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    Marketplace Tuesday! - February 02, 2021 Entrepreneur

    February 02, 2021

    Marketplace Tuesday! - February 02, 2021 Entrepreneur

    Marketplace Tuesday! - February 02, 2021

    Posted: 02 Feb 2021 02:00 AM PST

    Please use this thread to post any Jobs that you're looking to fill (including interns), or services you're looking to render to other members.

    We do this to not overflow the main subreddit with personal offerings (such logo design, SEO, etc) so please try to limit the offerings to this weekly thread.

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

    submitted by /u/AutoModerator
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    How to hire a YouTube editor - 2 Years in my bedroom later from $0 to $410k. Here are the key culture of growth points:

    Posted: 02 Feb 2021 06:39 AM PST

    2 years ago I posted on this sub asking for critique of our website and business, I have since then implemented all the feedback and built a business that just hit it's 3rd year of providing niche services to YouTube creators. We specialise in video editing, have built our own app in house, and going into creating ethical/eco-friendly creator merch.

    ​

    Our creator app built in house

    Before I continue to shamelessly plug our services, written in a way to gain as much SEO exposure, I'd like to take a moment to thank everyone on this sub. 17 year old me before starting this was thinking that his life was over and he'd end up at the bottom of a ditch, so if you are a young person or anyone else feeling this way, give following your passion a shot... you have nothing to lose at this low point right?

    Anyway, I am not here to tell a sob story. I want to share the key basics that a lot of people overlook whilst I was building Replayed (PLUG OUT OF THE WAY YAAAAS).

    So here are some of the key factors that helped sustain our culture of growth.

    1. Under promise and over deliver

    Don't sell yourself too short and don't overhype as that sets the bar to an unachievable standard. You want the client to get more VALUE for their buck so don't make this too difficult for yourself. Everyone parades about providing value that benefits the clients' life but no one tells you to make your own life easier by under-promising.

    2. Treat your team members more than fairly

    This may seem basic, but people often forget this. I've seen a countless number of young entrepreneurs who think they are on top of the world with an ego the size of Jupiter. The team is the backbone of the business, so check in on them, make sure they are doing well. If you are still at the stage of working solo, hire people you actually want to work with, who have potential, good energy, and you don't always have to hire those who look good on paper, having an eye for people who demonstrate great potential and passion will make very loyal team members who will love to grow with you.

    3. Get a good accountant, not a robot

    A human accountant, if you haven't had any formal financial training, they will save you more than you can imagine. Treat them well, have your invoices and expenses organised. Find an accountant who is good with their tech, they should provide you with receipt scanning software that doesn't have a UI made in 2004.

    4. Create an incredible product/service before spending on paid advertising

    If the product or service is so good you want to tell your friends about it, then you probably don't need to spend anything on paid advertising. All our clients came from word of mouth.

    5. Be as transparent as possible

    We have written up a guide on how we communicate with clients here: https://replayed.co/posts/replayed-s-tone-of-voice

    Communication with transparency will be more appreciated than excuses.

    6. Trust yourself

    A lot of my mistakes came from not trusting my instincts. These really are the basics afterall.

    7. Respond to emails/texts fast

    The number of people who mess this up is beyond me. It may not be healthy to be tuned in constantly but if you really care about your growth you'll respond to opportunity fast.

    8. Collect feedback constantly

    Gaining insight from clients, team members and anyone in the same business is invaluable. Implement that feedback to create a better experience. Having said that, feedback in the comment section here is also welcome :)

    9. Be human

    Don't just make small talk with clients/staff, go into full conversations. Interact with them like they are another human and not just a flashing money bag.

    10. It's not always about the money

    What does this mean? You need to build a good rep to continue growing, and when it comes to fuck ups (as an example) you want to acknowledge them and thank the client for their patience/being cool/understanding and give them a full refund if you have to, or any other means of immediate compensation. You want to retain a healthy long term relationship. You should even occasionally throw in free stuff as a surprise, it helps with providing more value for them, it should build you a good rep.

    ​

    Thanks for reading my spilt out thoughts. That is all. I hope that this was useful and cohesive. I hope most of you will not disagree with me too much ;)

    Happy to answer questions (please dear Reddit gods don't give me an anxiety attack with your interrogations, I swear I have no malice intentions lmao).

    submitted by /u/Rlokan
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    Business Idea: GPT-3 Tool for Twitter

    Posted: 02 Feb 2021 07:57 AM PST

    Hey everyone! I post regularly about business ideas and opportunities. Here's what I've been thinking about lately.

    The Opportunity

    Someone should create a GPT-3 tool for Twitter. If you don't know what GPT-3 is, keep reading and I'll break it down.

    GPT-3 is an artificial intelligence tool that can answer questions, create designs and code, and can even write poetry from simple strings of text. Not to sound too much like a fan-boy, but the GPT-3 tools I've used blew my mind. If you haven't checked it out, do it. You won't be disappointed.

    The idea is simple, create a tool leveraging this technology that helps people come up with tweets relevant to their domain or audience's interests. I see it working like this:

    1. Feed the tool a list of your most popular tweets, accounts that you follow, and accounts that follow you.
    2. The tool uses this information to create tweets that you can either use directly or edit slightly.

    This would eliminate a lot of work for coming up with relevant and punchy tweets for your audience.

    Based on google search, there seems to be demand for a tool like this. Specifically, "tweet generator" gets about 3,000 monthly queries.

    Market Background & Opportunity Size

    GPT-3 Background:

    GPT-3 is a natural language processing tool that uses deep-learning to create human-like text.

    GPT-3 was created by Open AI, a company founded by Elon Musk and Sam Altman, and was released in beta in June of 2020. While it's still new, many thought leaders have expressed that GPT-3 is the largest leap we've seen in artificial intelligence in many years.

    It's currently in closed beta, but some really impressive tools have been created using the technology. Check out, Copy.ai, Dover, or AI Dungeon to get a better understand of how the technology works.

    Why Build on Twitter?

    Contrary to what some might say, Twitter has been making a comeback and is still an incredibly popular platform. Here are a few interesting stats on why building a tool for Twitter users makes sense:

    • Large audience: Twitter has more than 150M daily active users.
    • Affluent audience: 77% of Americans who earn $75,000 or more use Twitter (source linked below).
    • Motivated audience: Twitter is where creators and makers go to build an audience. The use of Twitter is seen as an investment in their network rather than just a place to update. This is evident by Twitter's acquisition of Revue, a newsletter publishing platform (this happened last Tuesday).

    Note: If you're interested in more stats on Twitter, look at this.

    The Pain Points

    There are a few factors that go into growing your Twitter audience. The two primary concerns are both the quantity and quality of tweets. Knowing that, the pain points here are pretty straight forward -

    1. Being original is hard. Really, really hard.
    2. It's time-consuming. Not only to generate the content but also to plan it out and schedule them to go live.

    When you consider that tweeting many times a day is best practice, you can see how this becomes a burden.

    Current Solutions

    • Sushant Kumar's Project
      • Sushant Kumar created an app that generates tweets based on any given word you feed it. He talks openly about the project here. It appears that he's packaged the tweets up and you can download them all by giving him a monetary donation. I must admit, the Tweets that it produces are surprisingly good.
    • That Can.Be
      • That Can.Be is a tool that uses your existing tweets to generate new tweets. Ultimately, the tool is pretty bad and often creates nonsense tweets. As far as I know, they aren't using GPT-3 (which is probably why it doesn't work).
    • What to Tweet
      • What to Tweet is a tool that gives you prompts to help you come up with your next tweet. While it does help with writer's block, the tool doesn't auto-generate tweets. My friend, Jakob Greenfield, launched What to Tweet about a month ago on Product Hunt and it did very well.

    Note: You should also look at Copy.ai. They are a great example of a startup built using GPT-3 technology. They don't offer services for generating tweets, but they could definitely add that to their product in the near future.

    How to Execute

    Of all the ideas I've talked about, this is one that seems relatively easy to pull off:

    1. Find your Early Adopters: To start, focusing on creators/makers that are using Twitter to build an audience. Look for Twitter bios talking about audience building, newsletters, and community builders. Look for people who have paid for guides/courses on growing their Twitter audience. The goal here is to find out if they will pay for this solution.
    2. Create an MVP: As I've said in the past, I'm not a technical person. But, it appears building an MVP should be relatively easy. If building on top of GPT-3 is similar to building on top of GPT-2, then there are a number of guides that walk you through building a tweet generator with the technology.
    3. Partner with Twitter Influencers: I'd focus on getting big names to back this early on. Twitter's platform is built for virality. Getting a few big names in the maker/creator space to endorse this product could help it spread like wildfire.
    4. Look at Business Twitter Accounts: For anyone who has ever managed a social media account for a business, they'll understand the struggle around content ideation very well. Targeting social media managers could open up access to big budgets and interesting pricing models.

    Challenges

    • Getting GPT-3 Access: This is the elephant in the room. Right now, GPT-3 is in closed beta - meaning it's not open to the public. To gain access, you need to know someone with access or submit an application. That said, it sounds like it's possible to get access with a bit of hustle and consistent outreach. Alternatively, you could look at building the tool on top of GPT-Neo, an open-source version of GPT-3.
    • Will People Pay for This? The biggest risk I see building this venture is the market risk - will people actually pay for a tool that generates Tweets for them? Luckily, this is easy to find out. You can test this without getting access to GPT-3 or building anything.
    • Low Defensibility: Right now, the only barrier to entry is getting access to GPT-3's API. Beyond that, there's nothing stopping competitors from rolling in.
    • Lack of Authenticity: Authenticity is one of the best ways to build an audience. Having AI generate your content could result in backlash from your audience. If content creators are using a tool like this, they may want to remain anonymous.

    TL;DR

    • The Idea: A Twitter tool that leverages GPT-3 technology to help you come up with amazing tweets based on your audience and who you follow.
    • The Pain Points: The best way to build an audience on Twitter is to come up with high-quality Tweets at a high frequency, but this is time-consuming and difficult.
    • Opportunity Size: Small ($1M-10M)
    • Why I Love This Idea:
      • It solves a real problem that Twitter users face daily - "tweet generator" gets about 3,000 monthly queries.
      • GPT-3 technology is a perfect solution to the problem.
      • There is little to no direct competition.
    • Biggest Hurdle? Getting access to the GPT-3 API.

    Thanks for reading! If you liked it, I write about business ideas like this every week here.

    submitted by /u/papapatty11
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    How you can use Instagram to drive up your business

    Posted: 02 Feb 2021 06:30 AM PST

    Disclaimer: This is by no means a "quick-fix method", but once you've gone through the initial setup phase, only a few minutes a day are enough to grow your account into the thousands - even tens of thousands - of followers (= potential customers) who routinely keep in touch with your business and convert into high-paying clients or customers.

    Let's start!

    Instagram presents a fantastic way of generating warm to hot traffic for your business without having to spend large amounts of money on it repeatedly.

    On the contrary: By building a strong social following on Instagram you can advertise to interested people over and over again and connect with (and sell to) them without having to spend a dime on traffic!

    All you need are a few proven growth strategies and you stand a realistic shot of building yourself a rock-solid following that loves and trusts you and your business/brand.

    Imagine what as little as 10k engaged followers might do to your business.

    And 10k isn't a huge number by any stretch of the imagination:

    In fact, it took me less than a year to grow my account from 500 to 105K real followers (without having a prior following anywhere else!), which massively increased my earning capacity.

    To help you quickly get started on Instagram as well, I'd like to share with you today some of the important things I've learned during my quick rise to the top of my niche on this powerful social platform.

    So without further ado, I present to you how to quickly grow your business with Instagram starting from zero - let's go:

    ​

    1) Niche Research

    The most important thing you want to do to start growing your account on Instagram is Niche Research.

    Niche Research means going on Instagram and finding out what other successful accounts in your niche do, so you can copy the best elements and emulate their success.

    The biggest reason people don't find success on Instagram is because they have no clue what they're doing, and simply do what they think will work without ever really informing or educating themselves.

    This is a recipe for disaster and lots of wasted time.

    Niche Research is done by looking up your primary #niche hashtag.

    If you sell tennis gear, that would be #tennis.

    By looking at the Top posts of that hashtag you can quickly find successful accounts within your niche.

    Study these accounts, see what kind of content they post, what hashtags they use, what their profile looks like and take note of all of that.

    I define successful accounts to be accounts with 10K+ followers that have an average or above average engagement rate.

    The first step is to simply dive in and discover this new world of successful accounts within your niche, so you see what is possible.

    If you discover any accounts that particularly resonate with you, follow them, write them down, or remember them otherwise - you're going to need these accounts later on!

    ​

    2) Hashtags Research

    The second step is Hashtag Research.

    You want to find atleast 80 hashtags that are relevant in your niche, so you can construct a hashtag strategy.

    Put them in a sheet, also record the number of posts in each hashtag (= hashtag size), and then as a beginner follow this hashtag strategy:

    · Select 15 hashtags from the 15k-100k hashtag size range

    · Select 10 hashtags from 100k-250k hashtag size range

    · Select 5 hashtags with 250k+ hashtag size

    Use this set of 30 hashtags in the post caption of your future Instagram posts to get more followers.

    ​

    3) Profile Optimization

    Now it's time for Profile Optimization.

    In order to convert a higher percentage of people who stumble upon your account into followers, you need a fully optimized Instagram profile.

    That includes:

    1. Your profile pic & bio
    2. Your content
    3. Your Instagram story highlight reel

    To know what to put into these different areas is the precise reason we've started with Niche Research.

    Consult your list of successful accounts in your niche and emulate what seems to work for them and what resonates with you.

    Here are a few pointers:

    · Make sure you really stand out with your profile pic and bio! Be memorable.

    · Use emojis in your bio and break up the text for more readability.

    · Use SEO keywords in your bio to increase your account reach through search queries. (Example

    for meditation keyword)

    · Have at least 9 posts on your profile and make them look interesting and fitting for your niche! (very important)

    · Make your Instagram story highlight reel interesting and attention grabbing. (refer to the successful accounts in your niche for ideas) Example

    Once you've done all that, you've prepared your Instagram account so it can grow more rapdily.

    The next step is to apply the actual growth methods.

    As a small account you have to use what I call "linear growth methods" to grow most quickly.

    Here are 3 examples:

    ​

    1) Growth method #1: Post more often in a day

    The most important aspect of growing an Instagram account is posting content.

    Preferably good content. (Example of virally potent posts)

    Check the successful accounts in your 'niche research' as well as their Best Performing Posts to get an idea of what that might look like.

    Unlike YouTube that has an algorithm and search function, which regularly makes even older videos receive lots of views and go viral, Instagram needs a constant stream of new content to grow your account.

    Your Instagram posts receive about 98% of their total engagement within the first 48 hours of uploading.

    After that the post is basically dead as far as new engagement and increasing your followers goes.

    Still, posting is the #1 method for getting new followers, so an easy way of increasing your followers is simply by posting more!

    And it's easy to see why:

    If one post brings you x amount of followers, then 2 posts will bring you 2x the amount of followers.

    Simple math!

    How often should you post on your account?

    If you are serious about growing your account, at least once a day is a MUST for you - perhaps even twice a day or three times a day.

    More often than that is likely to start annoying your followers a little, but it all depends on the niche you're in - check how often other successful accounts in your niche post.

    That said, I understand some individuals or businesses might not be able to or even want to post that many times a day - and that's fine.

    You can certainly go by with posting less than once a day - just don't expect to get the fastest Instagram growth possible if you do so.

    In the end, it's about the growth YOU want, and there are many more methods besides posting to increase your followers.

    ​

    2) Growth method #2: Leave polarizing comments on big accounts' posts (in your niche)

    With this growth strategy the goal is to occupy all the limelight within the comment section of a popular post inside your niche.

    You want to get as many likes on your comment as possible, which will rank your comment to the top of the comment section - giving it a lot of exposure.

    Example

    Regardless of how many followers you have, everybody has the same shot at getting many likes on comments!

    The only thing this comment example above is lacking is a clear incentive to check out the account:

    Because the personal story is missing, I can't relate and connect on a deeper level.

    So when you drop these sorts of comments I recommend you make it personal, relatable and memorable!

    The likes will have people intrigued and they'll check out your profile to see what you're all about.

    The result: Many more followers.

    Don't be afraid to be polarizing with your comments, but don't be condescending, negative or disrespectful.

    ​

    3) Growth method #3: Follow & Unfollow the "hardcore" audience in your niche

    Follow & unfollow has a bit of a bad rep, because it's seen as not very sincere, but as far as reaching your first 1k followers goes, it's still one of the most powerful methods you can employ.

    To boost its effectiveness even further, we're only going to do it on people who are very likely to follow back.

    You can find these targets the following way:

    Search for popular accounts in your niche, and seek out posts from these accounts that underperformed (meaning far less likes than their average post).

    The reason you want to seek out these underperforming posts (I also call them WPPs, for Worst Performing Posts) is that whoever engaged on it is likely to belong to the "hardcore" following of your niche.

    Here's why:

    Engagement on a post is structured like an onion - as soon as it's posted the most engaged followers will see this post. Depending on the level of their engagement, the algorithm decides whether it should show this post to people who are not as "hardcore" or consistently engaged as these people, and so on.

    The more likes a post has compared to the average likes of an account, the more layers the "engagement-onion" has, and the more casual the overall audience that engaged with it.

    If a post has only very few likes compared to the average on an account, its "likers" tend to be hardcore followers of this account - and thus your niche!

    The rest is simple:

    When you see such a WPP, simply check who's liked and start following these people. They're the right target audience to follow.

    See here

    After about a week, unfollow them again.

    When you do these methods, make sure you don't exceed Instagram Action Limits!

    Use this knowledge to get to 1K followers quickly!

    Want to learn more?

    For more detailed guidance on how to get your first 1,000 followers and beyond I've written a comprehensive and free beginner guide that comes with all the necessary "research sheet templates", step-by-step instructions and insights you need to set up your account, optimize your profile and grow your Instagram to 1K+ followers as quickly as possible!

    You can read the full guide for FREE here:

    From 0 To 1K+ Followers ASAP guide

    The guide gives you an array of 15 powerful growth methods you can use to crack the 1,000+ followers milestone in the shortest amount of time possible as well as 5 common pitfalls to avoid, when growing your account in the initial stages of your Instagram growth.

    Hope you find that helpful in growing a strong social following & making a fortune from your business!

    Cheers!

    submitted by /u/instagram_yonreal
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    The Founders Guide to master calls with potential customers (and a cheat sheet you should bring to your first 100 calls)

    Posted: 02 Feb 2021 07:34 AM PST

    The first call with a potential customer is one of the most important stages of the sales process, simply because it's a unique opportunity to make a great first impression.

    Taking a few minutes to prepare my calls is one of the most important factors when it came to closing. I've learned that inbound prospects coming to the website are usually evaluating several other tools so I strived to stand out every time they picked up the phone with me.

    This process was a result of several iterations over several hundred calls by myself and my sales team nowadays. I tried to distill best practices and want to provide insights into what I have seen work and not work. The main thing I know that works is preparation & training, seriously.

    In my best sales calls, I was always fully prepared with this cheat sheet. (PS: You can also check the rest of the article for a more detailed explanation of each step in the process)

    Make sure you bring it to at least your first 100 calls.

    The first step is: Preparation

    It's crucial that you learn about the company and the prospect at the same time.

    For instance, when I'm learning about the company for my use case I try to understand:

    • How big their teams are
    • How much money did the company raise (if they have raised it)
    • What recent news are out there about the company

    Whereas when I'm learning about the prospect I usually visit their LinkedIn profile and try to get insights from it. It's valuable that you show your prospect that you have spent some time doing your research.

    Note: While checking the prospect's LinkedIn, perhaps you will find connections or interests in common or even similar background education. This can make you two easily connect during the call.

    The second step: the Call

    This is the time to actively listen to your prospect's pain points, ask questions to get all the information you need about the prospect and the company.

    1- Start by building rapport. After setting a nice tone, make it all about them. The time you spend talking on a sales call has a significant impact on your chance to close the deal. In fact, top sales performers are known for consistently letting their prospects talk about 60% of the time, so it's your prospect who should be talking the most. I often get surprised by the amount of information prospects share when we ask open-ended questions.

    2- Make sure your research is well informed. Try to get answers to your questions and have your prospects verbalized their pain points before you start pitching.

    3- Give your pitch. Once both of you have acknowledged your prospect's pain, you will now be better informed to give your prospect an adapted pitch about how your product solves their issue.

    💡 Insightful Note: If you're not able to find any good arguments that could make your product useful to the company, maybe it's because it doesn't qualify as a potential user. You should acknowledge this and since it's very unlikely that you would be getting a deal from here, avoid wasting your time trying to sell and focus rather on creating a connection they might be a buyer in their next company.

    The third step: Next steps

    Keep your lead moving further along the sales funnel by making sure you have well defined next steps.

    For example, if you want a follow-up meeting to do a demo, make it so that you book it at the end of the call. Or if you want to involve other decision-makers, make sure you know who they are at the end of the call.

    When you see you only have 5 more minutes in your calendar, you should schedule the next meeting step before you finish the call and your prospect has to leave unexpectedly. It's also important that you know if there are other people to be involved in the deal and your prospects know exactly what to do next.

    Note: If you fail to schedule the next steps, you may end up losing a client because the prospect couldn't find it easy to schedule the next call with you, or your proposal lost relevance after they had a call with another competitor that already gave them a trial version they are enjoying.

    Wrapping Up…

    The main thing I know that works is preparation & training. Keep pushing it!

    -------

    I have helped 200+ clients optimizing their outbound sales strategy over the years to grow their business. I'm constantly testing new hypotheses to see what works and regularly share the insights with thousands of other entrepreneurs trying to scale up revenue here.

    Feel free to reach out if you need help with your cold outbound efforts, happy to help!

    submitted by /u/r_pg101
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    How to train my VA?

    Posted: 02 Feb 2021 02:06 PM PST

    I have a VA who engages on behalf of one of my company's instagram accounts which is in the makeup and beauty space so it suits her personality well as she's really bubbly and friendly.

    I want to give her more hours engaging on behalf of my other company's page which is in the finance space. I'm not asking her to leave finance specific comments, just personal but generic engagement comments such as 'great photo, I love *name of city here* or 'congratulations, this is great'. But after 4 rounds of training exercises with feedback she still isn't getting it and is way too friendly in the comments. She'll say things like 'love the baby bump mama, pregnancy sure looks amazing on you!'

    She's Filipina so there's a language barrier (she's fluent in English but there are cultural things she understandably doesn't pick up on) and in my experience Filipinos are just lovely friendly people by nature.

    I really want to give her more hours and she really wants them but I can't risk comments such as 'this was an absolutely amazing day to walk your dog. good idea!" coming from my finance account.

    I even created a moodboard of famous Filipina business women and told her to pretend like she was them when she left the comments.

    Before I call it a day does anyone have any other ideas on how I can get her to stop being so nice?! She understands the projects and the reputation on the line so I'm not sure what else to try.

    ​

    TLDR VA is too nice when leaving comments on instagram and I need her to be more business like. How can I teach her?

    submitted by /u/SunnyCity1
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    Web Design Vs Cleaning Business?

    Posted: 02 Feb 2021 01:42 PM PST

    I'm in the planning phase in starting a business but I'm struggling to chose which industry to choose from. My friend is a coder and is also thinking about getting into business with me, but I also think starting a cleaning business might be the way to go. All I know is that owning a business in my ultimate goal.

    I was wondering if yall could help me weigh the pros and cons what would be the overall best industry to get into.

    submitted by /u/K-Wulfgang
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    How much should I charge this customer to create an IT Support Ticket system in Google Forms?

    Posted: 02 Feb 2021 12:39 PM PST

    I am a freelancer and I offer excel and google sheets services.

    I had a customer reach out to me about building an IT Support Ticket system for them and are asking for a quote.

    I would basically be implementing the same setup as shown through this link.

    They are asking me to quote them a price for me to implement this for them.

    How much would you be willing to pay for this system?

    Any guidance is greatly appreciated!

    submitted by /u/LeanInitiative
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    Need help validating this idea/whether this is a viable business to pursue (in your opinion)?

    Posted: 02 Feb 2021 12:24 PM PST

    Disclaimer: This idea depends heavily on the term App Clip Code. If you are not familiar, I am linking to Apple's description of an App Clip Code here. Succinctly, it is basically a nicer-looking QR code that can also be "tapped" instead of scanned to trigger something to happen on your mobile device.

    Brief description: All too often, we purchase gifts for others that we do not physically have in hand to give. Whether this is because the gift simply has not arrived in time, or because it requires input from the recipient (common when buying clothing when we don't know the size, technology where we don't know the specifications, or otherwise), we often end up printing out a picture from the internet, cutting the picture out, putting in the card, and explaining. My aim is to use a mobile app, and specifically, the App Clip technology, to create an immersive experience (incorporating 3D/Augmented Reality and ease of use) when giving gifts we don't have in hand.

    The Problem: My Dad is celebrating a milestone birthday this weekend. My family and I want to chip in together to buy him an Apple Watch. Given that it's a milestone, we want to purchase one of the higher end watches, but aren't sure if he'd like the Stainless Steel or the Titanium model. Further than that, we don't know his wrist size (a requirement of certain bands) or his feeling on certain colors.

    Solution: I have built an iOS app that is launched by scanning an App Clip Code. App Clip Codes can be scanned (or tapped) and can launch an app without the user having ever downloaded or sought the app from the App Store. Once the app is launched, the Augmented Reality technology built into the app is capable of locating the physical App Clip Code in the camera view, and once it is located, a 3D experience is tethered to that real-world App Clip Code.

    In this case, a 3D gift box appears on screen, which performs a fun animation, eventually popping up and revealing a 3D Apple Watch. The screen of the Apple Watch then shows a video of myself and my family, wishing Dad a Happy Birthday, and explaining the gift.

    When the video is done playing, 3D balloons float by, and a button appears, taking him to Apple's website, specifically being directed to the Apple Watch page so he can peruse the options of Apple Watches and pick out which one he wants.

    The Business Model: I believe this app, pivoting to a predominately SaaS business, has multiple potentials for revenue;

    • D2C (The person giving the gift can pay a fee to use our service, allowing them to provide information about the gift - pulling from our collection of 3D models for many gifts, or uploading a photo - as well as customize who will be receiving it and what the experience will be like. They can then print out the relevant App Clip, or...)

    • Premium D2C Purchase (The person giving the gift can use our service to customize the experience the recipient will see. We will print out, on premium card stock, the App Clip, with aesthetically-pleasing instructions for the recipient to follow. The App Clip will be mailed to the giver, who can insert it into a card, or it can be sent directly to the recipient).

    • Partnerships with Greeting Card Makers (By partnering with greeting card manufacturers, be it professional, such as Hallmark, or individual, such as Etsy, we can charge a fee to use our system of creating the gift giving experience, and the card printer can include a unique App Clip code - we would provide the technical infrastructure to generate unique App Clips - making these gift-giving App Clip cards ready for this use case).

    • Partnerships with companies (In this example, a partnership with Apple could allow for gift givers to specify a product they want to give someone, like an Apple Watch, and a maximum they are willing to spend. Our system would handle the user interface to present the experience and choices to the recipient, with the recipient using our app to pick our their ideal size/model/color, which is then sent to the giver for purchase. A company could pay us a fee to be included in our platform, allowing us to build an aggregate of "great gift ideas" and offering advertising opportunities for brands).

    Why: Gift giving is common activity that we all do many times a year. Birthdays, anniversaries, Valentine's Day, graduations, holidays, we're often buying gifts and don't even the quantity. We sometimes gravitate towards gift cards, and low-effort gifts that allow the recipient to be in control of their purchase (because we don't really know what they want)! This idea allows for a far more modern, immersive, and easier experience that could be streamlined, as the business scales, creating a new way of modern gift giving. Above all, it creates a more thoughtful, unique, and personalized gift.

    (Also prudent - the idea of partnering with greeting card manufacturers using App Clips opens the door to 3D/AR greeting card experiences, which is its own topic and potential for licensing).

    Forgive the length, but if anyone has taken the time to read, I'd love to know if I'm being unreasonable in my belief that there's something here, or if this seems too low-margin, given the customer education piece, to pursue, in your opinion.

    submitted by /u/jmsthrowaway46
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    Maid / Service Based Business Owners - Can You Help Me With Some Feedback For A Sales Page

    Posted: 02 Feb 2021 11:31 AM PST

    Over the next 12 months or so I want to fully transition into working for myself. I'm going to pretty much exclusively focus on Google Ads marketing to get Leads for Maid / Cleaning companies as I know I can do a better job than 99% of other people in this niche and I also think it's a good idea to become an expert in one niche and become a bit of an authority in it etc.

    What I need some feedback on is a Landing Page I have created which I will send traffic to in the future aimed at Maid / Cleaning business owners.

    ​

    I think the design is nice but my main worry is the copy on the page - I'm a terrible copywriter. I am also a bit worried that the wording at the beginning makes it sound like a guide on how they can do it themselves, as opposed to how I can do it for them.

    I also am not sure on the video review at the bottom, I think it may be a bit too long, but then I have had a few people say it's way to short so I really have no clue haha..

    ​

    Any and all feedback on the page, good or back welcomed.

    ​

    Link: https://dashmaids.com/dashmaids-test123/

    Edit: I have changed the domain link to a secure one with HTTPS so it works correctly - I do not own Dashmaids, I am only using it's domain..

    submitted by /u/UniDropout1
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    How To Retain Customers On A Subscription Service And Get Them To Renew

    Posted: 02 Feb 2021 07:21 AM PST

    Hey guys,

    Hope your week is going well and February is off to a good start!

    Our founder just wrote an article on recurring subscription services at our web services company and how we eventually got to a 97.2% renewal rate.

    It was a long path and these 4 areas of focus got us to that number:

    1. Uptime
    2. Service
    3. Onboarding
    4. Competence

    Do any of you run subscription type businesses? How do you work on making sure customers renew with you?

    If you have any stories, tips or feedback of your own, please share with us in the comments!

    ---

    Once you convince customers to pay you for a service, your next big challenge is getting the renewal. The clock for that starts ticking immediately after the first sign up date. Every action, interaction and decision you make will influence if a customer renews with you or not.

    For the purpose of this post, we'll focus on Skystra's current recurring services, offered in both monthly and annual subscriptions. For now, we'll combine both terms for the points in this post, however there are big differences in how to go about things depending on the term.

    With our current plans, customers prefer paying for the year up front in exchange for a discount. We have less than 10% on monthly plans, and this is both a good thing for the business, and also poses a big challenge, which we'll touch on in a future post.

    How does Skystra get to a 97.2% renewal rate?

    By listening to our customers, and having a laser-focus on providing solid service.

    To expand on that:

    • We review every interaction with customers and potential customers
    • We break these interactions into 2 categories : What can we do better, and what we can't
    • Of those we can do better, it goes either into a technology solution, or a human based solution

    The goal for breaking down these interactions between technology or human solutions is to reduce friction for customers. The end goal is for our service to be so seamless, that our customers don't need to think about it. Their websites should just work. Email should just work. They should be easy to setup, easy to manage, and if there are questions, we should either be able to solve those questions before they even happen, or train our support team on how to help those customers efficiently.

    The 97.2% renewal rates ultimately rests on these 4 things done well:

    • Providing solid service
    • Provide industry-leading uptime
    • Provide amazing customer service
    • Helping get customers setup

    In nearly all cancellations in the past, the majority, the main cancellation reason was always either uptime related, or what they truly believed were issues with customer service.

    The last reason was "How do I get started?"

    Those are all big major reasons, however in the highest level view, all of these were fixable, if enough energy, effort and focus were placed on them.

    Uptime was the easiest one for us to solve. Moving from older hardware based servers onto a cloud network, where there are multiple servers all serving the same purpose helped with this a lot. We also hired some very smart people to help with our software stack, choosing new software, configuring it specifically for our uses, and even developing our own software where commercial versions didn't really fit in.

    Just this alone took over 2 years to complete our major overhaul, and it is still on-going every day.

    Improving customer service was a very human based challenge. It took a massive overhaul of our service department, and detailing all of that in this post would make it entirely too long, it took a solid year of changing our recruiting practices, how we interview candidates, how we train people once they're hired, early identification of those who wouldn't work out with us, and many more. Needless to say, customer service has improved dramatically since the early days and our customer renewal rate shows that.

    These are all higher level points. We try to always have an open dialog with customers, and if we are curious about something, we will ask them. Never be afraid to talk to your customers to find out what's going on, what their own thoughts are about your service and platform. The information is always valuable.

    That's how we found out that even though we are a technology company, focused on automated cloud services, that the number one reason customers renew with us is Customer Service.

    submitted by /u/SkystraCloud
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    Are make money courses, blogs and Guru videos teaching how to make money legit or are they fraud and always scams?

    Posted: 02 Feb 2021 10:55 AM PST

    Is there anyone who actually make money and can live off using the methods if such courses besides the people who sell these money making courses?

    If you ever bought any of such courses or even watched videos on Youtube or read blogs about how to earn money and have applied it have you earned something or did you found out that it was fake and scam?

    If they aren't a get rick quick scheme and don't promise you huge profit in a few days I think such courses actually work if you have patience, time and faith to follow it. Many people say they are scams because if someone is already rich they don't need to create and sell any course and they are wasting their time selling it to strangers when their creators could use their methods to become even more rich which makes sense.

    Of course there are people who want to help others but many gurus are actually just scammers or people who just want to make you waste time and money.

    I read about law of supply and demand and it says that the more people do something for profit less profitable it tends to become. So if someone has a secret method to gain a lot of money online or another method it does not make sense to spread it to strangers since the creator will get less profit from the strategy he created. And the creator would be creating their own competition if they teach their own method so again it does not make sense. But I am not sure if this is true or not.

    Another problem in my opinion is that teaching is actually very profitable for the sellers because comsumers associate teaching with something useful that will improve their lives dramatically. After all there is the old saying that education is the beat tool to make the world a better place right? And education in childhood is compulsory in many countries so tghis strategy affect the buyers psychology a lot.

    Also i think most people lack widom necessary to realize that most of these courses,blogs and guru`s videos are scams. I am not saying that they are dumb or something but if people would wise enough they would not pay or read articles on Google teaching how to get money. After all if their methods are so profitable as they claim they would be well known for years and everybody would be doing it and many people would quit their jobs and would be working from the comfort of their homes. After all why would you wake up every morning to go to work or search for a job if you can do it from your home sitting in front of your computer without any stress about boss, becoming unemployed and worrying about car traffic?

    submitted by /u/Sabrine_Crystal_1992
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    I'm building a media kit generator to help creators get more brand deals.. Is this worth pursuing?

    Posted: 02 Feb 2021 10:47 AM PST

    TLDR: A couple of friends and I are building a media kit generator for creators. We just launched our closed-beta this past weekend and we're looking to gather more feedback from creators that are seeking brand deals. It's totally free to join as we're more interested in the feedback right now.

    I work for an influencer marketing agency and every day we get creators who pitch us with their media kits. The issue is that many of these creators aren't graphic designers and the PDF media kits we receive do a poor job of representing the creators or providing relevant metrics on their social accounts.

    Even when the creators do provide adequate social analytics, the data is outdated since creators aren't updating their media kits every day as their numbers grow.

    In summary, I'm aiming to help these creators build better media kits so they can get more deals and make more money. So I teamed up with a couple of my programmer buddies and now we're building our very own media kit generator for creators.

    Instead of a PDF, we're allowing anyone to generate their own fully responsive website by connecting their social accounts to our platform. We populate their website/media kit with photos, contact info and real-time social analytics from their Instagram account. (we only support Instagram right now, but TikTok and Youtube are coming soon)

    We launched our closed-beta last week with 300 creators and we're opening more slots so that we can gather additional feedback.

    I'd love to know what the entrepreneurship community thinks about our project. We're not yet sure if it's something we should pursue full-time, but we're all pretty excited about the feedback we've received so far from our early users.

    Here's a link to our project. It's free to use once you fill out a quick survey. :)

    submitted by /u/armins_world
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    If you are just starting out you can probably use these tools to boost your business in 2021. They are free also.

    Posted: 02 Feb 2021 10:45 AM PST

    When we started out our budget for marketing was limited so we had to look for ways to grow our business without spending too much so these tools really helped us in achieving that.

    Canva

    Canva is the most popular graphic design tool on the internet. It's an online software where you can design images and graphic pictures for social media, posters, ads, business cards, and even reports. While their premium subscription is worth the money, their free option is also very powerful and only lacks a few of the premium features.

    Grammarly

    Grammarly is an important aspect of all of your digital marketing activities. The messages you are putting out there are important, and you want to avoid common grammar and incidental spelling mistakes. Grammarly is a tool that fixes grammatical errors by providing smart suggestions for better word choice.

    It also analyzes your tone so your brand messages can always get the emotional response you want to give to the reader. Although there's a paid version of this app, the free version includes many of the powerful features and even comes in the form of a chrome extension

    MailChimp

    Sending e-mails to hundreds of customers manually is a very difficult task. Luckily, you never have to do that again because Mailchimp automation system can help you out in more than one way. It's ideal for non-tech-savvy people and allows you to design e-mails, group contacts, and even design landing pages for your website. And the best part- this web-based email marketing tool is free.

    SEO SiteCheckup

    As the name suggests, SEO SiteCheckup is a digital marketing tool that can help you improve your search engine optimization. It checks how search-engine-friendly your website is, and provides suggestions that can help improve your sites like content marketing tips, keyword research, and backlinks. You can also use this tool to check on your competitors and see how you can improve to outshine them.

    UberSuggest

    Developed by the Neil Patel Company, the basic objective of Uberrsuggest is to help people find the best keywords for their business. However, Uberrsuggest is much more than just a keyword research tool. You can use it to analyze the quality of your backlinks and internal links, find topics for blog posts related to your website, analyze your competition, check traffic sources, and more

    CoSchedule

    They say that "for every minute spent organizing, an hour Is earned". Well, CoSchedule is a tool that can help you get many "free" hours. Your digital marketing campaign probably involves a few people from your team, and with CoSchedule they can collaborate and manage the project together. It organizes all of your marketing activities in one place. It's free to try, but you have to pay for using it later.

    Bitly

    Bitly started as a simple URL link shortened. But over time, it developed into one of the best link engagement analytics tools. Bitly allows you to gather intelligence about your audience and optimize marketing efforts. It's super easy to use and offers almost all its features for free.

    There are a lot more tools out there but I think these really are the ones that can help you get started.

    submitted by /u/chrismatters
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    So you think you got big ideas?

    Posted: 02 Feb 2021 04:25 AM PST

    I am a software engineer and entrepreneur. I would be really interested to start a business where we team up, and bring your vision to life.

    I have years of enterprise software engineering experience, but very few ideas for a product.

    If you have big ideas, let's talk.

    submitted by /u/7B920A
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    Last week on HockeyStack Analytics (feedbacks for next features are appreciated)

    Posted: 02 Feb 2021 10:17 AM PST

    Hello all!

    I am Emir, co-founder of HockeyStack Analytics. I wanted to share with you guys what we shipped last week, and what we will work on this week and get your feedback on the next features, design, and idea. I would love to connect via Twitter and talk! Here is my Twitter :)

    ​

    • We made the user actions tab colorful based on the feedback of our users.

    • We made the users tab even more detailed. Now, you can see details of every single behavior of a user.

      Here you can see the screenshots.

    This week, we are working on funnels and a cookieless tracking option as some of our users don't want to put an annoying cookie consent pop-up.

    HockeyStack is not positioned as another simple analytics tool as we don't offer 'simple' analytics, but we offer an easy-to-understand dashboard. So basically you will have all the detailed data you need to make data-driven decisions without writing code and understand every bit of it.

    What do you think that our next steps/features/positioning should be? Any feedback is appreciated. Dm me for a casual convo about business, analytics, startups, or life!

    Thank you,

    Emir

    submitted by /u/sweetpotato31
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    Affiliates? -Adult

    Posted: 02 Feb 2021 10:07 AM PST

    Hi guys So I own an adult webcam site and it's been running for a few months now. Most of my traffic comes from paid adverts using specialist ad networks but I notice the big cam sites use affiliates. Anyone know how I can find out more about how to set this up for my site? Affiliates to drive clientele to the site I have a team scouting models on the other side of the spectrum.

    submitted by /u/ukglamcam
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    Idea for a product but lack the knowledge and technical skills to create it?

    Posted: 02 Feb 2021 10:02 AM PST

    Sorry if this doesn't quite fit into /r/entrepreneur, I've tried asking on other science and invention type subreddits without getting a response so I hope someone here can help point me in the right direction.

    Basically I think I have an idea for a plant-based plastic alternative. But I'm not a scientist and have no knowledge of chemistry. So I don't have any idea what the process is to go through to bring it to market.

    As far as I can tell, I can't really patent an idea or theory. I need to create at least a crude process for making this product myself first. It would be nice if I could patent and profit from this idea... but at this point it seems like even if I try to give it away online to other scientists to work with, nobody will even bother to listen to my idea.

    Let's say I was hypothetically in the kitchen and mixed something with the pulpy stuff inside a tomato and accidentally left a thin layer of it spread out. Then I left it to dry overnight and discovered it had a clear cellophane-like substance on the surface of it in the morning.

    I think this substance could have commercial value as a plastic alternative. Maybe not as plastic wrap or for plastic bags, but for things like dishwasher tablets that quickly dissolve, pill capsules, etc.

    The thing is without any chemistry knowledge, I have no idea how to bring this from just a crazy theory to actually testing it out and seeing if it's a viable idea.

    Where do I go from here with it?

    • How would I go about extracting and purifying this substance?

    • How do I find out its chemical composition?

    • How do I figure out what additives might make it stronger and more useable?

    • How do I take hypothetical tomatoes and turn them into sheets of uniform plastic-like substance?

    • Is the process too long and expensive and I should just share my findings on some science Reddit so someone else can actually make it a reality? Is there some company I can approach with my idea?

    • Should I undertake this work on my own and buy expensive equipment, or is there some way to outsource an idea to a lab and have them sign an NDA and try to create it for you?

    Like if you were an everyday person who had this crazy idea of creating biodiesel from corn and it hadn't been done yet, where would you start?

    submitted by /u/sentokoo
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    Is starting two LLCs the best way for our situation?

    Posted: 02 Feb 2021 09:19 AM PST

    Online Magazine business idea - legal bits.

    Posted: 02 Feb 2021 07:53 AM PST

    Hello all :) I was wondering if anyone can help as I find it really hard to find any answers online.

    I am planning to start an online magazine style blog and feature mainly guest posts from other writers. Those would be free - hopefully acquired in exchange for links/exposure. Do I need to apply for any type of copywrite licence for that? I am literally starting this from zero, so any law suits are out of the question. It will not be a digital magazine - more of a blog with featured posts from other writers. I found information regarding US however I am based in Europe, currently in Malta. However my day job was terminated and soon I will not have a stable residence anywhere for approximately one year.

    Would I need to register my blog as a company? If I am not making any money yet, and might not for good few months? Would an author's written/electronic consent be enough for the blog to own a legal right to the content? I would very much appreciate any advice on this topic. Thank you very much!

    submitted by /u/PatisJourneys
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    I don't understand what I am being sued for

    Posted: 02 Feb 2021 06:56 AM PST

    I made a post about this entrepreneur recently on this sub (previous post) who basically said find a way to sort a deal or I sue from that point on we ignored him.He preceded to spam us with messages and then later we get an email saying this.

    this is copy and pasted from my emails and edited to hide the identity otherwise exactly the same Our company has no physical product just logos, company registration, documents regarding our business and so on.

    Hi,

    good afternoon mr smith(me) and paul(my partner) my name is David I work for max and his team as his PA he has instructed me to deal with this case, please do not contact max directly if you have a message you want me to pass on please let me know.

    I will be sending on in the next 24-hours a cease and desist order alongside statements from Max turner, the lawyer, the office broker aswell as a witness. This will prove that there has been copyright and a failed negotiation to partnership. The whatsapp, facebook, text and email transcripts have been downloaded. If you do fail to follow the email or agree a deal with max then we will have to send it on to companies house this form which will be sent is just for you guys. max and the team will also have authority under the business act of 1982 to be able to run another company using a similar name in the same industry as you have not got the trademark on the name or the logo.

    max still did say he will give you the 24 hour notice before we do send it on to companise house to see if a deal can be met before he passes the idea and moves forward.max is very frustrated and does hope a partnerhsip can be agreed.

    Thanks

    Mr david

    Consultant LTD

    ​

    edit:david(the entrepreneurs personal assistant) is not the lawyer

    submitted by /u/lickysickymummy
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    I would like your help to evaluate, if it make sense putting any more effort on this?

    Posted: 02 Feb 2021 06:16 AM PST

    I developed one wordpress plugin for coloring book that can be added even on any normal website not necessarily on WP and there were few sales (<300$). I have created a website to demonstrate the features of the plugin and started posting on facebook and on reddit. I dont find much momentum.

    May be am wrong or my strategy is not correct to promote my website.

    How would you evaluate or how long you keep holding to a product?

    submitted by /u/pixobe
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    Manufacturing Business - Aluminum

    Posted: 02 Feb 2021 01:46 AM PST

    Hello all!

    I am looking for anyone that can point me in the direction of a Manufacturing - Aluminum Extrusions - business plan template.

    I am only seeing tech and internet based examples and feel there will be a lot of differences between the two and things I might miss due to the extreme variance between the two sectors.

    Any advice or resources I can check out?

    Thanks!

    submitted by /u/vikingtrade
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    Does 'mission and vision' partly relate to the customer's religion and culture?

    Posted: 02 Feb 2021 05:21 AM PST

    Is the business mission and vision suppose to take account of religion and culture, as well as aspirations, lifestyle, ect? What is the goal of mission and vision?

    submitted by /u/god_is_golden
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    Female entrepreneurs wanted!

    Posted: 01 Feb 2021 05:24 PM PST

    Hi ladies! I'm a female entrepreneur myself and I want to create kind of like a book club but without the book.

    I feel that as entrepreneurs we all learn so much daily and it would be nice to come together, network, share our stories and empower each other with help and knowledge!

    I'm building a group that meets every month where we get to connect via zoom and hang for an hour! More exposure, more leads, more followers, more knowledge...

    Who here would like to be part of it!?

    submitted by /u/Cookie_National
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