Thank you Thursday! - (January 09, 2020) Entrepreneur |
- Thank you Thursday! - (January 09, 2020)
- If you read only 10 startup books in 2020, here are my top 10 favorite books I’d recommend to help you from idea to scale
- People who have quit their jobs to work full-time at your own business, how's it going?
- Importing alcohol - import/export help?
- I want to learn how to buy stock and invest my money.
- We Generated $3k Revenue With No Product Or Business
- Would you be interested in an app that helps students look for the university that suits them?
- Building a classic menswear brand, any advice?
- Is becoming a real estate agent a viable career if end game is investment?
- People who started a Consulting business, how's it going so far?
- How would I get a list of every active home builder in CA?
- How much should I pay the artist?
- School fees
- How To Be A Snapchat Publisher/Create Content For Discover?
- What is a good online resource or book to learn Capital Allocation in depth ?
- I need a roofing agreement and construction contract ASAP. Where do I look?
- [plz help] Advanced email campaign problem that I just CAN'T figure out
- New Consulting Company Launched
- HELPP New businss owner - need advice on suppliers/freigh forwarders
- Feedback on my website?
- Where do we start?
- I sent a promotional package to my clients via courrier this week with a call to action (I set their deadline to the 21st January). What shall I do now ?
- Global Background check recommendations?
- Tiny retail space, ideas please
| Thank you Thursday! - (January 09, 2020) Posted: 09 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: 09 Jan 2020 09:05 AM PST "It is what you read when you don't have to that determines what you will be when you can't help it." - Oscar Wilde Words have the power to change us. While articles are a healthy part of any information diet, books often reflect a deeper wealth of wisdom. (It's quite an accomplishment to put 200 or more pages-worth of witty words of wisdom together). If you read only 10 startup books in 2020, here's what I'd recommend you read... PS - There are no affiliate links below. I recommend only books I've read and feel would be valuable to entrepreneurs. 10. The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz*Why Buy: *Business is difficult. Especially as the CEO of your startup. Ben Horowitz has been there and back as the CEO of Opsware, product manager of Netscape, and venture capital co-founder of Andreessen Horowitz. Pros: In The Hard Thing About Hard Things, Horowitz gets into the nitty-gritty details of managing a company. He covers topics like firing employees, the dangers of promoting the wrong people (and the right people at the wrong time) and managing the company and yourself. Cons: Until you're managing employees, this book may not be valuable until you plan on doing so. Further, some of the high-stress moments were self-inflicting from taking venture capital. The profanity in this book may be off-putting to you too (one use of the "n" word, several uses of the "f" word, and several other cuss words sprinkled in it). 9. Built to Sell by John WarrillowWhy Buy: Even if you have no intention of selling your business, it's valuable to know what you should do to remove yourself from being a bottleneck in your business. Pros: Built to Sell gives you the mindset and strategy to make sure you spend more time working on your business rather than in your business. Cons: Unless you've got a lot of capital to invest in employees, you need to be the bottleneck to do the work. That said, even as a one-person business, standardizing your business will help streamline your productivity. 8. Monetizing Innovation by Madhavan Ramanujam and Georg TackeWhy Buy: Pricing your product right is often an overlooked growth lever. A $10/month product would pull in $1,420 a month in revenue if you reinvest all revenue into acquiring more customers (yay compounding interest!). But bumping up your product to $29/month would pull in over $1.1 million a month! That's 819x more monthly revenue. Pros: Monetizing Innovation is the best book I've read on pricing strategy. Some books only talk about the psychology of pricing or tell you to optimize for "value-based pricing." This book goes over several elements of pricing strategy and why you should pick one strategy over another. Some of the principles I talk about on pricing strategies I've borrowed from this book. Cons: Some of the principles aren't easy to apply without several potential customers to do a price-test. This is why I recommend you use the Van Westendorp pricing method to find the acceptable price range of your potential customers. 7. The Goal by Eliyahu Goldratt and Jeff CoxWhy Buy: Business operations are an often overlooked part of building a healthy company. Pros: Yes, the cover of The Goal looks like a boring business book from the '80s. But you'll find the story inside to be very compelling and insightful on how to operate a company. There were a few counter-intuitive principles Goldratt teaches, such as why having employees doing nothing is a necessary part of business efficiency. Cons: You may find the story used in the book a little unrealistic at times. But there are moments when the story does help paint a clear picture of the importance of the core concept. 6. What's Best Next by Matt PermanWhy Buy: Entrepreneurs often lack a clear sense of purpose in what they are doing and why. What's Best Next will give necessary clarity on productivity, understanding your life goal, and your life mission without all the fluff I've read from other books on this topic. If you have an open mind, this book comes at productivity and purpose from a Christian perspective. Pros: Having a clear mission and life goal has been my greatest source of motivation. This book inspired Growth Ramp's mission to help 1,000 entrepreneurs from idea to scale, along with several other life goals I am pursuing. I've gifted and recommended this book to fellow entrepreneurs the most. Cons: The last 1/3 of the book on Perman's productivity system wasn't super insightful. Further while having a life mission and goal is a great motivation, in itself it won't pay your bills. Like a few other books on this list, that's not the fault of the author, but the necessary limited scope of this book. 5. Never Split the Difference by Chris RossWhy Buy: Whether you're selling yourself to a co-founder, selling your idea to an investor, or selling your product to a customer, you need to know how to sell. Negotiation is a critical and often overlooked part of successful sales. Pros: Never Split the Difference provides a gripping story in one chapter, followed by a valuable negotiation lesson in the next chapter. I used one suggestion in this book to retain ~$3,000 MRR in one negotiation. Cons: I put this in position #5 because of its importance to starting a successful startup, not because the topic isn't covered well. As important as negotiating is, you still only need it in the area of formal and informal sales. 4. Positioning by Jack Trout and Al RiesWhy Buy: If you struggle to separate your startup from the competition, Positioning is an excellent primer to point you in the right direction. Pros: Much of the fundamental principles of positioning come from this book. You'll learn about principles like why you should be #1 in your market, what to do when you're #2, and why market leaders attempt to own a single word. Cons: Trout and Ries don't share many specific how-to details in this book. Much of the data also seems to suffer from survivorship bias as they only mention what works after-the-fact. Honorable Mention: Marketing Warfare, 20th Anniversary Edition by Jack Trout and Al Ries. This book dives deeper into positioning and gives some how-to guidance. Like Positioning, this book also suffers from survivorship bias. 3. Traction by Gabriel Weinberg and Justin Mares*Why Buy: *Having a great product is one thing. Having traction is quite another. Pros: Gabriel Weinberg and Justin Mares pull their experience of creating and growing successful startups. The duo then interviewed over 40 founders and pooled their knowledge to help entrepreneurs learn what it takes to get customers in their book, Traction. Weinberg and Mare's work inspired my article of the 12 core marketing channels. You'll find a lot of solid ideas to test and frameworks to apply in this book to help you get your first 1,000 customers and scale from there. *Cons: *What's missing from this book is understanding the messaging you need to get traction. There's a chance you may stumble upon the right words you should use to sell more product. But I don't like leaving anything to chance. 2. Reality in Advertising by Rosser Reeves*Why Buy: *Do you want to improve your messaging? Yet do you hate all the over-the-top copywriting which screams "BUY NOW!!!" in bold red letters and yellow highlighter? If so, you'll likely connect with Rosser Reeves's copywriting philosophy as I have from reading Reality in Advertising. Reeves was one of the greatest American advertising executives very few people know about today, which is a shame. In addition to popularizing the power of a strong USP, Reeve's career highlights include creating:
Marketing legend David Ogilvy spoke highly of his mentor Reeves, saying, "Reeves taught me more about advertising than anybody I've ever known." (Source) Pros: Reality in Advertising has a lot of solid information on USPs and general information on marketing. Reeves takes a similar philosophy on marketing as I do: emotional marketing is valuable (e.g. brand image, video, "originality," and "creativity."). But a clear message which sells is more valuable to increasing sales. Cons: Some of Reeves's case studies to back up his claims has very little verifiable evidence. Still, some of what he teaches aligns with my experience, so I won't throw out all claims he makes. 1. The Lean Product Playbook by Dan Olsen*Why Buy: *Nearly everything I wish The Lean Startup covered, Dan Olsen covers in his phenomenal book, The Lean Product Playbook. Olsen was a product leader at Intuit, one of the first tech companies to create a culture of the importance of creating customer-first products. He's also consulted for Facebook, Box, and Medallia as a product manager. Much of his experience shines through in this book. Pros: Throughout the book, Olsen provides a lot of frameworks and step-by-step advice on how to create a successful product. Olsen covers a lot of ground in his book, including:
Cons: I felt Olsen lacked on the marketing-side as a product manager (i.e. product marketing). His discussion on creating customer personas wasn't thorough and the information on marketing MVP tests was rather thin. His focus is very SaaS-centric, but I've used Olsen's principles for non-SaaS products and they still work. [link] [comments]  |
| People who have quit their jobs to work full-time at your own business, how's it going? Posted: 09 Jan 2020 01:46 PM PST People who have quit their jobs to work full-time at your own business, how's it going? [link] [comments]  |
| Importing alcohol - import/export help? Posted: 09 Jan 2020 12:59 PM PST Hello, I am wanting to research and learn more about importing alcoholic beverages into the United States. These would be coming from the EU. Are there any good resources that I can look into that would cover restrictions, and other basic knowledge? Honestly I am just looking for a place to start, not sure where. [link] [comments]  |
| I want to learn how to buy stock and invest my money. Posted: 09 Jan 2020 02:30 PM PST I am still in the midst of doing more research in regards to investing in stock, following 'up and coming' companies, etc. I have invested money in different types of Crypto using the app CoinBase. This time I want to start expanding my investments. I was wondering, is there an app or website where I can sign up and have my own wallet with all my Crypto in the one place as well as other stock I want to invest in. I mainly want to buy and/or sell fractional stock as some stocks are out of my price range to buy 'whole'. If there is an app, can I buy any stock from companies such as Facebook or a VR company for example or even gold or silver? and can i transfer all my Crypto to my new wallet? Costs to sign up? Subscription cost? Any for free or little cost? or is it worth paying for a well known and safe trading company. Is buying stock the same as buying Crypto? I reside in Australia if that helps. If I am misinformed about anything, please inform and teach me your ways :) Not too much jargon please. [link] [comments]  |
| We Generated $3k Revenue With No Product Or Business Posted: 09 Jan 2020 01:53 PM PST Hey /r/entrepreneur! I've been lurking for several years here, and have always appreciated hearing from everyone here how they went about starting their businesses. I've always been bad at sharing things with people, but as my resolution for this decade, I want to open up and give back in the hopes of helping others just as so many here have helped me. Even though our win might not be quite as big as some others here, I hope it helps inspire some of you on the fence to start your businesses. Some backstory: I've been working at a startup for the past few years that has been backed by investors, meaning that any new initiatives we ran had funding available for them. It was fantastic. I grew a lot, and gained a lot of experience. But increasingly over time, I came to want to launch a business of my own. However, there was one major thing stopping me: funding. I've never been the type to "raise money" from investors. Those words carried a heavy weight with them and a lot of added responsibility to deal with which would prevent me from doing what I love which is working on the business itself. But without funding, it'd be hard to start a new business. And unfortunately, I wouldn't be able to fund it myself due to living off of a small startup salary for the past few years. Fast forward to the end of 2019: I began to realize that I had gained more than enough experience to launch a business of my own, and at the same time, also grew to understand that businesses DO NOT need to raise millions of dollars to succeed. In fact, I foresee a trend in the 2020s towards lifestyle businesses/startups that have greater focus on profitability over the hockey-stick growth model that has been popular over the past decade with startups like WeWork, Uber, etc. Understanding that allowed me to set better expectations for myself and my business in terms of growth trajectory. This is when I decided to take the leap. How We Did It: Honestly, getting to $3,000 in revenue happened a LOT faster than I expected. And I think that if we had put more effort in, it could have been quite higher. We selected a product that we knew that many people would love and was of high quality. This is important because it meant it would appeal to a greater number of people and we could charge a higher price for it. You could replicate this with whatever industry you're an expert in, and finding a product that only you would be able to find. Once we had a product that we knew would work, the next step is finding the money to make an initial purchase. Unfortunately, money is what we don't have. So what we did next was simple. We put together a Facebook group and invited friends and family that we knew would be interested in purchasing to it. As some of you digital marketers may know, Facebook is heavily emphasizing groups right now as the digital marketing space is gravitating to private groups and messaging communities (Telegram, WhatsApp, Slack, Messenger, paywalled email newsletters, etc). That makes it the perfect way of gathering your initial customers who will provide you with the seed funding you need to launch your business - and who better than friends and family? After inviting several friends and family into the group, we began to post information that we knew they would find valuable. Things like:
After a week, we made a post asking people to comment with their orders. We ended up taking away an amount that we could use to reinvest into the business to fund additional inventory that we could re-sell to generate an expected $6,000+ in revenue. What's Next: We're about to place our first order with our supplier and expect to ship out to our seed customers in the next 2-4 weeks. At this time, all orders will be packaged in generic packaging with custom packaging expected to be ready in time for a second inventory order. After that, we're ready to go live with our site and start running ads and doing other forms of marketing. Now, I know that $3,000 may not be much to many people here, but it's very meaningful to us and allows us to start our business BEFORE having to put down any money ourselves AND we receive valuable feedback from customers that allow us to iterate before we go live to the general public. Although this method may not be right for some or even most people, I think that if you want to start a lifestyle business vs. a hockey-stick startup, this is an often overlooked method of starting a new business. Hope this inspired even one of you to get started on your own business - let me know if you have any questions, I'd be happy to help! [link] [comments]  |
| Would you be interested in an app that helps students look for the university that suits them? Posted: 09 Jan 2020 05:12 AM PST Tired of surfing the internet looking for universities? So did we. Hence we are introducing Prep which will help you auto or manually search for various institutions, helping you prepare for them. [link] [comments]  |
| Building a classic menswear brand, any advice? Posted: 09 Jan 2020 12:03 PM PST I'm currently designing and producing a line of 1890s inspired bow ties and cravats, and I've secured a trunk show with a local gallery owner that wants to sell and market my product. Any advice going forward? [link] [comments]  |
| Is becoming a real estate agent a viable career if end game is investment? Posted: 09 Jan 2020 11:52 AM PST If I plan to own real estate investments as a viable source of income in my later years (hopefully sooner) would becoming a realtor be beneficial to me? I'm 24 years old, I've been a mechanic for the last 5 years and the toll it's taken on my body is misery at this point. I've never really been interested in being a mechanic it's just what I grew up knowing. I've always been interested in real estate investing and investing in general for a long time. The older I get and the more financial literacy I learn, I'm learning that my current career choice is not the direction I want to go in. Don't get me wrong, I love working on cars. I enjoy it more when I can do it on my own time and not rely on it as my income. So my question is, would it be worth changing careers towards a real estate agent than staying in my current field to pursue my investment career [link] [comments]  |
| People who started a Consulting business, how's it going so far? Posted: 09 Jan 2020 02:40 PM PST |
| How would I get a list of every active home builder in CA? Posted: 09 Jan 2020 10:44 AM PST I have a family company and we need to find every active home builder in CA. Would it be better to pay someone to look this up or pay to buy a list of all builders? Is there even a way to do that? [link] [comments]  |
| How much should I pay the artist? Posted: 09 Jan 2020 02:23 PM PST I want to create an instagram where I hire someone to create art and sell the art in poster form if anyone is interested. But like sometimes I hear artists complaining that they don't get paid shit compared to the person selling their art. But isn't this how business and employee works in general? Everyone creates some kind of value for their boss/company and gets paid only a small fraction of the company's earnings. I was thinking to just hire someone to create me art on a full-time basis/per piece of art. Is this reasonable/ethical? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 09 Jan 2020 02:14 PM PST Any Entrepreneurs out there who wanna help a 14 yr old girl join high school? She is from a poor family and needs $1000 [link] [comments]  |
| How To Be A Snapchat Publisher/Create Content For Discover? Posted: 09 Jan 2020 01:50 PM PST I am wondering how I can start a Snapchat channel that is in the "For You" section? (The sections that I believe used to be called "Discover". I am referencing the section that is below the "Subscriptions" section.) There are obviously a lot of channels in this section from companies/individuals/personal brands. How can I do this? I cannot find any information about this online. [link] [comments]  |
| What is a good online resource or book to learn Capital Allocation in depth ? Posted: 09 Jan 2020 01:29 PM PST Hi .. I'd like to understand the concept of capital allocation more in depth with some real world examples. What are some good resources to learn this ? Thanks [link] [comments]  |
| I need a roofing agreement and construction contract ASAP. Where do I look? Posted: 09 Jan 2020 01:23 PM PST I see a few premises online. I also have one from a company we recently worked for that I could rewrite with our info- it's already been reviewed by an attorney. Do I need to run everything by an attorney? I'm in a bind and need this done by Tuesday I believe. Any advice is appreciated. [link] [comments]  |
| [plz help] Advanced email campaign problem that I just CAN'T figure out Posted: 09 Jan 2020 01:19 PM PST I would consider myself somewhat experienced in marketing and email automation but this problem I just can't find an answer to. I send out the same email campaign on behalf of my clients however each campaign has to have their unique branding and be sent out from their own domain to a list that is attached to them. The problem is that even though it is the same email with the same content I still need to create a separate X amount of duplicate campaigns and change from:, change logo, change audience, press send. Let's say daily blast on behalf of 100 different clients, the wasted man-hours on that would be insane! I'm essentially looking for a way to create a white label email campaign, hit send, and it automatically does everything above. Is there an email service platform that would allow me something like that? Should it be done through IFTT or some sort of webhooks? I have a clear need but can't wrap my mind around a way or software that would resolve it. [link] [comments]  |
| New Consulting Company Launched Posted: 09 Jan 2020 01:15 PM PST Please check out my website rmwaltoninc.com. I just launched my new business in 2020 and looking for advice and feedback. Leave your comments below. Keep it clean. [link] [comments]  |
| HELPP New businss owner - need advice on suppliers/freigh forwarders Posted: 09 Jan 2020 01:07 PM PST Hi Everyone! I'm trying to start an online clothing and apparel business. I'm based in Canada and my supplier for my wholesale clothing ad apparel is based in the US. I chose them because the Canadian wholesalers have a very small range of selection of products (very limited colours etc). So the Supplier I'm working with in the states requires me to have a freight forwarder so they can ship my orders to their location in the states so that they can then ship it to me in Canada. I set up an account with DHL express but my account manager doesn't seem to think they do it this way (as in getting it shipped to them to ship it to me). Any advice on if anyone knows if DHL does in fact do this or if anyone knows of another freight forwarder that can do this for me? Thank you!!! [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 09 Jan 2020 12:42 PM PST Recently launched a line of bath products. Have had some sales since launch in late November, but I am seeing a lot of traffic bounce when looking at the analytics. All marketing efforts have been on FB or IG so far. Site has been live for about 45 days and I've seen just over $400 in sales. Wondering if anyone would be willing to give honest feedback? Opinions? Thoughts? Ways to improve? I'm happy to receive any feedback - site, pricing, etc. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 09 Jan 2020 12:27 PM PST I don't even know where to start, but here it goes. I'm sorry if this will make little or no sense! Wife and I feeling stuck in life because we want more from life other than the ordinary "9-5" job. We never went to uni and we have no career that we could follow, or potentially want. We have no passions/hobbies and we are not good at anything that could be put into a job. We want to have something of our own, but we simply don't know where to start. We are not experts in anything. We don't know what to do and we feel stuck, which is really affecting our mental wellbeing. Also, we have no friends, which doesn't help, because we have no one to discuss this and put it out there, other than discussing it between ourselves. We have the willingness of doing something with our lives but we are missing the "what" in the equation, and it's really frustrating because the intention is there but we are lacking on everything one needs to start something of their own. We are so tired of feeling this way, stuck and afraid that we just need to cope with the fact that we will have to work a "9-5" job for the rest of our lives and just deal with it. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 09 Jan 2020 12:16 PM PST Hi guys So, I found an original way to promote my service and sent it via courier. Some clients received it this Wednesday and others will receive it this Friday and next Tuesday. In the call to action, i said that if the called me before the 21st January simply to tell me about their next project, I would offer them a discount. They are big corporations (Dior, google, Microsoft etc) so finding their names and HQ address on LinkedIn was easy . What shall I do now and when ? Add them first on LinkedIn ? Wait after the 21st to do anything ? Call the HQ receptionist and ask them to put me through the phone ? [link] [comments]  |
| Global Background check recommendations? Posted: 09 Jan 2020 11:39 AM PST We are a remote company hiring people from all over the world, and I'm having a hard time finding a service to provide background checks globally. Has anyone had success with a service that they can recommend? [link] [comments]  |
| Tiny retail space, ideas please Posted: 09 Jan 2020 11:35 AM PST I have an opportunity to rent a very small retail space about 200 ft.² I need some ideas about what to put in there. The area is mainly professional and upper middle class. I have additional space for storage so that's not an issue but I'm having difficulties imagining utilizing the space and making a solid profit. Any ideas will be greatly appreciated. [link] [comments]  |
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