Thank you Thursday! - January 07, 2021 Entrepreneur |
- Thank you Thursday! - January 07, 2021
- My co-founder stole money from me. Here is what I learned.
- What prevents entrepreneurs from growing their business?
- What marketing skill is #1 for your Business?
- I’m doing research and curious if anyone is transitioning from corporate (9to5) to Heart-Centered Entrepreneur?
- I've built a thing, and now I want to grow it - need a business-type
- solopreneurs/consultants: How do you manage tasks/projects for your client(s) vs. yourself? What is your software setup?
- Removing small business partner
- PPP and EIDL tax issue
- The Spotify Email Marketing Teardown
- Platform to send a lot of links together?
- What project have you recently started?
- Do you buy Premium Products on Amazon?
- Starting beverage company from scratch. What do I need to start?
- Selling a Medical/Supplement Product in the United States? Any Advice?
- So much empty commercial space available, the need to replace chinese goods with local goods, cheap money.
- Covid product ideas
- Growing tough skin and other struggle stories?
- Feedback for my Receipt Scanner WebApp
- How to use Python for Ethereum
- Anyone got some advice on pinterest or google display ads?
- How much of your lack of business results is due to your shyness?
- Where to sell an app that have a huge potential
| Thank you Thursday! - January 07, 2021 Posted: 07 Jan 2021 02:00 AM PST Your opportunity to thank the /r/Entrepreneur community by offering free stuff, contests, discounts, electronic courses, ebooks and the best deals you know of. Please consolidate such offers here! Since this thread can fill up quickly, consider sorting the comments by "new" (instead of "best" or "top") to see the newest posts. [link] [comments]  |
| My co-founder stole money from me. Here is what I learned. Posted: 07 Jan 2021 06:57 AM PST By Dmytro Syrotkin. Reposted from his permission. A fable on why integrity matters and how to judge itMy co-founder borrowed money from me for the cancer operation of his mother. At that point, he was working remotely for a Finnish tech startup and was sure he could return the money back to me in a few months. After he stopped replying to my messages I checked in with the company for which he worked. It appeared that he interviewed with them but never got the job. I still don't know if his mother ever had cancer. First of all, let me clarify that I was the best man at this person's wedding a couple of months before he borrowed the money. I knew him for 3 years at that point, worked very closely with him as the right-hand man in the startup for 1 year, we shared a fair bit of vulnerable conversations, and we even slept in the same bed twice during the strategic replanning company retreats in Serbia and Amsterdam due to the lack of beds. So I could claim that I knew him fairly well and considered a friend. If you think that this is weird, read on, it only goes downhill from here. I should have seen it comingOur startup was running out of funding. If you are curious about the details, check the story that went viral on Medium on "how I spent €200.000 on a failed startup by raising money, hiring people, and building a product no one wanted". My ex-cofounder used the money from the sold hardware we didn't need anymore after closing the shop down to pay the employees we were firing although the agreement was to use it for other purposes. Although it seems like common practice to pay employees you are firing, his responsibility was to warn the people beforehand, set the expectations straight 2-3 months beforehand, and offer them to leave earlier considering our precarious situation. Apparently, as far as I understood, he wanted to shield them from the harsh truth and didn't tell the whole story. Although it's a "noble" thing to do to pay the people that were his tribe, we had other plans for those funds. Also, in discussions, he would often bring up topics that would make me question my morality. The idea of contractual schemes which allow to legally dilute other shareholders down the road came up. "Is this OK to do this, even if this is legal?" - was my reaction to some of his ideas. Nevertheless, I trusted him and liked him, and there was no place for doubting my right-hand man. Luckily, we never executed any of his "dark magic type" ideas. Looking back at these situations, this was a clear sign. If he thinks such thoughts, I should have figured that he will scam me as well, sooner or later. I can understand him (maybe)The family, his wife, child, and parents, was his main value in life. And he shared that he grew up in poverty and that shaped his worldview and the desire to never get back to that state again. It's not even the money that was hugely important to him, it is escaping poverty. These factors made him think that he is justified to do anything if it serves the higher goal of serving his family, his tribe. He was ready to do anything for them, and I mean literally anything. In a weird way, I can understand why he didn't adhere to our agreement when the startup was going down, and I can understand why he stole money from me. This is like rooting for the villain in a movie. And it teaches you that there are no villains in life, only people who lost their way. It is hard to let goIt is still hard to forgive him and completely let go of what happened. I don't think about it too often, but it feels like one of those stains that one might not be able to erase. Still, I believe I have already forgiven him to a big extent. And I hope to come to a point where the stain is completely dissolved from my subconscious. The reason for the necessity of forgiveness is simple: I don't think there is any point to vilify the person and carry negative thoughts around, it would only harm myself. That is not to say that I would ever want to work with this person again, that would be just plain stupid. Borrowing money is the cheapest way to test people's integrityWhen I shared about my struggle to let go with my mom, she told me something that seems like the wisest thing in the world. "You were lucky that you got rid of him so cheaply!" - she said. Damn, how right she was! Indeed, imagine if he would have robbed me a few years later, for a much bigger sum! And what is money anyway if not just paper (not even)? How great is the value of a relationship in comparison? He could have done so much more damage. People like Warren Buffett say that in hires they look for smarts, energy, and integrity. They admit that integrity is the hardest to test. Here is what I learned from this experience: continue to borrow money to friends, it is the cheapest way to test their integrity! Trust by default, but don't tolerate signs of the erosion of integrity. Originally posted here [link] [comments]  |
| What prevents entrepreneurs from growing their business? Posted: 07 Jan 2021 01:43 AM PST Hi everyone! Question: What is the most important reason why entrepreneurs are stuck at the same revenue level for a long time? Pick one of these 5 below. Please answer only if you are an entrepreneur and have real-life experience. Thank you! [link] [comments]  |
| What marketing skill is #1 for your Business? Posted: 07 Jan 2021 12:21 PM PST Hey guys, Long time SEO was the only marketing tool I used for my online business and I did pretty well with my affiliate sites. Just some time ago I started with FB Ads and I'm now selling my own first (digital) product and I'm stunned by all the possibilities I discovered. This gives me the curiosity on what you are guys are mainly using and whether or not it might also be useful for you to learn something new in 2021. As I do SEO successfully for many years now I also just created a new YT video about how I actually learned SEO (You can watch it on my channel if you want) -> Did you learnt it with Trial and Error like I did or did you take courses or something? To be honest, I never bought one single course and also never watched one. In my opinion the most important informations are out there, waiting for you and one can learn almost anything with YT and Google. Feel free to send me some suggestions on my FB Ads journey that I just started haha! [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 07 Jan 2021 11:58 AM PST I started online for a Tech StartUp and loved it for years and then one day it felt totally out of alignment. I felt called to start something new but as a multi-passionate creative I had so many ideas. My educational background is in graphic and web design, so I started with online business branding. But then I started to find that many aspiring entrepreneurs were experiencing what I had when I was in my day job. They felt called to start something but were unsure of what that something was. I also started having people reach out who had already started a business but felt like it was not the right fit. This lead me towards mindset/ spiritual development work to help entrepreneurs find clarity on a deeper level. I'm working on something new and would love to chat to any of you who are feeling called to start something but are lacking clarity, you know you want to make an impact but are struggling from imposter syndrome and you feel disconnected from your purpose. Let me know if this resonates. [link] [comments]  |
| I've built a thing, and now I want to grow it - need a business-type Posted: 07 Jan 2021 04:11 AM PST Hey Everyone! When the coronavirus lockdowns began last year, I found myself with tons of motivation and drive to build The Next Thing™️ but without a job after getting back to being employed just three months earlier, prior to which I was building/doing a startup in the Bitcoin wallet space for roughly two years. The lockdowns started and I was mocking around with ObservableHQ.com and built a neat little Coronavirus Statistics Table that works according to my desires and needs - it was the early days before the numbers started rolling in... As I kept working on this little table and improving it, I naturally wanted to extend it to the realm of React, my personal favorite programming environment these days. But ObservableHQ isn't built for that. To say the least. Without going into too much details, while it is possible to run and write react apps (or any other javascript framework), many aspects of ObservableHQ are conflicting with the roles and responsibilities of the framework in question. Observable's not Javascript - as they put in their own words - can be a great intro into what I'm talking about. At some point I said enough is enough, I'll go build my own observable with blackjack and... React. or Vue. or Angular of you wish to. Ever since I saw that amazing Bret Victor - Inventing on Principle all those years ago, I wanted that experience, I wanted that feeling - instant feedback on every little thing you do. I mean this is one of the reasons I fell in love with Front-end almost 15 years ago specifically. So I've started building djit.su - a notebook style development platform, that looks something like a google doc (much like ObservableHQ) but besides writing words and adding pretty pictures, one can write real-life code inside these documents and have the platform execute the code in real-time, providing instant feedback, and allows you to quickly publish and deploy your creation as a full-blown app or website, with some modern bells and whistles like SSR built-in for you to enjoy and not to worry about. I went into a frenzy. You see, I've been fascinated by the power the modern developer has, but annoyed by the amount of boilerplate and unrelated-to-coding work there is. Setup a hosting (even if it's git), create an infrastructure, a build process, decide if it's static or dynamic, if it's static then create a flow to update it (even if it's just pushing to your git repo), if it's dynamic then you'll need some backend, and all You've wanted is to make a small calculator app that calculates your mortgage. I finally saw something that allows me as a developer to sidestep all of that mess. Just write the code I care about. Click publish, and forget about it until the next time I need to do something about it. After a couple of months that I worked around the clock on this, I got an amazing job at a start-up, managing a small team of front-end devs. During the next four months I continued to work on djit.su at a neck breaking pace, basically getting back from my day job, spending some time with the wife and kids, and once everyone's asleep I'd sit down for additional four-to-six hours of coding. The more I coded it the more I enjoyed playing with the thing itself. Anyone who had a chance to play around with it during the development stage noted how fun and different experience it is compared to the tried and true ways we all know and love, which gave me the push I needed to keep the pace and bring it to some level of maturity. Last month I've finally deployed a 'stable' (albeit still lacking in many facets and needs a lot of work) version where people can start working with this, exploring this. Later last month I also released it to the public as an open source project - elis/djit.su. Both of which were major milestones that I was eager to achieve after working on it for almost a year with minimal external exposure. Right now I'm here - I've just released it, and only now start talking about it in public. Currently we're a tiny team; myself as the main developer and everything else, and an intern I took on in the middle of last year that does some development. It's very early stages of this project, but I have high ambitions for it. My goal is to make djit.su a favorite tool for developers to use to roughly sketch something down and see how it works, perhaps later down the road completely allow developers to switch to djit.su as a development environment. My aim is to allow the developers, who I see as super-humans with amazing super powers that require project managers, product managers, designers CEOs, CTOs, and what not to utilize that super power, to channel it correctly, to be able to work in the same environment with non-developers. Right? We write code in VSCode, but we look at its results in storybook, read the requirements form a google doc, report issues in jira, receive assets on figma, and we're basically trying to sort all of that information, all of those pieces of the puzzle that we're required to build and compose them into a coherent code-base that can be executed correctly by an ever growing list of environments (CI/CD, local, mobile, SSR, serverless, embedded, tests, etc' etc'), and can be maintained in the future and hopefully continue to function. So djit.su's aim is to allow non-developers to compose code that developers write. In many ways I'm planning for djit.su to have the best of: wordpress, gatsby, and wix - wordpress as it allows you to customize everything to your needs and liking, gatsby as a modern environment that has major benefits compared to aging stuff like wordpress, and wix as a GUI for end-users who only want to move boxes around, change some text, select an image, and click "save". And I think that both the eco-system and the technology is mature enough to allow such an ambitious goal. It will obviously take time to reach that place, but it's a way that I see how djit.su can not only take but also be highly productive at, given the chance. Even if it won't reach the scale of the giants mentioned above, it's an amazing tool in and of itself that even at this early stage devs and non-devs find useful. Holy wall-of-text... Didn't mean to ramble about it, but I guess it's required if anyone to find any interest in this. So currently I'm looking for someone with some real-life business experience in raising funds and approaching potential clients. There's still a lot of work to be done on djit.su to make it the gem I portrayed above, and ideally I'd like someone who can see the potential and understands how to convey it to clients and investors. A bit about myself - I'm a developer by trade in the past 15+ years. In love with the world of Javascript (and also Bitcoin!). I've been a consultant for five years, and managing small development teams in various companies since. I'm an avid React enthusiast, I enjoy the world of product and UI/UX, and I'm allergic to bureaucracy. I'd love to answer any of your questions here in the comments or in private PMs, or feel free to hit me up on telegram, I'm @AceHigh there. If you have any comments, suggestions, or any feedback at all (I know the front-page looks like a mess, but it's all written INSIDE/using djit.su! :D working on the content and all) - by all means do share :) [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 07 Jan 2021 05:22 AM PST Background: I am a consultant with one main (demanding) client-organization and I service multiple departments/goals. As of right now, I am very embedded — staff email account, Teams chat, and various phone calls/text messages, etc. The decision to stay external as a consultant was mine as I preferred to build my own business. I have a goal of growing my business. The current environment is actually good for my type of work and I want to take advantage of the experience I have gained over the years. Issue: They (my client) are terrible at communicating, project management, and boundaries. I struggle with keeping my head above water as they inundate me with questions and requests — often asking for status updates and reporting that take a lot of time to put together. This is my own personal issue — I get very anxious about status updates. It's something I talk about with my therapist. I also have trouble sticking with a single task/project management system and spend a lot of time researching (Google Tasks vs Asana vs Microsoft To Do vs Todoist vs Omnifocus). I now use To Do. Question: I've decided to explore a ticketing system to consolidate their incoming requests, comments, and status updates into a single flow. How do you do it? How do you balance your clients' needs with your own business needs and what are you using to track your daily tasks/projects? [link] [comments]  |
| Removing small business partner Posted: 07 Jan 2021 09:21 AM PST To keep things short my business partner is my best friend, I'm currently a senior in high school and we've been running our business for the past 3 years. Over time, partner hasn't been pulling his weight whatsoever and my work ethic is 10x higher than his, I want and need him out of the business to grow but we're currently 50/50. We work seasonally and pull in 5 figures during the season. We're not an LLC yet. I do all of the book keeping hold the client list and manage every single backend function of the business, he essentially just does labor with me and doesn't want "extra work." Without me, the business falls apart, if I leave there's no business and he can't operate it without me I have access to everything. I need to get him out of the business, but how do I do so? Should I offer him a buyout or a small percentage like 5%? Does he have any legal backing? His father is a lawyer so that worries me. Should I start an LLC or sole proprietorship in my name and would that support me? Any advice? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 07 Jan 2021 01:15 PM PST Am I correct in believing that the entire PPP is not considered taxable income? Also am I right when I say that anything paid for using those funds can still be considered a business expense assuming it is a legitimate expense? Finally, I received about $45,000 in EIDL money last year. I DIDN'T receive the $10,000 advance. Is the full loan amount considered taxable income? If so, my gross profits would basically double. I can't afford that tax liability right now. [link] [comments]  |
| The Spotify Email Marketing Teardown Posted: 07 Jan 2021 12:51 PM PST We were curious about how Spotify uses email marketing to generate leads, increase subscriptions, and decrease churn? So we signed up, bought Premium, and even canceled to see the full sequence. Here are some of the things that stood out:
You can check out the full teardown here: https://emailmastery.org/teardown/the-spotify-email-marketing-teardown/ [link] [comments]  |
| Platform to send a lot of links together? Posted: 07 Jan 2021 11:13 AM PST Hi! I am planning, as a way to get new clients, to send handwritten letters to clients. I am in the web dev business. Usually, I send emails and cold calls, but I feel like hand written letters are more personal and attention seeking than simply emails. However, often when I want to send things to my clients, I have to fill up my emails with a bunch of useless links. I would like to know if there was a website that would allow me to make like a collection of link, each of them with a title, to send to my customers. This way, they can go through each of them, read the information I found (x problem with their website, y thing I could improve and why it's important), etc. It would show them I am serious about this and that I did some research, that I am fully prepared to work with them. I wanted to know if such thing existed or if it was my job to make it? (it has been a long time since I didn't work for myself, so if it hasn't been done before, I would love to build it) Thanks! [link] [comments]  |
| What project have you recently started? Posted: 07 Jan 2021 10:50 AM PST |
| Do you buy Premium Products on Amazon? Posted: 07 Jan 2021 04:13 AM PST Hi guys, So I'm thinking of selling a golf-related product on Amazon in the US, does anyone have experience with buying or selling premium things on Amazon? I am based in Europe and interested in the buying culture of the US on Amazon. Do you buy convenience goods like toilet paper? or do you buy stuff what makes you think longer about your purchase, like something expensive ($300), on amazon as well? What is the most expensive thing you ever bought of Amazon? [link] [comments]  |
| Starting beverage company from scratch. What do I need to start? Posted: 06 Jan 2021 11:25 PM PST I would like to start a drink company using my own design of a plastic bottle. I would like to do the whole process in my own home. Do you guys know what kind of safety regulations are apart of the juice making and bottling process? What kind of safety regulations I would need to produce the bottle itself? What kind of FDA certifications/how to get an FDA certification/how long it takes? Also, what kind of machinery do I need for this operation? What kind of equipment or ingredients should I add in order to extend the shelf life of this juice? Also, does anybody know what kind of ingredients Gatorade is made of from scratch? I'd like to make something similar. I'm not interested in using a co-packer, so please let me know any information you have on this kind of a beverage business or steer me in the right direction. Thank you! [link] [comments]  |
| Selling a Medical/Supplement Product in the United States? Any Advice? Posted: 07 Jan 2021 09:27 AM PST Greetings. I am leading a business that is seeking to create and sell a new medical product. In collaboration with a University here in Russia, and another University in Norway, we have developed a proprietary delivery technology for increasing the bioavailability of Quercetin, an antiviral compound that has shown promising results against SARS-CoV-2 and other viruses in both in-vitro and in-vivo trials. Our delivery technology encapsulates Quercetin and enhances the absorption process, yielding far greater serum concentrations. The product is administered in capsule form. After several rounds of preliminary testing, we have partnered with a manufacturing facility and are optimizing our supply chains for production. We are looking into entering the United States. Our company has started with limited funding, most of which we obtained through the RDIF. Therefore, I have tried to tackle the regulatory framework myself. My biggest hurdle right now is navigating the regulatory landscape in the United States. It is extremely confusing. At the moment, we plan on selling our product as a dietary supplement, not a pharmaceutical product. There are existing supplements on the market somewhat similar to ours, though we delivery technology makes our product far more potent. If I'm understanding correctly, we can sell this product in the United States through retailers and an online eCommerce infrastructure as a supplement as long as we make no claims that this product can treat or cure any disease. Is this correct? If there's anyone who has had experience with developing and selling a medical/pharmaceutical/supplement product in the United States, please contact me. We're looking to add new individuals with expertise in this area to our team. Thank you! [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 07 Jan 2021 09:20 AM PST You'd think they would be getting filled with manufacturing electronic parts or N95 masks instead of being empty. Is it mainly regulations that stop people from starting up these businesses? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 07 Jan 2021 09:05 AM PST I am starting this thread to see what products other people have successfully sold during lockdowns in countries around the world. [link] [comments]  |
| Growing tough skin and other struggle stories? Posted: 07 Jan 2021 07:55 AM PST Hi everyone - I'd love to hear any stories of how you've dealt with difficulty, bad customer reviews, bad contractors, or just one of those times when everything seems way too hard and insurmountable. I've been building a multi-week educational program and just got our first neutral-negative piece of feedback. I'm definitely working on being OK with all types of criticism, but it definitely still sucks to feel that something I created wasn't worth the time, energy, money. I know that this journey isn't meant to be easy so I'm definitely not gonna give up. But I do think hearing from other people would be helpful right now. So if you have any stories, advice, tips to share from a time you struggled, that would be greatly appreciated ~ ty! [link] [comments]  |
| Feedback for my Receipt Scanner WebApp Posted: 06 Jan 2021 06:25 PM PST Hi all, I just launched my website (https://eikurapp.com) which allows you to upload and scan your receipts. The scanner reads each item of your receipts and graphs your spending for you. Receipts are saved and backed up to the cloud, so you don't have to worry about keeping receipts when you need them. My main question is do any of you think you would use this? I think it's a good and my friends/family agree, but I don't know if they're just being polite. Would love any feedback you have! [link] [comments]  |
| How to use Python for Ethereum Posted: 07 Jan 2021 07:18 AM PST If you are working with Cryptocurrencies this might be very helpful for you. This is a short tutorial I made on how to use Python for blockchain. Python is the most used programming language in the world, especially for Artificial Intelligence (AI). DARQ is the idea of using Quantum computers, blockchain and AI together into modern solutions for future problems. Python will allow us to write the blockchain and the AI into one codebase, cutting the number of resources in terms of developers and software, and reducing the complexity of the code which cuts the spending. [link] [comments]  |
| Anyone got some advice on pinterest or google display ads? Posted: 07 Jan 2021 07:05 AM PST So basically I'm looking to pivot from Facebook, as they are so unreliable with bans and all of that. Their algorithm is genius and I found to get profitable with their ads very easy. Can you recommend me any ressources or tips to make these new channels work? (No search or shopping please, they are not as scaleable) I tried Pinterest and Google Display and got very good click through rates, however the traffic wasn't very high quality and bought nothing / only a few add to carts. Thanks! [link] [comments]  |
| How much of your lack of business results is due to your shyness? Posted: 07 Jan 2021 02:55 AM PST I feel people out there complicate business because they beat around the bush of talking to people. I hated criticism, I was shy, but I need money so I talk and sold to people. That got me results. I want to know how many feel the same way that shyness is a barrier for them and how much of a problem that is which is what's holding back their income potential. [link] [comments]  |
| Where to sell an app that have a huge potential Posted: 07 Jan 2021 06:39 AM PST Hi reddit, first of all I want apologize for my bad English. I am an indie app developer and I have seen massive growth in downloads in one of my app recently (it's only on android at the moment). It has over 900k downloads, 2k DAU and 200k active installs. Stats: http://imgur.com/a/68ar99D The app is only ad supported. The reason behind this being ad supported only is because Play Store does not allow IAPs from my location (I'm from 3rd world country). I see a huge potential in the app as it is about to cross a million mark in 3/4 days, I just need to embed IAP but can't do atm. So I am thinking of selling it to some other companies or devs in a reasonable price. I need suggestions on how to go forward with this. [link] [comments]  |
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