Thank you Thursday! - (October 10, 2019) Entrepreneur |
- Thank you Thursday! - (October 10, 2019)
- Want to learn how much does SEO cost? I surveyed 242 agencies, freelancers, and consultants to learn how they price and package their SEO services. Here are some of the top takeaways...
- What's the Hardest Part of Being an Entrepreneur?
- Best way to protect digital content - videos, ebooks, and audio? Enabling its consumption only on the website itself?
- FDA says they need to inspect my 1800 pc shipment of fashion eyewear... What to expect?
- Hair and Beauty Idea at 14, Eftpos Machine at 18, $1.6m/month at 29.
- I would like to package a gag gift candy, and I don't want to spend too much money on it because it could be a total bust. Any recommendations?
- How do I find users to interview?
- i let people push me around and it’s stressing me out
- Gift website (request for feedback)
- Site review - do your WORST
- Entrepreneurship is a choice.
- Softwares to make running/starting a business easy?
- How should I ask potential customers for payment?
- In your entrepreneurial journey, how have you developed emotional intelligence?
- Anyone looking to subcontract out PPC work or have advice for me contacting agencies ?
- Looking for Entrepreneurs to Interview for a Podcast
- How much should I worry about potential lawsuits? (Complete Newby)
- Competitor just redid their ui, and it looks similar to my platform that is in development. Advice?
- A good name for a new business helping expats with daily struggles in their new country
- Food Delivery Service
- Need advice
- What's a polite way to keep nudging a potential client who is slow to get back to me?
- How do I make my idea into solid plastic and gold?
| Thank you Thursday! - (October 10, 2019) Posted: 10 Oct 2019 06:08 AM PDT Your opportunity to thank the /r/Entrepreneur community by offering free stuff, contests, discounts, electronic courses, ebooks and the best deals you know of. Please consolidate such offers here! Since this thread can fill up quickly, consider sorting the comments by "new" (instead of "best" or "top") to see the newest posts. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 10 Oct 2019 08:17 AM PDT I ran a survey to find out what you should expect to pay for SEO services and 242 people responded. My goal was to get data-driven answers on five questions:
The responses provided some solid insights and valuable data, with a 6% margin of error at a 90% confidence level. Additionally, I compared my findings to Credo's 2015 pricing survey, and Moz's 2012 pricing survey to help give more context. I also sourced quotes from SEO experts like Marie Haynes, Dan Shure, John Doherty, Bruce Clay, and Andy Crestodina. Some highlights from this survey on how much SEO costs:
There are a lot more insights in the SEO pricing survey. If you have any questions, happy to answer what I can in the comments below. [link] [comments]  |
| What's the Hardest Part of Being an Entrepreneur? Posted: 09 Oct 2019 11:49 PM PDT One of the biggest misconceptions of an entrepreneur, is that it is has this glamorous lifestyle attached. People have said "oh it must be so great to be your own boss" or "oh you can make your own hours" "wow at that price, you must be rolling in the dough" This is a small sampling of the comments I have heard over the years. The truth is, prior to embarking on this journey, I was one of those naive folks. I quickly learned that making the entrepreneur leap is anything but glamorous. In fact it is the hardest thing I have ever done in my life (including childbirth of 4 children) I say this half jokingly, yet serious because childbirth is a blip of time. The Entrepreneurship journey on the other hand is a daily grind with never ending hours. Yes growth is great, but with it comes additional problems. A constant rise and fall of emotions. Knowing that my partner and I have build a tremendous product that every family needs, yet facing the constant daily hurdles of getting it into the rights hands. Struggling with the daily ups and downs, the major expenses, creating consistent cash flow streams, wearing multiple hats, attempting to cut costs all while not jeopardizing the integrity of the product. The constant internal struggle of the daily grit and grind because you believe so strongly, versus the mental and physical exhaustion. These pendulum swings of emotion are incredibly difficult as an entrepreneur, and can cause such an overwhelming feeling, that you just don't know what to do first! That is when it is time to just step away and breathe! –Maria Messier, Extendher Inventor The Invention Stories Podcast Episode 93…Maria Messier and Extendher is now available: https://inventionstories.com/podcast/episode-93-maria-messier-extendher/ [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 10 Oct 2019 04:11 AM PDT I've seen most leaders in my niche offer their content only on their website, like Netflix. Users log in, consume the content, and log out - preventing piracy. How and when(monetarily) can I get something like that? I'm thinking of using a delivery provider like E-junkie, but that means users still get a physical copy on their drive, so they can copy it much more easily. Netflix-type hosting prevents that. Edit: What are the payment and protection levels like? [link] [comments]  |
| FDA says they need to inspect my 1800 pc shipment of fashion eyewear... What to expect? Posted: 10 Oct 2019 12:07 PM PDT
Anyone have experience with this? Thank you all. [link] [comments]  |
| Hair and Beauty Idea at 14, Eftpos Machine at 18, $1.6m/month at 29. Posted: 10 Oct 2019 02:04 PM PDT The idea for creating a hair and beauty supplies business came to me very early on in life. I came up with the concept of creating a wholesale hair and beauty company at the age of 14. I was working part-time for someone else packing shelves and cleaning after school in the hair and beauty industry when the revelation came to me. I would often hear customers complain about the prices all the time and noticed there was a gap in the market for affordable hair and beauty products for salons. At the age of 14, it was near impossible to bring the idea to life. I had to finish school and saved all my money to bring the concept to life. Working for others was bringing me the constant validation that I needed to make the idea work. Customers were wanting quality products at affordable prices and that just wasn't on offer at the time. Who is your target demographic? Customers of AMR Hair & Beauty are predominantly trade professionals. They are made up of hairdressers, tanning specialists, beauticians and lash technicians. In 2017, we started selling to the public which allowed us to gain a new audience. We gave non industry professionals the chance to purchase their favourite salon products directly from the wholesaler, which was also something that hadn't been done before. Having such a mixed audience can make it difficult and sometimes and we are asked unusual questions. Some of my favourites have been customers trying to fix their home DIY hair jobs. Most of the time they include photos of the hair mishap and are asking for professional help. Have you had any funny customer support enquiries? We've also had other customers who call up weekly asking the same questions on repeat. Most of the time it's because they like talking to the customer support team. We once had a gentleman called every week for nearly a year without making a purchase, just talk speak with the girls. How did you fund the idea initially? The business started out completely funded by me. Being so young, a bank wouldn't even give me an eftpos machine let alone and financial backing. I worked multiple jobs, one of which was cleaning overnight just to get the business off the ground. It was a struggle trying to complete school, work for someone else and run a business on my own. I put all of my savings into purchasing products which eventually lead to manufacturing my own products, creating brands and having our own facilities. Every cent made was reinvested back into the company which helped to build a surplus of funds to make these things to happen. How did you hire your early employees? My very first employee was actually a customer of mine. She would often come in to purchase supplies and had a strong knowledge of the hairdressing industry. I nervously asked her to be part of the team, without even understanding how to hire someone. This employee still works for my company today and is one of the most loyal employees. I made it my mission after that to hire people who have a good understanding of the industry and the needs of the customers. Most of the people hired after have been customers or friends of friends. We like having a close knit team who want to see the company grow and succeed, and feel like this is their business journey too. Having a passion for the products and business helps staff to build good relationships with our customers. Products that sell the best are the professional lines. Fanola would be our most popular brand amongst both public and trade customers. The No Yellow Shampoo is the most frequently purchased item which is specifically for blondes. Hair colours and bleaches would be the second most purchased items closely followed by foil and other accessories needed to complete the colouring process. What were your family and friends first thoughts on your company? Being so young when starting a business, I was very inexperienced. I made many mistakes and I was constantly faced with adversity and challenges daily. From financial struggles to lack of business knowledge, these small processes took a toll on the initial growth of the business. My family were concerned to begin with about my business ventures. My mum watched me work 19 hour days and put all of my money into something that was uncertain. She was concerned not with my ability to make my business grow, but the toll it was taking on my physical state. Her concern for me made me want to work even harder to make her proud and show her it was all worth it. Growing up, my mum raised seven children on her own. I watched her struggle financially while making sure we never went without. It became a drive for me to succeed so I could take care of her and make her proud. I want her to see all the hardships she endured to give us a better life were all worth it. This was probably the biggest drive for me to persevere in times when it looked like I couldn't continue. Do you have any advice for someone just starting out? I've learned many things by owning a business. Some personal but many of them are business related. One of my biggest takeaways from anything I've ever done is to take risks. Many times I pushed forward even when there were roadblocks, I just needed to continue. The risks I took could have made me fall or rise and more often than not they were successful. It's important to have the right people around you when making decisions. They need to be innovative and be able to take the risks with you but also have some common sense too. You need a team that has the ability to analyse data but be willing to try things anyway because there is no cookie cutter shape for any business. What drives the most sales? We started out as a brick and mortar store and have branched out to become and omni-channel retailer, with an ecommerce store for public and trade. My advice would be to continue to be both, or test online first. The hairdressing industry in particular still really enjoy coming in-store and learning about the brands from staff and getting personalised recommendations. This doesn't work for every business model so try online first. Having an ecommerce store today means you can drop ship, benefiting from not needing to purchase the products yourself. It allows for you to test the market and try different ways to grow your business. How do you protect yourself from competition? There has been a growth in competitors in recent years which could have seen our business slow if we weren't proactive. We protect ourselves from competition by ensuring that we are constantly doing competitor analysis'. This means we are able to always be ahead of the market and are offering our customers something no one else is. This might be offering free shipping, price beat guarantees or just ensuring we are the best quality products and the fastest shipping. Listening to customer feedback and putting our customers first has really helped us to keep ahead of the competition. We also bring in brands that are exclusive to us that people can't purchase anywhere else. By bringing in exclusive brands and manufacturing your own products, it means you can easily get trademarks and patents. By trademarking brands and words, it means your competitors can't bid on those words, as well as other competing products on the market to be very limited. When researching and thinking of brands to bring on, ensure they are for a niche market and something that actually has a demand. Be mindful that brand building can take some time, so if you are wanting sudden growth, you'll need to look to other avenues as even getting a trademark can be a lengthy process. What are the top apps your business could not run without? The top tools that AMR could not run without include the following:
Each of these apps or tools are pivotal to the success of our ecommerce store. Facebook and Instagram help to drive brand awareness, build trust and communicate key messages to our customers. They are a great way to connect and engage with customers as well as collect leads, run giveaways and share key information with targeted audiences. Ahrefs allows for us to better optimise our SEO. We use this frequently to research trending keywords, competitive analysis and to analyse and understand backlinks. Active Campaign is used for our email campaigns. We send roughly 3-4 campaigns out weekly using this tool which helps to generate revenue and create the sales funnel for our customers. It's easy to use and offers many other additional tools we frequently find ourselves using. Where do you see the company in 5 years? In the future, we are hoping to further expand AMR to offer more brands and products. We want to provide our customers with a bigger variety of choices and include more professional industries. We are working on formulating new and innovative products for the hair market to meet the needs of our customers clients using popular ingredients. Using activated charcoal to create shampoos has been the latest release with new arrivals coming very soon. Our formulator is working on trialing new products free of sulphate, silicones, parabens and salts which is exciting for many customers. In the next 5 years we would love to open more brick and mortar stores around Australia, as well as internationally like the USA and UK. At the moment I wouldn't consider selling but would be open to the idea of bringing on investors. I still believe the company has a long way to go and I'd love to be the one to bring it to an international level. If you enjoyed this interview, the original is here. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 10 Oct 2019 01:49 PM PDT I want to buy some gummy candies in bulk and repackage them with a funny name as a gag gift to sell online. I have no idea if this will be successful or not, so I would like to not spend too much money or buy too much up front. Any ideas for packaging and how to go about getting it? Like should I go for cheap poly bags that are stapled shut with a branded cardboard top? (looks like this: https://www.mexgrocer.com/15010.html?gclid=Cj0KCQjwrfvsBRD7ARIsAKuDvMOujK4MQtvifttrKAGTj0Kjkq0d0VuNVZIOnI56kSdAWw7eiAQRKa0aAiFMEALw_wcB) Or is that prone to spoiling (getting stale)? Is it better to get custom print plastic? If I did, how would I seal those bags? How do I go about shipping the items? Or, better, are there companies that will let me pick the candy and packaging and bag them up for me? Like I could buy those in bulk and just have a lower margin on my sales? Again, this isn't too serious of an idea but I think I could possibly make a few bucks off it so I would like to give it a try if I can make the process relatively easy. [link] [comments]  |
| How do I find users to interview? Posted: 10 Oct 2019 01:49 PM PDT I'm making a dating app with some very niche features. 1 - tell me about what their experiences with currents apps are like But being as I haven't been single in a few years and all of my friends are married or getting married (we're all in our late 30's), I realized I don't know many single people. Anyone know how I can find single people to talk to without being a complete creep? [link] [comments]  |
| i let people push me around and it’s stressing me out Posted: 10 Oct 2019 01:40 PM PDT a friend asked to do sales for my service a couple months ago and I said sure. I had him connect with 50 people per day within my target demographics on linkedin. I thought it would get him into the swing of finding prospects, reaching out, and following up - however, he never did any followups despite me telling him to and just coasted by making those 50 connections per day for a few months. Companies either need my service or don't need it, and its demand, so it's a relatively easy sell. Once someone would respond to him with interest he'd immediately send them my way and I'd close the deal. Here's the problem: I was giving him 33% of every deal, and giving myself 33% as well despite doing 100% of the delivery work and basically 50% of the sales. This went on for a while and I closed a lot of deals so he could pay his rent. He ran out of people to connect with on LinkedIn and hasn't done a single sales related thing for the past two months. At the end of last month, he told me that we need to send out some emails or something because he needs money for rent. I just had a couple clients sign up again ($7000+ worth of accounts for just those two clients) and the last thing I want to do is add more clients until I deliver a proper service for the current ones. I told him that I was too busy to help with sales and too busy to add more clients until I finish delivering for the current ones... he was not happy and for some reason I felt really guilty... so I loaned him $500 for his rent which was fucking stupid I told him to Uber next month (he has an active uber account) because it's going to be a while before I'll be ready to take on anymore clients. His response was "I'm not fucking ubering" and I told him how stressed I was but he didn't respond. Now again he reaches out and says "send out some emails for me so we can close two deals this month and I can pay you back"... I was like wtf dude and explained that this current arrangement isn't really working because he's definitely not doing enough of the sales work to earn 33% and hasn't done shit for months. I'm doing 50% of the fucking sales and each client takes like 30 hours to deliver everything but for some reason we're making the same amounts? It doesn't make sense I guess the reason I made this arrangement with him was because I wanted him to be able to pay his bills and work on this a lot... I thought he would work really hard and become independent with the sales within a couple months... but that never happened He's freaking out and I don't know what to say or do. I think I coddled him for too long and he thinks he's way more valuable than he actually is. He's been bragging to his family and our friends acting like he's a 50% shareholder in my business and is an integral part of it all. That is not true and I don't know why he thinks that, I don't think he has even the faintest idea of how much work I'm doing. This shit is stressing me out. How the fuck should I deal with this??? Fuck [link] [comments]  |
| Gift website (request for feedback) Posted: 10 Oct 2019 07:05 AM PDT Recently my work had a 'white elephant' gift exchange and it struck me that it was hard to just enter a budget and get lots of gift ideas. So I made a few websites that would give you gift options for a given budget. I got some traffic google ads but got only handful of Amazon affiliate clicks and 0 conversions. Here are some stats on the ads and click-through: easywhiteelephant.com:
dad.quickandeasygifts.com:
girlfriend.quickandeasygifts.com:
Anyone care to give me some feedback on what is missing? Judging by some other posts on here, it seems like some content might help. Any suggestions are welcome. Here are a few of the sites: edit - provided more background [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 09 Oct 2019 11:54 PM PDT This is my company - a travel insurance marketplace for older people in the US. We don't have a designer, and I think I've become too close to it. I would love to get all of your worst thoughts for improvement! [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 09 Oct 2019 08:32 PM PDT I want to have a good life on my own terms. I need freedom for that, Everything else is ancillary, because it doesn't fit the plan. And the plan requires repetition until achieved, which might take a lifetime, but that's ok, because this stuff is worth doing your best for anyway!
[link] [comments]  |
| Softwares to make running/starting a business easy? Posted: 09 Oct 2019 07:51 PM PDT So apart from the regular accounting/inventory management softwares, I want to know what other softwares did you find or use that really made your life/business easy? For example, car rental softwares, you can literally put in all the details and run everything with almost no paperwork. So easy! Go! [link] [comments]  |
| How should I ask potential customers for payment? Posted: 10 Oct 2019 05:19 AM PDT The title doesn't really describe the predicament very well but I have developed software in a very niche area that customers will need to install into their environment. I'm pitching the software at about 10k per annum, so each sale is significant and the pool of customers is relatively small! It's not quite finished but I've demoed it a few times and have a few more demos lined up. People seem interested ... not feverously interested but interested :) Do I offer them the software free of charge for a few months and then ask them to pay for a license if they find it useful? Or should I mandate payment straight-up? Bearing in mind some of the people I'm talking to in these orgs may not be purse-string holders, how often do I chat to them about to get some updates from them about it? Should I be trying to create relationships with senior people in these orgs and not the middle-management / users? I'm new to sales, can't you tell? :) [link] [comments]  |
| In your entrepreneurial journey, how have you developed emotional intelligence? Posted: 10 Oct 2019 11:16 AM PDT To me, emotional intelligence (EQ) is being to act in spite of fear. It's being able to manage your emotions and to be comfortable with the discomfort. And it's so important for entrepreneurship when we're stressing for money, for clarity in direction, for how to express and talk about our mission. I'm curious to hear how you've developed your own EQ and the lessons you learned in your journey. Is that something you think, work on, and prepare for with intention or was it something that you trained as you went? [link] [comments]  |
| Anyone looking to subcontract out PPC work or have advice for me contacting agencies ? Posted: 10 Oct 2019 11:10 AM PDT I have been doing PPC for a couple of years now and am just starting to freelance - Things are slowly but surely going well with getting clients etc but I would like to speed up the process so I can get out of my 9-5 PPC job and do freelancing/remote full time. Is there anyone here who owns an agency looking to subcontract out any work? Or does anyone have any advice on contacting agencies to find and work with remotely. I have emailed 30 or so and have only had a couple of replies from people who don't do remote roles. [link] [comments]  |
| Looking for Entrepreneurs to Interview for a Podcast Posted: 10 Oct 2019 07:11 AM PDT Hello, my name is Daniel and I host a podcast called "The Chase with Daniel Ocho" where I interview people chasing their dream jobs about their journey, day to day grind, etc. and I'm looking for one or more entrepreneurs to interview for the show. I'm preferably looking for people who relatively early in their chase but I'm flexible. The show is really just about the climb of getting to those hard to reach jobs. I've already interviewed professional athletes, screenwriters, podcasters, a feature film director, a pro wrestler, chefs, and a number of others for the show. If interested, you can email me at thechasepod@gmail.com . Thanks so much for your time and I look forward to hearing from some of you! Edit: You can listen to the show at any of the links below. Thanks! Apple Podcasts: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-chase-with-daniel-ocho/id1458511473 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2X7MrLObwuoqp2UGI9D8Wz [link] [comments]  |
| How much should I worry about potential lawsuits? (Complete Newby) Posted: 10 Oct 2019 01:04 AM PDT I am a total newby, as in I literally just started looking into how to make and start up a business in the last few hours. I'm currently looking into how I would start my own business, and that business focuses around computer repair, expanding to other electronics I am capable of repairing. I have a TON to learn and work out before I get anywhere with this (So please don't attack me for asking), but one thing that worries me a lot are law suits. I am a worrier so that doesn't help. I just know that Murica is a Sue-happy country and I'd love to provide myself with as much protection as possible. We all know there are some F'd up people out there and I don't want to be on the end of one of their expensive tantrums, that and at some point I could easily mess up and get myself into a bad situation. Thank you for any information you can provide! [link] [comments]  |
| Competitor just redid their ui, and it looks similar to my platform that is in development. Advice? Posted: 10 Oct 2019 10:33 AM PDT I am not saying they copied me, they probably just realized the same data I got from doing 4 weeks of customer interviews before I built. They have been going for 2 years and are a y com grad with all kinds of SV money. I am not sure if I need to redo my mvp build? We have already started, and almost ALL of the planned features exist on this competitors website. But here is the other super strange thing, all of my customers have never heard of them. Yet they literally solve their problem and they have never heard of them, are we just targeting different customer segments? [link] [comments]  |
| A good name for a new business helping expats with daily struggles in their new country Posted: 10 Oct 2019 10:25 AM PDT Hi! I live in Prague and actually am from the Czech Republic. I hang out with a lot of expats because of my work and also because of my boyfriend being one. I very often help my foreign friends with stuff they struggle with when they don't speak Czech. Like making phone calls or writing emails to companies when there are some issues. Or telling them where to go or who to talk to regarding different problems. Often translating a lot of stuff for them too. I realized I could expand beyond my friends group and offer services like that to the growing community of expats here in Prague. And perhaps start a little business out of it that would involve virtual assistant services but also possible travel plans/tips/guided tours etc. Right now however I am struggling to come up with a name for the business. I do not want to include my own name in it. Can you guys possibly brainstorm some? Any help would be much appreciated! Thank you! [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 10 Oct 2019 10:16 AM PDT In my small town, we don't have Grub Hub or Uber Eats. So I would like to fill in this gap. Are there any legal hurdles to know about when offering to deliver food from resturaunts? I'd like to offer to deliver food from any resturaunt, including fast food, in my city. I wouldn't mention any resturaunt specifically, just that I would order and deliver their food from any place of their choosing. Again I'm not using logos or names of resturaunts, but my service is that I will order and deliver food from any place they would like in town. Is there a legal problem with this? Or do I have to partner with a resturaunt first? Interested to hear your thoughts Thanks [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 10 Oct 2019 10:13 AM PDT My background is in IT and I always wanted to own a business. I'm not a creative person but I have a methodical mindset with determination. Recently, I have created a website and developed a product that enables you to remotely control devices (turn off/on or restart devices) over a cellular network. Since creativity is not my strong side, I'm looking for ideas on how to market this product on a budget. What advice would you give to someone just starting out? Also, if anyone is willing to critique my website please let me I will send it over. I'm not looking to spam this sub. [link] [comments]  |
| What's a polite way to keep nudging a potential client who is slow to get back to me? Posted: 09 Oct 2019 10:17 PM PDT I have a potential client I reached out to and I think things are going really well. I've found that trying to move things along quickly is the best way to close a deal, but while I was told she was leaning towards working with my company, I still have unanswered questions she said she's get back to me on and didn't. What's a polite but not annoying way to keep in touch so I can move things along? [link] [comments]  |
| How do I make my idea into solid plastic and gold? Posted: 10 Oct 2019 01:14 AM PDT So I have an idea for basically a new type of plastic container people can use in their homes for storage. It has features that exist in other containers but for one segment of the population are essentially useless because they are not done in a way that can be used meaningfully (let's say the existing containers are ALL "not fit for purpose" under Australian consumer law despite being sold for that purpose). This type of container is a necessity for those people so instead of being able to just buy one that works they are being forced to DIY/build their own containers and this results in dangerous, ugly, and possibly also not long lasting containers in peoples homes. I have a design, but I don't know where to go from there. I'd like to kickstarter this to make sure it's definitely something that will make money and live up to the hype. I have several people wanting to test prototypes and can heavily test myself. So what do I need to do? I need to legally protect my idea/design before I can have someone make it don't I? Where do I look for someone to make it? I'd love advice and stories, any knowledge you have that you think I should have to get through this would be so amazing :D. [link] [comments]  |
| You are subscribed to email updates from Entrepreneur. To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google, 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, United States | |
No comments:
Post a Comment