Marketplace Tuesday! (February 25, 2020) Entrepreneur |
- Marketplace Tuesday! (February 25, 2020)
- Am I the only one who's sick of the business & tech world?
- I Made first $100 by doing what i love
- Blog makes $100,000/yr but I have little motivation to work on it and I feel very guilty about it.
- Feeling down... It took me some time to decide rather or not to publish this post
- Basement Business
- I can’t find a problem!!!
- How the TikTok algorithm works
- Steps for creating an app?
- Looking for feedback about a passion project of mine, a platform to release and support 'Community Driven Narratives'
- What I learned in my 1st year of Entrepreneurship
- What to expect when shipping large products?
- Rags to riches stories?
- (GARY VEE) What are you supposed to do if you hate your jobs but also aren't a pure bred entrepreneur ?
- How ElfYourself Lost 137 Million Site Visits in a Year
- Online business owners - how is your business structured to pay the least amount in taxes?
- My Phone Case Market Research Survey. Please fill it out. Thanks
- My favorite business book author became my client thanks to a tweet
- Does your business have a bookkeeper/accountant? Or No?
- General Magic
- Taxes as a sole-propietorship
- Securing multiple business credit cards under multiple sole props under one social
- Setting up a website
- Landing Page Trends in 2020
- Best T shirt order sites?
| Marketplace Tuesday! (February 25, 2020) Posted: 25 Feb 2020 05:08 AM PST Please use this thread to post any Jobs that you're looking to fill (including interns), or services you're looking to render to other members. We do this to not overflow the subreddit with personal offerings (such logo design, SEO, etc) so please try to limit the offerings to this weekly thread. 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]  |
| Am I the only one who's sick of the business & tech world? Posted: 25 Feb 2020 12:46 AM PST Everyone seems to be so disconnected from real-world problems as they're all too focused on profit and gain. What about personal health, mental wellbeing, and just living life? Other things I see as just wrong:
And so much more s**t like this. [link] [comments]  |
| I Made first $100 by doing what i love Posted: 25 Feb 2020 02:54 AM PST I was creative from childhood. Took some graphics design courses online. And last month done some projects for a client & made $100 in 2 days;) i want to continue in this field and make a career. Any advices will be greatly appreciated:) [link] [comments]  |
| Blog makes $100,000/yr but I have little motivation to work on it and I feel very guilty about it. Posted: 25 Feb 2020 01:52 PM PST I feel incredibly guilty that I have run a blog that makes $100,000/yr but I have an incredibly hard time putting time and effort into it these days. I currently work on my website full-time — well, I don't have another job but I don't put "40 hours" into the site either. The site has been around for 8-9 years and most of the content is fairly evergreen so it does well with Google. Writing new content feels like a slog at this point but I feel guilty that I have this asset that generates a lot of income with relatively low effort. I really don't want to sell it as it feels like my baby — it's also partially "personality" driven so that drives down the value to a 3rd party. I've also considered getting other people to write but I have no idea how to approach that. I'm also less than a year out from a divorce so I still feel "blah" but I was feeling this was about my website before the divorce as well. [link] [comments]  |
| Feeling down... It took me some time to decide rather or not to publish this post Posted: 25 Feb 2020 12:28 PM PST Story short this is what happened in a couple of months:
Was making 3.5K revenue (before tax) selling social media management (social ads, community management and online writing seo + consulting). 2 clients (one euro platform SaaS / one international web agency outsourcing some services to me for a huge bicycle Dutch client). Traveling as a digital nomad in Sweden, Tunisia, Greece, Rwanda, Uganda.
While I'm having the time of my life being a digital nomad in Uganda, I get hit on the head randomly at a concert. End up in the hospital with 6 stiches after fainting strongly on the concrete. Half of my face has wounds. (Shit happens)
My 2 years platform SAS client leaves (recruiting internally) after saying he will raise my invoice for a couple of months. I loose a client that represents 60/70% of my revenue. (Promeseses don't pay the bills)
I do a crazy good job with the other client. Getting strong results. The agency is telling me that the Dutch company is now negotiating a long term contract. (Promeseses?)
The agency let me know that they will be no more work with the Dutch company. They would like to use other tools than social media (In spite of the fact that we had amazing results)
I have been prospecting like crazy... Only getting some type of warm leads now... After 2 months Learning new skills in: LinkedIn networking and sales Copywriting (I am already trained at online writing for seo purpose) Decided to: Stop only working with France as I speak English / Spanish Start training / consulting as I am now reaching my 9 years in digital marketing But, I: Just feel like getting no where. Struggle with all the amount of work in front of me Am afraid of going back to a "normal job" after so many years as a digital nomad Scared not to get any money coming in Tired of comparing myself with friends that did the same business school and now that make insane amount of money Have a tendency to doubt my skills (And feel like shit) when I see other people making it so fast. To all those who read my post until now. THANK YOU. Even if you don't answer you took some time. I know I'm not the only one struggling sometimes. But showing my weakness as an entrepreneur is difficult. Really difficult. But being lonely with these thoughts is even more difficult... [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 25 Feb 2020 09:39 AM PST Any ideas for a lucrative business I could start with the space of a large basement? ....Growing microgreens, creating floral arangements are the best I have come up with so far. My boyfriend and I have rented out part of home for Airbnb before and we've sold large bins I've sourced from my work. To a large extent these things seem more lucrative than going to a 9 to 5 job every day. Yet I'm at a dead end of how to build a small business that has a constant flow of customers and can guarantee some stability. I have been working a variety of jobs since I graduated college with a B.A. in sociology 6 years ago. I've worked as a tour guide, in banking, in IT, currently I work in a lab. Usually I've made around $14 an hour at these jobs. Ready to quit working for the man and begin a business that can be on the side and provide supplemental income while I focus on raising kids and developing myself. Thanks! [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 25 Feb 2020 02:30 PM PST I'm desperately trying to find a problem. It feels like everyone around me is having business success; saas; info products; selling amazon products; scaling agencies Then there is me. I can't find a scalable business for the life of me. I'm a freelance developer but I can't figure out how to scale. It's so competitive it's really hard to find good projects even though I've helped launch a dozen solid applications. I get almost no inbound leads other than upwork and projects are never big enough that I can really bring on other people and scale. So I've looked at saas but I can't find a good problem because all I know is the software world but I'm not good enough at software to solve software problems (like Id never be able to found netlify). I feel like I just have no business sense. The weird thing is before I became a developer, I had millions of business ideas. Now that I could execute them my head is empty. It's partly because I'm not in the mix working a some other business where I can see the issues.... so I have to rely on a cofounder or something but it's so hard to find a good cofounder (one with actual knowledge of a potential b2b problem to solve) Am I the only one who feels like they're never get out of the rat race and scale a business— even if it's just to $10k a month? I make good money writing code but the issue is I only make money when I'm writing code... I need a product or scalable business I'm dying inside. Tell me I'm not alone. [link] [comments]  |
| How the TikTok algorithm works Posted: 25 Feb 2020 03:55 AM PST The social media landscape is changing dramatically. During the last decade, the virtual currency that rewarded content creators and influencers was a currency made up of follows and likes. The short-form video app TikTok has pioneered an initially new methodology that uses an ever-changing algorithm to decide that their users consume. Video explaining how the TikTok algorithm works (Youtube) TikTok is exceptionally good at recommending content, so much so that when a user opens the app, on average they will stay in it for over 10 minutes. Three times longer than Instagram. This demonstrates that algorithms based recommendations are much better than humans using like and follow filters. As TikTok's technology and user-based grow, we can expect this recommendation engine to get much better over time. For a long time, it has been well known that vertical short-form video on mobile will be the future of mobile content. Snapchat found early success in this market with disappearing photos and video and then with their innovative story format. However, TikTok is currently winning over global audiences with its combination of native short-form video and algorithmic recommendations. In this post, we are going to try and unpack to the best of our knowledge how this algorithm works, both for consumers and also for content creators. By understanding the mechanics behind the platform, we can start using this to better inform our content creation decisions and start to paint possible future changes to the landscape. Please note this is a high-level post for non-technical readers. Please also note that at any point in time, we can expect hundreds if not thousands of different recommendation algorithms running. Ready, lets go! How does TikToks algorithm work for a content creator?This is how a video is evaluated when it is posted on TikTok. Once a video is uploaded, TikTok will analyse your video using natural language processing and computer vision technology. From the video itself, the information will be extracted to understand the content, audio, transcriptions to build up an understanding of the content and context of the videos. Here is a quote from Bytedance explaining how the algorithm works: "Artificial intelligence powers all of Bytedance's content platforms," the spokesperson says. "We build intelligent machines that are capable of understanding and analyzing text, images and videos using natural language processing and computer vision technology. This enables us to serve users with the content that they find most interesting, and empower creators to share moments that matter in everyday life to a global audience." Now that TikTok knows some basics about the video, it will now boost the video to a small number of users. After booting the video, an evaluation will happen based on how the sample set of user interaction with the piece of content. Each metric that is tracked has an associated score that varies in value. Here is an estimated score hierarchy that awards content per user interaction. Rewatch rate = 10 Points As you can see from the above, per-user engagement rates are the top-rated metrics juxtaposed to likes and comment being the least. However, leaving a video playing on a loop is not going to make your videos go viral as this is calculated per user. This ranking system makes click farms redundant, a problem Facebook has been battling with for some time. 📷TikTok, New content flow Now your video will be associated with a score. If your content is above a threshold, it will then be boosted to more TikTok users. Once again the process repeats again and again until it goes viral or until it no longer meets TikTok's threshold. However, not all content should be designed to go viral. It is much more beneficial for your content to reach the right audiences than reach millions of users who dont dont connect with the content. How does TikTok learn about you as a user?Tiktok needs to learn as much as it can about you so that it knows what content to serve you. When a user downloads TikTok for the first time, they open the app and they are dropping right into the video feed without needing to signup. As well as this being a great UX decision, lowering the barrier to entry but also a smart one from a data collection point of view. At this point that app starts learning as much as it can about you. The first sequence of videos you now consume is designed to do two things. 1 - Keep you in the app The first task is to keep you in the app for as long as possible. Only showing you videos that are classified as having high engagement rates to a wide audience, while also having the lowest exit rate. 2 - Understand what you like The second is to learn from the pool of videos that you are consuming. What videos have you watched again on a loop, what is your completion rate per video, what profiles, hashtags, and trends have you looked at? Using the same system as above, TikTok's algorithm will now start building a score based profile against your account. Every time you rewatch a video or consume the entire duration of the video, the algorithm takes note to inform its future suggestions. Here is the point system again. Rewatch rate = 10 PointsCompletion rate = 8 PointsShares = 6 PointsComments = 4 PointsLikes = 2 Points 📷Tiktok Algorithm User Flow Over time this profile gets more and more informed so that it can better recommend content to your needs. Just like traditional TV programming, Location, time and day will also come into the recommendation algorithm. However, we are not going to explore these aspects of the algorithm in this post. Final ThoughtsTikTok has managed to build an enormous video-first platform that is engaging users of all ages around the world with its pioneering content recommendation algorithm. User-generated content apps are only as good as the content on the platform. Therefore, it would be unfair not to praise TikTok's video editing toolkit that allows its creators to make this engaging content. If filters were the key to unlocking better photos on Instagram. Then it would be fair to say that music and captions have been the key to unlock more engaging videos for TikTok. If I had to give tips to anyone looking to make better content on TikTok, I would encourage content creators to optimise for a high rewatch and completion. As suspense, understanding and anticipation is the new clickbait. We would appreciate feedback on this post and would love to add your ideas so please reach out. *** Thanks for reading. This post was written by VEED, a simple online video editor. For more posts of this nature, check out our site GROW, where we teach you tips and tricks to grow your following on social media. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 25 Feb 2020 11:36 AM PST I have an idea for an app, and have created some detailed descriptions of how I would want the app to work, but I have no idea what to do next. I don't know how to code and can't think of anyone who can. I was wondering how others who have started an app/website got a round this. Do i need to raise capital in order to hire someone to code it, if so where can I find someone, and what are effective ways of financing this? Any insight would be greatly appreciated. Thanks [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 25 Feb 2020 12:53 PM PST Hi all! I'm currently working on a project that aims to provide a brand new way in which fiction narratives are presented and absorbed. Through the use of Narrative Junctures, stories told on this platform would become part of a community-directed project. Each story would be released and written in sections, not confined to chapters but instead by narratively important choices/decisions/events. When one of these Narrative Junctures takes place, the community would have the opportunity to vote on the outcome or decision. My short term goal would be to provide a number of genre-spanning stories in this style while having a monthly featured story, the content of which would be the priority and would see more releases. Users would have access to all stories as they are released however would be required to make a small contribution to the story of their choice if they wish to unlock the ability to vote on that current Narrative Juncture. Eventually, once a story concludes, (depending on the support in place) we would look to publish the entire work in a medium that best suits the story, whether it be sequential art (Comics, graphic novels) or classic hardback/paperback format. There would be room to expand each story into an Audio Drama or Podcast down the line also. My long term goal would be to create a platform that supports other aspiring authors who are keen on providing content in this new fashion as well as benefiting from a more sustainable environment. Authors would be required to submit work under relatively strict guidelines to comply with the project goals. Reasons for doing this - The idea came about from a number of different areas. Campaign writing for DnD groups has always been a hobby of mine, applying this to other genres of fiction quickly became something I was very passionate about. I want to change, or at least provide an alternative to, the current process of putting work you're passionate about into the world. No one wants to go through seventy different publishers before you are picked up by one and don't see a single penny for months. Imagine how many great works of fiction have been abandoned and forgotten about because they were never given a chance. Here are just a few of the potential problems I face in getting this venture going. Problem #1 Problem #2 Problem #3 Problem #4 Problem #5 In conclusion - Are there any features or benefits that would appeal to you, that would tempt you to add your vote to the collective? I obviously don't have everything worked out and I'm sure there will be problems I haven't foreseen, maybe being an unknown author will hurt my credibility, maybe my schedule will get the better of me. I know being passionate about something doesn't automatically make it a great idea, but I feel so strongly about this I just can't ignore it anymore. All feedback is good feedback, Thanks! [link] [comments]  |
| What I learned in my 1st year of Entrepreneurship Posted: 25 Feb 2020 01:53 AM PST My company completes 1 year since it was registered. And I got all nostalgic, and wrote down a couple of my learnings. Wanted to share with you all here... Entrepreneurship is considered a lonely journey. People hardly share the real stuff, especially online. There's tons of emotional turbulences in this journey, and instead of being able to talk about it, we are forced to push it deep down and move on, which is tough. So, I try my best to be myself, talk and support others doing anything different than expected, share my vulnerabilities and hope that it helps the way it would have helped me. I am sharing a snippet about my thoughts on hiring, because I think this is pretty much the fundamental thing for any company to get right. I have other thoughts around sales, strategy, operations etc, based on the response on this post, I'd go about sharing those as well :) About HiringI consider hiring the topmost priority for any company. Getting the right people together and building the right team is everything. It helps to have people around who have similar goals and values, and want to all go in the same direction. And it takes tons of effort to find the right people, but it's always worth it. As a startup when you set out to do this, you will face many problems. 1st of all, you are no big shot and you don't have a lot of money to give and company equity is worth shit for most people. Which you will realise is actually a good thing, because it weeds out people who would join you only for the money but it also makes it tougher to attract talent. While the work and culture we can offer should be attractions enough, but this is not an ideal world and people need money to pay bills, fulfil their family responsibilities and dreams. And moreover, good talent deserves to be paid well. Along with this, you will not have a swanky office nor a big brand name your employees can boast about. Believe it or not, culture (especially Indian where I am from) can be very hard if you have dreams of even working in a startup. In the off chance that your parents are supportive, your relatives won't be and not everyone is prepared to make bold choices... How do you counter this? Be decisive, and take fast decisions and who you hire and fire. Cover your bases against your own biases but also listen to your gut when it says something is wrong. You will waste time on wrong people, but learn from each experience and move on. You have to take risks and sometimes they just don't work out. Move on quickly. There are people out there who are the right fit, but if you keep holding on to the wrong ones, you'll never have enough time or energy to attract the right people. Pitch to candidates and networks from where you think you can get good talent, keep offering and working on improving what you can offer good candidates. Work on creating an actual growth culture, and you should begin even with 1 employee, even when it's just you. Also, the right people must know you exist. Marketing the fact that you are hiring is important to get the right match. Keep talking about your startup to your networks, take a risk sometimes. Keep in touch with good talent, even if you can't hire them immediately. Let me know if you like this... [link] [comments]  |
| What to expect when shipping large products? Posted: 25 Feb 2020 09:45 AM PST I'm weeks away from officially launching a custom furniture business that will be purely online sales. Custom designs will be shipped to customers and typically be one or two large boxes totaling abiout 200 lbs. I'm consulting with various shipping companies (Have a UPS consult meeting today), but am curious - does anyone here have experience shipping large items like this, and what is the realistic range of what to expect in terms of price? Volume at launch is expected to be capped at 4 units a month so large volume discounts are not super likely. As we scale, I imagine it'd tick up a bit. Thanks! [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 24 Feb 2020 11:12 PM PST Hey guys I was wondering if anyone here got some rags to riches stories? I love hearing rags to riches stories it helps me wanna hustle more harder and just give me that motivation. Thanks guys! Can't wait to read some stories! [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 25 Feb 2020 11:34 AM PST Those who follow some of Gary Vee content probably know that he says entrepreneur is not for everyone, some people are made to be B players, work for a CEO, be an executive etc. And that in this day and age, so many are trying to be an entrepreneur but should work for a company, they would be way happier. But he also says, you shouldn't do a job that you don't like. ------- I'm wondering, what if you tried many different jobs and you hate them all, that you're just bad at being an employee. But you're also (maybe) not a pure bred entrepreneur. Isn't it the ultimate losing combo ? [link] [comments]  |
| How ElfYourself Lost 137 Million Site Visits in a Year Posted: 25 Feb 2020 02:48 AM PST Remember ElfYourself?In 2006, OfficeMax launched ElfYourself and allowed users to create mini-films of themselves dancing as elves. It goes without saying, but the idea quickly went viral. Within two months of releasing ElfYourself, OfficeMax had already stacked up 38 million site visits. In 2007, that number shot up to 193 million. Then in 2008, OfficeMax partnered with JibJab and added a registration requirement to the site. Soon after, traffic dropped all the way down to 56 million. A total loss of 137 million site visits. Why Such A Big Drop?With ElfYourself being engineered as a viral webtool, referrals are key to their traffic generation. Every new user draws their friends and family into the webapp when sharing a video. In turn those new users do the same, and a viral cycle is created. One where word spreads, and site traffic sees an exponential increase. But, when OfficeMax added in a registration requirement, users quickly turned back from the ElfYourself site. Less people shared their creations, and less traffic was referred to the site. All of a sudden, ElfYourself went from being a cool web-app to a blatant marketing tool with a much smaller capability of creating viral cycle. The LessonWhen building content for your site that relies on referral traffic, adding in any lead requirements should be avoided (no matter how tempting it may be). By creating barriers to entry, the amount of users who will reach the end of the content journey and refer others will substantially decrease. So will traffic. Rather, consider accomplishing the same goal by adding value along the way (having a logical reason for the customer to give you their personal information helps). This could be through asking users to register to save their progress, adding in social media integrations to make sharing easier, or including anything else which helps them accomplish their goals. Wrapping UpIn ElfYourself's case, the registration requirement didn't last for long. By 2009, OfficeMax replaced it with social elements to encourage users to share their videos on social media. Today, ElfYourself is still running strong. There is now a companion mobile app and, to this day, over 1.5 billion elves (a little more than the population of China) have been created. ~ • ~ Thanks for reading. For more like this, join me over at interactweekly.com where I write a new article every Tuesday. [link] [comments]  |
| Online business owners - how is your business structured to pay the least amount in taxes? Posted: 25 Feb 2020 03:04 AM PST More specifically US Citizens I will try to qualify for the FEIE if that matters? How is your business structured? [link] [comments]  |
| My Phone Case Market Research Survey. Please fill it out. Thanks Posted: 25 Feb 2020 02:43 PM PST Hey, i'm trying to start my own small phone case business with RFID blocking tech. It would be awesome if you could spend a minute filling out my survey. Thanks so much! [link] [comments]  |
| My favorite business book author became my client thanks to a tweet Posted: 25 Feb 2020 10:17 AM PST One day in November, I casually scrolled my Twitter feed and saw a tweet from the author of "Hello, Startup". He was looking for a company to outsource a web development project. With zero faith, I replied to his tweet and he got back to me in 24 hours. Within the next few days, we signed! I wish sales would always be like this. The taste of serendipity is so sweet and addictive that one may be tempted to look for opportunities like this one. The problem is, you cannot make it a repeatable process, nor can you delegate it. Anyway, don't be afraid to do something crazy sometimes - cold email a person you think would never want to work with you, try to get in touch with a company 10x bigger than the rest of your clients and so on. You never know what might happen to you. But if it happens, treat it as a rare reward, not something you should rely on. [link] [comments]  |
| Does your business have a bookkeeper/accountant? Or No? Posted: 25 Feb 2020 01:45 PM PST I am doing some research and I could really use some input into the following questions weather you have a bookkeeper/accountant for your business or not; IF YES: What were some of the biggest reasons you chose to hire a bookkeeper/accountant? How long have you had a bookkeeper/accountant? How many different bookkeepers/accountants have you had? Did you have any fears around hiring a bookkeeper/accountant? If so, what? What has been the best and worst parts about having a bookkeeper/accountant? *only if comfortable* How much do you pay monthly for your bookkeeper/accountant? IF NO: Do you file taxes regularly? Do you understand your finances yourself? Would you ever concider hiring a bookkeeper/accountant why, or why not? If Yes, why haven't you thus far? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 25 Feb 2020 01:34 PM PST If you haven't heard of General magic I highly recommend the documentary. Never having heard of them I just watched it & felt very inspired by it. I think a lot of folks here would get something from it. It really sheds light on what failure really means & the good that can come of it. Love to hear what other entrepreneurs think. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 25 Feb 2020 01:22 PM PST I don't know if this is the correct sub for this question, however I'm in sort of a dilemma. I just turned 18 last year, so this is still a pretty confusing topic for me. I run a small business out of my house, and for the year of 2019 I had ~$5,000 in profit. One of my biggest issues with my business however was keeping track of things, or keeping them on record. I'm still not done with my spreadsheet with sales and expenses from last year. (I am a lot more updated on everything this year). The issue I'm having is finding proof for some of my transactions. I of course have proof of every transaction done through PayPal, cashapp and Venmo, which includes around 80% of my deals. However, I had a lot of local deals that I made and some deals through events. Also, I'm not too sure where to start actually filing, or if I actually have to set up my business as a sole-propietorship through my county or state. If this isn't the right place please let me know where I could find the info! [link] [comments]  |
| Securing multiple business credit cards under multiple sole props under one social Posted: 25 Feb 2020 01:20 PM PST For starters, I probably should restructure beyond a bunch of sole props. Advice there is welcome. I currently own and run 4 different sole props. I have no direct employees that aren't contractors. One business has it's own EIN and half of them are in California and half in Colorado. I just applied for a business credit card for my retail store in Ca, that is the one that has it's own EIN. What I'm hoping to do is apply for business credit cards for each business in order to effectively transfer debt to 0% interest cards for the next year. My question is, can I apply right now for 4 businesses individually though all are tied to the same social without it looking bad? As in applying to 4 personal cards at once. Or will this look the same? I currently have a 690 or better score but I utilize about 90% of my current available credit. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 25 Feb 2020 12:59 PM PST I am interested in what you would consider the best website host for fastly and efficiently creating a website to sell video game accounts. What is the best host, I have no navav experience. My budget is $60 [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 25 Feb 2020 01:32 AM PST I recently worked on this guide with our founders at OptimizePress. We've listed some trends we see for 2020 that you should take note of if you want to keep growing your email list. Also, some things to avoid. It's free to read online with a download option. I'd recommd you bookmark it as we'll be updating the content throughout the year. Let us know if you have any questions. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 25 Feb 2020 12:46 PM PST I'm looking to find a cheap custom T-shirt maker. What are the stores you use / have come across? [link] [comments]  |
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