Thank you Thursday! - (October 29, 2020) Entrepreneur

Thank you Thursday! - (October 29, 2020)
$23,000 saved at 17, what next?
Problem Evaluation
How to learn to ask better critical questions?
Considering building a site for career guidance - thoughts?
A stupidly simple trick I use to get more people to join my email list (crosspost from r/internetmarketing)
I made an animated summary of "The $100 Startup" by Chris Guillebeau. I hope this is useful to you.
Shipping Advice For Alibaba/Aliexpress?
What team would I need for logistic tracking ?
How to maintain your brand’s image with employees?
Business models of Online Magazines and content strategy?
The only popups you'll need to drive more leads and sales
Re-invent Your Business Model after 79 years - It is not too late!
Help choosing name or what to do?
Anyone experienced with building out duplexes on their own and renting them out?
Please recommend some good entrepreneurial biographies/autobiographies which show the true realities instead of generic advice and propaganda
The basic mechanism of my idea is patented. It was not renewed in my country. Advice please.
Growth strategies, kpis, business models of top 13 CPG/Ecom Unicorns
Data driven tool/method for finding unsaturated markets for e-commerce products prior to sourcing
This experience changed the way I think about email deliverability and sales performance for my own product
I've got a startup on mine which is currently in its Pre-Seed Phase...how do I look for the funds? How do I contact investors?
Compensation Advice
Building A Great Business — Advice You Won't Take (And Will Regret Not Taking Later)
Carpentry business
A great team looking for a sales partner in US
Co-founders with complementary skills vs Employees with a salary in a bootstrapped online business. Which is better?

Thank you Thursday! - (October 29, 2020)

Posted: 29 Oct 2020 06:09 AM PDT

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.

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$23,000 saved at 17, what next?

Posted: 29 Oct 2020 09:27 AM PDT

Hey, as you saw by the title, I'm currently 17 and have saved approx 20k in the last 3 years of doing hustles online and being an "entrepreneur". I was wondering to ask for some advice or good tips for me moving forward in life, I live in a country where the average salary is approx $1.5k/month, and I'm currently making around that from my Shopify store building service business. My passion is business and since 14 when I found out about it, I figured that that`s what i want to do for the rest of my life, and not go work 9-5 or go to college/uni. So my question is, what advice would anyone who has lived longer on earth than me, have for me moving forward, should i stay this last 1 and a half year in high school or drop out and have an earlier start full in on business, should i do business on the side or should I continue doing what I`m doing right now try to scale and learn more and become more valuable as a person to always have that "security pillow" if I ever become a need of a job? Anything you`d like to say please feel free to leave down below, thanks so much!

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Problem Evaluation

Posted: 29 Oct 2020 03:50 AM PDT

One day, a bus driver went to the bus garage, started his bus, and drove off along the route.

No problems for the first few stops - a few people got on, a few got off, and things went generally well. At the next stop, however, a big hulk of a guy got on. Six feet plus in height, built like a wrestler, arms hanging down to the ground. He glared at the driver and said, "Big John doesn't need to pay!" and sat down at the back.

Did I mention that the driver was five feet three, thin, and basically meek? Well, he was!

Naturally, he didn't argue with Big John, but he wasn't happy about it either. The next day the same thing happened - Big John got on again, made a show of refusing to pay, and sat down.

And the next day, and the one after that and so forth!

This concerned the bus driver, who started losing sleep over the way Big John was taking advantage of him.

Finally he could stand it no longer. He signed up for body building courses, karate, judo, and all that good stuff.

By the end of the summer, he had become quite strong; what's more, he felt really good about himself.

So on the next Monday, when Big John once again got on the bus and said, "Big John doesn't pay," the driver stood up, glared back at the passenger, and screamed," and why not?" With a surprised look on his face, Big John replied, "Big John has a bus pass!"

Moral: Be sure of what is a problem in the first place before working hard to solve one.

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How to learn to ask better critical questions?

Posted: 28 Oct 2020 02:43 PM PDT

I joke to myself that I get paid 6 figures to work in an industry that's constantly evolving (the technology, regulations, products, org's) which I previously knew nothing about, just to ask variations of these same questions every day:

"What do you mean by ____?"
"What's your definition of _____?"
"Can you step back and walk me through how ____ works?"

I also marvel at my more experienced colleagues' abilities to ask even more effective critical questions, which is why I'm looking to improve this in myself. I understand that their ability has built up just by being in the industry over time, but I feel there must be some "universal" skill out there on asking questions that can be learned. I never studied philosophy or languages, never participated in debate classes, never read much most of my life, never became an expert in one domain. Looking for books, blogs, podcasts, etc. Thank you.

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Considering building a site for career guidance - thoughts?

Posted: 29 Oct 2020 11:48 AM PDT

Hey everyone - I have no 'passion,' but I have certain interests and skills and know about how much money I want to be making. From what I've seen on other subs, a lot of people are in a similar place (or without a job thanks to covid) and wondering where to go from here or where to start. One thing I've realized doesn't really exist is a central place to help figure this out. Once I have an idea (i.e. law school), Google and reddit become my best friends, but it's pretty time consuming trying to find answers to questions you don't even know you should have.

I want to build a website that solves this. Almost like an 'if this, then that' type of set up. Big questions are:

What career paths require certifications that can easily be done in my spare time? Which of these can be done within a certain budget?
What careers can I do with my degree? associates degree? GED?
What careers can I do with my current experience?
What careers require more formal education? how long does it take? how much does it typically cost? what are my options if I pursue it, but realize half-way through or once I'm done that I don't want to do it?

The idea would be for it to address quite literally any career - so many exist that you don't know about until you start down a certain path or you know someone who does it. It would have reviews from current and previous employees in a chosen field, pros/cons, "day in the life," segments, mock interviews/tips for specific roles and a faux-mentor section where you could easily connect with people in field - since networking outside of anyone or industry you're familiar with can be challenging (LinkedIn or bust). This would be incredibly time-consuming to put together, but I really wish I had it right about now. Curious what your thoughts are - is it too broad? is there a reason something like this doesn't exist (except in the form of not cheap career coaches)?

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A stupidly simple trick I use to get more people to join my email list (crosspost from r/internetmarketing)

Posted: 29 Oct 2020 04:58 AM PDT

Wanted to share a little trick I use to get people to double opt-in to my email list.

It's quick, easy and it's worked every time I've used it.

To understand it you need to know what a double opt-in is, why it's important, but why it sucks.

What's a double opt-in?

A double opt-in is when you force everyone who enters their email to join your list to confirm the email they entered. Which means they have to go to their inbox, open your email and click a confirmation button.

Why it matters

It's worth forcing people to optin because people enter fake emails (e.g. [dick@head.com](mailto:dick@head.com)).

You don't want these emails man. Because if you email fake addresses email providers tag a 'bad emailer' and start sending your emails to spam. (Or the promo folder in Gmail).

The double opt-in solves this by forcing people to give a confirmation from the email they entered.

So what's the problem?

People are lazy and like to put things off. They think "I'll do it later" and forget. Which means no emails for them - and no sales for us.

So how do you fix this problem?

I simply add a 5 min countdown timer with the line "Your confirmation link will expire in 5 minutes" to my 'Please confirm page'.

That's it.

The link doesn't actually expire in 5 minutes. But that's how it's perceived which means get it done.

(Here's a before and after pic of what I mean)

Seriously give it a go. I've not yet seen or known of a business where this doesn't significantly reduce lost lazy emails.

If you liked this check out r/internetmarketing. It's a great community for guys who sell ebooks and online courses - and we share tips like this all the time.

Peace!

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I made an animated summary of "The $100 Startup" by Chris Guillebeau. I hope this is useful to you.

Posted: 29 Oct 2020 06:00 AM PDT

Link to video: https://youtu.be/Cqa1LqahOLE

I release new videos often, if you're interested in subscribing here's a link: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfbLDMh6uGOZePAfqqjVZ-g?sub_confirmation=1

If you'd prefer to read the script instead of watching the video, here it is:

The $100 Startup By Chris Guillebeau

About The Author

Chris Guillebeau is a world-traveler (he has travelled to 193 countries—out of 195 countries in the world), a public speaker, blogger, podcaster, and bestselling author who, in addition to the $100 startup, also saw massive success with his first book publication, The Art of Non-Conformity. His books and blog focus on self-development, travel, and lifestyle (microbusiness) entrepreneurship.

The Book's Main Idea

"This book is for those who take action and those who provide the inspiration."

Chris Guillebeau

The $100 Startup is a business-centric book whose aim is to help prospective entrepreneurs become aware of the challenges that come with creating a successful small business that generates enough revenue to allow the entrepreneur to escape the 9-5 rat race and start living a 'rich' life.

"The new reality is that working at a job may be the far riskier choice."

Chris Guillebeau

A look at the main ideas shared in the book

The book shares the following main ideas:

1: Passion + good business sense is the magic formula

"The missing piece is that you usually don't get paid for your hobby itself; you get paid for helping other people pursue the hobby or for something indirectly related to it."

Chris Guillebeau

The secret to all success is simple really: capitalize on your passions but do so with good business sense by looking into how you can turn your skills (or passion) into a workable and successful product/or service.

Aim to strike what Chris calls convergence, a state where your skills or passions are valuable in the sense that they intersect with the things/elements other people find useful. If you can strike this convergence and from it, package your passion/skills into a service or product a specific audience would find invaluably useful—in that it serves a purpose such as helping solve a problem—you will create a successful business because:

"Passion or Skill + Usefulness = Success

"(PASSION + SKILL) –> (PROBLEM + MARKETING) = OPPORTUNITY"

Chris Guillebeau

For someone starting out in entrepreneurship—perhaps starting with $100 or less—to aim for this convergence, ask yourself, "Which skills or passions can I package into a valuable service," or "what am I good at that I can offer to a ready audience?"

"Ask three questions for every idea: a. How would I get paid with this idea? b. How much would I get paid from this idea? c. Is there a way I could get paid more than once?"

Chris Guillebeau

2: Where great business ideas come from

If you have ever wondered where great ideas come from, Chris offers invaluable insight. He notes, "Great ideas are everywhere. They are seized opportunities from an emerging technology, or a solution to a hidden or glaring problem."

To find a great business idea, aim for convergence of your passion and what is useful to others, but also cultivate a deep understanding of your target audience not based on conventional targeting wisdom—targeting audiences based on age, gender, income, etc.—but based on what matters the most to the people you intend to serve:

"What do people really, really want? At the end of the day, they want to be happy, and businesses that help their customers be happy are well-positioned to succeed."

Chris Guillebeau

3: Your success depends on the actions you take

Success—business or otherwise—is not that complicated really. All you truly need to do is take action; yes, spend time planning—because failing to plan is planning to fail—but more importantly, spend more time acting. This is the secret to small business success.

"There's nothing wrong with planning. But you can spend a lifetime making a plan that never turns into action. In the battle between planning and action, action wins."

Chris Guillebeau

We are fortunate enough to live in an age where all the information we could ever need to succeed in our lives and businesses is readily available to us. At the click of a button, you can test business ideas, launch a microbusiness, and grow it into a thriving business. Without action, however, creating any sort of business success is impossible because:

"Plans are only good intentions unless they immediately degenerate into hard work."

Chris Guillebeau

Being an entrepreneur or microbusiness owner calls for what Chris calls, "planning as you go" or "bias towards action." This means finding that convergence and then getting started with implementing your idea right away by creating and launching a prototype of your product/service. With the product/service in play, you can "learn and plan as you go" and scale your business.

Conclusion

All business success comes from action taken at the right time. As long as you can create something a specific audience will find valuable, you can create a low-startup cost business around it.

I hope that was useful, have a great day!

I release new videos often, if you're interested in subscribing here's a link: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfbLDMh6uGOZePAfqqjVZ-g?sub_confirmation=1

I've made over 60 summaries of the best self improvement books, the links are below.

Full playlist of them all here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOImyOGN9UE&list=PLaNTB6oQAa0AYuul0tqUscg1ZLj_arZga

Here are the links:

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Shipping Advice For Alibaba/Aliexpress?

Posted: 29 Oct 2020 12:52 PM PDT

I'm looking at sourcing some electronics from China. I have found some good prices but the shipping costs are killer. Shipping ends up costing more than 100 pieces of the product itself (on a 100 piece order) and these are just small 5 inch electronic components.

Is this regular or am I missing something? Margins would be amazing if shipping wasn't so crazy expensive.

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What team would I need for logistic tracking ?

Posted: 29 Oct 2020 12:32 PM PDT

A project landed on my lap earlier today. Which is implement a tracking services for company X. They currently own 100+ trucks and want it to be tracked back and forth, a platform too. What are the right people together for this project?

Another project is AI/Machine learning, whereby need the cameras to identify each type of product that is usually exiting the warehouse. What team do I need for this?

I'm in way above what I know, but I have the back up to do this project and before I start my research wanted to know what reddit has for me,

Cheers!

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How to maintain your brand’s image with employees?

Posted: 29 Oct 2020 03:08 PM PDT

This headline might be confusing so let me explain.

I help run a health food store. We have an employee who also has her own yoga business. This employee (let's call her Sara) made a post on Instagram that was a photo of our products and captioned it saying "We sell supplements" along with our @.

That seems good, but I don't like that Sara said "we". It's almost like she's saying her yoga business sells these products. Because she's an employee and some employments can go sour, I don't want to risk being tied to her brand. She could easily have taken out "we" and it would have been an appropriate post.

After speaking with her, she made another post of one of our supplements along with the price tag. She tagged the brand of supplements and tagged the company that makes it aka who we buy from. No mention of our health food store. Someone could easily see her post, go to the supplement brand's website and buy direct aka cutting us out.

I don't care if customer's do this, but I care if an employee does or if another business does without a discussion first.

This has prompted me to add a social media policy into our employee handbook. Brand equity is important to me and I feel like a mother protecting her child.

TL:DR: Does anyone have advice for how to set up this policy with employees? Aka how do I get employees to act in the best interest of our brand via their social media sites?

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Business models of Online Magazines and content strategy?

Posted: 29 Oct 2020 09:10 AM PDT

What are the business models of an Online magazine besides ads and affiliate marketing?

Do they choose content based on keywords or whatever is interesting to the audience?

I am talking about serious magazines, not some lame content.

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The only popups you'll need to drive more leads and sales

Posted: 29 Oct 2020 02:39 PM PDT

Hi everyone, I run Panda a social proof platform and wanted to provide some insight into effective methods to drive leads and sales.

Forget everything you know about website popups. In this article, I want to share the types of popups you need to know or be familiar with, at least. Not all will be relevant to your organization, mind you.

But those that are will update you on the best practices you need to follow if you want more subscribers, customers, and repeat buyers for your business.

CART ABANDONMENT

I hate it. You hate it. And just about every online retailer on the planet hates it. I'm talking, of course, about cart abandonment. And it isn't going away. In fact, it's getting worse.

As of writing (March 2020), the average cart abandonment rate is 88.05 percent across all industries, with automotive seeing rates as high as 96.88 percent. (!)

On the other hand, reasons consumers abandon their cart haven't changed, with 41 percent citing unexpected shipping costs as their reason for leaving.

Top reasons for cart abandonment

The cost of delivery was higher than anticipated
Just comparing prices
Item was out of stock
Decided didn't want the product

With that said, one way to at least reduce cart abandonment is to offer, or remind, some buyers that they're eligible for free shipping by using a website popup.

SOCIAL PROOF POPUPS

There are many ways to demonstrate social proof using website popups, but there are two, in particular, I want to highlight. The first is obvious: showcasing customer testimonials.

DISCOUNT POPUP EXAMPLES

One of the most common ways to incentivize against cart abandonment, as we saw earlier, is offering a discount. But that's not to say that's the only way.

There are a time and a place to offer discounts, and you'll be glad to know it's not only with recovering lost sales. In fact, when combined with multistep popups, offering discounts is a great way to enrich lead data.

CONCLUSION

But it's important to remember that a popup is only as good as the end goal it's helping you achieve. You can have the best lead capture form in the world, but if you're not doing anything with returning subscribers and later, returning buyers, nothing else matters.

If you view website popups as a means rather than an end and use them to assist in moving people down your funnel, you will make a difference to your bottom line.

I run Panda - a way to integrate social proof, FOMO, and popups to increase conversions. due to COVD, I'm offering cheaper monthly subscriptions

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Re-invent Your Business Model after 79 years - It is not too late!

Posted: 29 Oct 2020 01:56 AM PDT

Hilti, established in 1941, a Liechtenstein-based high-end power tool manufacturer serving the construction industry, changed its revenue model to be better aligned with its customers' underlying needs. Hilti had long sold power tools directly to its customers. The company reviewed its existing model and reconsidered the value proposition for its customers.

Holes instead of hammers!

Hilti noticed that contractors make money by using tools, not by owning them. So instead of selling equipment, it rethought its revenue model and began selling the use of the equipment instead, helping its customers to increase their productivity while reducing their capital investments. Hilti took over managing its customers' tool inventory, providing the right tool on demand and supplying tool repairs, replacements, and automatic upgrades for a monthly fee.

Solving Problems

Hilti's innovative approach to charging for its tools solved a variety of problems with which the construction industry had been unsuccessfully grappling. Drilling tools require a large upfront investment. Broken machines during construction projects can cause major financial losses. Typically, repair services are not immediately available in the field. Uncertain reliability of tools causes many contractors to overstock to prevent emergency situations from arising in the case of tool failure.

Higher Margins

After Hilti made the revenue model change, many contractors, who had spread their tool purchases among a number of manufacturers in the past, started allocating a greater share of purchases to Hilti in line with the benefits of the more holistic tool management service. Furthering the gains for Hilti, the new solutions model had higher margins than selling each product one by one, plus the ongoing service contracts led to longer and deeper customer relationships. This, in turn, provided Hilti with even greater insights into its customers' needs.

Adapting to evolving customer needs

Hilti rethought its revenue from a product-based model to a product-service-solutions-support model with great success, but it had to begin by examining its current revenue generation model and looking for ways to improve while adapting to a changing customer value proposition. When you rethink your own revenue model, you would be hard pressed to find a better place to start than with the underlying needs of your customers. Even if you've been doing business for 70 years.

Questions to self:

What would have happened to Hilti, had they continued their traditional business model?
Do I have an opportunity where I can convert my products in to services and serve customers better?
What product can I start this with and how do I validate it?

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Help choosing name or what to do?

Posted: 29 Oct 2020 02:22 PM PDT

I am having trouble choosing a name for my business. My business partner isn't great with choosing names (I am not either) and have not had much luck on Fiverr. I want to follow all the must haves for naming and be able to expand on our products at a later time so I don't want a limiting name.

I thought about making it something for now and just moving on to focusing on the business part but I have heard bad things about changing the name later on. I heard it is difficult to do and that I should choose wisely from the beginning. Don't get me wrong, I am working and out there hustling but it is hard to do without a concrete name in place for our products.

I'd love to hire a naming agency but we don't have the funds for that right now and would like to spend them on creating an awesome product and marketing them.

Any suggestions? In case you want to offer your creativity, the business is an online and offline business in which we sell awesome dog collars.

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Anyone experienced with building out duplexes on their own and renting them out?

Posted: 29 Oct 2020 01:50 PM PDT

Background: I work in the architecture industry as a PM. I have worked at a residential design-buikd company before, so I know the process of building a house ground-up. I am in the Houston area and will look to do this outside of houston, maybe passed some of the suburbs where land value is low but enough population for there to be renters of affordable units.

Goal: I want to build some duplexes for cheap and I figure I can manage the construction myself. I don't have a ton of my own capital that I am willing to risk, but I figure rates for loans are low right now. I'm thinking of making an appointment to speak with an SBA agent as well. Looking at the rental market of one of the target areas, I think $1,200 is a reasonable rental rate per unit, with each unit having 3br/2ba. Ideally one side pays the loan/taxes and I can pocket the other side.

Where I need help: I'd like to form an LLC for the construction and rental businesses, but I'm not sure if I would be better off keeping them separate and forming two LLC's. After that, what types of loans would be best for projects like these? I assume I start with a construction loan and convert it to a business loan after I get the CO since I would not be living in any of the units. The less of my own money I need to put in the better.

I'm open to flipping the early duplexes after completion if it would be better for me to build up some capital to be able to build and rent more of them.

Any advice would be much appreciated!

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Please recommend some good entrepreneurial biographies/autobiographies which show the true realities instead of generic advice and propaganda

Posted: 29 Oct 2020 01:24 PM PDT

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The basic mechanism of my idea is patented. It was not renewed in my country. Advice please.

Posted: 29 Oct 2020 01:01 PM PDT

A patent lawyer said it would be tough to get any patent, due to lack of funding I want to try to implement through Kickstarter. Is there any way of protecting my product?

Thanks.

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Growth strategies, kpis, business models of top 13 CPG/Ecom Unicorns

Posted: 29 Oct 2020 09:07 AM PDT

For the Ecom / CPG folks.

I had my team do a round of research on the top CPG/Ecom unicorns to find their growth strats, KPIs, revenue models, fundraising approaches etc. The objective was to uncover their approaches for leaping from 8 fig to 9 fig.

Thought you might find the info useful. Link to the PDF reports here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1XeHc9RkXKOusyanbCggz8f4amenjJIMT?usp=sharing

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Data driven tool/method for finding unsaturated markets for e-commerce products prior to sourcing

Posted: 29 Oct 2020 06:42 AM PDT

There must be a mathematical approach to deciding on which product categories to source. Finding which categories are under supplied. So far I've tried:

Google trends Amazon best sellers Ebay listings Terapeak

Any other affordable/free tools or methods for this?

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This experience changed the way I think about email deliverability and sales performance for my own product

Posted: 29 Oct 2020 12:20 PM PDT

To tell this story I have to go back to 2 years ago, the time when we were trying to put our product in the market for the first time:

I always believed outbound sales was a good way to put our product out there. So at that time, I was always struggling to find good lists of leads. If I was on a good day, I could find a list of about 1000 leads.

Next, I would be sending a sales campaign to all these leads and hoping for results.

Eventually, I would realize that I needed more leads to our sales funnel. That 5% reply rate was just not enough.

Next time, I would pay for 2000 leads instead. For sure this time I could double the number of leads to our sales funnel.

What actually happened? The reply rate just got even worse and in total volume, I had even fewer leads in our sales funnel.

(Yes, if you're curious, I ended up burning this domain in SPAM… 🤦‍♂️)

What's the problem with this approach?

When I was sending a campaign to 1000 leads, that same campaign was probably generating about 3k or 4k emails (1st touch + Follow-ups).

With a 5% reply rate, I was getting in total about 50 emails. Can you see this HUGE imbalance?

4000 sent emails VS 50 received emails

This type of behavior makes your emails easily land in Spam. And with emails in Spam…

You'll never get any replies

You'll never start any sales conversation

You'll never increase your customers pipeline!

The key takeaway here is that you should focus on sending small batches of emails tailored to specific audiences (with high levels of personalization, and you don't need 1h per lead to achieve this).

You'll be able to get higher engagement levels and thus, increase your customers pipeline. Even if you're sending about 50% of the volume you were sending before.

Better Deliverability = More Revenue

I'd love to hear experiences from other entrepreneurs with outbound sales :)

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I've got a startup on mine which is currently in its Pre-Seed Phase...how do I look for the funds? How do I contact investors?

Posted: 29 Oct 2020 11:59 AM PDT

P.S.: I'm looking for a Pre-Seed fund of a maximum of 10k USD and a minimum of 7k USD.

I would really appreciate the help.

Thanks.

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Compensation Advice

Posted: 29 Oct 2020 11:56 AM PDT

I am a recent graduate from college and I work a full time job (about 55 hours a week). It is not my favorite job and am still searching on finding the right career for me. I will not be quitting for the foreseeable future given current conditions, but I want to explore other careers.

There is a start-up that I used to be in communication with and I am thinking about reaching out and asking if they have any opportunities for part time work. I know that I will be working for free at the beginning, but I don't want to set the expectation that I am free labor. Ideally, I would like an equity stake.

Any advice for setting the right expectations?

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Building A Great Business — Advice You Won't Take (And Will Regret Not Taking Later)

Posted: 29 Oct 2020 11:46 AM PDT

1. IMPROVE THE LIVES OF A TINY GROUP OF PEOPLE

It's tempting to think big. What's the TAM? How many people can I sell this to?

Instead, you should start uncomfortably small.

Can you clearly identify and solve the problem of 1 person? Yourself perhaps? Now go find others.

2. BE PROFITABLE FROM THE BEGINNING

For some startups, there's just no way around it. You have to invest tons of money and hopefully one day you'll be profitable.

But the vast majority are cargo cutting.

3. FOCUS ON BUILDING SOMETHING GREAT INSTEAD OF ON THE COMPETITION

People that focus on the competition have run out of ideas.

Focus on building a product that's so great, people are banging down your door to get it or would be deeply sad if it disappeared tomorrow.

Most startups could be and should be funded by customers.

4. REFUSE TO DIE

If you keep your overhead low enough, you'll get to keep iterating and trying things until you succeed.

You're making a lot of bad assumptions, the more you can replace those with less wrong ones, the better.

High burn means few experiments before you die.

5. DON'T OVERBUILD

Build only what you need to in order to test your assumptions.

Whatever you think you need to build, build less.

Can you test some assumptions without building?

This list is a trick list in the sense that it's impossible to follow. Every founder makes these mistakes. Hopefully, you'll recognize them faster now.

In case you're interested, you can read the full essay here:

https://younglingfeynman.com/essays/advice

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If you found this helpful, I write essays on entrepreneurial science designed to help founders grow their business. Want in?

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Carpentry business

Posted: 29 Oct 2020 11:34 AM PDT

Im kind of interested in opening up a carpentry business. My dad has a lot of skills in the area but he isnt licensed and neither am I. I want to be able to do a small family business but wasnt sure how to go about or if its even illegal to do without a license? And is it expensive to open up a business?

submitted by /u/bluecrazymonkey
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A great team looking for a sales partner in US

Posted: 29 Oct 2020 11:32 AM PDT

Hi, I run an website and application development company based in India. It's a start up and I'm looking to serve clients from US as they would be good for my portfolio and our revenue. We cannot afford to pay a monthly compensation as of now yet so I'm looking for someone who can work with us on a commission basis. It'll be a good opportunity for everyone involved as the development costs are much less here and so the commissions for the partner would be good and the client would get a great value for his money. More than anything, we have a great team.

Please DM me if you're interested.

submitted by /u/ParadoxicalGlutton
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Co-founders with complementary skills vs Employees with a salary in a bootstrapped online business. Which is better?

Posted: 29 Oct 2020 04:46 AM PDT

Long post.

I'd be very grateful if you can help me get some clarity here.
We do not plan to get funding. This is going to be a bootstrapped online business
Reason - Many told that if we can grow without funding, that's the best.

My question is very simple.
What's the advantage of hiring employees as opposed to hiring co-founders with complementary skills when the company is at its initial phase, not creating any revenue?

To make it clear, let's imagine we are making an ed-tech company which helps students to prepare for tests such as SAT.

We need

1, Somebody to create the online course - Creator
2, Somebody to market the course - Marketer
3, Somebody to manage all processes - Manager

These three roles are enough.

If these people are co-founders, they can share the profit according to their equity. If the equity is equally divided among them, it's 33% profit for each one of them.Also, there are tools to divide things according to their job role.

Instead, if we hire them as employees, they should be given a salary instead of a profit percentage and they wouldn't have equity in our business.

However, they might not actually produce enough revenue to give them salary unless we have funding.

I do understand that when the revenue of the business gets higher, it is better to hire employees rather than giving equity but is there any advantage in hiring employees when the business isn't creating any revenue or during the first phase?

Thank you

References
https://matters2.com/the-trinity-of-management/
http://foundrs.com/

submitted by /u/Novel-Scar-7262
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Thursday, October 29, 2020

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