Thank you Thursday! - (January 02, 2020) Entrepreneur |
- Thank you Thursday! - (January 02, 2020)
- Can we stop the whole "if you weren't an entrepreneur you'll never be an entrepreneur..." pretentious attitude's? The whole point of this community is to give each other resources, advice, etc... NOT to discourage people!!
- I quit 12 years of government work to start a mushroom farm! - UPDATE!
- I failed, worked on myself and now i'm starting again.
- Stuck on the landing page
- Just launched the open beta for my PowerPoint alternative!
- Who is the wealthiest person you know and what did they do to earn it?
- I want to get a sticker machine but will I be making a mistake?
- 2020 Inspiration
- Am I trasnacting in Georgia
- ELI5 Basic bookkeeping
- Those who use Virtual Assistants in your business - What industry are you in or what is your business?
- Can someone provide insight on the best route for building a very specific type of website. Details in post
- How do I start?
- What made you who you are today?
- Unlikely repeat purchase
- How much earning potential is there in an ad-supported "niche wiki" site?
- Turning my PTSD into a $19k/month
- What services do start up companies need most?
- How to keep yourself from overstocking apparel
- Pensions (uk)
- Would an Entrepreneur Dashboard be helpful?
- I want to start a Skincare business
- DomainServiceSite Phishing Scam
| Thank you Thursday! - (January 02, 2020) Posted: 02 Jan 2020 05:08 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: 01 Jan 2020 10:01 PM PST TL:DR STOP GATE KEEPING There was recently a post that had a decent enough response to it that was basically saying to watch out for "get rich quick" ebooks, courses, etc... Which is a very valid point. But the user (thou shalt not be named) went on to say "DoNT StaRT a BuSiNEss" and basically not to buy a single course or anything. LO AND BEHOLD, said user literally had a post on his/her account about how to create your own course... So that's that. My point is this, this isn't the only instance of this sort of mentality in this sub or even amongst the entrepreneur community. I'm not saying this sub is filled to the rim with this sort of thing, it's just something I've noticed in more then one post/thread. A lot of people seem to be sending messages out that basically claim that if you weren't an entrepreneur in the past you'll never be one. Which, I'm sorry to break it you, but that ISNT TRUE. Listen, people come from so many different types of backgrounds that it is literally impossible to make a generalization like that. Some people come from backgrounds where they didn't have the time to even consider building a business or anything because life happens and they were probably too focused on surviving the crazy shit that life throws at people. They didn't have the time to devote hours to research and learning new skills or even to find out what the hell they wanted to do in life or what their interests are to begin with. Honestly, anyone who is a successful entrepreneur consider yourself lucky to be one. It's a blessing. Is entrepreneurship for everyone? No. But you don't have to have been an entrepreneur in the past to start being one now. However, there is no "fast track" to building a successful business. It often take countless hours and even years to cultivate the idea in your head and to build it out in real life. And even then it might fail! But then you pick yourself up and go back at it. There are so many successful entrepreneurs who have failed more times than they have succeeded but they kept pursuing their goals. At times, it can take relentless pursuit to build something you might have thought was "simple" but that's just the name of the game. If there's anyone reading this who has felt discouraged in the past because of a message sent to you similar to the one I've outlined, please do not buy into it. Keep pursuing, be consistent, and persevere. If you don't know where to go to get started with learning the skills you need and dont have the budget for college, here are a few:
Edit: I feel honored to have received my first ever award! Thank you kind stranger or stranger for bestowing it upon me! [link] [comments]  |
| I quit 12 years of government work to start a mushroom farm! - UPDATE! Posted: 02 Jan 2020 11:59 AM PST Hey team, Tom here from Oak and Spore. A few weeks ago I done a write up about my business on this sub which got a week bit of traction and a decent amount of comments. Thanks to everyone who supported me and read my story. Here is the link if anyone missed it and wants to check it out.https://www.reddit.com/r/Entrepreneur/comments/e8mtcr/i_quit_12_years_of_government_work_to_start_a/ Anyway after posting about it on this sub, user u/avemk messaged me and said she happened to be visiting New Zealand and staying in Governors bay, which is just around the road from the farmers market I sell my mushrooms at, and that she would stop in and say hello! Pretty cool having an internet stranger come by your little business. Avery stopped by and had a chat, and it turns out she runs a new podcast which interviews people from different walks of life. She asked if she could interview me for her podcast, which I thought was a fantastic opportunity! We organised a date, and she came to my property to look at my mushroom farm and give me an interview about quitting my job and starting a mushrooms farm. The story covers my life quitting the armed services and Police, and diving head first into a mushroom farm. If you are interested in my stopy please give the podcast a listen.https://www.folktalestudio.ca/grownup/the-mushroom-farmer I would like to tank Avery from Folktale Studio for the opportunity, and I would also like to thank the community here at r/Entrepreneur. Without your guys support for my original story it would never have had the traction to get to the top of the page, where Avery would see it while on holiday, and wind up with me getting interviewed by a rather professional podcaster! Stay cool Entrepreneurs! [link] [comments]  |
| I failed, worked on myself and now i'm starting again. Posted: 02 Jan 2020 08:52 AM PST I wanted to share my story about SoSa. Failure is hard and when you're unhealthy, in a mountain of debt and worried about your "baby" it's really hard to just stop and start looking inwardly. I disappointed a whole community in my breakdown, people lost their jobs and if I had taken some self care it would have never ended that way. Who am i? I'm James!
I'm developing a online community called SoSa, which aims to be a fun, friendly and privacy first community making it easy to socialise online. What Was SoSa I'll start by talking about what SoSa was! Originally called Social Savanna, it was a community made specifically for the imgur community. In 2013 the imgur community were crying out for somewhere they could engage beyond the 140 character limit. At Christmas I was feeling lonely so I posted to see if they really wanted it or was it just a meme / fad? Hundreds of comments and thousands of upvotes later, I got a resounding yes! At the time, I owned a development studio and until my team came back in the new year I started making mockups and playing about with some ideas then posting them to imgur for feedback! Over 3 months we built essentially a chat platform that allowed people to connect, launching in Feb 2014 and in 24 hours we had 15,000 members. In 2015 we opened it up to people outside of Imgur and continued growing. What Went Wrong? My early 20s I didn't do much for self care, I started a business at 22 because I couldn't get in the IT sector! I had no idea how to run a business! So i did what everyone tells you to do — I grinded. My body was already a wreck and I was struggling financially. SoSa was never expected to grow so quickly, along with other pain points that contributed to our downfall:
September 2018 everything came to a head and I needed to bring things to a full stop before I did something I would have regretted. So at about midnight, early September. I said good night to SoSa. New year new me After shutting down SoSa, I sat down and started working out what I needed to do to get things where they should be. Me healthy, my debt cleared and the community back on track. So I wound everything down and started focusing heavily on my weight on my weight, debt and mental health. To date, I have about 60kg in total since 2017 and I am exercising most days, eating mostly right and keeping my mental health in check using a variety of techniques. The debt has finally been cleared and I've saved enough money to give me at-least 6 months working on SoSa. Even if shit does hit the fan! I even made time in early 2019 to meet some members in Dublin, Visit Venice and relax in Barcelona! The first holidays i'd had abroad since 2012! What now? Well, i'm spending the next 6 months developing 2 apps, a website and a desktop application along side the community that stuck around. A few things i've done to make sure I don't fail again:
I'm just finishing my first 2 week sprint, I feel glorious and I have achieved SO much. Hope this helps someone! being dedicated and diligent is important but self care is even more important. Don't burn out. Burn out fucking sucks. There's a bit more than i've posted above on my post on Medium but didn't think it really made sense for the purpose of this post to post it all. James [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 02 Jan 2020 11:41 AM PST Hello fellow adventurers! I finally hit a wall that I haven't hit before. I'm a web dev working on a SaaS but switched gears from development to marketing just to figure out market fit before spending more time on dev. Anyways, I finished all the technical side of things for a mini sales website but now that I need to add content, product features, sales copy, screenshots, etc. I find myself totally clueless. Anything that I write feels like a joke, the mockup screens are not attractive in my opinion, and it all feels like no mater what I do, why would anybody care about my idea... Have you guys been here before? how do you move on? I guess I should just write a crappy draft and just get it done but nothing that I come up with seems good... Anyways, thank you guys! [link] [comments]  |
| Just launched the open beta for my PowerPoint alternative! Posted: 02 Jan 2020 03:44 AM PST Hi all, over the holidays I opened an early public beta for my browser-based PowerPoint alternative, Sizle. Like probably most of you I waited way too long to do this because I was constantly finding things to 'polish' that in hindsight definitely did not need to be for the MVP, but even though it look a long time it was still a good milestone! Bootstrapping at the moment means that I'm growing the beta user base selectively so I don't have enormous dev/cloud overheads, but as part of my beta launch I wanted to post here to get some critical feedback and also because I think Sizle has a lot of use cases for entrepreneurs/startups :) Would love to hear any feedback on the app, landing page or anything else! Also if anyone has any questions about graphic design, the development of the MVP or something else I would be happy to answer them :) [link] [comments]  |
| Who is the wealthiest person you know and what did they do to earn it? Posted: 02 Jan 2020 10:12 AM PST Wealth doesn't necessarily mean money. More like financial freedom and having the TIME to spend it doing what they want to be doing. [link] [comments]  |
| I want to get a sticker machine but will I be making a mistake? Posted: 02 Jan 2020 01:55 PM PST Just wanted to state , no way I consider this to be replacing my job or be depending on this as a major source of money. A local listing has a machine for dispensing stickers (your typical .50 sticker machine https://imgur.com/a/ChQedR1 ). I want to pick it up and do a little maintenance on it. Plan is to fill it up with meme, fortnite, minecraft, video game and other stickers. Cost is $300 for 2 machines. I have $500 to spare for this. The machines hold 4 slots and 1 choice of sticker type for each respectful slot. Checking bulk stickers online is around $50 for a good amount, around $30 for the cardboard sleeves. I can carry these myself as they're not too big and I have an xB that can move them around with ease. My issue would be location, which is vital. There's a Walmart and a local grocery store that has the highest traffic in our town. Both don't have sticker dispensers but I'm not sure how I would go of asking the stores. The grocery market looks more promising as I don't know how I should approach walmart. Both are within 1 mile of my home, so easy maintenance if needed. Am I missing something? Should I avoid this? Or what would be the better approach The machines have a lock and would be places near other toy dispensers. Not expecting to make my money back super fast either. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 02 Jan 2020 01:47 PM PST |
| Posted: 02 Jan 2020 01:42 PM PST Hey Guys, Is there any document describing who is transacting in Georgia based on the rules and as a result is required to file a foreign entity here? The type of business i'm thinking is online consulting services where no commodity whatsoever is involved (i.e. doing business as a broker who matches service needing clients to service providers where the service is some consulting). I'm asking because if I'm not considered to be transacting in the State then I can safely file in certain states with some benefits (e.g. free registration) etc. Thanks [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 02 Jan 2020 01:33 PM PST Hello, just looking for a couple of pointers from those of you with some accounting experience, and apologise in advance for an incredible level of naivety. I have recently started a mobile application development company, and I am quite lost on the financial side of things. In terms of keeping track of everything I need to present to HMRC (based in UK), what do I need? Development won't be complete until ~June, so there won't be any income until at least then. So far, I have been keeping track of all company expenditures, chiefly development costs. I have been keeping the invoices for payments made to freelance developers, and inputting how much money has been spent month by month into quite a crude excel spreadsheet. Most of what I have found on google has been relevant to companies that buy/sell goods or services, but obviously my company has 0 sales, and purchases 0 stock. Will it really be as simple as holding onto proof of my expenditures, and company bank statements showing £0 income? Any advice greatly appreciated! [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 02 Jan 2020 01:27 PM PST Hey everyone, I'm interested in Virtual Assistants and curious as to what business you are in that you utilize them for. I see they are popular for real estate businesses, but wondering what other businesses they fit well into. Also, what tasks do you outsource to them if you do use them? Thanks! [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 02 Jan 2020 01:09 PM PST Without divulging too much information, I have an idea for a site/service/app similar to an "Angieslist" style service, but for a completely different market. In short users can make profiles either as providers or consumers and can search and filter based on their personal requirements to find the best fit for them. I have a very technical background but not so much from a development standpoint. No experience in Entrepreneurship to this point but hoping to change that. Can anyone suggest where to start for building a site that would be capable of what I mentioned above. I fear it may be too specific for a drag and drop style site builder. Any input is greatly appreciated! Any other pointers not website specific is welcomed as well! Thanks in advance EDIT This site will be similar to a directory of service providers, but in more of a social media format. The providers as well as the consumers will create profiles. Providers will be asked to give a certain set of specific details which will essentially work as tags for consumers to easily find them. They can also use their profiles as a promotional area if they choose too. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 02 Jan 2020 12:54 PM PST My partner and I want to start crafting on Etsy. We want to do witchy candles, crystal jewelry, knitting stuff, etc. We just got a cricket so we're going to learn how to use that too. We're both very crafty people and want to start a small business that way to save up for a car, and just bring in a little extra money. But how? What should we start with? What should we do first? Will we actually make money? Homemade things are always stupid expensive, and not a lot of people will buy homemade because of that. So how do we price things reasonably to make a profit? We've never done anything like this before so I don't even know what to ask aha. [link] [comments]  |
| What made you who you are today? Posted: 02 Jan 2020 12:08 PM PST What do you credit the most for helping you become the entrepreneur you are today? (Habit, person, lifestyle, etc) [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 02 Jan 2020 12:01 PM PST Hey there! I am thinking of launching a product that is unlikely to be purchased more than once. The product is children's daycare bedding with a twist on comfort and practicality. Customers would only need to purchase one per child in their entire lives. That seems to be problematic as I would constantly have to grow my market in order to be profitable. I am currently studying baby carrier companies in order to gather info to solve this issue. Any advice with this type of situation? [link] [comments]  |
| How much earning potential is there in an ad-supported "niche wiki" site? Posted: 02 Jan 2020 11:47 AM PST Similar to the niche wikis found on Fandom, I've thought about starting my own ad-supported site for a niche I'm interested in. A few notes:
What I'm not familiar with is how much revenue these types of sites typically generate, and if it would be worth the time effort for me. Outside of initial creation, I've estimated my work to be 120 hours per year for updates and maintenance. If I priced my time at $20/hour, that would bring me to $2400/year. If I were able to average 1000 visitors per week (adjusted for slow period), that would require just under 5 cents of income per visit, which sadly seems unfeasible. Would love some feedback or ideas on how to generate sufficient income to reach my goal. [link] [comments]  |
| Turning my PTSD into a $19k/month Posted: 02 Jan 2020 08:00 AM PST Hey - Pat from StarterStory.com here with another interview. Today's interview is with James Rosone of Front Line Publishing Inc, a brand that makes military and espionage thrillers Some stats:
Hello! Who are you and what business did you start?Hello. It's great to virtually meet you all. My name is James Rosone and I are a thriller author and co-owner of Front Line Publishing Inc. I write military, political, and espionage thrillers, though I'm currently working on a military sci-fi series. My wife and I have published sixteen books, with another four more somewhere in the editing process, getting ready to be released over the next eight months. When I released my first book in December 2015, I was writing as a form of PTSD therapy. That month I earned $78 dollars. However, my most successful month as an author, December 2018, I earned $47,365 in a single month. Right now, if we include audibles, I believe we're averaging somewhere around $19,000 a month, so we've done pretty well in the self-publishing space considering how long we've been writing. What's your backstory and how did you come up with the idea?Before I was a writer, I served ten years in the Army and Air Force, and then followed that up with another eight years as a contractor for the Department of Defense and the State Department. During that time, I lived for 3.5 years in Iraq and 3.5 years in Germany, and spent most of that time involved in hunting and capturing terrorists across the globe. Although the reality was quite different from Jack Bauer in 24, I held a unique job in the military as an interrogator. I'd spend twelve to sixteen hours a day interrogating Al Qaeda prisoners, and we'd use the information to capture or kill the rest of their terrorist cells throughout the country. It was an incredibly intense job. I'd go from huge emotional highs when we'd capture a top 10 high-value individual to immense lows when members of our capture teams would get injured or killed. It was a pure adrenaline junky job, right at the tip of the spear. I've interrogated a Saddam Hussein body double that I swore was really him. Other detainees I interviewed ranged from the top five members of the Al Qaeda organization in Iraq all the way down to a fourteen-year-old kid placing an improvised explosive device on the side of a road. Looking back on my time in Iraq, I have mixed emotions about it. I was honored to have served my country and I would do it again in a heartbeat. I'm also torn up at times with the guilt that I could have or should have done more. We lost twenty-six service members on missions derived from my interrogations, and more than a hundred were injured. I kept asking myself if I could have done something different, maybe asked another question or pushed a prisoner a little harder. Would it have changed the outcome? I struggled with that really hard when I left Iraq. When I stopped working for the government, I fell into a deep depression and my PTSD symptoms became so overwhelming it was hard for me to deal with them in a constructive way. I lost interest in the things that I once loved. However, one hobby I still enjoyed was reading. I became a prolific reader, often devouring one or two books a week. I enjoyed military thrillers, spy thrillers, and sci-fi the most. However, I found myself annoyed with some of the writing. To me, it lacked realism and authenticity. It's not that the authors didn't try—many of them did a decent job—but it seemed like they were just writing about stuff they'd never personally experienced. At best, they'd probably read about these topics. One day when I was talking with my VA counselor, he asked me a question: "Why don't you try writing therapy?" It had never occurred to me that writing might help with my own PTSD symptoms. I kicked the idea around for a couple of years and wrote some things but never published them. Then, in February of 2015, I hit an emotional dead end. I suddenly found myself laid off just as my security clearance was in the process of being renewed. When my security clearance inevitably expired, all my chances of continuing to work in a classified environment also faded into the wind. For me, that had been my life, my purpose, my mission—and it was all suddenly taken from me. I fell into an even deeper depression and really struggled with thoughts of suicide at that point. I had a wife and two kids now, but I had no immediate means to support them. I sat there for one night in the dark thinking to myself, "Wow, I'm honestly worth more dead than alive." Then I remembered what the counselor said to me a few years before, and the next day, I set off on a course to write the type of books that I liked to read. Take us through the process of designing, prototyping, and manufacturing your first product.Every author has their own style. Some people spend days or weeks prewriting a story. I would describe myself as more of a "Pantser," meaning I tend to write by the seat of my pants. I'll craft up an idea for a series with a start point and an endpoint. Now, how can I get from a to z is a constantly evolving process. When I outline a chapter, it's usually only two or three bullet points. Once that basic outline is written, and it's not much, I start to fill it in with the story. When I write my books, I tend to write to them with three perspectives in mind:
My wife and I are a co-authoring team. We write and produce all of our books together, and at this point, we've become a pretty good team. I personally love it. We get to collaborate, and we work from home. We get to spend a lot of time with our kids, go to their school events, spend extra time with them or handle other appointments as needed all while working around our writing. Here's how the process works for us. When I finish writing the book, I handed it off to my wife. She then goes in and adds some extra flair to the characters, makes sure the pacing of the books is good, completes a first-round edit and then coordinates and handles all of the editing changes from our professional editor and our beta reader team. While she's working on book one, I'm already burning through book two, when I finish book two, I hand it off to my wife and then I start book three. At this point, book one is nearing completion with the editing process, which is when we put book one up for a 90-day pre-order. We have essentially created a writing assembly line, with a book coming out every 90-days once we start the cycle. Then it's just a matter of us keeping up with the pace we've set and working to ensure we maintain the quality of what we're producing. We'd rather delay the launch of a pre-order than have to sacrifice on quality. We view writing as a business, and as such, we want to make sure the brand we're building is known for producing good quality books, not rapidly published books riddled with errors and story plot holes because we didn't take the time to do a couple of layers of quality proofs. Describe the process of launching the business.When I first started self-publishing, our start-up costs were relatively low. I found a book cover artist on Fiverr to produce a cover for under $100, and we were off to the races. As we've become more successful, our costs have grown. We now spend $300-$500 on the cover art. Initially, we spent very little on marketing, but now our average budget is between $2,000-$3,000 monthly. Once we could afford to move beyond our beta team for editing, we also started working with a professional editor, and each pass of a manuscript runs roughly $1,800. There are networking conferences that we now attend; for example, last year we went to Politicon for research. However, each of these expenses was added as we had the capital to do so. When I first started releasing books, I began to network with our readers on Facebook by creating a World War III series page. As I continued to post articles of interest about the military and emerging technologies, the followership grew, and I was eventually able to create ads using a lookalike audience for that group. I did make an error in naming the page after the series; had I known that Facebook does not allow renaming of pages, I would have originally created an author page. As it is, we are still trying to build our author page to the same level of followers as our series page. Back in 2016, Facebook ads were much more effective, but now, I do a lot more of my advertising on the Amazon Marketing Services platform. Then, this year, something changed on the algorithm with AMS, and many authors I've connected with say that this year's costs on marketing have increased dramatically while sales have also decreased. We ended up financing the recording of some of our audibles with credit cards due to the declining sales, which is something I wish we could do-over. Each audible recording is around $4,000 for us unless it is worked out with a royalty sharing agreement, so a few of those can really eat away at our profits. On the other hand, the audible market is growing tremendously, and we didn't want to lose out on that potential income. About a year ago, we discovered that although our works are copyrighted, there are a large number of websites on the dark web that attempt to sell our works illegally. There aren't enough hours in the day to track down all of the piracy that happens out there, so I would highly recommend using a site like Blasty.com, which sends cease and desist letters to all of these scamming sites and works with search optimization algorithms to make sure that these results do not readily populate when someone searches for your book. Since launch, what has worked to attract and retain customers?The biggest strategy that we have used to capitalize on reader buy-through of our books is our 90-day rapid release strategy. Each time we release a book, we have the link for the pre-order of the next book in the back matter, ready to go. Now, this does require us to crank out books at a rapid clip, but we've managed to grow our followership substantially without investing as much in growing an email distribution list. Another strategy we've implemented is asking readers for feedback. When we receive messages from readers who are critical or receive one-star reviews (these are inevitable), we have contacted that person and politely asked them how we could improve our work for the future. By not taking it personally and being willing to listen, we've even managed to turn some of our more critical readers into some very helpful beta readers. Finally, we've been very active in engaging our fans on social media. We've offered to allow fans to name characters and have at times, even asked for input in crafting our stories. This is vital in taking a group that might be casual observers into a collection of superfans. How are you doing today and what does the future look like?Our business is still profitable and allows us to pay our bills without taking on a standard 9 to 5 job. As I mentioned above, there have been some challenges. Recent algorithm shifts for Facebook and AMS have made marketing less cost-effective. A popular advertising site, BookBub, which used to promote a wide range of books, now has shifted away from self-published authors and toward traditionally published authors as well. So we need to constantly change and adapt. We have spreadsheets for entering our books into contests, we've been looking into how to get our books into the library system, and we are trying to see if we can get our books into Army surplus stores. We will be trying something completely new and set up a table at one of the local gun shows as well. We are having to get creative and utilize a little guerilla marketing, but we are ready to meet this challenge head-on. In addition to these new avenues of marketing, we are trying to leverage our connections with other authors to cross-promote our books. Because there are so many readers out there who consume books so rapidly, we are not really in direct competition. None of us can produce stories of high quality fast enough to keep up with the readers, so it makes sense to partner together. We've put a significant amount of hours and financial investment into having our books turned into audibles this year. We are looking into different ways to promote audiobooks since listeners find their next books in different ways than readers do. This is a rapidly growing market, but the advertising industry hasn't quite caught up with the demand in this field, so more work remains to be done on our end to capitalize on the expanding need for new audio content. Through starting the business, have you learned anything particularly helpful or advantageous?When I first started writing, I honestly didn't know what I was doing. I didn't understand marketing, I didn't understand the need for even a basic author website or the need to create an author mailing list. I didn't actually start creating an author mailing list until I was two years into this business. When I began creating my mailing list, I used the conventional wisdom at the time and tried to give away snippets of my books for free. Many authors do this, and will even give away entire novels just to get people to sign up. However, I quickly learned that those who are seeking free items will usually unsubscribe once they receive their freebie, or will seldom open future emails. I was rather discouraged when I saw this happening, so I changed my strategy. I now grow my mailing list exclusively through the links in the backmatter of my books. I don't list build like many other authors do. My current list is somewhat small, right around 2,500, but it's highly active, with an open rate of 70% or higher. Each time I send an email out, which is usually around once a month, I can generate between $500 and $2,500 per email. So while my list is small, it generates me money. It does grow, just much slower than what some of my author friends' lists do. One thing I'd like to stress to people is that although I'm being transparent and open with how well our sales have gone, you have to understand this didn't happen overnight. This is the result of a lot of incredibly hard work and sacrifice. I write every day and every week like I'm going to be homeless at the end of every month if I don't reach certain writing goals. I don't watch TV, I seldom go to the movies, and aside from playing with my three kids who are all under the age of six, I have no personal life. I work like a beast. I write seven days a week with maybe two or three days off a month. I write on average five to twelve hours a day. When I'm not writing, I'm reading other books in my genre to learn from them, I'm watching MasterClass.com learn from other successful authors, or I'm listening to marketing and business podcasts or YouTube videos. I'm constantly learning or working. I'm not going to maintain this schedule forever, but I am going to maintain it until I've hit a certain level of financial freedom. I think a lot of authors would look at my numbers and think they could easily replicate it, but I want to be clear—I often put in eighty to one hundred hour work weeks to make it happen. I research my subjects, interview, and talk with people, and really study up on what I'm writing about. That requires a lot of effort and time. I do believe a lot of people could reproduce these results, but most aren't willing to put this level of dedication into it. What platform/tools do you use for your business?I use a couple of platforms to market our books. I initially started out using Facebook. That has worked in the past but frankly, they've made so many changes to the platform that I've found it hard to really keep pace with it and make it profitable. At this point, 90% of my ad spend is done on Amazon's AMS platform. I typically spend around $3,000 a month on marketing with the bulk of it on AMS. I do, however, use Facebook when I launch a book which is around every 90-days. Most of my Facebook campaigns will usually last around two weeks before I flip back to using Amazon exclusively again. What have been the most influential books, podcasts, or other resources?From the beginning, I began networking with fellow authors. I've heard mentors say that "fortune favors the bold," so I constantly approach people on social media and try to pick their brains about how they've become as successful as they have. Surprisingly, many authors have not only responded, but have been very helpful. This has led to some very good leads on book cover artists, editors, and other services, and introduced me to Mark Dawson's Self-Publishing Formula group. Joining the SPF community has by far created the biggest impact in our publishing business and its profitability. In addition to joining the SPF group, there are several books I've read that have been very influential. One to mention is Brian Meeks' book on Amazon Marketing Services advertising. As you can see in the chart above, each of these events led to marked changes in profits. Advice for other entrepreneurs who want to get started or are just starting out?If you want to get into writing, then you need to sit down and ask yourself a couple of questions:
There are two types of authors: hobbyists who write for fun and entertainment, and authors who view this as a business. There is no right or wrong author to be. It's a personal decision you have to make. If your goal is to publish books for fun and making money isn't the priority, then that is great. If, however, you want this to be your main source of income to support your family, then you have to take this very seriously. You have to develop a game plan and then execute it. I made a LOT of mistakes when I first started out. I didn't know the first thing about building an email list, I didn't have an author page and I had no clue how to write book descriptions, what made a good book cover or how to market my books. I spent hours and hours on YouTube trying to self-teaching myself these skills, but it wasn't until I learned about Mark Dawson's SPF program and then read Brian Meeks book on understanding Amazon Marketing Service or AMS ads that things really took off. The best advice I could give to any new author or someone wanting to become an author is to find a mentor. Find an author who produces good quality works and has a track record of success and then see if they will help you in your journey. I've done this with several new authors who wanted to get into the game. I share openly my failures, my successes, and what I wish someone would have told me when I first started getting into this business myself. You need to have someone else walk alongside you. Are you looking to hire for certain positions right now?This is a tough question. While we aren't looking to hire a full-time employee currently, I certainly have areas I need business help in. A couple of areas I'm always looking for help in are beta readers. Our books tend to have a lot of technical details in them, so we have a large team that reads our books before they are released and helps us make sure we get those details right. Another job I desperately need help in is marketing and research. When I hire someone for a job, I tend to pay by the project. My last big project was creating 5,000 keywords for our AMS marketing plan. It wasn't hard work, but it was tedious and time-consuming. Right now, I am certainly in need of someone who can help me with ways to increase our audiobook marketing or who is knowledgeable on getting books into the library system. It's all telework, so if you have the internet, a laptop, and a cell phone, you would be able to accomplish the task. If you're interested in a part-time job or a job that pays by project, make sure to look me up. 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]  |
| What services do start up companies need most? Posted: 02 Jan 2020 11:26 AM PST So I was wondering what kind of services do start up companies need mostly from other companies? I'm not talking about outsourcing your work, I'm talking about like getting documentation ready for CE certificates for your products, copyright registration and filling, applying for patents, and all other different jobs that startups rely on other companies [link] [comments]  |
| How to keep yourself from overstocking apparel Posted: 02 Jan 2020 11:14 AM PST I'm almost ready to launch my private label scrubs company which I designed from the ground up and everything has been going pretty well, with a few hiccups along the way. There is however one issue I am having. We had a focus group of ~15 people who would be our typical customers and quite a few of them are opposed to the idea of a certain pocket type (6 out of 15) but this would mean adding an additional sku when were already buying quite a lot of product to begin with. This would half the amount of pants, which in some sizes (plus sizes for example) would severely limit the amount on the initial order. What methods have you utilized to ensure you won't run out of product? Our factory requires a pretty high minimum order, which creates another layer of difficulty. Am I worrying about this too much? What were some tactics or systems you've used to solve problems such as these? Thanks again as always guys! Excited to have so many successful entrepreneurs to bounce ideas off of! [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 02 Jan 2020 11:04 AM PST Hello everyone, I am 20 years old and in my second year of business, despite being told it's a bad idea, grossed £70,000 for a net profit of £53,000ish. I thought this was brilliant and has given me a boost and the confidence to carry on (I had set a goal of £30,000 profit this year so I am very happy with this and being so young I feel very succesful!) I started my business with outside investment from friends and family and have now been advised to start saving into a pension by my grandfather. What pensions do other uk based self-employed use? I have been on money saving expert and a few other sites which recommend NEST pensions but to be honest I am very clueless! Thanks for some advice, happy new year [link] [comments]  |
| Would an Entrepreneur Dashboard be helpful? Posted: 02 Jan 2020 10:38 AM PST I'm sick of having tabs open, outlook, trello, to do lists, etc. It seems an Entrepreneur Dashboard would be helpful. Anyone agree? Anyone want one? Might you take 2-3 minutes and answer this survey? [link] [comments]  |
| I want to start a Skincare business Posted: 02 Jan 2020 10:17 AM PST I don't know anything about starting a business or creating beauty products. However, I strongly believe that I have a very good idea that can address specific consumer concerns. Any advice in general or on the steps I should take going forward? [link] [comments]  |
| DomainServiceSite Phishing Scam Posted: 02 Jan 2020 10:06 AM PST This might be old news, at least according to some phishing alert sites, but just appeared in my company's domain email inbox, and wanted to share to this sub. TL;DR: https://www.phishingbox.com/news/phishing-news/phishing-alert-the-domain-name-renewal-scam This is the 2nd email with a link to DomainServiceSite.com. None of my domains are expiring or are about to. [link] [comments]  |
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