10 yrs ago I walked off my day job to make hollow books and sell them online. Here are some things I've learned along the way. Entrepreneur |
- 10 yrs ago I walked off my day job to make hollow books and sell them online. Here are some things I've learned along the way.
- Best way to sell a startup business?
- 0$ to 2.500$/Month - The start of my entrepreneurship journey.
- How To Shorten Links With Bitly - How To Shorten Long URLs Using Bitly
- Does a business have to be registered in the state you reside/are "headquartered"?
- Learning a trade and being self employed
- A reminder: Sales is like farming. Have some motivation today!
- Have an old friend who won’t share any info on his success or knowledge
- Landing page images
| Posted: 02 Dec 2020 05:09 PM PST Hi fellow entrepreneurs and wantrepreneurs, My name is Kara, (As an intro, here's Me in our converted garage workshop crafting hollow books which my husband and I make and sell online ) I started out handcrafting hollow books using just an x-acto knife in 2009 after coming home from working as a gallery attendant at the MCA in Chicago when we used to live there. (In the years between graduating from SAIC with a BFA in painting & drawing/some bookmaking and taking up hollow-bookmaking, I had a long string of odd jobs in no particular order, some overlapping: selling luggage, horse-carriage driving, stuffing envelopes, counting out drill bits, teaching basic papermaking, coordinating craft workshops, and a horrible holiday stint at The Gap). I'm not Japanese (I'm Korean-Minnesotan), but I've been attracted to this workplace organization method I heard about from another redditor called "5S":seiri (整理), seiton (整頓), seisō (清掃), seiketsu (清潔), and shitsuke(躾). These have been translated as "Sort", "Set In order", "Shine", "Standardize" and "Sustain". Off the top of my head changes over years we made to help streamline:
My work personality is what some might call "control-freak", and others might call "detail-oriented." When my husband joined the business after getting laid off from his job, I had a hard time delegating any work to him even though he's the most trusted human in my life. The two of us were able to start making a living by making hollow books by my first putting them up on Etsy which was then kickstarted for free when Etsy featured me I first thought of making a hollow book when daydreaming about Anne Frank hiding while I was at the museum while automatically telling people not to touch the art. When I got home I wanted to use my own hands to make something, and slowly crafting a book was enjoyable as well as beneficial to my mental health. I don't own many actual hats, but I wear many of the figurative hats in our business; and I must say I enjoy each one: cutting books with scroll saw, gluing books, wrapping books, communicating with customers, and arranging online promotion. One benefit of online free promos from blogs/gift lists/social media is that most of them are still online appearing in searches and for example these are a handful of pretty old ones that we still get hits from and sales from: Buzzfeed "14 Surprising Gifts For Complete And Total Liars" Go Fug Yourself 2016 2016 GFY Gift Guide Mashable "The Book Safe Every Bibliophile Should Own" Thrillist "Keep Your Flask Hidden Inside Legendary Books About Boozing" Snippet and Ink "Secret Garden Wedding" During the aforementioned odd job 10 yr phase in my life, my husband and I spent most of our cash on month-long travel during Feb. to escape the MN winter to Thailand/India/Sri Lanka/Indonesia. In Thailand and India you see monks about frequently. I think subconsciously over the years, the ways of the monk with emphasis on an introspective life while meeting basic needs doing daily tasks seeped into me. I grew in appreciation of my own daily crafting tasks and the satisfaction of carving out a living independently, however modest. My latest hobby is embroidery, and I could see selling PDF design downloads in the future or something much more unexpected. I'm open to unexpected opportunities, but I'm shooting for trying to stay in my comfort zone meaning keeping working for myself mostly by myself. Is that the most unpopular thing to say in this sub or what? AMA. [link] [comments]  |
| Best way to sell a startup business? Posted: 02 Dec 2020 05:15 PM PST Long story short, around a year ago I was looking at starting a side hustle in power washing. Circumstances changed and now I am not needing to continue with the venture. I have all new cleaning equipment, website, logos, signage, registered business name and uniforms ready to go. My question is whether I can even sell it all together as a "business" and if so have any of you out there got any advice as to the best way to sell? All up I'm about $3000 into it... [link] [comments]  |
| 0$ to 2.500$/Month - The start of my entrepreneurship journey. Posted: 02 Dec 2020 05:09 PM PST Hi, I have been interested in entrepreneurship for the past year, but I started my first successful business a month ago and I would like to share my experience. Back when I was doing e-commerce, one of my hardest problems was making high-quality posts for my social media. So, what did I do? I thought of making a service that offers high-quality social media posts for a small subscription every month. I posted on some e-commerce groups and I got very positive feedback and almost 300 comments asking for it. I then concluded that there was definitely a market for that. I didn't have the capital to assemble any kind of team to help me develop the product or any other aspect, so I did everything myself. I made the first three months of the posts(Note: They were quite a lot, about 700), I designed the website and started doing paid and organic social media marketing (Note: I already had experience in every one of these sections but I wouldn't call myself an expert on any of those. I started marketing for about a month, but I didn't start charging any subscriptions yet. I am only getting pre-orders right now. I acknowledge that the title is a little clickbait since I haven't received the money yet, but I have 324 pre-orders which amount to 2.575.8/Month. A huge amount of the orders came from a Black Friday/Cyber Monday special promotion which made up about 40% of pre-orders. I am super excited to be launching a successful business, as it has been a dream of mine for the past year. I would love to hear some feedback from the people of Reddit, but I don't think it's quite the time yet. I will definitely make a post on r/entrepreneur explaining everything with much more detail and share the link once I start the subscriptions. [link] [comments]  |
| How To Shorten Links With Bitly - How To Shorten Long URLs Using Bitly Posted: 02 Dec 2020 04:59 PM PST |
| Does a business have to be registered in the state you reside/are "headquartered"? Posted: 02 Dec 2020 04:58 PM PST I would like to register a business, but I am having a little trouble figuring out the specific requirements and I have read conflicting recommendations. To start, I am based in New York City and my company sells dog treats. I sell to people in NYC and across the United States. I've read that a lot of companies register an LLC in Delaware, but I also was told that registering in Delaware would be moot because I'd also have to register in New York. So my question is: can I register an LLC in Delaware or do I need to register in New York? [link] [comments]  |
| Learning a trade and being self employed Posted: 02 Dec 2020 04:51 PM PST I hate college, I'm miserable in this business degree, I'm going to drop out now or if I can I'l get to the end of this year just so I can pick up where I left off if I was to ever go back. I've been feeling very lost and very stressed - It's not easy not knowing what step to take. I know that I don't fancy prodding away at a computer for the next 40 years. I want to finish the day and look back on it with pride, I want to take pride in my work and feel a sense of accomplishment from that, I've never gotten that from an excel spreadsheet. I know I want to be self employed. I've seriously struggled to find anything that remotely interests me career-wise. I know my best bet is to develop a craft, skill or learn a trade, most of those (but not all) are in the construction. I need to get into something I can at least tolerate, hopefully even enjoy. I don't fancy working out in the elements (that rules out a lot of trades). My uncle is a carpenter by trade, he primarily fits kitchens, wardrobes and lays flooring, I've helped him out a couple times and enjoyed the work, it's heavy but rewarding. I think the best plan of action for me is - get into a trade (maybe even carpentry with my uncle), work my ass off, get good at it and go out on my own.. From there the world is my oyster. I just need to find something I can tolerate right now, the futures good but I have to get through today. I just want to say to any aspiring entrepreneurs like me don't fall into the same trap I did. Don't think you have to reinvent the wheel, you can sell it with better customer service, sell a budget version or sell a wheel fit for a king - An idea doesn't need to be original to be profitable. College is not for everyone, I'm a prime example. It's hard not seeing yourself as a failure when you fail but I've learnt more from failing at college than I ever did from going to college. Best of luck. [link] [comments]  |
| A reminder: Sales is like farming. Have some motivation today! Posted: 02 Dec 2020 04:47 PM PST Take a look at the email I just received. In these interesting times of launching one's own business, it is little gems like this that remind you that you're basically a farmer and have no control over outcomes. Every seed you plant, you don't get to choose when it grows into something that comes back to you, or even if it grows at all. Take heart. My first contact with this customer was early this summer, when I had a dusty Mudbutt (my company's product, mudbutts.com to see what it looks like) in my car and I had just finished a ride. I wanted to just go home, but I saw a small group of people sitting after their ride having a beer. I summed up the courage to grab my product and walk over to their group. I chatted with them for about a minute, feeling pretty self-concious, and then said goodbye and headed back to my car. This weekend, that 30 second interaction set the stage for a purchase, several months after the first contact. Just another reminder that you have no control over the outcome, just your actions. All a farmer can really do is plant seeds. Get after it and stay on that grind. [link] [comments]  |
| Have an old friend who won’t share any info on his success or knowledge Posted: 02 Dec 2020 04:32 PM PST Hey everybody, first time posting here. So I have an old high school friend and over the years he has opened multiple brick and mortar businesses. From cell phone repair, vape shops, and a smoothie shop most recently. He's running them all still at one time and they seem to be doing well as they are all still in business. So over the years I have tried to congratulate and inquire about them and how he's done it, any tips, a book he can point me towards, just anything and he never shares absolutely any info. Just "hard work bro!" So I have some questions.. How do you think he does it? When I think of business owners I think of someone who learns all about one product or service and starts their own single place and grows it and then maybe opens another bigger place in that same field. How can you start up and run multiple stores at once in so many different fields of knowledge, products and services? How do you get the startup money? How do you have all the knowledge to start a business in all these fields? How do you run so many at once while so many small businesses struggle with just their 1 shop in their field of expertise? Tried to not make this a wall of text and hopefully I made my points and questions understandable. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 02 Dec 2020 03:31 PM PST Hey! I'm putting together a landing page for a SAAS app idea I have. Where does everyone get those cool illustrations that all the cool kids have in their landing pages? They're like abstract figures in different colors. Y'all know what I mean 😂 [link] [comments]  |
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