Thank you Thursday! - (November 07, 2019) Entrepreneur |
- Thank you Thursday! - (November 07, 2019)
- A random person gave my business a scathing 1 Star review on our Facebook page. The best part? They were never a customer with our business.
- Besides Lean Startup, what other books about Entrepreneurship should I read?
- Don't forget that business is more relationship driven than it has ever been
- Top 15 Podcasts For First-Time Founders
- Save up to 35% and fight climate change shopping online…. Just choose +35-day delivery with our startup. Would you do it? Thoughts?
- How to grow 'entrepreneurial' desire?
- Why aren't people ordering my free watch? Is free quesitonable?
- How do I know if people will want what I’m making?
- What I Learned From Launching 18 Playing Card Kickstarter Projects
- What is your End Game?
- Is tumblr still relevant to marketing?
- Anyone here own a residential trash pickup service? I have a potential opportunity to purchase a business and would like to pick your brain.
- What to do when I want to scale up my small business, but its hurting marriage
- How do you deal with your own doubts?
- Looking for passionate business minded people to team up and make something disruptive
- Bill Gates criticises Elizabeth Warren's plan for tax on super-rich
- Best Web Hosting? Cost
- Can you hire an Indian developer for your project at their local rates?
- Development on my mobile app is almost complete. There was been very limited market competition..Until last week!
- Wonder if anyone else is doing what I'm doing with Instagram.
- Pricing Strategies
- Is anyone still doing Retail Arbitrage? FBA?
- Information about autonews Website
- I'm fourteen and I want to start a dog walking business
| Thank you Thursday! - (November 07, 2019) Posted: 07 Nov 2019 05:09 AM PST 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: 07 Nov 2019 08:57 AM PST This random person who has never contacted or hired our company before.. left our business a horrible review on our brand's Facebook page. They refuse to answer our emails and blocked my personal page and our business's page so we can't contact them.. Just another day in the life lol Have you guys experienced anything like this?I've always been able to fix issues like this but it appears this person (or perhaps it's a competitor posing as this person) is dead set on trying to hurt us.. [link] [comments]  |
| Besides Lean Startup, what other books about Entrepreneurship should I read? Posted: 06 Nov 2019 09:13 PM PST The Lean Startup by Eric Reis is deemed to be the holy grail for starting a startup. What other books are also good at giving you a different perspective and helping you get your business off the ground? EDIT: Thank you for all these amazing suggestions! I may turn all your suggestions into a sort of visualization sorted by number of votes and number of comments. That way we can determine the most recommended book! I'll repost to the r/Entrepreneur when done so. Keep the suggestions coming, please. [link] [comments]  |
| Don't forget that business is more relationship driven than it has ever been Posted: 07 Nov 2019 05:43 AM PST I saw a comment over here that got me thinking about something I feel very passionate about. I hear all the time that in an online world and an on-demand economy relationships and trust are less important. Customers don't want to talk to anyone. They want to push a button and be done. Its all about web presence and landing pages. You can' I wholeheartedly disagree. Online marketing is competitive. Clicks are more expensive. A good landing page isn't as hard to come by as it used to be. Social media marketing spend is raising much faster than user engagement. The ability to be likeable, compelling, trustworthy, relatable, etc is a massive competitive advantage. We know it matters with customers. You can make the choice wether this will be something you decide to compete on or not. But it REALLY MATTERS with partners. With bankers. With investors. With employees. With vendors. The relationships that help you really grow and take that leap to the next level. PEOPLE DO BUSINESS WITH PEOPLE THEY LIKE. Get out from behind your computer screen and learn to talk to people and be likable. It matters. If you like this kind of thing hang out with us over in r/sweatystartup [link] [comments]  |
| Top 15 Podcasts For First-Time Founders Posted: 07 Nov 2019 08:50 AM PST We know that to start your own small business might be quite challenging. So, a first-time founder should learn constantly. In that case, podcasts are a great source of informative content from top specialists in a specific area. Check out the mentioned podcasts to get inspiration, motivation, and pieces of advice on how to build a truly great startup. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 07 Nov 2019 11:03 AM PST Our Hypothesis: There is the "I need it now" shopping, and there is the "I need to start looking" shopping. The latter is mostly on high-priced products. We are about helping with those products. Bid "smartly" for these products with discounts up to 35% with a 35-day or more delivery. +35-day delivery = Smart delivery. Smart delivery makes products more affordable by reducing inventory levels, using more efficient manufacturing processes, optimizing the use of natural resources, reducing transportation, and implementing more efficient shipping and handling alternatives. Right now, we are testing consumers' behavior: Product price/delivery deadline/savings. i.e. $100 price/35-day delivery/$35 savings. $1,000 price/6-month delivery/$350 savings. Save your products, no shopping required. More info: https://www.mandatum.co/ Give us your feedback. [link] [comments]  |
| How to grow 'entrepreneurial' desire? Posted: 07 Nov 2019 01:39 PM PST Bit of background; Currently in my late twenties, engineer in Europe in the medtech and nanotech field. I've been playing with the thought of starting my own business. Yet somehow such plans never launch. What I think would be the nice part of starting something yourself is the power to create something you/I find meaningfull and the 'pressure' related to the possible risks and gains that are much more direct. Such sense of business risks and feeling of impact is simply lacking as an employee. What strikes me personally is that the plans don't launch. Formerly all plans and ideas I had really got in my head and simply had to be executed! For instance, expeditions to 'quite' remote jungle locations, realizations of certain big social events, studying at a top-10 university. There was sufficient desire and persistence and thus it was realized! Now that's not the case to anything business related anymore. In the evening hours we started pitching a decent idea, got some funding and surgeons acknowledge the need. Nevethertheless it doesn't get in my head. And it suprises me, possible even disappoints me. After reading Napoleon Hill's 'Think and grow rich' I feel that a lack of desire is the issue. Though some may hate the blabla of self help books, I could really identify with a large part of the book! Did anyone face the same issues and how did you get past that (or train that)? Could it be a fear of failure without realizing it...? [link] [comments]  |
| Why aren't people ordering my free watch? Is free quesitonable? Posted: 07 Nov 2019 11:21 AM PST As a newer e-commerce platform, I decided to give out one type of my watches for free. I know I have contacted over a hundred people, but I have only received a few orders. Do you think offering something for free is questionable? Is it because I haven't established "trust" yet? Tickie Tonkie! [link] [comments]  |
| How do I know if people will want what I’m making? Posted: 07 Nov 2019 10:26 AM PST I'm an electrical engineering student and I have an idea I think would be successful and I have already laid out the groundwork as to how I will go about making the product. But I'm not sure how many people or potential customers I would have. How do I find future clientele? I'm working through my universitie's "E-center" but I'm still foggy on how exactly to go about this [link] [comments]  |
| What I Learned From Launching 18 Playing Card Kickstarter Projects Posted: 07 Nov 2019 02:06 PM PST I have sold lots of different products. I did really well with instructional DVDs before the popularity of youtube. I had also sold magic tricks as well and started adding more decks to my offerings and noticed those sell really well. It was a gradual process, when I started selling almost 10k a month of playing cards on eBay I knew it was time to give it a shot with my own site and brand. Our first black Friday (2017) was a big success and I knew it would a viable business model I would be able to grow. Most of my initial customers came from my eBay business. Did you have any experience/expertise in the area? Being a magician and playing card enthusiast I knew a bit, my strong points were in customer service and marketing so I brought that to the table as well from previous ventures. I also started producing my own decks and learned a lot more about the creation process. Have you raised any money? I invested 80k of my own funds for a down payment on commercial space and inventory. I have paid about half of it back so far and I also give myself a modest salary. I slowly started the business on ebay and amazon while I worked to get my main site ready to launch. Who is your target demographic? Collectors, players, magicians, cardist, someone looking for a unique gift. My demo does skew towards middle-age males. Do you get and strange customer questions? I have a few odd requests for decks that don't exist but they want me to create one for them but only want 1. How much did you raise on Kickstarter? Was it profitable? I have done several Kickstarter projects to raise funds for my own decks, not all of them have been profitable, but each campaign has helped gain followers and brand recognition. Is there anything you did differently the second time after learning from the first? I've learned a little from every campaign. You have to have the right amount of hype pre-campaign to get people excited about it. Share on social media, putting inserts about it in current out going orders, doing an email blast when campaign launches, etc. Also it helps to develop relationships with influencers that can share the project as well with other popular creators in your niche. Creating a prototype can be very helpful with the pre-campaign marketing. It seems a lot of people run into trouble with either the manufacturing or the fulfillment. This can be daunting if you have never done it before and is recommended to outsource to a trusted service. Also make sure you do not underestimate the cost to not only fund your project but also fulfillment any other possible issues you might run into, in other words work in a buffer if you need to. A lot of people try Kickstarter and fail to reach their goal - do you have a system to ensure you hit it? I'm upfront with my backers that I keep my goals low to ensure they fund but I also have the fiscal means to bring the project to fruition no matter what. My latest project have done quite well but some earlier projects when I was first starting out were lackluster, but I needed to do those to learn the process and build the brand and followers. Any tips for finding first employees? This was a challenge. But you need to be slow to hire and fast to fire. I think it is more about finding the right person as they can always learn the right skills. I have also had good luck finding off-site contractors on freelancer and upwork. Currently I have only one full time in house employee who handles fulfillment who has been with us for over a year now. What sells best? Usually new items sell best, our Pip Box Club subscription service, mystery items when we offer them. Also a few accessories that store decks are very popular. Did you run any companies prior? I have mostly been a solopreneur. But I did produce live entertainment in Las Vegas for several years and also ran a sales team for live product sales at remote events. What motivated you to start your own business? In my prior businesses I had to travel a lot so starting the site would allow me to stay home. This is first year in 20+ years I have not left the state. Some years I would on the road for 6+ months. Also, I wanted to start a business that could scale and something I could sell eventually. What were your family and friends first thoughts on your company? My kids and wife like that I stay home and they help me out, my wife does the accounting and my kids help with packing sometimes. Most have no idea the scale of the business unless they have stopped by and see all the products and packages going out. What motivates you when things go wrong? What is the end goal? I just try to correct things when they go wrong and they constantly do when you are using a lot of 3rd party technology to keep your business going. I try not to stress too much about things outside my control. The end goal is to grow the business as much as I can and then either sell it or let it run on auto-pilot. Do you have any advice for someone just starting out? You really need to focus on one thing if you want to be successful at it I think, at least for most people. The riches are in the niches as they say. Validate your product(s) on eBay and/or amazon before launching your own site and brand. Also have a process in place and try to batch as many of your regular tasks as possible. For example I will plan out a bunch of promotions at one time for the next few months and I will wait to add new items to the site until I have at least a few, etc. What has driven the most sales? I would say our weekly email newsletter. We have a really good repeat customer rate so when we offer something new or a deal we will see a spike in sales. What is stopping you being 3x the size you are now? There is a limit to our niche for sure, we doubled in terms of revenue year over year but I don't think it could happen again, at least not in a profitable way. I am planning a 2nd site / brand that will compliment this one but have a different demographic. What is your best marketing channel? Our main website for sure, I would say around 60%+, the rest is split between ebay, amazon, kickstarter and a wholesale distributor. How do you protect yourself from competition? Outstanding customer service and product selection. Weekly newsletter and blog and almost daily social posts. What apps could your business not run without? Ecomdash - inventory management. Shipstation - order fulfillment. Omnisend - email marketing. What are the next products you're working on? Currently, we are working creating a series of vintage reproduction decks. Are there any releases you can tell us about? We just did this deck as a prototype: and will have a version that we will launch on Kickstarter soon. Where do you see the company in 5 years? Hard to tell, I thought it would take us longer to get where we are currently at. Maybe in a bigger space depending on how the 2nd site does. What is current revenue? Right now around $80k a month, we did $600k last year, our first full year in business and may come close to doubling it this year depending on the holiday sales. Would you ever sell? If the multiple was right and the growth has slowed down, so probably not within the next 5 years, but you never know. I still have a lot of ideas to try and like the lifestyle that the business offers me. If you enjoyed this interview, the original is here. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 07 Nov 2019 01:18 PM PST I think this is a helpful question to ask, even if we are just starting out. My goal is to have 200k/year passive income. Once I have that then I will have achieved financial freedom. I can accomplish this by having 4 businesses that make 50k/year or by having 2 businesses that make 100k/year each. I could also get there by owning a small share of many different businesses with a total passive income of 200k/year. I picked the 200k number so that I have a buffer and even if business is not going well I can still fall down to 100k/year and live comfortably. I have no goal for net worth. I am not concerned about whether I am worth 1M or 1B - it doesn't matter. All that matters to me is if I have solid investments that return positive cash flow every month/year. What is your end game? [link] [comments]  |
| Is tumblr still relevant to marketing? Posted: 07 Nov 2019 01:02 PM PST Is tumblr still relevant to marketing? It seems with the very bad recent year of tumblr that it isn't very relevant anymore. I still run a tumblr but it is purely automated reposting things from my instagram and other social media. Is it at all worth putting more effort into it? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 07 Nov 2019 12:50 PM PST |
| What to do when I want to scale up my small business, but its hurting marriage Posted: 06 Nov 2019 07:54 PM PST Hey Reddit friends, I have a small food business that's just a few years old. I've been happily married for 15 years. We have two young kids and a mortgage. Craft fairs and Etsy are going very well - so well I feel like I could go part-time at my job and break even if I increase my Etsy inventory. However, my husband has real anxiety about it. We are covered for health insurance through his job. He's on a great trajectory and he's very ambitious. I love my food small business. I feel like I'm ready to scale up and commit more time, and I'm sure my current position would let me go part time. I feel like risk is so low, and while I'd possibly be less available for more weekends, there would otherwise be very minimal impact on our family. Has anyone else gone though an experience like this? Is there a middle ground I'm not seeing here- between not changing a thing, and keeping my job but splitting my time more 50-50 and otherwise don't want non-work hours to impact my family time? [link] [comments]  |
| How do you deal with your own doubts? Posted: 06 Nov 2019 11:01 PM PST Hey guys, so I'm running a wholesale distribution company in a very niche Australian market (cookware / cooking appliances) and am currently converting to an online B2C store because the retail environment is rapidly slowing down. This means I'll need to post a lot more content on social media and type up blog posts, etc to draw in more attention so now I spend a lot of time just sitting at my desk by myself typing up content / taking photos, editing and posting online. I have these thoughts every now and then about whether this will be worth it or if it will eventually pay off. Question is - How do you guys deal with those lingering negative thoughts and just push through? It just messes with my head so much! Thanks in advance for any replies!! Really do appreciate it. [link] [comments]  |
| Looking for passionate business minded people to team up and make something disruptive Posted: 07 Nov 2019 12:02 PM PST So i'm a software developer, and i have a circle with quality developers who can work on enterprise/public facing sites. I'm looking for people who can pitch in disruptive ideas and add in a new dimension through a business perspective [link] [comments]  |
| Bill Gates criticises Elizabeth Warren's plan for tax on super-rich Posted: 07 Nov 2019 11:58 AM PST |
| Posted: 07 Nov 2019 11:25 AM PST As someone who is just getting started and wants to vet a few ideas. I am looking for a cheapish web host, that also has a decent site builder included. Does anyone have any recommendations? I was looking at Wix, since the site builder on there is incredible, but they aren't exactly the most affordable option, especially when I am not really committed to a niche yet. [link] [comments]  |
| Can you hire an Indian developer for your project at their local rates? Posted: 07 Nov 2019 11:21 AM PST I just talked with someone that said they hired an Indian developer for $30 a day and his work was excellent. I know we have all heard about off-shore horror stories but it is possible to find developers at that rate and still have good results? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 07 Nov 2019 07:34 AM PST For the last 5-6 months I've been working on developing a mobile app with 2 partners, one of them being our developer. Our app helps solve a problem for consumers within the nightlife industry. Until recently, there has been limited competition. Just enough to validate a market for our product, but not enough to be concerned. Perfect. Last week, as I was scanning competitors websites, I noticed they are now offering the exact niche service that we're aiming to provide! This company has the resources available to onboard partners faster than we do, especially considering we won't be ready to launch for around 45-60 days. Our target market is absolutely massive, and growing year over year, so while I do feel like there's enough room for both of us (think Uber/Lyft), I can't help but feel a bit discouraged. I'm confident in our product, but understand that trying to acquire a new partner that's already integrated with our competitor may be a tough sell. Any words of encouragement or advice would be appreciated!! [link] [comments]  |
| Wonder if anyone else is doing what I'm doing with Instagram. Posted: 07 Nov 2019 11:18 AM PST Would like to meet like minded people. Basically I buy Instagram pages, grow them and either keep them and promote products for people and grow them. Another thing I do is pick an Instagram page, go to a company. Get paid for a promotion, pay a Instagram page for the promotion and take the surplus. Also do Facebook ads for some small local companies :) Would love to start some sort of group chat or something. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 07 Nov 2019 11:00 AM PST Hey everyone - I'm in need of something to help me set up pricing structure for goods rented. I'm looking for possibly an xcel sheet or the like. Any advice? Renting items is proving to be a bit harder than just selling the items... [link] [comments]  |
| Is anyone still doing Retail Arbitrage? FBA? Posted: 07 Nov 2019 10:28 AM PST Seems like I either see FBA related posts get shot down here, or mentioned as something that doesn't work. When I research it, it seems like it was very popular ~4 years ago and seems to have died down. Is this a valuable opportunity? What are your thoughts? People currently doing RA, how is it going? [link] [comments]  |
| Information about autonews Website Posted: 07 Nov 2019 10:06 AM PST Hey ya all, I have autonews website. I bought it as expired domain and it has good da pa and some organic traffic too. I want to sell it because I have no time or interest anymore to work on it also I am selling it cheap do anybody of you knows a website where I could list it for free apart from flippa or empire flippers? Thankyou if anybody of you wants to see domain then let me know... [link] [comments]  |
| I'm fourteen and I want to start a dog walking business Posted: 07 Nov 2019 09:56 AM PST Recently I've been thinking a lot about ways I can earn my own money because I don't like having to depend on my parents for allowances that I only receive on my birthday or some other rare occasion. My mom, however, thinks that I should only focus on school and grades right now because I will have to worry about job searching in the future and I sort of disagree. I know that school is important and I wouldn't have trouble maintaining my grades if I have a small side business, but she still doesn't agree. On top of that, she mentioned what I would do if something happened to the dog or a bystander, and I'm thinking about liability insurance but I'm not sure if I can afford that right now. I have also never had a dog before and don't know much about their behavior, so is there something I can do to familiarize myself with that? Here are my questions: - Do I need any equipment or treats, water, when I walk a dog or should I borrow the owner's leash? - Do I need liability insurance or can it wait? - How much should I charge per 20 minutes? - How close should I keep the dog away from me? - Should I ask the owner anything that I may need to know about the dog? - What do I do if the dog begins barking at someones or starts becoming hostile? [link] [comments]  |
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