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    NooB Monday! - (August 24, 2020) Entrepreneur

    August 24, 2020

    NooB Monday! - (August 24, 2020) Entrepreneur

    NooB Monday! - (August 24, 2020)

    Posted: 24 Aug 2020 06:12 AM PDT

    If you don't have enough comment karma here's where we can help.

    Everyone starts somewhere and to post in /r/Entrepreneur this is the best place. Subscribers please understand these are new posters and not familiar with our sub. Newcomers welcome! Be sure to vote on things that help you. Search the sub a bit before you post. The answers may already be here.

    Since this thread can fill up quickly, consider sorting the comments by "new" (instead of "best" or "top") to see the newest posts.

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    Got fired 8 weeks ago. I've already doubled gross income.

    Posted: 23 Aug 2020 06:48 PM PDT

    Back in 2009, I started my own consulting business after getting fired over a pair of pants. First time I was ever fired, and I had been employed since I was 13.

    After a few years, that eventually got me recruited into a small company called Shopify. After a few months, I was asked to start the Shopify Plus blog. After two years at Shopify, I left to join Intuit where I took an unknown resource and laid the groundwork for scaling to 16 markets. After two years, I was one of the 715 who were laid off.

    I was upset for about 30 minutes before I got back on my laptop and got back to work.

    Within a few weeks I got my first client, and a couple weeks after that, my second.

    Now I am tracking to make double what I did last year.

    I've only been fired twice, and both times I ended up in a much better position than I did before.

    Anyways, I just wanted to share because I'm feeling really good and this is a group that probably understands that the best.

    Edit WOW! This blew UP. Since so many of you have asked to hear the pants story, I wrote up another post here that goes over the entire journey from the pants until now. It's been a pretty wild ride, I hope you enjoy reading it.

    submitted by /u/burnymcburneraccount
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    How I was fired over a pair of pants.

    Posted: 24 Aug 2020 09:47 AM PDT

    Holy sh**, this post blew up way more than I had ever expected. I'm blown away, thank you.

    A lot of people asked about the pants story, so I thought I would make it a separate post. Here we go.--------

    Back in 2008, I had practically nothing. I was living in a boarding house, I had no car, and my job selling cell phones at a major retail chain was two miles away. I walked to and from every day, regardless of the weather.

    That winter was a brutal one. I live in the Northeast, and in the winter of '09 we had had the worst ice storm the region had seen in over a decade. There were blackouts for weeks, people's toilet water was freezing over... it was bad.

    I was staying with a friend at the time, and occasionally she would let me borrow her car. One day, in the midst of the ice storm, I was driving to someplace, I can't even remember in one of the nearby towns.

    I was coming out of a traffic circle, changed lanes and BAM, was hit by another car, did a 720, and landed in about two and a half feet of snow. Fortunately, I was ok, and while my friend's car had some damage, it was still drivable.

    We went to her house later that night, and the next morning, we went back to my place to pick up my work uniform, but unfortunately, I was locked out.

    I went to work anyways, and let the manager on duty know the situation. That season was particularly busy because the Nintendo Wii was the must-have electronics and stores were running out as soon as they got them in. When I told my manager that I needed to borrow an outfit from the sales floor, he said it was fine, and that we had Wii's in stock so I should expect a busy day.

    Being the consummate salesman, I sold Wii's left and right and upsold even more. The most in our district even.

    When my shift was over, I bought the shirt and returned the pants, but forgot my phone in my pocket.

    Later that night, my friend and I found a payphone and I let the HR person know that I was coming back to pick up my phone.

    Everything seemed fine.

    Some time passed, the holiday season had passed, and a few weeks after, when the holiday season wound down, another manager came up to me. "Give us your keys and your walkie talkie, you're suspended." When really, that meant I was fired.

    When I asked why, they said, "We know you didn't steal anything, but the manager doesn't recall having the conversation, but it just looks sketchy."

    ​

    A few years earlier, I was working at a gas station and was ultimately recruited into the marketing department at a tech company. Within a year, my department of 3 was part of the companies growth from $1mm to $5mm, but I ended up leaving to make music videos when the company started to get greedy and a touch shady.

    So, after I was fired over the pants, I found myself at a crossroads. Do I try and literally pound the pavement and find another $12/hour job in the dead of winter, or do I take a chance on myself and use my broken laptop to start finding my own work?

    I chose the latter, but the online marketing game had changed dramatically since I had been out.

    I would spend 18 hour days catching up and learning, often falling asleep at my keyboard and waking up in a puddle of drool.

    ​

    I was stressed and it showed. Two weeks after this, a friend of mine insisted I get out of the house and socialize with people, and invited me to her friend's Super Bowl party. I reluctantly accepted the invite.

    Knowing the subject of "so what do you do?" came up, I decided to tell the story for the ridiculousness of what it was, and talk about what I would be up to next.

    One of the guys there said, "I know a guy who does websites." and while I was skeptical, what were my options?

    Turns out, the guy didn't "do websites" but instead was an inventor and early adopter of new technology. He was showing me geofencing years before it ever caught on.

    We talked and after a while, I had my first client. I could afford to pay my rent! In the meantime, I was also supplementing my income by finding and attending webinars that were giving away Visa gift cards for answering online trivia. That was often how I was paying for my groceries.

    Ultimately, I got my second client through getafreelancer.com, helping them promote their mobile coupon offering. At first, I was making $800/month which was perfect because my rent was $700 so I had some money left over to buy food for the month.

    That went well for a while. After some negotiation, I convinced them to buy me a cell phone and increase my money. Now I was making $1,400 a month and had some wiggle room. Ultimately though, things went sour, and I decided to leave. I had established a really strong relationship with one of their clients though. I let them know I was leaving and asked if they would come with me. I let them know that I was going to charge less and offer them more. Soon, I was making $2,000 a month.

    Eventually, I was able to move myself, and my future, now pregnant wife, out of the boarding house and into a condo. I continued to build, but at no point ever surpassing $4k per month.

    There were a series of unfortunate events where we ended up moving out of the house into her parent's house, and were eventually asked to move out (no fault of our own) then moved into an apartment which, after a couple of weeks after settling in, was sold and were asked to move out again.

    We moved to another place that was in pretty rough shape and about 5 miles away from civilization. Within a span of a couple of months, I had to fire a crappy client, the engine in my car had blown out, and since I had been working for myself for around 4 years at this point, I couldn't get a "normal" job because most employers thought I wouldn't cooperate with management.

    So, I turned to blogging for dollars. I hit up the Problogger.com job board and eventually landed on a site, ConversionXL.com where I was making a couple hundred dollars an article. This opened a ton of doors for me because of the visibility of the site, there were many other blogs in that niche that were willing to work with me. I started putting out a lot of work, but it wasn't because I was trying to "get known" it was because 3 articles would pay the oil bill, 5 articles would pay rent, and so on.

    At the end of the year, I got an email saying, "Congratulations, you have the number one and number sixth most trafficked articles on the site this year. I said, "Congratulations, you have a new editor."

    Between them, and my old (good) client, I ended up making $6,000 a month. With some serious budgeting and sacrificing, I was able to get my car back on the road.

    After about a year, I was contacted by this unknown ecommerce platform Big Commerce who was asking if I'd be interested in running _their_ blog, and that seemed really enticing, because it was going to be $100k a year, and I had also established a contact at another relatively unknown company, Shopify. I had let my Shopify contact know that they were scouting me, and he said, "why don't you come up here and give us a chance too?"

    BigCommerce was the front-runner because the money was good, but about halfway through the interview, I texted my Shopify contact and let them know I was interested because BigC wasn't going to be the right fit.

    I got on a plane from Austin to Toronto, met a bunch of Shopify people, fell in love, and shortly thereafter was hired.

    A few months passed, and I was asked by their CMO if I would be interested in helping them start their Shopify Plus blog. I accepted. I was the first marketing hire in Plus, and employee number 14. We had grown that year to get our first 1,000 customers and even more beyond that.

    On the side, I had also started consulting with QuickBooks after meeting one of their managers at a conference I was speaking at, and helped them establish their resource center as a branded asset within the company. I hired their first editor-in-chief and the initial team, and after a while, the editor decided he wanted to move on to work on his own agency - Animalz - and I started the search for finding his replacement.

    While I was on a work trip to Berlin (a LOT changed after working at Shopify), it hit me, "Why don't I do it?" and eventually, I was hired.

    After about a year, I was moved to the global brand team, and I ended up scaling the operation to include 16 different markets. By centralizing our content, we were able to save the company over a million dollars.

    We did that for a while, and it was good, but then COVID hit, layoffs happened, and after about 30 minutes of being upset, I got back to work and decided to start my own consultancy. Within a few weeks, I had gotten my first client, and a few weeks after that, my second, which pretty much brings us up to speed.

    While it's easy to say I was able to get my first clients within 6-8 weeks and be on track to gross more than I ever have, the reality is, this was 15 years in the making. Who knows if it's going to go over well or not, but I'm confident about the future and that I can overcome pretty much freaking anything.

    It's a great feeling, and I can't wait to see what the future holds.

    EDIT: There's a lot of confusion around the cell phone part of the story. In short, it didn't make sense. I had returned the pants before I left the building, but forgot my phone in the pocket. When I called later, I picked it up from HR, and went on my way.

    The company later acknowledged that I hadn't stolen anything, but borrowing pants "looked sketchy." The manager who allowed it didn't want to get in trouble himself, so he said he didn't recall the conversation, and ultimately threw me under the bus.

    If it doesn't seem to make sense, it's becaue the rationale behind itself made no sense, and was an incredibly stupid reason to be fired.

    submitted by /u/burnymcburneraccount
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    ELI5: How do Companies like Amazon and Starbucks pay little to no taxes?

    Posted: 24 Aug 2020 09:11 AM PDT

    Very curious, How do these big companies pay little to no taxes. Amazon paid $0 tax in 2018.

    What are some ways small business can also minimize taxes like these larger companies? Is tax write offs the most common way?

    submitted by /u/van217
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    How do i deal with a major customer harassing one of my employees?

    Posted: 24 Aug 2020 10:15 AM PDT

    A major customer keeps calling my head of sales on her personal phone, masking inappropriate questions and comments with random business small talk. He asks if she's married, where she lives, calls her back to back on weekends and if he cant get her he calls the office phone for her etc.. shit you don't do in a professional environment. He's a known 'player' kind of guy.

    On one hand i'd like to tell him to go fuck himself and break all ties with him. But we need him, i dont have anyone else that can deal with him, and im swamped myself and its alot of work dealing with this guy's orders. My employee seems to be dealing with it alright for now but she is complaining and i care about her so i want this stop.

    Is there anything i can do?

    submitted by /u/zbf
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    I did two courses on how to grow Twitter - here's my comparison

    Posted: 24 Aug 2020 04:20 AM PDT

    Just a bit of background on me first- I'm Rik Nieu, a wannabe product maker who decided that I needed to learn how to use Twitter in order to have a larger audience to bounce ideas of off, and for better product validation.

    I pretty much felt like I was tweeting into the void for a good while there, and then luckily saw some mention of two courses to help clueless people like me figure out what you're supposed to be doing.

    (BTW, I'm not getting paid to do this and the links below are not affiliate links)

    The courses are;

    Both courses were a little bit above what I felt comfortable paying, but I managed to get them on real good discounts, and would now like to compare the two, so that others who might think they need to do one can choose one that best fits them.

    Both course creators offer generous discounts on Twitter every now and then too, so stalk them a bit if you're a sucker for a good deal.

    Let's start with the differences first;

    Differences

    I want to note that both course offers very similar content and that the differences below are really my own interpretations on the contents. There's really just a difference in emphasis.

    That being said, here we go;

    • Daniel's course is 1h40m long, and Danny's is 1h05m.
    • Daniel seems to be more of a content sharer, while Danny fits squarely into the motivation side.
    • Daniel offers extra value in the form of additional slides and a spreadsheet of some of his past tweets and their metrics, while Danny offers extra value in the form of being available for a free video call review of your Twitter profile.
    • Danny reckons it's imperative for optimal growth to choose a lane and niche down hard, while Daniel is more open to the idea of becoming an authority on multiple subjects.
    • Danny goes into detail about how to read and interpret your Twitter analytics, while Daniel focusses more on how to construct a proper Twitter follower funnel, and how analytics works into that.
    • Danny is all about interacting and having conversations with his followers, while Daniel is more about creating quality, interesting content that gives followers value.
    • Daniel seems to find tweet inspiration serendipitously, based on what's going on in his life, while Danny recommends creating a vision of what you'd want to be about, and then going about creating that vision.
    • Daniel goes into detail on exactly what to tweet, while Danny goes into a thorough analysis on how, when and how often to tweet.
    • Danny is slightly more focussed on showing you how to grow your audience using Twitter itself, while Daniel has substantial advice on how to grow your audience by leveraging outside sources to drive traffic to your profile.

    Similarities

    • Both emphasise and walk you through optimising your profile to encourage follows.
    • Both emphasise and explain why engagement ratios are more important than the number of followers you have.
    • They have virtually identical advice on how and what not to tweet.
    • You'll get similar advice on the importance of off-site content, and how it affects and feeds into Twitter.
    • You can expect both to walk you through some example profiles of famous people, pointing out what they do right and what they do wrong.
    • Both will give you immediate, actionable advice on how you can improve your Twitter experience in general, and hopefully increase your audience size too.
    • Both will explain how likes, retweets, polls and links play into the likelihood of building a following, or how they can be driving people away.
    • Both emphasise the need to interact with other accounts, and how to know when to jump in a conversation.

    Okay, so which one should you get?

    Both courses are pretty much on par and would help anyone who's getting started or have small followings improve their Twitter experience quite a bit. But, having now gone through both courses, I feel that they might be better based on whether you're more extroverted or introverted.

    So, gun to my head, if you're a more outgoing people-person, I recommend you get Danny's Create Your Following.

    If you're a more introverted and get-to-the-point type, get Daniel's Everyone Can Build a Twitter Audience.

    That's it, hope this helps someone. My own following is still pretty small, but hopefully things will improve by following what I learned.

    submitted by /u/RikNieu
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    About Google Adsense.

    Posted: 24 Aug 2020 01:41 PM PDT

    So, about website analytics. She has 1 million views per month, yet only gets paid a dollar. Is that normal? She has around 3 ads per blog entry and it's made on Wix. Her website is lacocinadegisele-oficial.com and doesn't know where else to ask. Here's the analytics

    Thanks for your cooperation!

    submitted by /u/bluealivedamnation
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    Online bakery: doing great but struggle to bring new clients without ads

    Posted: 24 Aug 2020 12:59 PM PDT

    Hi,

    Would like to share my journey and seek some advice from the community.

    Our story

    I launched an online store of fresh bakery during lockdown in Moscow, Russia. My wife baked banana bread at home and I ran the web design, orders processing, delivery coordination, ingredients replenishment, etc.

    We started as a small one-page website with Instagram ads and grew up to 4 products online store with outsourced orders handling and outsourced baking. We also expanded delivery to Saint-Petersburg, the second of two cities in Russia which have decent-sized market.

    There were some ups and downs, which made me to improve a lot of things: find cheaper suppliers of ingredients of the required quality, negotiate better price for orders handling and other manual work, find better delivery service.

    I also got better at managing Instagram ads, while making a lot of errors down the road.

    Numbers

    Even though we sell our bread at staggering ~$10 for a standard-sized loaf, we don't make that much money because of ad cost.

    We make about $10-12 thousand per month in sales. 30-45% of that goes to Facebook. Our profit is 10-30%. The rest is ingredients, production costs, manual work for orders handling and customer support.

    Such a big fluctuation in the share of ad cost (and thus profit) comes from the fact that ad effectiveness on any given week depends on god knows what. There are days, when sales are so low that ad cost is 50% of revenue.

    The big question

    Even though we get a lot of positive feedback and we have a number of returning customers, I struggle to lessen our dependency from ads.

    I experimented with a number of measures to solve this:

    • Tried 20% discount coupons for every new customer "and his/her friends" - seems to have little impact.
    • We offer subscription plan: you pay for bread for four weeks ahead, and we deliver it to you weekly with a free shipping as a reward. Works well in making more stable sales, but it is not as popular as I want it to be.
    • Tried sending press releases to favorite online magazines about new product launches - no response.
    • Talked to one famous retail chain oriented on higher middle class. They seemed interested, but their conditions were so strict, that it made me doubt the profitability of the upcoming partnership. I refrained from working with them.

    I really-really want to reduce our prices by the average ad cost to provide our clients with high-quality bakery for a reasonable price. And I want more stable sales. But so far I just don't know what the fuck I can do. I don't have famous bloggers or NYT journalists among my friends.

    submitted by /u/dmitry_babanov
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    What commercial business would you start if you were one of the first settlers on Mars? Why?

    Posted: 24 Aug 2020 05:01 AM PDT

    As the title says, year is 2100, what commercial business would you start if you were one of the first settlers on Mars? Why?

    This is a semi-serious question so please try to give a serious answer :) Ideas that are built upon entrepreneurship would be great.

    I think mine would be a service that would allow sending delivery packages to Earth.

    submitted by /u/Avpier
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    #004: How This Ad Increased A Piano Manufacturer's Profits by 1,616%

    Posted: 24 Aug 2020 06:21 AM PDT

    Header Image

    In a world with so much information, everyone is fighting for those 6-inches between your ears. Because if you're thinking of buying something, any brand that has real estate in your mind is much more likely to win.

    One of the best ways to get that real estate is by creating a slogan. A small handful of words that sear a brand in your customer's mind:

    • Just Do It.

    • Think Different.

    • I'm Lovin' It.

    • Gives You Wings.

    Let me guess. You immediately thought of Nike, Apple, McDonald's and Red Bull, right?

    But there is one particular slogan. It is only known by music professionals. It belongs to a piano manufacturer. And it is why 19 out of 20 professional pianists today have sworn off every other piano in the market.

    All because of 4 words written a century ago.

    In this post, I'm going to share with you how this slogan was born and give you lessons you can apply to your own business and copy.

    For The Love of Music

    Image of Heinrich

    On February 5th 1797, a boy named Heinrich Engelhard Steinweg was born. He grew up in Germany and the story goes that he became a carpenter.

    During his time as a carpenter, he became an apprentice to an organ builder. This created a love of music in his heart. And he began to start building instruments.

    Started with guitars. Then tried making pianos. Then made bigger and bigger pianos.

    In 1835, he made his first square piano and gave it to his wife as a wedding gift.

    In 1836, he built his first grand piano. Now it is on display at the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art.

    In 1839, he won a gold medal at a state trade exhibition for his pianos.

    Fast forward to 1850, he left Germany and moved to New York City. In New York City, he soon started a company to manufacture pianos.

    With advice from his friends, he changed his name.

    Heinrich Engelhard Steinweg became Henry E. Steinway.

    And on 5th March 1853, he founded Steinway & Sons.

    A Reputation For Excellence

    Over history, Steinway pianos have won many medals and awards for their quality and sound.

    These pianos are so well-made, many owners consider it the most important thing they own.

    Just read one of the earliest Steinway ads I could find:

    Steinway 1909 Ad

    Yet Steinway profits still kept going down.

    Steinway went to the advertising firm, N. W. Ayer & Son. The same firm responsible for the ad that sold 425 million Camel cigarettes in a year.

    A young copywriter named Raymond Rubicam handled Steinway's account.

    Instrument of the Immortals

    Raymond had a very clear task. Write three full page magazine ads for Steinway. Use the same layout as previous Steinway ads.

    After hours and hours of thinking, Raymond still couldn't come up with something. So he took a step back and looked at Steinway's info file.

    In this file, he learned many great pianists and composers used Steinway pianos. But the ads were just pictures of beautiful women sitting at a piano. No headlines. No mention of Steinway's incredible history.

    As Raymond kept reading, an idea flashed through his mind.

    'Instrument of the Immortals.'

    Where 'the immortals' are the famous pianists and composers who used Steinway pianos.

    He immediately wrote it down and looked at it.

    It looked good.

    Too good.

    So good that Raymond doubted himself and decided to leave it in a drawer then come back to look at it in a few days.

    He worked on something else and a few days later, opened his drawer to look at it again.

    And it still sounded great.

    He walked into the Art Department and spoke to Art Director, Arthur Sullivan, about it. Hearing his idea, Arthur told Raymond that Steinway had a big vault.

    The vault held oil paintings of all the great artists who played on a Steinway. But for some reason, Ayer was forbidden from using the paintings in their ads.

    It wasn't private or sensitive information. Every Steinway customer gets a picture book of these paintings when they buy a Steinway piano. But still, Raymond couldn't use them.

    Raymond's solution? Have a model dress up to look like a famous artist and take a photo of that.

    He took the finished ad to Jerry Lauck, Steinway's account executive in Ayer. Raymond asked Jerry to convince Steinway to make this a campaign.

    Steinway only agreed to use it once. But then… the sales numbers came in. And they could not believe how positive the response was.

    Steinway demanded to speak to Lauck. And they demanded they use Instrument of the Immortals in all their ads.

    From that day, each ad was written on this theme. Each ad spoke of great musical artists or composers who have used the Steinway piano.

    Each ad implied that you could also experience the same prestige by owning a Steinway piano. That no true lover of music (like the Immortals it spoke of) would settle for anything less. And that there was nothing else out there like a Steinway piano.

    In 1920, Steinway & Sons had net profits of under $100,000 ($1.2MM today). For the next 10 years after this slogan, Steinway's net profits shot up. Their best year was 1924 with a very, very tidy $1,500,000 ($19.4MM today) net profit.

    Here are a few pictures of the ads in the Instrument of the Immortals series, courtesy of Smithsonian Institute Records.

    Steinway 1920 Ad

    Steinway 1921 Ad 1

    Steinway 1921 Ad 2

    Steinway 1922 Ad

    Unfortunately, this profitable run quickly came to an end in 1929. At the start of The Great Depression.

    But still, Steinway survived. To this day, it remains at the top of the piano manufacturing industry. And it is still considered the Instrument of the Immortals.

    Key Takeaways

    In your business…

    • Document everything. Your company history. Previous ads. Customer testimonials & reviews. Industry reports. Specifications and sources of raw materials. Internal processes. Everything. Businesses have made millions from a copywriter finding an idea in a hidden pile of paper. Don't have this info? Allow your copywriter to talk to anyone and everyone in the company.

    • Do a small test. Trust your copywriter enough to test their ideas. Even if you think something might not work, know that the market has the final say. Give a small sample of your audience the chance to say it.

    • Understand that copy is a multiplier. Steinway had an excellent reputation and was profitable. William Steinway, son of founder Henry, was a millionaire in 1881. A full 4 decades before this ad. But good copy has the ability to turn something good into something great.

    In your copy…

    • Study your product intimately. You can't come up with great ideas unless you have enough knowledge to take from. And if you don't have the burning curiosity to build that knowledge, you shouldn't be writing about that product.

    • Make associations. The success of Steinway's slogan comes from the connection to famous names that have used their pianos. Think about your product and make a list of possible things (places, people, times, ideas, etc.) you could associate it with. Then test out the different connections you could make.

    • Step away from your work. As creatives, we have the curse of getting too attached to our own ideas. Sometimes, we're much better off just leaving something for a few days. Then coming back to it with a fresh pair of eyes.

    What's up guys? Victor from UnfairCopy.com here.

    This is the fourth post in a weekly series where I break down some of the most successful ads in history. In each breakdown, you will get 3 things:

    1. You will learn the business decisions that led up to it.
    2. You will learn the exact words and psychology that made the ad successful.
    3. You will get actionable takeaways to improve your business and your copy.

    In case you missed a couple, you can read previous posts (and their Reddit-hosted versions, if you prefer) here:

    1. How This Ad Sold 425 Million Camel Cigarettes [Reddit Link].
    2. How This Ad Sold $70 Million In English Courses [Reddit Link].
    3. How This Ad Made You Put On Deodorant This Morning [Reddit Link]
    4. How This Ad Increased A Piano Manufacturer's Net Profits by 1,616% [You Are Here]

    Why Am I Doing This?

    To be transparent, I want to get my name out there and get more copywriting clients. That means giving value upfront, first and for free.

    Hope this is useful for you guys. :)

     

    P.S. – Thank mods for giving me a flair! :)

    submitted by /u/AskACopywriter
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    Do you know a book that goes through the process of getting to know a certain industry without being physically in that country?

    Posted: 24 Aug 2020 12:09 PM PDT

    For example, I'm interested in reading a book/journey of someone who gets to know very well the telecom/banking/e-commerce/etc. industry and people in that industry which led him to serve that industry with his product/services. Also, the catch is that this story shouldn't entail any networking on local premises, only virtual.

    submitted by /u/canarysplit
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    Saying goodbye to a business is heartbreaking...

    Posted: 24 Aug 2020 08:14 AM PDT

    Started a second business during COVID to meet new demands and marketplace landscapes. My customers love my product and services... But due to economy of scale I've realized it just isn't profitable and won't be for a long time. I don't have the funds or drive to take it there either. I've decided I'll go one more month just to give my customers some notice and I'll throw up the white flag.

    I've built a great social media following and hopefully they stay to follow my new journies... I do have my first business which I am better off focusing on, so at least I'm ending it to run toward something else.

    Part of me has become really attached to the business and knowing people love my work. I'm also wondering if maybe I didn't have enough "stickability". Oh well. One door closes another one opens. It was a good experience and you can never regret trying something.

    submitted by /u/Hutongs
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    Follow Your Passion!

    Posted: 24 Aug 2020 12:00 PM PDT

    No, this post isn't inspirational or meaningful in any way.

    So many successful entrepreneurs say "follow your passion" or "do what you like" or "capitalize on your skill set"

    But what if you don't have a passion? Or not particularly great at something?

    I'm talking to people like me who haven't figured it out yet. What's happening with you? What are you thinking? What are your plans?

    I'm a fast learner with high IQ working in debt capital markets and it feels like I'm pretty much drowning in mundane misery.

    Sorry if this post reads like a rant, just extending my hand in the dark here.

    submitted by /u/Eternal619
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    How should I advertise a duct tape wallet business?

    Posted: 24 Aug 2020 11:44 AM PDT

    I'm a student entrepreneur at the age of 11 and need ideas on how to advertise and sell duct tape wallets.

    submitted by /u/paxtondixon
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    Does anyone know passive income ideas?

    Posted: 24 Aug 2020 11:34 AM PDT

    I swear no one actually has any proper advice on Reddit on how to make money...

    submitted by /u/churgerz
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    What is a good social entrepreneurship business idea which is easy to start and would make a significant difference in the society?

    Posted: 24 Aug 2020 11:28 AM PDT

    I'm planning to start a business which would be profitable as well as directly contribute for the welfare of society

    submitted by /u/goldnbeer
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    I added 416 people to my email list in 2.5 days. Here's the step-by-step action plan of how I did it.

    Posted: 24 Aug 2020 11:23 AM PDT

    As an entrepreneur, building an email list can be a great way to grow your business. But if you have zero idea what to do it can be hard. And reading, "how I built my list" or "grew my website traffic" articles that start with "...so, I posted to my 15,000 IG followers..." or "I emailed the 8000 people on my current list..." is less than unhelpful.

    So here's a step-by-step of how you can go from 0 to at least a few hundred ENGAGED email subs (nothing sleazy) even if you have little to no social following.

    tl;dr:

    • Know exactly who you want to attract
    • Know what they want/need/are interested in
    • Know where they hang out
    • Deliver value (give them what they want/need/are interested in) before you ask for anything.

    TWO THINGS TO NOTE 1. I'm a business strategist by profession, so I'm used to helping entrepreneurs create step-by-step action plans and business roadmaps so they can consistently meet their profit, people, and productivity milestones. 2. I'm not very active on social at ALL (e.g. low social following on virtually all platforms)

    Recently, I needed to promote an event via social. It was a business-related announcement so I thought LinkedIn would be the best channel. Even though I've had a profile on LinkedIn for 12 years I'd only posted three times.

    Not to be deterred, I put on my "Marketing Strategist" hat and researched like crazy how to increase my reach on LinkedIn. It took me two weeks to do all of the research, put everything together, and implement the plan.

    My efforts panned out. I ended up going viral on LinkedIn with my fourth ever post (~14k views, over 200 likes and over 100 comments). This result wasn't by chance or by luck but by design. Now, while this one tactic isn't a strategy by any means, it is replicable.

    THE GROWTH PLAN

    1. Know your audience: I help early-stage startups and entrepreneurs start, grow, and scale their businesses with step-by-step business roadmaps and action plans so I considered how to best increase my brand awareness with that specific audience in mind.

    2. Know what they're interested in/want: For newer entrepreneurs, action plans, business roadmaps, and the foundational steps it takes to build, manage and grow a sustainable, well-run company aren't exactly sexy. It's the "eat your vegetables" of starting a business. What IS sexy/exciting to a lot of newer entrepreneurs is "growth hacking" and "going viral. So, I created a step-by-step guide of how I achieved virality on LinkedIn. Here's a link if you want to check out the guide: whyzze.com/linkedin-viral-guide (if this isn't allowed just let me know so I can update the post w/o it).

    3. Know Where They Hang Out: When it comes to content, entrepreneurs are told to create, create, create. What they don't hear enough of is how to promote that content. With this one guide titled "How I Created a Viral Post on LinkedIn (and how you can too)". I posted about the guide in three startup/entrepreneur-focused FB groups I'm a part of and one LinkedIn group. I also reached out to a startup from this year's startup accelerator cohort (I'm also a mentor for Techstars) and asked to include the guide in their email newsletter.

    4. Deliver Value (Part 1): I didn't just post "I went viral on LinkedIn, here's a link to download the guide". I posted the majority of the actual steps in a tl;dr format in my post to the groups. The summarized version of the steps didn't have all the details so I added "if you want to read all of the details here's the link to download the full guide". I even offered to just send people the guide if they didn't want to join my email list.

    Deliver Value (Part 2): I was an active/engaged participant in all of those groups before I posted. I added quite a bit of value before I went in with an "ask". And even my ask was more of a "hey, if this is helpful to you, here you go" soft offer.

    I can't promise your entrepreneurial venture will work out. But, what I've learned is: * Above all, give first before you ask * Seek to genuinely add value and build authentic relationships * Show proof (outside of your own claims) that you have the skills or know what you're talking about.

    (See, I told you this kinda stuff isn't sexy...but it hasn't failed me yet).

    Cheers to wise growth!

    submitted by /u/whyzze1
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    Lead / Customer Management Software

    Posted: 24 Aug 2020 11:05 AM PDT

    Hello!

    I'm looking for some opinions on what some of the better options out there for sales pipeline and customer management tools?

    A little about us: We're a small SaaS startup with a few early adopter clients with close ties to those in the startup, but now we're looking to expand our customer base and ultimately seek market validation for the product we've created. For the time being, I've been using HubSpot Free edition but it's not set up in anything beyond the initial requirements and so far has mainly was used for tracking of opened emails and maybe two templates.

    While I realize it's not a marriage forever to the option chosen for Sales/Customer Management, I wouldn't mind hearing from those that have used a few of the more popular ones and if there were any recommendations?

    Thanks

    submitted by /u/richards_86
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    We'll help you find influencers in your product niche.

    Posted: 24 Aug 2020 10:59 AM PDT

    You provide us 3 hashtags that describes your business or your upcoming campaign, and we will provide you a list of 10 influencers in your product niche that have a highly engaged community of followers.

    Feel free to DM me if your brand is interested in using influencers to market your product.

    submitted by /u/cyroos12
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    Full time job and startup?

    Posted: 24 Aug 2020 10:57 AM PDT

    Does anyone work a full time job and their startup? I imagine a lot of us do.

    What is your schedule like?

    Do you give yourself any time off?

    If you have a family how does this schedule allow/not allow for family time?

    submitted by /u/Surflia
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    Micro-Entrepreneurs

    Posted: 24 Aug 2020 10:33 AM PDT

    Remember the hype around micro-services which allowed teams to work independently and operate at a massive scale?

    We got to do that with Entrepreneurs too. Help foster, nurture and create micro-entrepreneur who can solve the niche problem which Monolithic (Mega corporations) wouldn't be interested in due to the lack of market size.

    End Result: Decentralization of the internet economy currently operated by a select few corporations

    submitted by /u/ronakjain90
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    Want to start a website similar to Wiki. Don't know where to start

    Posted: 24 Aug 2020 10:28 AM PDT

    I won't be selling any products. Perhaps memberships if the consumer is interested enough in my site to keep coming back.

    My idea has a lot of potential and can help a lot of people around the globe. I know this for a fact. But I have 0 experience in programming or web development. I want to learn. I want to make my dream come into reality. So far I'm trying my hand at The Odin Project, learning all that I can from videos on youtube, but I know I'm only just scratching the surface.

    Anyone know any good articles, classes, or books that talk about the process of developing a massive website such as Wiki? And how to make it profitable as a business?Thanks!

    submitted by /u/trojans210
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    Need ideas, please help.

    Posted: 24 Aug 2020 10:12 AM PDT

    So my gradma has a landscaping business and sells pebbles, rocks, gnomes, mushrooms, fountains, frogs etc. I was thinking of having a side business that would go really well with her business. Also, pots are also being sold so thats crossed out. I was thinking that selling would be best since I still lack knowledge about labour regarding landscaping. I also want it to be mutually beneficial for me & my grandma.I live in the Philippines if that matters. It would mean a lot if you gave any suggestions at all, thanks reddit!

    submitted by /u/--Creed-Bratton-
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    Do I need a business/marketing analyst on my app team?

    Posted: 24 Aug 2020 10:11 AM PDT

    I am managing a team to build an iOS app as a side project. Although we are halfway done in terms of development, I would like to start thinking about how to market my app and bring it to the market.

    Do I need a business/marketing analyst to take care of the business side of things? Or is this something a developer like me can learn to do easily?

    submitted by /u/cheeky861
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    What subjects should I study in which order to have a better shot at becoming wealthy?

    Posted: 24 Aug 2020 09:50 AM PDT

    I've scoured the Internet for which subjects to study and it recommends accounting, economics, finance, marketing etc to become wealthy I just don't know which order to study them in. My thought is to get in depth accounting knowledge first since it's the language of business but I'm not sure. Sorry for my grammar I have a cognitive impairment.

    submitted by /u/cinnabun8145
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