Made 150k In Online Revenue On My First Year Into Branding. The Struggles I Faced And My Approach. Entrepreneur |
- Made 150k In Online Revenue On My First Year Into Branding. The Struggles I Faced And My Approach.
- How I made my-self. 27 years into life, The Struggles I Faced and My Approach
- B2B, Entrepreneurship, Marketing podcasts you guys listen to?
- The only type of feedback you will ever need.
- Good part time job to combine with entrepreneurship?
- We Created a Link Sharing Platform because Instagram Only Allows One Link
- How Volvo won the Super Bowl (without running an ad)
- Process vs Outcome (Focus on actual tasks...not the outcome)
- Fmr. Chairman of North America for LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton Explains How You Can Apply Aesthetic Intelligence to Transform ANY Business
- I am putting together a business plan for a company that is targeting privacy-conscious consumers, those who wish to keep their private data anonymous. As it turns out, it's hard to target people who make an effort to hide their data. Can you think of a marketing strategy to target this demographic?
- Need help on pricing for commercial cleaning!
- I left college to sell cbd/hemp products and now I make $17K/month
- Should I sale ?
- Easiest way to transfer payment from one customer to another?
- How should an 18 year old with all the time in the world use it to become financially independent?
- How do I expand my speed dating business?
- S-Corp draws show as income
- Need help being able to handle confrontation in the workplace.
- Tell me why you started a business
- Received An Offer To Sell Facebook Page - How To Establish A Value
- Car Upholstery Cleaning
- Free Business Growth Discovery Call for Video Testimonials
- $6000 a year selling guide books for the city of La Palma
- How do I become a Snapchat Publisher on the Discover page?
| Made 150k In Online Revenue On My First Year Into Branding. The Struggles I Faced And My Approach. Posted: 03 Nov 2019 11:58 PM PST Backstory I'm a college dropout who had mountains of student debt after realizing that you don't need a "photography degree" to get a good job. I landed a high paying photography position while I was at school and got all my equipment sponsored by the company. 4 years later I got into a depression and started to look for an outlet and found out about drop-shipping using shopify through a random teenager I happened to room next to on an Airbnb. I then quit my job, got into drops-shipping and a few years later I joined up with a friend to create my very first online toy brand. Drop-Shipping And My Transition To Branding. Going into it, my mindset was of a drop-shipper which kind of helped me…. But it kind of didn't. As a drop-shipper, there were only a few things I cared about. How much money can I squeeze out of a product and how long will it last until I need to find a different product. In another words, I didn't care about longevity. After joining my friend in creating this toy business, I slowly changed my approach and have recently become a full pledge brand activist. Below was my immediate challenges and my approach as we make progress into creating our brand. +Challenge: High Product Cost
+High Product Cost Approach We simply can't buy a million units to drive the cost down so we have to get creative when determining our price. As much as we wanted to increase the price, the perceived value was pretty low. So…. We got creative!
Effect: The bundle became one of the best selling items on our website. Average order value increased from $20 to $50 giving us a lot more legroom to reuse our money for advertising Unintended Consequences Although our average order value went up, our customer lifetime value went down. As a new brand we realized the importance of long term relationship. Sending email marketing proved that by showing low conversion rate on people who bought all our products already. We did a few months in and we started to see positive results on our email marketing campaigns. +Expensive Shipping Rate Not only was the shipping rate was expensive, it ensured lower conversion rate from new customers and increased advertising costs. Imagine buying an 18 dollar product to find out that your shipping cost is half of that price. Shopped around for the best rates and ended up linking with ezeeship.com. Not only did it have one of the best rates out there, the customer service was phenomenal. What cost us 7 dollars to ship before went as low as 4. Of course it all depends on the both locations and size of your packages but this is just to give you an idea. Pros
Cons
+Low Conversion Rate Solutions for Facebook/Instagram If you've ever dealt with any sort of advertising, you'll soon find out that this is very common. Your approach will determine how well your campaign does. There's only 4 things I look at once the ads start running ( The Ad Creative, Target Audience, Landing Pages- View page, fall out).
+Positioning: What makes you special? 1 year in and we're only started to realize the importance of this question. This actually inspired me to write this blog. It's because now we're a couple months in testing and the results are slowly starting to show. The main thing to think about is figuring out where you stand and how to make sure it's consistent to all your social media channels. Here are the things we're working on to help support our brand message.
+Final thoughts: It's our first year and what I've provided is no way the exact way you should run your business. Every brand is different and they will all face their unique challenges. What I aspire to do is share the process that have helped us along the way and hopefully help you on the e-commerce world. Would love to know your unique challenges and tribulations. I'd love to learn from you as well! [link] [comments]  | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| How I made my-self. 27 years into life, The Struggles I Faced and My Approach Posted: 04 Nov 2019 09:02 AM PST Life. Ah, you know. You don't asked to be part of the Game – it just kinda happens. Nothing. Then boom, you're there. I made myself. More than making money, I made myself. I built the more beautiful world around me through sweat blood and tears. It made me. Everybody's so focused on WHAT TO DO in here. Have you ever stopped and ponder that being an entrepreneur is also about... what you are? About the beingness of your-self. Money won't ever buy you dignity or integrity or respect. You might be a king on Instagram – but deep inside, have you faced the ocean of chaos and know for sure that you can win against your demons? It is VERY rare that I meet people that are more obsessed about being the best motherfucker on the planet (money usually follows this anyway!) than making money or profiting. Many of you enjoyed my post about providing value. Yeah, I guess it is different. It is different because the writer has been through a hell of a crucible where pain was the name of the game. Pain of existence, pain from the cold, pain from the loneliness, pain of just working 100 hours a week for months. Like, this will make a man either break or... like David Goggins, a warrior made out of steel. *This post is your daily reminder that 1) you are dying 2) so dance in the kitchen with some Taylor Swift blasting in the stereo 3) It's okay if you are not making millions right now; you're healthy? good. 4) if you want to succeed at the game of life, chasing money is not the preferable way, for what is success if it isn't enjoying coconuts on the side of the beach in Southern Brazil? * Focus on what you are; not what you're doing. I mean, focus on both, but you should be obsessed about being the best human being on the planet. Don't sell yourself short. I cannot emphasize this enough: The game is played on the long term. A quiet mind, a calm mind, a happy soul, with a decent cashflow is more valuable than a pile of cash and a loose mind. If you can have both – you win. Out. [link] [comments]  | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| B2B, Entrepreneurship, Marketing podcasts you guys listen to? Posted: 04 Nov 2019 10:29 AM PST Hi everyone, I was wondering if you could make any recommendations for good podcasts revolving around marketing (all types) / entrepreneurship. Found I'm way more productive if I have something good to listen to during monotonous working hours. Thank you [link] [comments]  | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| The only type of feedback you will ever need. Posted: 03 Nov 2019 06:03 PM PST Your friends might not want to tell you your idea sucks. They might not want to hurt your feelings. They might just want you to shut up and stop defending your idea for a dropshipping empire like it's your doctoral dissertation. Your mom doesn't want to discourage you. Your incubator/accelerator wants you to work for free on an idea they may invest in. Potential customers obviously want you to make your amazing industry-changing platform that in your mind will fix X, Y, and Z problems. The thing is, from the entrepreneur's perspective, none of this lip service does you any good. In fact, it might even be harmful. What if they send you down some journey doing something moronic because they just wanted you to shut up? Luckily, there's a magic test you can use to figure out whether or not your idea is viable. No, seriously - all you need is this one thing to validate your business idea. It's called "a purchase." You know, an ideal customer forgetting about your feelings and your promises of big ideas and getting them to pull out their wallet for something tangible. Because that's about them - it's not about you. If they do that, you're golden. Alright, I lied, there is actually a second thing you need (probably). It's called "Retention." That is when the exact same customer that just made a purchase buys something from you again. That is the holy grail of validating your idea. Especially if the price point was profitable. So go out and sell shit! Even if it doesn't exist yet. If your idea is good enough they'll buy it now even if they won't get it for six months. That's the feedback you need! Money where the mouth is. P.S. This applies to selling your equity too. [link] [comments]  | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Good part time job to combine with entrepreneurship? Posted: 04 Nov 2019 10:00 AM PST I used to work as UPS as a preloader. There were several entrepreneurs...people were doing it for the healthcare. However the hours were horrible (early morning). Right now I work at a restaurant, trying to get on evening shifts. That way I have the best hours to myself (morning/afternoon). I know there's better out there. [link] [comments]  | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| We Created a Link Sharing Platform because Instagram Only Allows One Link Posted: 04 Nov 2019 02:34 AM PST We created a link-sharing platform as a solution to an issue that we continuously came up against while running social media campaigns for the clients of our digital agency. The issue was, quite simply, that Instagram only allowed one link in a users profile. We commissioned a developer to build us a prototype of the solution we had in mind and thus, the first iteration of Linktree was born. We started using it just among family, friends and the clients we were working with at the time. It's safe to say that our first three users would have been agency clients and perhaps a family member or two. How did you validate the idea? One of the incredible things about Linktree has been its organic growth. We created a solution to a problem that we thought was unique to us; but it turns out millions of other people had the same problem. One of the key moments of validation for us, was early on, when the platform was uploaded to Product Hunt. From that point the number of users signing up jumped astronomically, with people like Alicia Keys jumping on board. That's when we really knew that we were onto something. Who is your target demographic? When we started out, three years ago, it would have been fair to say that our target audience was Instagram users, but in the last 24 months that's shifted significantly. 40 percent of our users come from outside of Instagram, using the platform across social platforms like YouTube and Twitch and even in place of the likes of website tools Squarespace or Wix. Instead of building out Linktree with products that suit how we think it should be used, we really try and listen to what users are actually doing with the platform and developing products that are genuinely useful. It takes us in some surprising directions – like Linktree being used in place of websites or resumes – but ultimately helps us to meet the needs of our users. Any tips for finding first employees? After launching in 2016 we grew quickly. One of the key learnings was the importance of hiring quickly, but also of hiring right. When you're in desperate need of those extra hands, it can be easy to jump at the first opportunity to hire but we've learned how important it is to slow down and be considered. It's crucial that the people you hire truly align to the culture and ethics of the business you are trying to build. As a result, I'm super proud of the team we've grown here – they are curious, brave and vocal, and we've achieved some incredible work. What motivates you when things go wrong? What is the end goal? We have more than 3 million users across the world who use Linktree for all different reasons – the might be celebrities or major brands, but they might also be smaller businesses or individuals running their Etsy account. We're very conscious that we are helping people to connect and do business – in whatever form – on the internet, and we take that responsibility very seriously. Quite simply, our end goal is to simplify the internet and to make it easier for side-hustlers, creators and entrepreneurs to share more, sell more, curate more and grow more. Do you have any advice for someone just starting out? Don't wait, just start now. And build for scale. There's no way we could have anticipated the scale at which Linktree has grown over the last three years, but it's something that we always wish we had been more prepared for. What apps do you use to run your business? Zoom, Slack & Google Docs are critical for our teams spread across Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, LA and London. In fact, when we first started Linktree, we used to receive a Slack notification for every new user. It's not possible anymore (given we have over 10,000 new sign ups everyday) but their integrations have been a tremendous help with our customer support and marketing. We strive for agility across the company and having all teams on Confluence makes decision-making collaborative and transparent. Metabase has also been invaluable in terms of helping us to dig into our data and understand our user behaviour. It helps us to align any new features with messaging and to see what leads to conversion for our users. Would you ever sell the company? Linktree has been our passion project for three years now. We started the company as a side-hustle and have now grown the business to a point where it's a key focus. It's been an incredibly exciting journey. We might be at 3 million users but we still feel like we're only just getting started. If you enjoyed this interview, the original is here. [link] [comments]  | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| How Volvo won the Super Bowl (without running an ad) Posted: 04 Nov 2019 01:09 PM PST On the 1st February 2015, car companies Toyota, Lexus, Nissan, Kia and Fiat each spent $4.5M on a 30 second Super Bowl commercial. Yet, somehow, it was Volvo, with no Super Bowl ad, and 1/15th of the budget, who stole the limelight. Their idea was both simple and genius: Whenever you saw any other car commercial during the Super Bowl you could win a Volvo XC 60 for a loved one. All you had to do was was tweet why they deserved the car using the hashtag #VolvoContest during the commercial. Volvo's "interception" was the ultimate troll. It shifted eyeballs from rival commercials to Twitter where the conversation was all about Volvo. And it worked:
The result was a 70% increase in Volvo XC 60 sales the following month. WHY DID IT WORK?Well, firstly, Volvo made sure to build awareness. Two days before the game they donated an XC 60 to "Jimmy Kimmel Live". He gave it away on his show and in return spread the word about their contest. Secondly, they decided to run the giveaway exclusively on Twitter. This allowed momentum to build (unlike sending people directly to a competition website). And finally, targeting rival commercial slots was quite the masterstroke. It resulted in 30 second windows of hyperactivity on Twitter. This led to the #VolvoContest%20until%3A2015-02-02%20since%3A2015-02-01&src=recent_search_click) hashtag trending on 3 separate occasions. A slower, consistent stream of tweets would never hit the velocity required to trend. Thank you for reading. If you enjoyed it, I write about real-world marketing examples (like this one) over on marketingexamples.com. Any questions, I'll be floating in the comments :) [link] [comments]  | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Process vs Outcome (Focus on actual tasks...not the outcome) Posted: 04 Nov 2019 10:20 AM PST Whenever I make an "Outcome" goal, I usually **fail.**Whenever I make a "Process" goal, I usually succeed. It's because "Outcome" Goals rely on hoping and praying something happens. Whereas "Process" Goals take specific steps that will hit the goal. Here's some examples EMAIL LIST EXAMPLE:
FOOTBALL EXAMPLE:
REAL ESTATE EXAMPLE:
WEIGHT LOSS EXAMPLE:
SEO EXAMPLE:
Legendary football coach Nick Saban said: "Don't think about winning the SEC Championship. Don't think about the national championship. Think about what you needed to do in this drill, on this play, in this moment. That's the process: Let's think about what we can do today, the task at hand." Hope this helps you make better goals :) Sincerely, Neville Medhora [link] [comments]  | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Posted: 04 Nov 2019 09:21 AM PST Demetri Kofinas speaks with Pauline Brown, the former Chairman of North America for LVMH, the world's leading luxury goods company. Pauline has over thirty years' experience acquiring, building, and leading some of the world's most influential, luxury brands. In this conversation, she shares insights about how anyone can strengthen and grow his or her own aesthetic intelligence and apply that intelligence towards enhancing the quality and prosperity of one's life and business. Pauline's case for aesthetic intelligence rests on four basic points. The first is simply that aesthetics matter, not only in life but also in business. The second is that aesthetic intelligence can be cultivated. In fact, each of us possesses far more capacity than we use; aesthetic vision and leadership also have the power to transform companies and even entire sectors, as has been proven time and again by companies like Apple, Dyson, and others. Lastly, in the absence of aesthetics, most businesses are susceptible to potentially fatal challenges. In other words, when a company's aesthetics fail, so does the company. [link] [comments]  | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Need help on pricing for commercial cleaning! Posted: 04 Nov 2019 09:55 AM PST I've recently started a small office cleaning company. Got my website and everything set up and just recently started cleaning my girlfriend's bosses office but just charged her a flat rate to get some experience under my belt. I now have a consultation tomorrow for another office but I'm not sure how much to charge them. I asked for their approximate square footage but they didn't know what it was, just said they have 6 offices, 4 bathrooms, 2 kitchens and an entrance area. Im scheduled to go in tomorrow to set up the price and schedule the cleaning. Should I measure out the square footage and charge based on that? Or should I do something like based on rooms or hours it takes for a cleaning? Any input is greatly appreciated! [link] [comments]  | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| I left college to sell cbd/hemp products and now I make $17K/month Posted: 04 Nov 2019 08:00 AM PST Hey - Pat from StarterStory.com here with another interview. Today's interview is with Jackson Jesionowski (u/productiverobot) of FullBodyZen, a brand that makes cbd/hemp products Some stats:
Hello! Who are you and what business did you start?My name is Jackson Jesionowski. I am 21 years old and am 8 months into owning FullBodyZen, a CBD/HEMP manufacturing company. My whole business started with CBD Pods compatible with the Juul, this soon became hemp flower, prerolls. and hemp cigarettes. Now, 8 months later we are doing $17K in revenue a month and have 14 total products. What's your backstory and how did you come up with the idea?Eight months ago I crashed snowboarding. Not your typical crash, the last thing I remember was thinking "I'm going too fast" approaching a jump and the next, waking up in a hospital throwing up violently. Afterward, I did not feel like myself, there was a substantial concussion and my cognitive abilities were lacking. I thought there had to be SOMETHING I should be taking. Through my research, I found marijuana, CBD specifically, reduces the swelling that is causing damage to the neurons. I went shopping and boy were it expensive, to get the most bang for my buck I settled on vape juice, given its high bioavailability compared to oral products. Fraternity friends took notice of my new toy and I explained that it was CBD juice, a friend tried it and loved it but the only vape he had was a Juul. Luckily my dorm room years of hustling served me well, I was all too familiar with deconstructing Juul pods filling them for resale. I made one, he loved it and bought 10. Talk about a small minimum viable product, I reinvested the funds right away buying peoples empty pods and stocking the vending machine I had placed in the fraternity right away. At this time I would have been a junior but I had dropped out in the middle of my sophomore year due to the mild success of betarian.com. And for the fact that school was proving to be worthless to me. I started out in MIS which was basically an advanced Excel class. I realized "Business" in school did not mean entrepreneurship as naive as I was to think that. So I opted for a skill that could not only get a job but be utilized in any business I did and went with computer science. Sadly my codecademy course had proved all too well and the lecture did not take attendance. I just came for the tests and submitted the homework, getting marks off for using functions we had not learned yet. To top this off I was a pledge at the time for my fraternity and was sharing the homework with older active members in the same class. At the end of the semester, I was called in to be shown that one of them did not change ANYTHING. I would have to retake the class I already learned nothing from. I decided to opt for minimum credits of a topic I love (neuroscience) and to work on Betarian in my freetime. I also built this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qe9YHBk6YKk Business is my passion anyways so the second I started making a decent income it was all the backing I needed to win the argument with my parents. That also meant being cut off from their income, something I argued against but realize was necessary to keep me hungry and fighting. Betarian had taken a turn in the first two months it had done $30,000 in revenue with a 20% margin. 5,000 of that revenue being from one person buying consistently over the 2 months. Sadly, his passport he verified himself with was fake, and he charged back every transaction from 2 months as "not his". Paypal sided with me, but because he went Bank -> Paypal -> Me. Paypal did not have the authority to deny the return of funds. Lesson learned, more verification measures added, and restrictions limiting daily purchasing power. Also limiting the income I would receive was the fact that I now had almost no money to keep Ethereum stocked in the site and purchasing through a bank meant 2-3 business day wait times. From this point forward the site was side-lined. I tested many new ideas prototyped an AUX to Lightning charger bracelet but did not put forward the 3.5k needed for the first order. Then "247mediabooster.com" I resold Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Soundcloud, Youtube likes plays and retweets. On top of that, I made a simple bot followed and liked users from specific hashtags and followers of other users on Instagram. This software was doing decently well, at peak I had 15 clients paying 20 to 140 dollars per month to be signed up for it at the same time. Signing up new clients was proving to be hard, door to door sales were failing and I was not 100% confident in the software as some accounts would get blocks from bot detection. Take us through the process of designing, prototyping, and manufacturing your first product.Once the idea was validated in the fraternity I contacted my friend who owns a smoke shop and pitched it to him. He gave me a price they would pay and crunching the numbers I could make 300% margins. Great! I ordered 100 empty pods, plastic clamshell packaging, higher mg CBD vape juice and paid a friend to design a label. I ended up listing the empty pods and sold half of them covering the cost of the other 50. I took my packaging to the dollar tree and found a 3 compartment plastic box and that was the display. I sold a pack of 15 pods to a friend, then went smokeshop to smoke shop. I left a sample at stores where the owner was gone, and when an owner was in made a sale. At this time my product cost was $2.5-3.5 and I was selling them depending on mg for $6-8. REINVEST. I took all that money and bought more pods and packaging, extra pods to list for sale on offerup of course. My mother owns two clothing stores at the U of A, she asked her landlord and got permission to sell the pods at the front desk. She sells them for 14,16,18 and takes a generous $4 cut. To this day I get a check over a thousand dollars every month from her. I got a couple of my fraternity friends filling and packaging the pods at this point. One of the first store owners gave me a jar of hemp when I came in, said it was flying off the shelves. Driving home, looking down it was no different than looking like I had a jar of marijuana. It even smelled the same, at first, my brain sparked a more mischievous idea. Here's my grandma with a few lbs of the hemp. Note this is a VERY Christian lady To produce the jars and labels for my fraternity so they could avoid MIPs. I decided to shoot the owner a text and ask how much he was paying. $24 at the time, I quickly did some research and said I'll sell better quality, nice looking jars of hemp to him for $22. It would cost me $7. Describe the process of launching the business.This business fell into my lap and calling any portion of the business a "launch" like saying the day Santa comes to your house is on Christmas. I sold a few pods to a friend, then put them into a vending machine I had in my fraternity, then into a retail store. After I got into enough retail stores I had shake from the pounds of hemp I was buying. I had a bunch of cigarette tubes laying around, and some cones and decided to test out making some new products. Since launch, what has worked to attract and retain customers?99% of the DTC (Direct to consumer) sales is out of my hands. As I stated before I started out by going smoke shop to smoke shop with a tray of product and an invoice. It was not until I went to hollywood I have used my friends as small focus groups, and my Instagram following to decide between labels and even in choosing our company logo. The polls are such a useful feature that I feel is underutilized by many companies. I have a good friend in LA who I had given a couple of CBD pods to while he was in Tucson. He ended up posting it on his Instagram story and someone reached out to him about my company. I arranged a trip to LA to meet this possible investor and figured I would go out to local smoke shops there too. We even set up a stand on Hollywood BLVD. It was a HORRIBLE stand though and I was surprised to still make 100/hr. The direct store sales did not fare so well. On Hollywood Blvd, none of the store owners were in at the time. The one store that an owner was in for, ended up buying a display of the pods. They have reordered since and you can find them on La Brea and Hollywood Blvd. One worker asked me, why do you not go downtown to the wholesale market? I said "the what?" this was news to me. I arranged to go tomorrow not knowing what to expect. I went into plenty of stores, felt underprepared but managed to land a 12k order with a store called Calikulture. How are you doing today and what does the future look like?This Friday I will receive a 65K wire from fraternity alumni who was intrigued by my business at a homecoming reunion. He met me at the very start when I had just made my first few jars of hemp. I texted him later and after a month got a reply, I kept him up to date as my company grew and we continued talks of investment. I took my mom's car up to LA with 12K of product to a distributor Calikulture a couple of weeks ago. This was our largest order to date. On the way back I was actually stopped when a dog sniffed the car, luckily we had barely any product. Just king-sized prerolls I had made to try and land a white-label deal with a company "Bolt" eventually we got through after showing enough licenses and border patrol getting approval from their higher-ups. This will continue to be the main focus, selling straight to distributors but this past week I did place a $100 ad on a hemp forum that has already paid for itself 10x over in mid-sized wholesale orders. The idea of an MLM keeps popping into my mind. The local CBD stores are price-gouging customers and many companies' products do not contain as much CBD as advertised. This was a funny thing I saw, where I was selling my CBD pods (150mg per max) and there were pods advertising 1000mg. Well, these pods can hold .7ml even if you put 100% pure CBD isolate (which then you cannot vape) into the pod you could get up to 700mg. Not to mention it needs to dissolve into the vapable liquid. With the investment we are looking at cargo-vans, I have trained a couple of friends to the point that the manufacturing shop can run autonomously. I will have them fulfill website orders, and create product after filling the van and will take off myself to distribution networks across the nation. So far I have not made it past of LA as a distributor there has bought us out never allowing a surplus of product to go after more distribution. I am in the works of fixing this by hiring new employees. I am having a girl help me arrange gift baskets that I will go to fraternities and sororities at the U of A with in order to recruit. Through starting the business, have you learned anything particularly helpful or advantageous?One thing I never expected was to be any decent at graphic design. Throughout the last 8 months though, minute changing to labeling based on regulations and feedback that I was too impatient to explain to the friend I was using for design caused me to become quite decent with Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop. What platform/tools do you use for your business?We host our website on Shopify and use FollowPlanner for Instagram. What have been the most influential books, podcasts, or other resources?
Advice for other entrepreneurs who want to get started or are just starting out?Start now, get the mentality that all effort is progress, it truly is. Once you can stomach that fact things change. Produce things and put them into the world, understand the value of being a producer over a consumer. Conquer your inner demons and try and remove wasteful high-dopamine activities from your life, Are you looking to hire for certain positions right now?If anyone is in the Tucson/U of A area I am definitely hiring more minimum wage positions. Besides that, I am open to the idea of higher-level positions like marketing, distributors in other states but this would work on a commission basis to start as all profits are being reinvested into material goods. I am thinking of building out an MLM but have no experience if someone wants to take over that department and do a rev share. Always open to new possibilities. Where can we go to learn more?If you have any questions or comments, drop a comment below! Liked this text interview? Check out the full interview with photos, tools, books, and other data. For more interviews, check out r/starter_story - I post new stories there daily. Interested in sharing your own story? Send me a PM [link] [comments]  | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Posted: 04 Nov 2019 01:23 PM PST Hello there, I'm a french based entrepreneur. I created a serious game (a game that teaches something and help practice a specific skill) in 2017. To launch the business I've done a Kickstarter and slightly overreached my goal. The product is now in 22 different countries and as it is a side project for me, stays quite minor. Even if I don't take care of it, it brings over 3000€ of yearly fully organics online sales, and over 20 000€ of consulting, collective trainings and in person coaching. This product represents a considerable part of my yearly income but isn't aligned toward what I want for the future of my business. Last thing the brand is on a very competitive field and can coexist with a major player that is quite familiar with brand trolling ( always blocking any registering on the same words...). Now here is the kicker : a client wants to become a distributor of this product and might be talked into buying it. They might be one of the few able to buy it in my current network. But the question remain to discuss : should I sell? Thanks to anyone willing to share their insight on this matter. [link] [comments]  | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Easiest way to transfer payment from one customer to another? Posted: 04 Nov 2019 01:20 PM PST Hi, I'm looking for a way to settle balances between my customers. Let's refer to customers as A, B, C, D, etc. At the end of every month, there will be different balances owed to each other. A might owe a balance to C, D might owe B, X might owe Z, etc. Is there a way to handle these payments for them in an automated way? These payments will be thousands of dollars, so most likely bank transfers or wires will be the settlement method. My company can not hold funds or touch them in between transfers. Is there a way they can give authorization with account info that we can just debit, crediting directly to the other customers bank account? Or any other methods you can think of? Thanks :) [link] [comments]  | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| How should an 18 year old with all the time in the world use it to become financially independent? Posted: 04 Nov 2019 12:46 PM PST I finished high school last friday. I dont want to go to university and then work 9-5. I have 16 hours each day that I want to use to work on being my own boss. I live with my parents, they pay for my food and give me 300$ a month. I am willing to try things, take risks and fail. What would you do? Any advice, opinion or idea is greatly appreciated. [link] [comments]  | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| How do I expand my speed dating business? Posted: 04 Nov 2019 12:46 PM PST Sorry about format its being written on mobile. So I have started a speed dating business and currently we are doing three events a month in my city of 275k people. I'm making about 500-1000 a month off these but I'd like to expand and grow this business. Im concerned that too many events a month means people will stop going to them as its saturating the event in the city. Can I have your opinions and tips on how I can grow this business into something I can do full time? [link] [comments]  | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Posted: 04 Nov 2019 11:36 AM PST My wife owns her own company. I try to help out with the books and finances as I can. Last year we hired a new CPA for the company and he told us that we were not using the S corp as it was intended to be used. He said that my wife should take 60% in pay and the other 40% in draws based on her initial contribution to start the company as well as deductions that she has been able to take. Everything with this setup is fine. However, we went to try and refi the house and roll in the HELOC that she used to start the company to our mortgage at a lower interest rate. The lenders all talk to us like we are crazy when we show paycheck stubs that don't match the actual stated income. CPA says to show them bank statements with the draw deposits and the quarterly tax docs that also show the total draw as income. Everything is stated on the returns that this part of her total income. But everyone keeps talking about payroll stubs like they have never heard of draws. Is there some other way of showing this income to mortgage lenders? High credit score, debt to income around 20%, and a mortgage that is 30% of the home value - and we are still having issues getting past this after nearly 90 days. Thought you guys might be able to offer some advise. THANK YOU! [link] [comments]  | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Need help being able to handle confrontation in the workplace. Posted: 04 Nov 2019 07:24 AM PST Hello guys, I have been with my company for a few years now, and am taking on larger and larger roles in the company. As I continue to challenge myself more with these opportunities I see a problem arising more and more often as I begin to interact with different people. When someone verbally confronts me and starts being rude, or condescending, I have no idea how to handle it, although I know I have to represent my company and keep my composure I end up just sitting there and taking it. So my question is this. For those of you communication pros out there. Are there any books you would recommend, that can help me keep my composure in these situations and also learn where the line is that after crossed, I should stand up for myself, and when I do stand up for myself, how can I do it in a manner that would make most people say ''wow he handled that well''. I really appreciate any advice, this has been weighing heavily on my mind and has started affecting how I feel ''off the clock.'' [link] [comments]  | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Tell me why you started a business Posted: 04 Nov 2019 10:54 AM PST What were your initial motivations vs what they are now? [link] [comments]  | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Received An Offer To Sell Facebook Page - How To Establish A Value Posted: 04 Nov 2019 10:50 AM PST Hi, all... I work for an organization that has a fairly popular account on another social media platform. A few years ago, we started a Facebook page to cross post between the two platforms. Facebook removed the ability to cross post, so we all but shut down our Facebook presence; however, we still garner likes on our Facebook page and the posts that are still up. We've recently received an offer from a company to buy our Facebook page, but we have no clue how to accurately value it. Playing around with online evaluations, we're seeing between $.0075 to $199.00 per like. Does anyone have recommendations on how to accurately value our Facebook page? While we love the idea of nearly $200 a like, we doubt that is all that accurate, but we also don't want to turn around and sell it for a flat $100. [link] [comments]  | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Posted: 04 Nov 2019 10:36 AM PST Hey everyone! Longtime lurker, first time poster. Just had a question about a business idea. Do you think starting a business that specializes in cleaning car upholstery would thrive? This company would only specialize in reviving car upholstery and wouldn't deal with any other detailing. Do you think there's a market for this? I understand other detailing places provide a full package for detailing that includes upholstery cleaning but I would think some people just want to revive the upholstery and get stains out. Thoughts? [link] [comments]  | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Free Business Growth Discovery Call for Video Testimonials Posted: 04 Nov 2019 10:32 AM PST - What I'm Offering To The Entrepreneurs of Reddit. 60 minutes or More on the phone with me talking about additional ways to grow your established business. There are usually a few blind spots that people can't see in their own business or things they've thought were maybe too difficult to have a crack at, which is what I'm good at helping to uncover.
- Why I'm Offering This For Free The business owners that I've worked with over the last year are quite old school and really aren't comfortable getting in front of a camera and recording a testimonial for me. I'm really trying to convince them that it's not all that big of a deal and would really help me out, but shyness has gotten the better of them and I'm left with only a text testimonial that doesn't hold much weight these days. - Who Is A Good Fit For This Business owners that are bringing in 100k+ a year already ideally. I work with business owners doing over 400k at a minimum in order to really flesh out the possibilities without breaking the bank. New business owners are not really within my skillset to help bootstrap right now. - What's Next? DM me or leave a comment here if you're interested in an informal / nothing to lose chat with me AND you're not shy to jump infront of a camera to discuss how things went and if what you discovered was at all useful / insightful. Thanks peeps/ [link] [comments]  | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| $6000 a year selling guide books for the city of La Palma Posted: 04 Nov 2019 10:03 AM PST Hi - this is Misha from WomenHustlers.com I publish interviews of women building profitable businesses. This interview is with Sheila who created a niche by selling a guidebook about a little Spanish Island. If you like this interview, I'd love for you to head over to the site and subscribe. I send two nice interviews every week to your inbox. ----------------------------------- Guide book for the city of La Palma – Wow! That's interesting .Tell us moreMy name's Sheila Crosby. I'm a self-employed tour guide on a little Spanish island and I write and self-published books about that island. Last quarter the book sales averaged 450€ ($500) a month. What's your own background. Were you always proficient in this business, or did it just strike your mind one fine day?Writing's been a hobby since I was a teenager, but I never made enough to feed an anorexic cockroach. I originally came to the island of La Palma as a software engineer with a six-month contract to work in the astronomical observatory here – it's the third biggest in the world. I was hoping to extend my 6 months to 2 or 3 years but I met a tall, dark, handsome local man in the Isaac Newton Telescope and we got married. After 12 years of programming the biggest telescope in Europe, I was downsized along with half the British staff. To be honest, I flailed around for a bit. I tried teaching English but I wasn't happy. Then I started tour guiding in the observatory, which really suited me and still does. But I wasn't getting nearly enough work. So on my off days, I started writing a guide book to the observatory for normal people. I had a lot of practice explaining this stuff, I already had a load of photos, and I thought I'd be able to sell as¡t least a few copies. Besides, it was all too obvious what I'd achieve by sitting down and folding my arms. What went into designing the initial product? Can you take us through the actual process?I wrote the book I'd have liked to read when I first arrived. I sent each chapter off to beta-readers who knew about as much science as my target audience, which is to say almost none. One is a retired primary school teacher and the other is a singer-songwriter. When they, understood I knew I'd got it right. Talk us through the process of the launch of your businessI was most of the way through writing the book when the island government started to actively promote star tourism and give out grants to small businesses. So I went along and asked the head clerk nicely, and was told that I didn't fit their guidelines. "But I'll talk to my boss and get back to you." To my astonishment, they did get back to me! If I'd agree to do a paperback in Spanish as well as English (rather than just an English eBook), they'd buy a hundred of each, which would almost cover the cost of the layout and printing. Luckily one of my friends was also re-inventing herself and getting into graphic design. I needed a professional layout and she needed something to show potential customers, so I got a very good price on that. And I did the translation myself and paid a native speaker for a correction, which was also much cheaper. I never did have a proper launch. The books arrived and I just started delivering them to anywhere that would sell them. How is your repeat customer rate like? Can you take us through how you attract and retain customers?I get very few repeat customers because there are only two books, and people who want a guide book to the observatory are rarely in the market for children's stories What does work very well is that people who've been on one of my observatory books are quite likely to buy the book and vice versa What is the current situation? How do you see yourself in the next 12 months?I'm really hoping to finish the murder mystery set in the observatory, "Murder by Starlight". It's a lot of fun to write and there are some really good ways to kill people in a professional telescope. As a woman founder, do you see this as only financially uplifting? Or otherwise too? If yes, then how?Earning my own money is also a great boost to my self-confidence and independence. I grew up in Leeds, which has a long history of women doing skilled work in the weaving industry. That meant that leaving your husband was financially possible and then men knew it. So they behaved a bit better. What are your key challenges today? How are you planning to tackle those?My main challenge at present is making time to update the guide book to include new telescopes and new discoveries. When I wrote the first edition I was tour guiding just 1 or 2 days a week. Now I tour guide 4 or 5 days a week so time is a problem. I've dealt with it by nagging my husband and son to do more around the house, getting a cleaner to sandblast the place once a week, and frankly dropping my standards a bit. It's temporary until the boo's done. Which are some resources, books, articles or podcasts that have been useful to you, and would share with your readersI'm probably a bit unusual in that my main resource was my friends. I've mentioned the proofreading and cut-price layout and Spanish proofreading, but they also cheered me on and believed in me which was priceless. Many times, women feel that businesses are for only for men. What's your take?There are a few businesses that need strong biceps, but not many. Most businesses involve a particular skill (in my case explaining astrophysics to normal people) and dealing with people. Women are just as good at the first and on average we're better at the second. We do tend to have less confidence which can be a problem, but often that just means that we do our homework thoroughly first which turns it into a strength. On average it's a bit harder for us to find starting capital. I needed very little, but that's not always the case. Looking to kick start your own venture? Hi! This is Misha. I interview women founders in building profitable businesses My idea is for other women to get inspired by these actionable tell-all stories and start their own profitable enterprises. [link] [comments]  | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| How do I become a Snapchat Publisher on the Discover page? Posted: 04 Nov 2019 09:53 AM PST I am interested in becoming a Snapchat Publisher - A person/business that publishes public content on the Discover page in which I can run ads on my content and have people subscribe to my content. How would I go about doing this? I have found very little info online on how to do this. [link] [comments]  |
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