• Breaking News

    Tuesday, October 29, 2019

    Home Unlabelled Marketplace Tuesday! (October 29, 2019) Entrepreneur

    Marketplace Tuesday! (October 29, 2019) Entrepreneur

    October 29, 2019

    Marketplace Tuesday! (October 29, 2019) Entrepreneur

    Marketplace Tuesday! (October 29, 2019)

    Posted: 29 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
    [link] [comments]

    My SaaS company was just Acquired!!!

    Posted: 29 Oct 2019 06:22 AM PDT

    Very happy to announce that the little SaaS company I started in my garage back in 2003 has been acquired. Now both of my companies have found successful exits within 2 months of each other and I'm finally out of the entrepreneur game and the industry I dedicated my life to over the last 20 years. After a few months of helping transition the companies I'll be out for good, retired.

    Here is hoping you all have similar news to share one day.

    https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/sparkpost-to-acquire-edatasource-to-offer-industrys-first-fully-integrated-email-sending-and-analytics-platform-300946884.html

    submitted by /u/foolkillercoming4
    [link] [comments]

    Sam Altman's "How to succeed with a startup" - I thought this video was a goldmine and wanted to share my notes on it ~

    Posted: 28 Oct 2019 07:57 PM PDT

    Video source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lJKucu6HJc

    ​

    • The degree to which you're successful is the degree to which you build a product that is so good that people spontaneously tell their friends about it.
    • There is no other secret to success. This is it. It's really hard to do.
    • We find out about great products from our friends.
    • One litmus test here is to ask yourself, is your product easy to understand? Can it be explained in a simple sentence?
    • If you can't explain what your product does in a sentence, it's a bad sign. People don't pitch their friends. People share cool stuff with their friends. If you can't do this, it's a sign of unclear thinking.
    • You also need to be looking for a market that is starting to undergo or is soon to be undergoing exponential growth.
    • One of the biggest mistakes that investors make when evaluating startups is to focus on the growth rate. Investors will forgive low revenue if there's rapid growth. For some reason, people don't think about markets this way. They should.
    • Most successful startups start in small markets that are growing very quickly. You want to identify a market that's set to grow every year and then ride the elevator up.
    • It's important to distinguish between real trends and fake trends. If your product is targeted at a real trend, then your early adopters will use it obsessively and tell their friends how much they love it. A fake trend can be identified by people using your product, but not enough to tell their friends about it.
    • When the iPhone came out, it became a central part of the lives of the people who purchased it. People who were paying attention noticed that the iPhone fundamentally changed our notion of computing platforms. It was a good time to bet on mobile apps.
    • An example of a fake trend (in 2018) is VR. It may be big in the future, but not yet. Many people may buy them or talk about them, but most people don't use them very often. There's not an intense usage-per-user among the early adopters.
    • Usually startups also need an evangelical founder. Someone has to be able to do everything. This requires someone who can infect the world with what the idea is all about and what the company is trying to do.
    • It's very hard to succeed without some kind of a chief evangelist who's emotionally invested in the mission and infects the world.
    • An ambitious vision helps with this. Being grandiose turns people off, but you want to let yourself grow more ambitious over time. Ambitious visions are fun to work on! They're interesting.
    • Picking something that matters is a great way to attract people towards an ambitious vision.
    • When you're starting something, make sure that it's something that a lot of people will want to contribute to and associate with. Getting mindshare is really hard. People are interested in startups that matter.
    • Successful startups are usually started by a founder with a confident and definite view of the future. Even if you're wrong, flexible confidence of a clearly articulated future tends to correlate to success.
    • The startup ecosystem is best set up to support companies that have a low chance of success but are huge if they work. Going for something that's huge if it works will attract the best people.
    • In terms of team, you obviously need smart people who work really hard and communicate well. The team you build is the company you build. Only a few founders spend enough time recruiting. When you switch from building a product to building a company, you shift towards assembling a team.
    • Optimism is also incredibly important. The world will tell you why you'll fail, but if you don't have the internal fire of belief, and people around you saying "this is going to work, we're going to figure this out", without the spirit of optimism, it's very hard to succeed.
    • Idea people are important. You don't want too many, because then you'll have more ideas than you can follow through on, but having people who throw out ideas (even if most are bad) is very very important.
    • "We'll figure it out" is super important.
    • So is "I'll do it"
    • A bias towards action is important
    • Startups usually win by moving very quickly. You want people who act with much less data than they want to have. If what they try doesn't work, then they adapt quickly and try something else.
    • "The blessing of inexperience" - Steve Wozniak has talked about how the best things he's ever done came from having no experience whatsoever and having no money.
    • One of the most important jobs you have as a founder is to never lose momentum. This means that for the first few years, you never get to rest. Startups survive on their own momentum. If you lose momentum, it's very difficult to get it back. Recurring victories are very important.
    • Startups also need a competitive advantage. A network effect. Monopoly potential.
    • You don't need to have the business model figured out at the beginning, but you should have some kind of sensible business model articulated.
    • You also need a distribution strategy. How are you going to grow?
    • The traits of the best founders include Frugality, Focus, Obsession, and Love
    • If you work on ideas that sound bad but are actually good, you'll have an advantage over your existing competitors because in any established company, there's a hierarchy and one single "no" can destroy an idea. With a startup, you don't need to convince a hierarchy. You can just do the thing.
    • A startup's advantage is in agility and speed. The more a market is changing, the higher the number of decisions you get to make, the more agile you can be in comparison to existing companies. If your market is evolving quickly, then that gives your advantage the ability to compound over that of an established player.
    submitted by /u/eveFromKarmaFm
    [link] [comments]

    $1.2MM/year selling light-up ice cubes and bath toys [liquid activated]

    Posted: 29 Oct 2019 09:00 AM PDT

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

    Today's interview is with Hagan Walker (u/haganwalker) of Glo®, a brand that makes liquid activated products

    Some stats:

    • Product: liquid activated products
    • Revenue/mo: $104,166
    • Started: March 2015
    • Location: Starkville, Mississippi
    • Founders: 2
    • Employees: 5

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

    Hey, y'all! I'm Hagan Walker - one of the co-founders of Glo! We make liquid-activated products under two different brands - Glo Cubes, which are light up drink cubes - and Glo Pals, light-up sensory toys for children. Both incorporate the same patented liquid activation circuitry.

    Basically, you drop one of our products in liquid and it uses ions in the liquid to bridge an electrical circuit, causing the cube to light up. Not only is the circuit patented, but we also have a unique design that isn't triggered by residual fluid or ice. This means Glo Cubes work very well in a restaurant setting. When someone finishes a drink, the light goes out, indicating to the server that a refill is needed. The same idea translates to the Glo Pals. These bath toys only work in liquid - just draw a bath and drop them in. They automatically light up, and when you drain the tub, they turn off on their own - no buttons or switches to forget about!

    It's a strange combination (internally, we joke about kids and cocktails - ha!), but I'll get into how that all came about in just a bit. We're a bit quirky and, in this fast-paced world of e-commerce and dropshipping, we've found a small niche where we design, prototype, and package every single product from our headquarters in Starkville, Mississippi. This year, we'll sell over 3 million of our products to customers in 37 countries.

    Hold on to your seats. I believe telling a story should be real - it should include the highs and lows, tell you about how the path isn't always straightforward, and detail how some things work out for a reason, so let's start from the beginning.

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

    The story of Glo starts in 2015 - my senior year of college. I wasn't the best student or the brightest, but I found my niche and studied electrical engineering. I thought I had it all figured out - I had some great internships lined up and were the first student from the state of Mississippi to intern at Tesla in Palo Alto, California. My passion was automotive engineering and we had a great program here at Mississippi State University, called EcoCAR, that gave me some excellent hands-on engineering experience. The goal was to make it to Tesla, get offered a job, and take off to California.

    That didn't happen.

    I was offered a position at Tesla as a body controls engineer, working on the falcon wing doors for Model X, but fate had different plans. I turned that position down to return to Mississippi and take a chance with something a bit different - making light-up drink cubes. You see, right before I left for my summer internship at Tesla, a friend of mine asked for my help with a classroom project. Kaylie Mitchell was studying graphic design and her professor tasked her with coming up with a conceptual company and product that naturally drew one's eye to the product. Kaylie thought, if a drink lit up, people would inherently look at it. She wanted to go above and beyond on this assignment and reached out to me to create a prototype for her class assignment.

    We decided it had to be liquid-activated for ease of use and sanitary reasons. The first prototype was made out of a toothbrush travel case with some electronic components encased in hot glue to make it waterproof. It certainly wasn't pretty, but it worked, and her professor was impressed with the initiative. She encouraged Kaylie and me to present the idea for this conceptual company and the product to the Mississippi State Center for Entrepreneurship and Outreach's (CEO) annual competition. We decided to give it a try - there was nothing to lose. Neither of us had a background in business, but we practiced, rehearsed, made new prototypes, and finally presented.

    We won first place - $15,000 and free participation in a summer incubator program.

    While I was off at Tesla that summer, Kaylie spent the summer helping to further refine what the hell we were doing. I would task friends that I met during my internship into helping design CAD models, and we used a bit of the money from the competition to buy a 3D printer. We shipped it to California and it was in the closet of the room that I was renting. I'd work at Tesla during the day, and then my friend, Nick Beyrer, and I would print 3D prototypes at night. I'd ship those back to Kaylie for the weekly design reviews that she had to participate in, and that's how our first 124 prototypes were developed.

    image

    The 3D printer in our first "office" - a walk-in closet

    At the end of summer, Tesla asked if I was interested in staying on. At this point, Kaylie and I thought we had a good chance of finding an angel investor. I packed up and headed back to Mississippi to finish my final semester and make a final decision on my post-graduation life. We found an investor, and I decided to stay in Mississippi - trading my automotive engineering dreams to instead created liquid-activated, light up drink cubes.

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

    I graduated in December 2015 and started as employee number 1 at Glo in January 2016. Our bank account had $30,000 in it from our previous winnings and our first investor. We thought we were set. I found a manufacturer in China and sent over the CAD files. We spent about $10,000 on tooling and various startup costs and received our first shipment a few weeks later. They were awful. My background has nothing to do with CAD - I had no idea what I was doing - and ** I realized I had just blown $10,000 - just like that**. Luckily, I found some help through a mutual friend, David Francis, who fixed our files for manufacturing. We dropped another $10,000 and gave it a second go.

    This shipment was much better, but that $30,000 had dwindled to just $10,000 because of my mistakes. I was living off of a $17,000 yearly salary and things weren't looking great. We still had to pay for patents, website costs, shipping software, office space, etc. I pleaded with an attorney to write our patent application for $500. We negotiated with a landlord for deferred rent. We "stole" the internet from the neighbors next door. I found a label printer for $25 from eBay. We had no idea how to mass-produce items, so our first packs of Glo Cubes were heat-sealed - by hand - in the office, with a paper label stapled to the top. We made it work - but we knew we had to start selling to stay afloat.

    Describe the process of launching the business.

    We found a cocktail maniac, the Tipsy Bartender, on YouTube and reached out. He loved the Glo Cubes and asked us to send some. A few weeks later, the Aurora Borealis video came out. It got about 7 million views in the first week and we quickly found ourselves in a manufacturing and logistical nightmare. For about two days, we averaged an order of Glo Cubes every two minutes.

    Kaylie and I stayed at the office until 2:00 am every day that week hand packaging Glo Cubes and we brought in several friends to help us catch up with orders.

    image

    Us hand-packaging Glo Cubes to fulfill initial orders (Left to right: Hagan, Hagan's sister Caroline (seated), Anna Barker, Kaylie Mitchell, Parker Stewart)

    We had a taste of what could be - and it was exhilarating, but we had to figure out how to make it last. After the initial excitement of the video wore down, so did sales. We had to figure out how to actually sell our items - which I was awful at. Picking up the phone and getting repeatedly turned down over a product that I created was like someone punching me in the gut, over and over again. However, this eventually paid off - we found a tea bar (of all things) that agreed to a $40,000 recurring order and kept us afloat for a while. This wasn't our only order, but it was the biggest at the time. We hustled for the next year, working to capture and retain customers, creating actual packaging, hiring our first intern, Shelby Baldwin, and finding out what we needed to do next. We were hitting our stride and ended 2016 in the black. Not by much - but not bad after just a year of sales.

    In early 2017, Kaylie made a decision to depart the company. We had different views on company direction, but she also had an excellent opportunity to get her Master's degree from the University of Arkansas, completely paid for. For a few months, things were looking bleak. It was just Shelby and me working day-to-day to find the next key account (by the way, Kaylie and I are still good friends and talk regularly).

    Thankfully, we were able to find a rockstar. I can't speak enough about the Mississippi State CEO. Every time it seemed like all was going to fall apart, the CEO's Directors Eric Hill and Jeffrey Rupp were there to motivate, to encourage, and to help bring the pieces back together. They introduced me to Anna Barker - an international business major - who had an ambitious idea of her own, which landed her with a stellar job offer from insurance conglomerate AIG. I was somehow able to convince Anna to stay in Mississippi and join in as my partner, and her accepting likely saved the company - and that's how I now have a co-founder and also a partner.

    We brainstormed about new avenues, pursuing new sales leads, next steps, and everything in between. About that time, we also received an email from a parent. She had gotten our Glo Cubes from a restaurant in California and realized they were liquid-activated. She took them home and threw them into the bathtub. It was the first time her son, who is autistic, took a bath in weeks without crying, and it got us thinking - what if we targeted our products towards an entirely different market?

    That's exactly what we did. Anna led efforts on the Glo Pals, creating the whole brand and little characters with their own personalities. We used our same liquid-activation technology, and pad printed each character's face on our light-up cubes to create these products for a new market. Since the only difference between the Glo Cubes and Glo Pals is a pad print, the costs for creating this new product were super low. We were also extremely lucky to obtain the domain as well as @glopals for all of our social media handles.

    In late 2017, Anna and I went through our first funding round and secured $125,000 for growth. We were hitting our stride again and had money to take the next step. We hired our first full-time employee, Hanna Bridge, as our sales director and as sales picked up, we moved from our 700 square foot office into an incredible 3,500 square foot office in 2018.

    The Glo Pals also launched in 2018 and blew us away. In the first half of 2018, we picked up 400 retailers across the USA and Canada. By the end of 2018, we had picked up 600 more. Our small team of 3 full-time employees and 5 part-timers were working overtime to keep up, and things got so busy during Christmas that we had friends and family sitting on the floor packaging boxes because we were out of space.

    image

    January 2018 - Hanna, Anna, and I cut the ribbon at the new Glo offices, surrounded by friends, family, and community members.

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

    So now, there's two brands - Glo Cubes and Glo Pals - and each has to be marketed completely differently. Let's start with Glo Cubes:

    • We look for key accounts. The Glo Cube model is based on volume. We attend trade shows and try to find restaurants, bars, and other entertainment venues that can buy in bulk. This helps our margins significantly because we can also sell in bulk without having to use retail packaging. These places tend to place a carton behind the bar and the bartenders do the job of adding them to drinks.

    • We set up recurring sales. We'll give discounts of 10 to 20% off of our wholesale pricing if they'll sign a recurring contract. For most, this means receiving between 5,000 to 50,000 cubes monthly. By doing it this way, it makes it much easier for us to forecast sales and also helps provide a consistent revenue stream.

    • We continuously brainstorm. It's important to keep innovating. We patented the light-up bath bomb concept and then partnered with Da Bomb Bath Fizzers. They put our Glo Cubes inside their Glow Bomb and Disco Bomb. When you drop these bath bombs in water, they fizz, as all bath bombs do, but as soon as water enters the liquid activation chamber of the Glo Cube, the bath bomb lights up - and so does your tub. It's a fun product that is a win-win for both companies. You can find the Glow and Disco Bombs at Target and Ulta.

    For Glo Pals:

    • We appeal much more to the end customer. We focus heavily on the environmentally-conscious trendy mom, with children between ages 3-6 years old. We do this through more traditional avenues, like Facebook Ads and through collaborations with other notable and trusted brands, like Kaplan Early Learning Company.

    • We are real. A strategic move by Anna and our Creative Director, Brittney Dowell, is to be completely transparent. We work very hard to engage with customers on Facebook and Instagram, we strive to have amazing customer service, and we show what's happening behind the scenes - including showing how the Glo Pals are packaged, our office dogs, Brittney's daughter Ida, and more. We don't ever hide or delete comments, and we tackle issues head-on. So much of social media is a perception, and we want everyone to know that the products you see are designed right here in the USA to be both fun and safe by the team you see behind the scenes - not an illusion.

    • We utilize rep groups. We're still a small team, so it's impossible to do everything in-house. We're very selective, but we have a number of rep groups that help us pick up new stores throughout the USA and Canada. For their efforts, they get between 10%-15% of the sale as commission. This allows us to focus on core areas, such as customer service, quality, safety, and logistics while letting customers engage with sales reps that they already know and trust.

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

    Things are going well! We just hired an office manager and are releasing new products for the Glo Pals in about a week - stay tuned! We have been profitable since 2016, and have tripled revenue every year since then. Our average gross margin across both brands is 62%, including wholesale customers.

    I do believe ads are important, as long as you're seeing the return that you want. For example, during the Christmas season 2018, we were spending $800 a day on ads. This seems crazy to me, but we set up rules on Facebook that as long as our cost per purchase was below $4.00 (a pack of four cubes is only $10.00), to increase spending by 2x daily. The ad spends after Thanksgiving started at $25, then went to $50, then $100 and so on. From November 15th to December 21st, we brought in $50,000 in sales with an average order volume of $19.75 and a gross margin of 79.6% (our gross margins are much better selling direct to consumers, of course).

    Since this time, we've seen a much less effective return on ads - our products have lots of seasonality - so we've cut down on spend significantly. We might spend $50/week on ads right now just to keep our Facebook pixel happy. We'll pick things back up during the new product launch and as Christmas gets a bit closer.

    Earlier this year, we also picked up Cracker Barrel and Nordstrom as Glo Pals retailers and are working on several more key retailer partnerships for 2020. However, we've also spent a considerable amount of time this year working on the new Glo Pals product - it's been a very close repeat of my first experience trying to get the Glo Cubes manufactured. The product is more complex, further complicating the manufacturing process - and it's a good reminder of the things we take for granted every day. No one thinks about material thickness of the plastic on your phone case or how many iterations of that plastic cups were made before mass production started. Even the simplest of items probably took months of iterations before the design moved forward.

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

    Yes! I've learned so much - and I continue to learn every day. I've always told myself the day that I'm no longer learning something new is the day that it'll be time for me to find something else to do. That hasn't happened yet, and I don't expect it anytime soon.

    Starting a business can really test you as a person. You carry the stress with you - you'll likely age a bit faster than your friends. I also worry about what's next, and now that we have 15 people on the payroll, you also realize that those people are depending on you and your guidance for a paycheck. That can be compounded more when you know some of your employees have families, young children, and issues of their own.

    On the other hand, I've learned a lot about people. I've learned what to look for in new hires, how to find people that truly care about their jobs and are always willing to go above and beyond to move the needle forward (hint, it's not always a good resume). I've learned a bit about compassion, and I've learned to be more appreciative. I've learned the value of a good partner - a true business partner is not someone who will always agree with you. Anna and I might disagree daily, but it forces us both to approach ideas from a different view, and typically, it allows us to land on the best decision, which is incredibly important.

    I also have this strong belief that we're all put on earth to help one another. You can't ever think of yourself as too good to help someone in need or too big to roll up your sleeves and get dirty. Even if your company or products don't inherently help someone, you can take just a bit of your earnings and give back to a local charity, school, or community. It doesn't matter how, as long as you're doing good.

    What platform/tools do you use for your business?

    Yep, we're the quirky group that doesn't use Shopify. It doesn't make sense to my engineer-y brain. I hate Shopify's liquid language. So, for now, we're sticking with Squarespace (which also has some work to do for more advanced users, but it's the easiest platform for our whole team to use). We also have guest contributors write blog posts for us from time to time and it's so easy to give permissions for temporary users in Squarespace. I also love their new integration with Zapier, and am a huge fan of ShipStation. For example, if a customer needs a replacement, they can just fill out a Squarespace form. This, in conjunction with Zapier, pushes a replacement request into ShipStation and automatically creates a shipping label for our fulfillment team.

    I mentioned ShipStation earlier and our team LOVES ShipStation. We've also been very happy with Finale Inventory once we outgrew the built-in inventory features of ShipStation. We also use QuickBooks, as it makes it easy to do online invoicing and is essentially the standard in small business accounting.

    We are an open book company and use Geckoboard to show company stats in real-time to a display in the company kitchen. It shows weekly sales for each rep, our overall company goal, aged accounts receivables, production stats, and more.

    We also use Pipedrive as our CRM and couldn't make it without Zoho Desk for customer support management. We also use Zoho Mail - it's dirt cheap and is packed with features.

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

    I'm a big fan of the Great Game of Business by Jack Stack and Traction by Gino Wickman. These two books both emphasize the importance of making sure your team is on the same page and both provide helpful tools to get to that point. I also believe that running an open company is important.

    Every single one of our employees knows our revenue goal and each knows how their job affects that number. Those ideas came from the books I mentioned above.

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

    You have to have a drive. I believe starting a business is one of the single hardest things that one can do. We also use this term often - you have to be teachable. If you're unteachable, you likely won't make it very far. What I mean by that is that you have to not only listen but be comfortable with adapting. There are people out there that are much more talented than you or I, and if you get a chance to hear their views on your product or company idea, take them, think about them, and seriously consider what they have to say.

    I also think it's extremely important to have a partner, or at a minimum, a sounding board. There have been several occasions that without Anna's perspective, my decision would have been the wrong one. Having a partner or co-founder (or both, in my case) also helps you to share the load and each of you can use your respective talents for overall success. Whereas I'm extremely analytical and focus more on operations and items behind the scenes, Anna focuses heavily on the front-scene items - like marketing, public relations, and design. I believe it's extremely important to recognize your weaknesses and find someone that can help fill those gaps.

    Lastly, you need to enjoy what you do, and how you do it. For us, it's having dogs at the office, a laid back atmosphere, company happy hours, and celebrating the wins - no matter how big or small. You may do things differently, but be sure to enjoy it.

    Are you looking to hire for certain positions right now?

    We're always looking for talent in a number of areas. We're in a unique position to create positions as we grow, so if this story inspired you and you have a talent that you think would benefit our team, please do reach out!

    Where can we go to learn more?

    I'm extremely grateful to be able to share our company's story with you, and to whoever of you made it to the end of this article, thanks for your time, and best of luck to each of you and your future endeavors!

    Glo Pals:

    Glo Cubes:

    Me:

    • Email

    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
    [link] [comments]

    Does a business exist that plants trees?

    Posted: 29 Oct 2019 12:13 PM PDT

    Hi everyone, I run a cleaning business. We like to differentiate a bit by taking an eco-friendly stance, not just because it is morally right but because customers respond very well to it. I would love to announce that we 'plant 1 tree for each clean carried out'. However, doing the planting ourselves would probably end up being a logistical nightmare and a very high cost per tree. After searching around I couldn't seem to find such a service. Anyone know a service that will take my money and plant some trees for me?

    submitted by /u/32true
    [link] [comments]

    I recently started a Flutter development agency and built my own website - would be great to get some constructive feedback!

    Posted: 29 Oct 2019 06:26 AM PDT

    What are some things I could do to generate more leads, or just improve overall the overall marketing strategy?

    Codebase.studio

    ​

    Thanks

    submitted by /u/glancer000
    [link] [comments]

    Starting an Estate Planning Business After Parents Paid $10,000 for Theirs

    Posted: 29 Oct 2019 02:32 AM PDT

    Our parents, who are your average next-door neighbors, paid $10,000 to do estate planning including a will, health care proxies and other relevant documents. Our CTO paid over $10,000 for estate planning for his grandmother, which was thousands more than the assets she had remaining at her death. Our now estate planning lawyer never had a website for her practice as she didn't have to advertise -- she was constantly inundated with calls and cases of people who needed her help, some to plan and some to recover from not planning.

    We researched estate planning more and found that only about 40% of Americans have even just a will and only 18%, per Merrill Lynch, have done estate planning. Everyone needs estate planning – if you don't have it, our team is the living proof that you will pay thousands and thousands to lawyers to settle your loved one's affairs. Our first thought was, wow, someone should fix this. Then, my sister and I looked at each other and both said, "We should fix this." Thankfully, our partners agreed and, thus, Gentreo was born as we believe that all families should be able to protect their choices and assets in way that is easy to use, accessible and at a cost that is affordable.

    How did you get your first three clients?

    We partner with financial service providers and others to provide estate and family planning services. We used our own personal network and then added advisors with outstanding networks too. We let friends and colleagues know what we were doing, we showed them the product along the way and now they use it.

    How did you validate the idea?

    Lots and lots of user interviews and then testing. The moms in my son's school's parking lot provided lots of stories about their own experiences and then many acted as product testers for us.

    Did you have any expertise in the area?

    Yes, my sister had been head of marketing for the National Association of Home Care and Hospice and knew the industry needs well. Our lawyer has practiced law in estate planning for over twenty years.

    Have you raised any money?

    While developing and building the product, for a year and a half, we self-funded. We also did the Babson WIN (Women Innovating Now) Lab which provided lots of help in getting off the ground. Recently, we raised initial funding as we get the product out to the market.

    Who is your target demographic?

    Gentreo's target customers are about 30 to 65 years old. Many are those going through what we call Gentreo Life Inflection Points™. From birth of a new child to a parent having a fall, these are the times when people realize the need for estate planning.

    How do you attract clients?

    Our product was built to be co-branded. From the beginning, our research showed that customers would do estate planning if asked to do so by some type of partner organization like a financial planner.

    What is your personal favorite part of your product?

    Lots of people think you only need to do estate planning when you are older (wrong) or when you think you are about to die (wrong). Estate planning is something you can need every day, like if you are traveling and you need someone to take care of your pet, they need a pet power of attorney to get care for your pet if your pet has an emergency need. This is my favorite part of our product as our dog Butter is part of our family.

    Butter. You need a pet power of attorney if you travel and someone is caring for your pet!

    How did you fund the idea initially?

    We used our own personal savings. Some advice I can give is make sure your spouse, partner, or whomever is in your life knows what you are doing. Going from a pretty good salary to none and spending money is quite a lot to take on.

    Where did you meet your cofounder/founding team?

    My son's school's parking lot is where we met our lawyer. We asked her if she knew any estate planning lawyers who were looking for a bit of a career change. Mary Kate said she herself wanted a career change from being an estate planning lawyer and was planning to go back to school to be a nurse. We convinced her to join us. I have children, she has children and they play together quite a bit. Our CTO and I have been connected for twenty years. He was the third employee at a start-up I worked for out of business school.

    Any tips for finding first employees?

    Ask for help and keep your network up to date. You never know who might be able to introduce you to that one person you really need. We also tapped friends looking for work or who had been doing consulting and liked the idea of working with a start-up.

    What about family members starting companies together? Any advice?

    My sister and I are two of our four co-founders. Julie is our Chief Marketing Officer and I am the Chief Executive Officer. This isn't always viewed favorably and a few people suggested changing our last names on slide decks (I didn't change my last name when I got married). But, that wouldn't be true and we want to do business with people who believe in us. We argue like most sisters, but we also know how to separate work from family life and family life from work. We know what we are good at and what we are not good at.

    If you are starting a business with a relative make sure you have pre-existing agreements in place for how you will handle disagreements and who final decision-making authority. Also, it is hard not to work 24/7 when starting a company or to go from talking about going to the beach on a Saturday morning to talking about the latest building in QA testing. Know this upfront and figure out how you and your family member want to manage this.

    Are there any new services you're working on?

    We are working on making sure our partners and their customers love Gentreo. We have special requests from some partners about what their customers might like better. We put those at the top of our development list as our partners are the key to our market.

    Would you ever sell the company?

    If you are looking for venture capital funding, a good friend of mine who is a venture capitalist would tell you that the answer is NO, an emphatic NO. I got a pretty good talking to on this one. Even if you have friends who have sold their companies for a billion dollars, even if the market is insanely down, the answer is NO. You need to love and be passionate about what you do or great venture capitalists don't want to invest in you. We are passionate about estate planning and making sure everyone has access to it and knows they need it. All of us at Gentreo are out to forever improve estate planning and make it easy, fast and affordable for all.

    If you enjoyed this post, the full post is here.

    submitted by /u/WideHold
    [link] [comments]

    Finally Launched our Shopify app. Thanks to r/Entrepreneur for motivating me!

    Posted: 29 Oct 2019 07:04 AM PDT

    Hello everybody

    I honestly couldn't have had the courage to start this project without hearing all the stories of success on this subreddit. I learnt a lot from you guys from marketing and the do's & don'ts of business. I first had the idea in November of last year and it took till around February to assemble my incredible team. Since then we designed the app from the ground up and months later we're ready to invite real users to give us feedback on our app.

    *So what is our app exactly? *

    We've been working on a dropshipping app, called MIIUT, that works similar to Oberlo & Spocket but with some key improvements.

    • It's completely free. No monthly charges and No one time fees
    • Verified Suppliers & Dedicated warehouses (no more Aliexpress)
    • 100% Automated
    • Place 5000 orders in bulk within 4 minutes.
    • Guaranteed logistics and easy refunds
    • No limits on number of products you can sell or orders. So unlimited.
    • No more chrome extensions.

    MIIUT is open to beta users so Please give it a try. Thanks in advance

    Learn more: https://www.m.miiut.com/

    Install app on your store: https://app.miiut.com/

    submitted by /u/not_you1
    [link] [comments]

    Marketing lessons from... Pornhub?

    Posted: 29 Oct 2019 10:54 AM PDT

    Really wanted to share it here. The article looks at Pornhub's different marketing initiatives - and even though you might be tempted to think otherwise, there's a lot to learn for all kinds of brands.
    https://awario.com/blog/pornhub-case-study-marketing/

    submitted by /u/maksimava
    [link] [comments]

    Fulfillment by Amazon opinions?

    Posted: 29 Oct 2019 01:51 PM PDT

    Anyone Here using Fulfillment by Amazon? what is your experience? how do you qualify for PRIME? amount of product you needed? Fees etc.

    submitted by /u/-_PURE_-
    [link] [comments]

    Trying to find a beverage copacker without a very high MOQ.

    Posted: 29 Oct 2019 01:37 PM PDT

    I'm trying to find a copacker, preferably on the west coast, that doesn't have a 100,000 or more MOQ. I have found a few that can do orders of 10,000, but they aren't taking on new clients at this time. It would be for an organic carbonated beverage packaged in 16 oz standard cans. I know it's a long shot but would anyone happen to know of one or any resources to find one? Thank you!

    submitted by /u/dyi96
    [link] [comments]

    Do you consider listening to podcasts and reading books unproductive?

    Posted: 29 Oct 2019 05:34 AM PDT

    So I decided I'm going to track my productivity. I'm going to time all my work put into my business with the app toggl.

    My question is, should reading a book about entrepreneurship, Facebook groups (in your niche) or listening to podcast (especially when they're in your niche) count as time? I know doing this stuff alone is not going to build a business...but keeping your mind fed with high quality material definitely helps, it inspires you and I might even pick up on some tips with the podcasts I'm listening to.

    What do you think?

    Should I have my timer time on FB groups and podcasts? I'm thinking of having two categories: 1 for "real business work" and 1 for this sort of media I'm consuming, and then have the media count as 1/2 time of the real business work.

    submitted by /u/_zyzyx
    [link] [comments]

    Those of you who run cleaning businesses, preferably janitorial work for commercial businesses, I am seeking advice for a few problems I am facing. I would appreciate any help. Thank you.

    Posted: 29 Oct 2019 01:03 PM PDT

    Thanks for stopping by!

    My first question is, are there some clients you will never be able to please? Or is there always ways of retaining a client? Do you have any secrets on retaining clients, such as a contract or agreement?

    My second question, other than your sales force, the cleaners, the cleaning managers, and CEO, what other important people are important to hire, to maintain good relationships with clients?

    My third question, A lot of big companies in our region seem to have 1 year contracts with these companies. How on earth do you get big name clients to want to sign a legally binding contract for 1 year?

    My last question, how do you ensure stellar performance from your cleaners? Is it more money? Is it the people? Bonuses? Are some cleaners never going to cut it?

    Thank you for all of your time spent on this, I really appreciate the advice.

    submitted by /u/letsgetyoustarted
    [link] [comments]

    How do investment actually work?

    Posted: 29 Oct 2019 12:18 PM PDT

    Hey there i was wondering how investments work. Like if i have an idea and concept and go to big companies and they are willing to invest in me. Do they now own part of my idea? Is it like debt that i have to pay them back? Do they take cuts out of the profit when its successful? And if they made profit out of it, are they gone after they got their money back plus profit? Could someone clear things up for me, i literally have no idea how this works. Thanks guys!

    submitted by /u/RikudoSN
    [link] [comments]

    New Surf Industry Invention Help

    Posted: 29 Oct 2019 12:18 PM PDT

    I recently discovered that the tool of one industry works incredibly well for a totally different application in the surf industry (as a tool that already exists), but what is on the market and patented is not nearly as efficient as what I have in hand. The main differentiation between the available product already on the surf market, and my version is the material of the product.

    Can anyone advise how I might move forward in protecting this idea ? Is it possible to patent something that is meant to be used for the same job of an existing patent, but because it is made from a different material and shaped differently works much better? Basically, how different do two patents have to be when they're both intended for the same job?

    Hope this isn't terribly cryptic. Thanks for your help.

    submitted by /u/thesurfcontinuum
    [link] [comments]

    Can any of you give some feedback on my 6 month journey so far? I am a creative/artistic type with good feedback of my work but next to NO profits..

    Posted: 29 Oct 2019 12:16 PM PDT

    From January 2019 to this past summer I focused hard on 2 things that I was semi good at:

    1. 3D renders
    2. Music (electronic music)

    I have a wife and two kids and very little time outside of my full-time job and family time to do anything, but I focused for 6 months to really push my craft and to market as much as I knew how (which isn't much).

    In 6 months I:

    -Gained only 80 followers of my 3d render art on instagram (I posted around 10 works of art...they take weeks to complete)

    -Gained 247 subscribers on youtube from people who like my music (I posted around 40 songs) had some good feedback/comments all throughout

    -I made about 100 dollars from song sales (which includes one indie film maker who paid me 60 bucks to use my music)

    (-cost of music producing app and services which was 50 dollars total)

    -My profit after 6 months was about 50 bucks (strictly from music).

    -I made 0 dollars from 3d renders, but also I didn't know how to sell my art...so I had no market place for that...

    -My music marketing was almost exclusively done on reddit through posts in related subs or through messaging (some marketing on IG and and Twitter but not much.

    After realizing that I had only made 50 dollars profit after all of this work, I took a break from pushing myself.

    I understand you must have perseverance, but you also need to know when to move on to something else.

    I feel like my marketing sucks, or I need to find something else to do. Can anyone relate or give guidance here?

    submitted by /u/ILoveVaporwave
    [link] [comments]

    What is the next “email list”

    Posted: 29 Oct 2019 12:02 PM PDT

    Obviously as entrepreneurs, marketing is very important, and one of the strongest marketing tools that people use are email lists. An easy way to blast opportunities, sales and funnels into our audiences mailbox where they are sure to see it— except, not as often as it used to.

    I'm sure I'm not the only one who gets 100's of emails a day, and the few mail lists I subscribed to, I rarely read anymore, be that from lack of interest, not having the time or just not seeing it in the dump of daily emails I receive.

    What do you think the next new/best trend for getting in front of your audience is in a similar way to having a mailing list ?

    submitted by /u/JerrBearrrrr
    [link] [comments]

    Paying $500/hour for consulting from a "mentor"?

    Posted: 29 Oct 2019 04:40 AM PDT

    The advice of finding a mentor in your niche and getting all the advice from them you can, seems to be a one of the most common I've heard in the start up space, so recently thought I'd try find and reach out to some and see what happens.

    Given there weren't many I could think or find of in my city, I focused more on reaching out to the most relevant and closest ones I could dig up online. And oh boy was it a surprise, after dozens of emails, phone calls and offers to pay for their time just to get a few tips, absolutely no response and if there were any, it was literally them viewing me as a "competitor". The only positive response was from one younger "mentor", who offered some consulting at $500 per hour..Lol being at it for a few years now, a bit hard to imagine what kind of information in 1 hour timeframe would justify this kind of cost..

    How does everyone go about finding some industry mentors or getting some real insights from people who've done it? From my experience so far, it seems it's quite a cold and a competitive world out there and none's got time for good deeds anymore.

    Thoughts?

    submitted by /u/davink91
    [link] [comments]

    Do I Need a Food License to Bring Food to an Event?

    Posted: 29 Oct 2019 09:40 AM PDT

    Hello,

    Basically, I am looking at getting into a event hosting space. Where I have an event that people can rent out, let us just say inflatables as its a similar space to what I am referencing.

    So let us say I have inflatables that I rent out, can I bring food from a restaurant with me to the event?

    Like let us say, the rent an inflatable, and I want to throw in some drinks and food with the package, and get a small discount from the restaurant for referring people to them, can I bring that with me to the event and give that to them, since I did not prepare it, or do I have to have a food license in order to offer such a thing, or does the restaurant itself have to deliver it separately, or someone from the event have to go and pick it up?

    Would love some insight into that. Thanks.

    submitted by /u/Mastemine
    [link] [comments]

    My lifechange entrepreneurial journey

    Posted: 29 Oct 2019 09:31 AM PDT

    Hi there, I am a 15 y.o guy from Italy and the next year I will go to the USA for one year(hosted by an American family).

    I am an entrepreneur(I have a few eCommerce that are going pretty well) and I would like to meet other people(entrepreneurs, people that can inspire and even teach something to me in my year abroad.

    I am posting here because I have to choose one state or city in the USA but I really don't know which

    These are the states I can choose(but I don't know which city I will end up being in:

    Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, Washington, Mississippi, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Wisconsin, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, Montana, Oklahoma, Texas, Alaska, Arkansas, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, New Mexico, Oregon

    ​

    Instead, I can choose one of these cities and go 100% there :

    Denver, Atlanta, Evansville, Indianapolis, Lafayette, Kansas City, St Louis, Springfield, Las Vegas, Oklahoma City, Portland, Minneapolis, Pittsburgh, Houston, Madison, Milwaukee, Dallas, Seattle

    This is why I am not considering California since Los Angeles and San Francisco are absolutely where I want to go but if I select California I really don't know in which city I will go

    I was considering to go to Hawaii but because it has a beautiful climate and it is full of interesting people(I hope)

    I also like nature and hiking/mountain biking so from this point of view Hawaii Is quite perfect

    I really like every part of the USA but I fear that I will get bored being in a small city and regret my choice, then as said I would like to be in a city where there are people(especially entrepreneurs) with whom I can grow from every aspect in that year

    Tell me what do you think and which choice do you suggest

    With love from Italy🍝

    Thanks

    submitted by /u/andreascorrano21
    [link] [comments]

    I don’t have anything to talk about with my friends and family anymore.

    Posted: 29 Oct 2019 09:26 AM PDT

    I'm 23, live with my family. Every time I sit down for dinner and talk to them about some idea I have or what I've been trying lately they say things like "very cool" or "that's great". Sometimes my dad will even tell me that he doesn't really understand the digital space much and apologizes for not being able to contribute to the conversation. And whenever I hangout with my friends I just have the urge to talk about business and how "there's so much potential in digital marketing for small businesses right now!" But I know full well they are not interested. And tbh I don't care about what they are doing either sometimes. Once I start rambling on about my work they all just get quiet and say the same thing as my parents. I know they care cause they ask how my business is going and whatnot. But I don't really have anyone to really have a conversation with.

    I kind of see that it's my fault mostly because I am only interested in things that I am doing. I can't seem to find any interest in their work. It is selfish but I don't know how to have that work life balance. Work is literally my life now.

    Has anyone felt this way? What did you do to stay social?

    submitted by /u/AslanNoob
    [link] [comments]

    How Do I Get Hired By Banks ? as a Service

    Posted: 29 Oct 2019 09:22 AM PDT

    looking to offer a service for foreclosed homes and i'm not sure what level the hiring is done on

    submitted by /u/badbaddoc
    [link] [comments]

    When did you start paying yourself?

    Posted: 29 Oct 2019 01:02 AM PDT

    I've seen several interviews about people going through years of reinvesting in their company and having no actual income from their business and it's got me wondering, at what point were you willing/able to pay yourself? I'm looking for personal stories, not necessarily an analysis of costs and revenues, but if you wanna throw that in then by all means go for it.

    Also, what do you consider to be paying yourself? Is it using some of the profit to buy yourself some groceries? Bills? A down payment on a large purchase? How did you build the discipline to not dip into your revenue for personal expenses?

    submitted by /u/G-injure
    [link] [comments]

    Should you buy multiple domain names for your website?

    Posted: 28 Oct 2019 11:46 PM PDT

    For the experienced entrepreneurs, do you buy multiple domain names for you website so for example NooBMonday.com, NooBMondays.com, NooBMondays.net etc?

    submitted by /u/NotFriendlyContact
    [link] [comments]

    Fired to fired up! Starting My Own Business and Need Advice

    Posted: 29 Oct 2019 08:21 AM PDT

    Hey r/Entrepreneur, I was let go last Thursday. I'm tired of working so that somebody else pockets get bigger. I'm tired of my ideas not be heard. I'm ready to start on my own, but I'd like your sage advice.

    My background: 7 years of Digital marketing. Current position was consulting business on implementing marketing automation into their business (specifically Keap aka Infusionsoft). Previously I did SEO and Lead Generation (Facebook and Google ads). Solid understanding of different types of campaign strategies (Product Launch Formula, Ask Method, Evergreen webinars, etc).

    What I want to do: Offer lead generation plus funnel optimization to create a full funnel to convert prospects into clients.

    Plan: I have a list of previous clients I've worked with. Company was to cheap to pay for G-suite so they forwarded all emails to my personal gmail. That means I still have access to all my previous clients info. My previous company did not do any lead generation, just marketing automation, so not really competing (No non compete or any such contract was ever signed). I'll be reaching out to them to offer lead generation. My thought is a funnel is only good if it's being filled with leads.

    Strategy: Hitting the phone and email. Say I'm doing a quick health check on their funnel(s) since I last worked with them. I'm guessing unless they are actively driving leads to their funnels, they're not doing so great. Start talking about what they are doing to drive leads. Offer a low cost lead generation plan (tripwire) that would be a 1 hour consultation for $50-100, then upsell into services

    Challenge: I'm working primarily with solo-preneurs. Most of my previous client's businesses earn less than 6 figures. Many were just starting their business. probably about 90% of the list I have consist of these types. This I see is going to be my biggest problem. Finding people to afford $1000 per month retainer is going to be a challenge.

    Service: Thinking about offering Done For You, Done With You, and putting a course together for the DIYers, or even just a monthly retainer for strategy sessions.

    What am I missing, what questions should I be asking?

    I'll keep you updated on this new journey. Thanks in advance!

    ​

    PS I would love a mentor/accountability partner. Where can I get me one of those?

    submitted by /u/betterwaytofish
    [link] [comments]
    Read more
    at

    No comments:

    Post a Comment