumer entrepreneur that raised over $60 million in VC funding and started my first business in college. Now I am creating the bathroom of the future with Shine Bathroom. AMA.

    Posted: 15 Oct 2019 08:50 AM PDT

    About Me

    • Hi, I'm Chris. I'm 34 years old from Santa Barbara, California. I studied electrical engineering at UCSB and Japanese at Tohoku University. I'm a passionate entrepreneur, kite-surfer, father, and husband. I bringing inventions to life that can positively impact consumers lives.
    • I launched my first business, TrackR, while still in college in 2009 where I was CEO. I initially bootstrapped the business & actually started in a garage (garages are cold & I don't recommend it). The team was able to successfully scale the business to over $50MM in revenue, raise VC funding of over $60MM, and ship over 9 million devices to every country on the planet except North Korea & the Central African Republic. I left the business in 2017 after hiring a new executive team.
    • I then helped a TrackR alumni start Cliq chair where I helped with the initial marketing and launch on Indiegogo. The campaign did over $1.5MM in the first month. I was involved operationally for a bit then stepped back to be an advisor to work on a space I've always been passionate about - The Bathroom
    • I started Shine in August 2018. The spark was there for quite sometime to start a bathroom company ever since I originally went to Japan in high school and witnessed the level of comfort, automation, and refinement the bathrooms had compared to those in the USA. I realized that even though the bathroom hasn't changed in the US, we have. We're no longer using the bathroom at the end of the day for basic hygiene, but it's where we start the day. It's a place where we prepare ourselves for the day ahead. The idea is to use automation to make sure the bathroom is always ready for you, so you can be your best for the world outside.

    About Shine Bathroom

    • The first product is the Shine Bathroom Assistant. It automates toilet cleaning & maintenance.
    • The device can sit anywhere beside a toilet and sensors can be hooked onto the bowl & waterline so in minutes you are up and flushing.
    • Once a month, you fill the bathroom assistant's tank with tap water & a pod containing saline solution. The device runs electricity through an anode & cathode in the water to transform the saline solution into electrolyzed water, a non-chemical cleaner as powerful as bleach!
    • Whenever a user flushes, the devices sprays and cleans the bowl. Cleaning your toilet without any work or dumping bleach into our water supply
    • The device also measures water usage & leaks. It can detect the first sign of a problem and tell you what's wrong plus how to fix it. This way you can save money on a plumber & fix the toilet yourself

    You can check out the product here - https://igg.me/at/shinebathroom.

    Thanks for reading!

    submitted by /u/cgherb911
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    Revisiting two of the most insightful posts on /r/Entrepreneur

    Posted: 15 Oct 2019 07:44 AM PDT

    I think it's good to take a step back and look at some of the highlights in our community every once in a while.

    I decided to share these two posts that I believe are incredibly insightful and worth reading.

    Depressed? Unhappy? Not Getting anywhere with your startup?

    and

    Most (Honest) Entrepreneurs Don't Enjoy Being Entrepreneurs. There's always a self-imposed "pressure", and find it damn near impossible to "switch off". The end result is an extreme feeling of loneliness. I GENUINELY think I've found why this is.

    Both of these posts were written by amazing people that put a lot of effort and thought into the writing. I think you'll enjoy!

    Cheers and thank you for being a nice, helpful, caring, active member of this community.

    submitted by /u/coolpopotamus
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    40 Rules for Selling

    Posted: 15 Oct 2019 09:53 AM PDT

    I work as a Sales Director and I wrote the following text in Spanish long ago. Some people considered it useful, so I translated it into English hoping it can help more people:

    1. Call more and call now. Prospect by default, but have in mind that every time you'll try to start prospecting your brain will make up a thousand excuses to convince you it's not the best moment to do it.

    2. It's easier to sell to those who already have your product or a similar one.

    3. Use a script. Your key message must be delivered in your first intervention and be contained in no more than 3 sentences.

    4. Desensitize yourself to rejection. Every 'no' gets you closer to the next "yes".

    5. If the recepcionist doesn't like you, you'll never reach the decision-maker.

    6. The quickest way to be liked is to ask for help.

    7. Don't talk to nondecision-makers. Be nice to them, they can become referrers, but don't talk to them about your product or company. A nondecision-maker can't say "yes" but can say "no".

    8. There will be objections. If it doesn't let you to move forward smoothly, is and objection. It's trivial whether the objection is based on a truth or not. "Send me more information by email" is also an objection.

    9. Don't believe anything. (Almost) everybody lies, about almost everything, almost all the time; and the reason why that happens is irrelevant.

    10. Don't send presentations. No one reads them, and even if they did, you'd first need to figure out what your potential customer wants to know, and to figure out what your potential customer wants to know you need to have a conversation, and once you've had a conversation a presentation is no longer needed. Potential customers only use presentations to discard candidates, never to hire them.

    11. Work your eloquence. Be brief, be concise, don't digress, stay firm, don't doubt, be interesting.

    12. Don't be generous when it comes to availability. If it's scarce it must be good.

    13. Don't plan your meetings. No matter how many scenarios you think of, and how many questions you get ready for, every meeting will develop in a different way from what you imagined.

    14. Become friends. Under same conditions people choose their friends, and under unequal circumstances… also. It doesn't matter how good your product is if the customer doesn't like you.

    15. Shut up. Don't interrupt. Don't even nod. Just shut up and pay attention. If you talk more than 20 % of the time, you are doing it wrong. If you listen before pitching, by the time is your turn the customer would have already told you everything he wants to hear.

    16. Don't move. Don't nod, don't smile, don't force your laughter. Just look and listen.

    17. Don't try to convince. Great salespeople don't try to turn "noes" into "yeses" -that's impossible-, what they do is to quickly detect -and reject- those who won't buy.

    18. Don't say you are good, show it. Give hints and let the customer reach the conclusions, it's way more believable.

    19. Don't talk about yourself. Your product, your company, and your life are boring. Like everyone's else. Like mine. Don't tell your client what you do, tell him how his life will be after buying whatever is you offer.

    20. Safety and ego are heavier than features and benefits. When someone buys from you, he puts his job in the line, or that's what he thinks. Once the customer is not afraid of losing his job, admiration from peers becomes sexier than the pricest treasure.

    21. Kill presentations. If you are a great speaker, a presentation will disminish your value; if you are a bad speaker, it will be even worse.

    22. Unsell. Contradict your client, deny some of his requests, show disinterest.

    23. Learn to say "no".

    24. Don't be a butler. Avoid those "pleases", "thank yous", and "excuse mes" that you wouldn't genuinely say to a friend. While you are at it, kill the "are you busy?" and, above all, murder once and for all the denigrating "thank you for your time".

    25. Brag about your flaws. Start by mentioning the drawbacks of your product. Most drawbacks become advantages once you brag about them, and when not, you'll be transmiting honesty and they'll remember you for being unique.

    26. Interested customers are the least interesting. A customer showing too much interest, in hurry, or who brags about how well one is doing, doesn't want to buy anything. Think of it, when you are about to buy something expensive, do you want the seller to know you are willing to do anything to get it?

    27. Best way of solving objections is silence. Second best, whatever that starts with "That's exactly why".

    28. Do not solve objections. What the customer asks is not what he wants to be answered to. Behind every objection hides laziness or lack of trust. To overcome the former there's nothing to do but insisting; to overcome the latter, the customer must like you. If you answer to what you are asked, you'll lose your chance to do either and the conversation will end.

    29. Ask "why" times fives. Soon, you'll find that what your potential customer wants is not exactly what he first said.

    30. After every interaction you say what the next step is.

    31. Keep emails below 100 words and containing no more than one goal or question.

    32. Always-fucking-deliver. Be puncutal, and if you agree on something, do your part exactly when and how you agreed.

    33. Don't customize your proposals. And keep them under 3 pages. Whenever you deliver a proposal you are delivering free work. The more free work a client feels you have given him, the less he'll value you.

    34. Persevere.

    35. If in doubt, phone. I also prefer the email, but email is for cowards, and cowards can't sell.

    36. Ask for the close.

    37. Network everywhere, with everyone, all the time. Go to events and introduce yourself to others, but leave twitter and those events in which everyone already know everyone. This is about making money, not about being popular among peers and competitors.

    38. Get your contacts to introduce you to their contacts. This will help your sales more than everything I said before.

    39. Almost-sales don't generate revenue. That's why you'll never say again that a client is hot or that a deal is almost closed.

    40. There's no sale until you get paid. The deal is not closed when a client says he wants to work with you. Not even when he signs the contract. Only a deal is closed when someone else's money gets into your company's bank account.

    PS: found this useful? Vote for me ;) → I'm participating in a contest in which the winners go to Berlin to give a speech. You can help me by clicking here and voting for me (be aware, a LinkedIn account is required to vote).

    PS 2: let's connect → I just created a profile in LinkedIn to network with sales professionals who speak English and I'd love to connect with my fellow redditors. Feel free to [send me a request](www.linkedin.com/in/mrmichaelmalo).

    submitted by /u/MrMichaelMalo
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    My experinece with Reddit ads

    Posted: 15 Oct 2019 09:58 AM PDT

    Make this your desktop wallpaper - never ever enable comments on your Reddit ads.

    OK, I get 300% ROAS (return on ad spent) on Google ads and 180% on FB ads. But, Google and FB are getting more and more expensive. Worse is that if your Google ads campaign is quite old and you're getting a good ROAS then Google starts charging you more for every CPC. Google does not officially say it but all the marketing gurus do.

    So, I thought why not use some other platforms like Reddit and Quora to promote my business. I chose to go with Reddit first.

    I read a few articles on Reddit ads first just to get some context. I then decided to test Reddit ads with a budget of only $100.

    I created a new account on ads.reddit.com, made a campaign and launched my ads.

    Key things

    • The goal was to generate leads for my business.
    • The landing page my team made for Reddit ads was the same as what we use for Google ads. But, we changed the headline and a few texts to make it more personalized for Reddit users.
    • The target country was only the US.
    • There were three different ads and one ad group.

    My experience

    TL;DR Reddit is not good for ads. Google is the best and FB is also good.

    • For $100, Reddit sent 552 visitors to my site. Surprisingly, none of them converted. I get around 25-30 visits for every $100 that I spend on Google and I get a 30% conversion rate. So, I get 8-9 leads for every $100 I spend on Google ads. I get 20-25 visits for every $100 that I spend on FB and I get a 10% conversion rate. But, the revenue per customer that I get from FB users is a lot higher than what I get from Google users. Maybe because I can set demographics on FB and I always target the wealthiest people in a given Pincode.
    • The average time spent by Reddit users on my site was very less. It was only 7 secs. Google users stay on my landing pages for 2 mins and 41 secs and FB users stay for 1 min and 50 secs.
    • Reddit's own ad performance measurement tool sucks. Google and FB give you so many details about your ad campaigns. In fact, I can fairly track everything about my leads like he/she is from which city, male or female, etc. without even asking them. I just need to check the time of conversion on Google ads and match the data with GA. But on Reddit, you just get very basic performance indicators like CPC, the amount spent, number of clicks, etc. I don't know whether I am getting more traffic from females or males, which age group do they belong to, the number of hits from a specific city, etc. FB beats everyone in terms of the performance measurement tool, and this may be because FB knows a lot about us because of our FB accounts.
    • Reddit ads take at least a day to get approved. Also, your ads don't get approved on weekends. My Google and FB ads get approved within 15-20 mins (even on weekends).
    • Last but not the least, Redditors hate ads. I read so many times that I should not enable comments on my Reddit ads but I wanted to go bold. I enabled the ads and within 30 mins my ad was filled spammy comments. No, bots were not posting those spams, they were humans. I immediately paused that campaign and I had already spent $10. I duplicated that campaign, disabled the comments and then relaunched it.
    submitted by /u/maybevaibhav
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    Sold My Company, Now What?

    Posted: 14 Oct 2019 08:16 PM PDT

    I recently sold my business. Terms were good. Roughly 3x annual profit. Not enough to make me rich, but enough to give me a cushion for a while and figure out what I want to do next. I've given myself some time to relax and decompress, but I don't want to coast and burn through too much of that sweet cash.

    Now everyone I know keeps asking: what's next?

    This question has honestly been really tough. It's caused me a fair bit of anxiety.

    For a while I was thinking that I had to come up with some big new idea. But as I've listened to a number of other serial entrepreneurs, creatives, and investors, I've decided that the better idea is to set myself up with a series of experiments. The idea being that it's better to make lots of little bets rather than take a single big swing.

    Here's what I'm thinking for right now:

    • I took a full-time job as a Director of Marketing for about 4 months. That didn't work out, but I'd be open to doing that again. The work was great, but the culture was not a good fit. At the right company I think I could be a great contributor, but it probably wouldn't last more than a couple of years.
    • A number of friends have expressed interest in doing some investing together. We could probably pool a pretty decent angel fund of about $2M - $3M. We live in a mid-size town with a real lack of funding for startups. That's obviously a long-term play.
    • I have a couple of niche websites that I've had running as side projects for a while. I could add more of those and see where they go, if any of them pop big enough to turn into a significant business.
    • I've considered starting a blog, podcast, or Youtube channel to chronicle my progress and keep myself focused and accountable.

    At my heart, I'm a teacher and coach. I'm at my best when I'm supporting people and helping them reach their own potential. I like consulting and coaching, which is why the Youtube channel idea excites me. But I don't want to be just another business coach teaching people how to make money (even if I've already sold one company).

    Not really sure what kind of feedback I'm looking for here, but I thought I'd share my thought process. I hope some of you find some value from it.

    EDIT: a word

    submitted by /u/chuff80
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    I've released an app after months of hard work, yet can't seem to get in the mindset to do any real marketing.

    Posted: 15 Oct 2019 04:00 AM PDT

    Basically, I am a developer by trade and as someone who enjoyed making apps for fun, I wanted to try releasing an actual product that provides value to people. I was naive enough to think that just making a good product was all it took, but when you don't have a platform, not yet willing to buy ads and cannot show up in the search terms then it is almost impossible to serve anyone at all.

    So upon realizing that outreach is my biggest problem now, I researched ASO, SEO & social media growth and this gave me a bunch of ideas for things to do, my only problem now is that I seem to be avoiding this work every day in exchange for even more coding or other pursuits. (part of me feels like just abandoning ship to start coding a new idea entirely...)

    Part of what makes marketing feel difficult to me is the fact that each day I find myself describing my app with slightly different wording, also talking to other people requires me to speak from a big-picture perspective, outlining the dreams and hopes I have for the product. Working a full time job makes this hard as I have to switch gears for 40 hours a week to focus on other problems as well, so it feels like even more emotional labor to get into the right headspace.

    So, therefore I'm wondering, are there any resources that can help me get into the right mindset as a marketer? any podcasts/books would be much appreciated!

    submitted by /u/whats_up_bro
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    [Re-Post] Have a great idea but no team/support? New sub helps to connect founders with passionate professionals from all backgrounds to form long lasting teams to make things happen.

    Posted: 15 Oct 2019 09:34 AM PDT

    Hello All,

    Some of us who frequent the startup/entrepreneurial reddit space have started a new sub dedicated to helping potential founders with new ideas find professionals across all functional areas to help establish long-term teams to make things happen. It is not supposed to be a place to pick up freelancers looking to be hired, but instead a place where you can put your idea out there and find professionals from all backgrounds who are actually passionate about your concept and want to help you make it a reality. Need a lawyer, accountant, or marketing professional on your team? Need a connection? We hope this will eventually become a place where you can find them.

    This sub is 100% dedicated as a posting board to match people up. It takes some of the clutter posting off r/entrepreneur while still providing a place to make those connections.

    Check it out at r/Crowdspark

    Thanks!

    submitted by /u/lwadz88
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    This is a good reminder of which documents to get together NOW for tax season prep

    Posted: 15 Oct 2019 05:48 AM PDT

    The part about how a credit card statement isn't tantamount to a receipt is stressful, but some good advice on what to get together for tax season. http://blog.escalon.services/3-tips-help-you-prep-now-for-the-upcoming-tax-season

    submitted by /u/reddyplayer12
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    [Question] Successful Entrepreneurs - What would you do if you lost everything but $2,000 a laptop/internet access/phone and had to start again today?

    Posted: 15 Oct 2019 02:17 PM PDT

    No reputation.

    No network.

    Bills Are piling High.

    And you have just 30 days to bounce back.

    What would you do to get back into the five/six/seven figures?

    submitted by /u/AMZNMAGICIAN
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    Building a clothing brand and am having trouble deciding between Squarespace and Shopify - anyone have experience with both?

    Posted: 15 Oct 2019 10:28 AM PDT

    Hi all, I've been working on launching a clothing brand and admittedly made the mistake of opting for Squarespace before fully researching my options. As a designer, I'm very drawn to Squarespace's beautiful aesthetics and locked in an annual subscription for their business package that expires in ~April of next year. After putting in hours of building and fine-tuning my site, I did some more research and found that, while Squarespace has ecommerce capabilities, it is not the platform's forte. One thing that I find especially lacking is the inability to automate sales tax collection, something that Shopify offers in addition to all of their ecomm-specific apps.

    Given this, I signed up for a Shopify trial and found a theme that I like, but am debating if it's truly worth it to swap from Squarespace to Shopify given all of the work I already put into building my site, not to mention the additional $$ I'd have to drop. I still greatly prefer Squarespace's aesthetics, but am worried that I am shooting myself in the foot in the longterm if I decide to build my brand via Squarespace. What are your thoughts? One thing to keep in mind is that I plan on starting small and launching one collection at a time, comprised of a few T-shirts, longsleeves and maybe a hoodie or two, before gradually expanding my product offerings.

    With this in mind, should I stick with Squarespace and focus on manufacturing and selling my products or put in the extra time and money (roughly $500 for an annual Shopify basic subscription and the paid theme) into making the switch to Shopify now rather than later? I have a couple of entrepreneurial friends who swear by Shopify - just wanted to get some additional advice from the community. Thanks in advance for any and all feedback, I appreciate it!

    submitted by /u/Sn33kyR0gue
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    Struggling to establish my B2B value prop

    Posted: 15 Oct 2019 02:10 PM PDT

    A few weeks ago I finally launched my side project, Seattle Strong Shirts, where we sell t shirts and donate 50% of gross profits to local nonprofit causes. Part of the reason I pursued the idea is that the value proposition is very simple: for our partners we raise funds and generate awareness, for our customers we offer a great product that contributes towards great causes. Feedback on both ends has been great.

    ​

    One priority of mine in expanding our reach is to get local coffee shops, breweries, and other small businesses on board to sell our products. There are a number of potential targets, but the only value I can think of is "we'll sell you the shirts near wholesale and you'll take on a healthy profit margin" but that then diminishes the amount of money we're donating to our partner causes. I frankly can't convince myself why a small business would want to sell our shirts, much less try to make a real sales pitch.

    submitted by /u/badlybougie
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    18F from Texas who's starting a home bakery business, specifically selling cookies. I was doing pretty well earlier this year but senior year of high school got in the way so I put it on hold (continued)

    Posted: 14 Oct 2019 07:08 PM PDT

    Now I'm in college for baking & pastry arts and I have a part time job but I want to put more energy into my business again. I was selling online but because of TX food cottage laws I technically can't which sucks but oh well. My family and friends already know and like my product and I have some business cards and a Facebook page. I really need tips for marketing/advertising my business, expanding, etc also I know nothing about paying taxes so info on that is helpful. I'm debating on if I should stay in college (I'm at a cc not paying tuition thanks to my dad being in the military so it's not that serious) or not because my end goal is to open a physical bakery and have that be my full time job. Any advice from entrepreneurs, in any industry would be great!! :)

    submitted by /u/chuusblackgf
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    Shortcomings Trying to Become a Tech Entrepreneur

    Posted: 15 Oct 2019 02:02 PM PDT

    Not sure if anyone here can relate, but I have been trying to be an entrepreneur for many years and I follow this sub regularly, but I lack a lot of soft skills that entrepreneurs need to succeed. My (dream) business is enterprise software. Essentially I want to create a system that makes money through privately licensed enterprise software subscriptions and online services. I am pretty good at making software. Unfortunately I lack skill to be able to sell products at a good price, find pain points, and strike a good deal. I can talk to people but have never actually made a deal.

    For example, my friend works at a small enterprise software company. The CEO and Salesman just go from place to place (restaurants right now) and somehow get businesses to purchase their software systems (services and support included), often as beta testers who are interested in the final product. The skill really fascinates me. I don't even know where to begin to do something like that. I mean how do you get the owner's attention in the first place? I imagine most business owners don't have a second to waste on someone who is selling something.

    Even if you get to talk to a business owner, how do you price a B2B deal? Either the idea is complex, or competitors' prices are not available (because it is a private deal). Especially when the deal is complicated (3 servers, redundant system, $X per seat etc). Would you just calculate the cost of running it, then multiply by a percentage? Are there books on a topic such as this?

    Also I have found it is very hard to get a potential customer to take you seriously when you make the product. There needs to be some kind of agency/buffer. Is it possible to hire a sales person to do this for you? Is there an online place where people with different strengths can toss ideas around?

    One idea I had recently is that Chic-Fil-A has an awesome rewards app that I think really helps customers get hooked, but Lion's Choice where I live does not have a scannable app reward system like Chic-fil-A. Instead they ask for your Phone number. I notice other places doing this as well. I think this is off-putting to a lot of people, with spamming and such. Apps appear to be alright with people. We could make a version of the Chic-Fil-A app that scans rewards. I asked the cashier about it and she thought it was interesting but that's it. If you have experience selling ideas, where would you go from there?

    tl;dr; How to sell to business owners, and how to price B2B deals?

    Edit: I guess one thing I left out is funding. Say you have an idea, and you have 3 potential customers who want to be the first to use the app. Who would you ask to fund your business? Would a bank even consider something like this?

    submitted by /u/ScriptKid2
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    How can I learn B2C marketing?

    Posted: 15 Oct 2019 01:37 PM PDT

    Hi everyone,

    I launched my company a couple of years ago. My partners and I recently pivoted from a B2B to a B2C model, which is super exciting! We're building an app designed for a weekly usage.

    B2C marketing is very new to us, which is why we're recruiting someone in that area, who should join us in December or so. However as the co-founder in charge of marketing, I need to learn as much as possible in the mean time.

    Do you have any advice on how I should go about this? Any material, online courses, blogs or books that I should know about?

    Thanks a lot for your help!

    submitted by /u/Touch105
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    Any bike shop owners? Or employees?

    Posted: 15 Oct 2019 05:28 AM PDT

    Hi! I'm starting a cycling company, and would love to ask some questions to those in the industry. I'm looking to approach bike shops with the product and generate some sales, and so I'm really interested to know more about the terms you work on with suppliers, and the general way things work etc. Thanks so much!

    submitted by /u/lfws2014
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    Platform for certified technicians?

    Posted: 15 Oct 2019 12:49 PM PDT

    which app do you use to hire certified technicians, such as electrician or HVAC technician?

    submitted by /u/kisssmysaas
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    Notebooks Start Up

    Posted: 15 Oct 2019 11:53 AM PDT

    As a lover of notebooks, I'd like to start a company which sells them! I've designed exactly what I want them to look like, but don't really know where to go from here.

    Does a company that produces notebooks actually make and print the notebooks themselves, or are there a range of suppliers who can create the bound material and print the innards of the notebook?

    I hope this post isn't breaking any rules.

    Thank you!

    Info: I'm in the UK.

    submitted by /u/iamprocrastinating93
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    Resources/questions for doing an industry appraisal

    Posted: 15 Oct 2019 11:41 AM PDT

    I'm wanting to research the industry I'll be entering but I feel like I'm only scratching the surface with the questions I have.

    Any advice or resources appreciated!

    submitted by /u/JustAnotherNerd1988
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    I started a Skateboard company called Progression Skateboard Co.

    Posted: 15 Oct 2019 11:36 AM PDT

    I see a lot of very cool and inspirational posts on here, so I figured I would give my story. Last year on the 12th of June, I started a Skateboard company called "Progression Skateboard Co." and I would consider myself an Entrepreneur. I have an incredibly huge passion for Skateboarding and creating designs have been a big interest of mine ever since high school. I tried to come up with a name for a company that I haven't heard of (obviously) but at the same time, I wanted my company's name to mean and stand for something. Progression Skateboard Co. was the perfect name for my company because Skateboarding consists of progression heavily. Another reason why I thought it was a very important name is because it is something I can heavily relate to. I have been progressing in Skateboarding more in the past 2 years than I have EVER (not me saying I am a professional by any means, just humbly speaking about my personal progression and how I have reached personal goals I have always wanted to hit). I started off by hand painting a couple Skateboards, vinyl records to hang up as art, ordered some stickers and got some shirts made up so I can hand them out to some of my friends so that I could A). start gaining some attention and B) hook up some of the friends who I skate with all the time. Since then, I have been trying my best to maintain this company in the most professional way I possibly can. Fast forwarding from then to now, I have a bunch of different types of shirts from long sleeves to tank tops, t-shirts, head wear, and many different sticker designs. I have gained 400 followers on my Instagram account and I always get people showing me love and giving me constructive criticism which I am very thankful for. I have even been getting people asking me for sponsorships and what not which is really flattering even though I am not in the position to be doing that at the moment. So that is my story on my entrepreneurial journey so far and I must say it is very fun and it is a really great experience and there are a lot of great lessons to learn from starting your own company by yourself from the ground up! If you are reading up to this point I want to thank YOU for taking the time out of your day to read this large paragraph I have typed.

    ​

    This is not for self promotional purposes, but if you would like to look at my website that I created recently and my Instagram page and give me some constructive criticism! I would appreciate all feedback!

    Instagram Page

    My Website

    submitted by /u/wutang_72
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    "Good Vote" - investigating if it's a good name for my project

    Posted: 15 Oct 2019 07:36 AM PDT

    Hello guys,

    I'm starting up an new project and looking for a name.

    "Good Vote" is by far the most favourite. I won't yet explain what the project is about, but asking you to share what association does the name (phrase "good vote") create for you?

    Regards 🙂

    submitted by /u/Endore8
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    I manage a small business (gun and knife store) and am looking to get circulars printed for in-store for black friday and possibly weekly ads, similar to what you see in the front of sporting goods stores when you walk in. I'm having a hard time finding a source for these

    Posted: 15 Oct 2019 07:29 AM PDT

    Low income housing landlords, how do you adapt your business operations?

    Posted: 15 Oct 2019 11:03 AM PDT

    If you're a landlord in a poor city community (think higher crime, unemployment, rust belts)

    And hypothetically let's say you can get rental properties for insanely cheap (example: $20,000 a unit turn key- ready to rent).

    But due to it being a slum, you can only lock in $450/month for 10 out of 12 months (low income renters have down times)

    Let's just say $4,500/year. Now that is high return real estate, but how do you go about running a cheap rental property? What are the short cuts and methods to make your property run as smoothly as possible?

    submitted by /u/ohiodylan
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    How do you now what kind of marketing to use (when selling a product)?

    Posted: 15 Oct 2019 10:51 AM PDT

    I don't know anything at all about marketing. Obviously it's pretty important because its one of the main ways people find out about your product. But what are modern marketing strategies?

    For example, the default seems to be to throw money at google and facebook ads. But I figure if I talked to people outside of sporting events (figure out how to do that legally later) I could reach way more people. Likewise, if took a day off work and actively went out looking to meet people I could probably do a better job selling my product myself, the old fashioned way. But obviously that doesn't scale.

    What I'm afraid of is getting to the point where marketing starts to become very important and me not having any idea what's involved. Can you please illuminate this area for me or perhaps recommend some training material. I don't want to have to read a whole book if I don't have to but I will.

    ​

    edit - seriously, a downvote isn't constructive at all. I'm openly admitting that I don't know anything and I'm asking where to start. I'm not being lazy because there are so many charlatans out there and I am hoping someone here already knows what to do and what to look out for.

    submitted by /u/hareyboots
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    A Major Distributor is Interested in My Product

    Posted: 15 Oct 2019 10:42 AM PDT

    I just reached out to them on Friday and they were requesting samples the next day. I'm super stoked, of course, but taking my time to prepare the sample package, checking my grammar in the introduction letter, and writing down any questions for a phone call later today.

    Has anyone heard of https://mrcheckout.net/ ? I found this in an older r/Entrepreneur post:

    We used Mr. Checkout since 2001 and they've gotten us great results so far. I know they're picky on which products they choose so I suggest being ready before reaching out to them.

    So, I want to make sure the product package is well prepared. I worked my butt off to design and print the two different packages for the products. I found one negative BBB review of them online, however, I already know not to go into this with any expectations. I'm def not going to give them any money up front to "present" my products either.

    submitted by /u/audiR8_
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    Should I set up a company as an independent contractor working overseas?

    Posted: 15 Oct 2019 10:31 AM PDT

    Hello Everyone!

    I am an independent contractor working for a US company in Thailand. I am able to use the FEIE (Foreign Earned Income Exclusion) to mitigate a good portion of my taxes but still have to pay the 15.3% self-employment tax.

    Is there a way to set up a company/business structure to help mitigate or eliminate the self-employment tax? Like an LLC/C Corp/S Corp?

    Thanks!

    submitted by /u/PostNarcissism
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