Wantrepreneur Wednesday! - March 31, 2021 Entrepreneur |
- Wantrepreneur Wednesday! - March 31, 2021
- James Clear messaged me. A lesson on modesty we should all follow as entrepreneurs.
- How online courses grew 45% in 2020, what where the most profitable niches and what lessons we learned
- What’s better than making 6 or 7 figures running your own gig....
- How we got our first paying customers for a chrome extension. Pivots and lessons learned!
- Cold outreach is one of the most powerful growth engines for any B2B. Here's a formula to write emails that consistently generate new opportunities for your business
- I have 200k followers on TikTok. What business opportunities do I have?
- The best way to network?
- 20 Best Free Tools to help you when you are just starting a website
- New e-learning platform
- How has being an entrepreneur affected your family life?
- Review your website or Idea
- Looking for feedback/improvement ideas on tracking
- Different types of Digital Marketplaces
- Beer and Bandwidth: Considering a 3rd shift second job to stay afloat while launching an IT business
- Where to sell an ebook?
- I need to sell 35 bags of coffee everyday to quit my day job.
- Quick tips on maintaining high energy levels, day after day
- Behind the scenes of a small freelance business—Our 2020 revenue, profits, challenges, and future plans [Long post]
- School project HELP !!!
- How do I negotiate?
- Readlax Brain Games
- Understanding Software & Dev Communication Basics
- I started making tutorials for woodworking projects to try and drive traffic to my website.
- Moving into other Regions
| Wantrepreneur Wednesday! - March 31, 2021 Posted: Please use this thread to ask questions if you're new or even if you haven't started a business yet. Remember to search the sub first - the answers you need may be right at your fingertips. 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]  |
| James Clear messaged me. A lesson on modesty we should all follow as entrepreneurs. Posted: James Clear, the author of the New York Times bestseller, Atomic Habits, sent me a DM on Twitter. Driven by astonishment and excitement that such a popular author was messaging me about an article I wrote last year, I posted a screenshot of the conversation. I did it for somehow selfish reasons of course, I wanted to share my joy and promote my article (James Clear reading your blog, best social proof ever). Then, amid congrats messages, a few people noticed something I overlooked. James wrote
He assumed I don't know who he is and politely introduced himself without any credits. Nothing like "I wrote Atomic Habits, the bestseller you probably heard of". This is so awesome. Such modesty and humility. I think that's really what success is about. We all have seen all those douchy high achievers who always look down on others. Regardless of your success (Which I genuinely wish you), bank balance, number of employees, sold copies of book or fame, please stay humble. People will notice and reward you. Be like James. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: We performed a massive study of the current online course economy. We analyzed more than 500 courses on the platforms Coursera, LinkedIn Learning and Udemy and got insights of around 32 million learners. We studied the global market size, number of courses per platform evolution, number of learners evolution and the categories that has the highest demand. Some information of the study:
At the end of the presentation, we added some takeways for the analysis: * COVID 19 pandemic has produced a massive growth in online courses enrollments * The key for making successful courses is quality * The most demanded courses are about technical skills, interpersonal skills and wellness * In the next years, online course enrollments will grow 30% * There is a massive business opportunity in creating niche online courses. See a video with all the details. Please find it useful. [link] [comments]  |
| What’s better than making 6 or 7 figures running your own gig.... Posted: I think in the Entreprenurship space , the ability to come and go as you please is a heavily underrated topic that is discussed. I'm a business loan broker and can work from a phone/laptop anywhere. I remember the days of internal agony where I had to sit somewhere and make calls for 8 hours a day while my earning capacity was limited. I realized over the last few years of running my brokerage is my highest value is the time freedom that comes with it, not the money. If I want to show up for 3 hours one day, I can. If I want to work 10 hours in one day, I can. If I want to travel to see my family, I can without having to face resistance from a boss. The ability to make your own decisions, think for yourself, and not be controlled by another individual is true freedom in and of itself. [link] [comments]  |
| How we got our first paying customers for a chrome extension. Pivots and lessons learned! Posted: In December, my co-founder and I launched Roamer, a chrome extension that helps people find Airbnbs with fast WiFi. Since then we've been iterating in search of a revenue model. This week we finally got our first paying customers! Here's how we got there: When we originally launched, Roamer was completely free to use. Users could just click one button to add the extension to chrome, and they would then be taken to a brief welcome page. We were not capturing email addresses as part of this flow, which we later learned was a big mistake! After we had a few hundred users we wanted to test if we could convert them to paying customers. We designed and built an experience that would start locking out users from using the extension if they had viewed more than 10 listings in one month. They would then be prompted to upgrade their plan if they wanted to continue viewing listings with the extension. Perhaps not surprisingly, many users were startled by the change and uninstalled the app. We only had 2-3 people even click the upgrade button while 20-30 had uninstalled. After a few days, we pulled the plug on this test and figured we needed to make some changes! We recognized that the core issue is that we weren't setting expectations properly upfront. We decided to completely re-do the sign-up flow. Requiring users to sign in via google AND select a plan all before they even get to try the extension out. This way they would essentially be "opting in" to the freemium option instead of just having it surprise them one day. This was a pretty large engineering investment, but we felt it was worth it to get it right. We weren't sure how much additional friction people would tolerate during the sign-up flow. It turns out, quite a lot! At least for our chrome extension. Once people are "hooked" enough to want to try something out, they seemed to convert at very high rates from installation -> sign-in -> plan selection. After only a few days we've already had 6% of our new users upgrade their plans to the paid version! Since we've now started collecting email addresses I was able to personally reach out to each of our new users and start building a relationship with them. Key takeaways:
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| Posted: Email is one of the most powerful growth engines for any entrepreneur trying to ramp up sales. However, not many get it right. Part of the reason is that entrepreneurs end up focusing on either a very low volume that needs scale, or too much volume with almost no personalization (we get these in our inbox every day...). So really, cold email personalization at scale - why should you care? If you want to schedule dozens of opportunities on a monthly basis, you need a formula to repeatedly stand out from the crowd. A formula that makes replies like these feel normal in your day-to-day life:
The secret? Successful outbound sales lies in 3 main factors:
Don't worry. I'll show you how - all secrets uncovered. The Formula:
Here's a real example I used leveraging a hobby that prospects and I had in common. If you want to dive deeper into this formula with more real examples and a step-by-step guide on how to craft an email like this, you can follow this guide. -------- Hope this helps, Happy to help if you're struggling with your cold emails! [link] [comments]  |
| I have 200k followers on TikTok. What business opportunities do I have? Posted: Hey guys! I make personal funny videos and some product videos for company ads. I want to take this to the next level and need some help: Should I start a digital marketing company? Should I develop own products and promote them? Other ideas? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: The best way to network? Start every conversation by adding value. Examples of this include: I learn 1 thing very well. I then send it to everyone that would benefit from that thing (up to 50 people at times). Here's an example of how I do this: https://twitter.com/KareemAbukhadra/status/1377371422415233029/photo/1 Complimenting people. Real, thoughtful compliments. Not fluffy vague compliments. [link] [comments]  |
| 20 Best Free Tools to help you when you are just starting a website Posted: Starting a website or blog is not easy. Maintaining Website SEO, creating Unique content, Marketing, etc. It is so tough, especially If you are an all-rounder like me. So getting some help from free tools can be the best thing in the whole world. But It takes time to find the perfect Free helpful Tools for a website. You will have to find tools that help you with On-Page SEO, Off-Page SEO, Content creation, SMM, etc. So that's why to make your work easier, I have listed the 20 best Free Tools, which have been very helpful for me. And hopefully, it will be helpful for you too.
-------------------------------------- P.S: I'm not marketing any tools. just a friendly sharing :) [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: Hello! Me and a friend are about to launch a new e-learning platform that focuses on improving earnings for instructors while offering the best experience to students! As you may know, Udemy charges a 50% commission for purchases coming from their marketplace. Look no further! We will only a 10% commission for instructors, no matter what the origin of a course purchase is! We want to invite you to be among the first ones to publish your courses on our platform. We are going to launch within a couple of months, and being among the launch instructors will give you significant exposure. Are you interested in joining us? [link] [comments]  |
| How has being an entrepreneur affected your family life? Posted: |
| Posted: Hi everyone, I've worked in the tech and startup industry for a few years and would love to give back. I'm a web designer/developer by trade and I've built over 100+ websites. Let me know your website or idea and ill give you advice [link] [comments]  |
| Looking for feedback/improvement ideas on tracking Posted: As part of a project, I am looking into how parcel and order tracking works currently for online sellers, and what their major pain points are. Any feedback or insight you may have, particularly if you run an online store, would be appreciated. Please list the ecommerce platform you use, as well as any third party shipping or business software/plugins that are connected. How many orders do you ship monthly? How do you provide customers with tracking information? (I.E. Manually per order or automated, confirmation through email sms or notification. Reasons you chose your current order tracking / shipping carrier? [link] [comments]  |
| Different types of Digital Marketplaces Posted: Hi Redditers, https://www.urlaunched.com/blog/the-different-types-of-digital-marketplaces [link] [comments]  |
| Beer and Bandwidth: Considering a 3rd shift second job to stay afloat while launching an IT business Posted: Hi fellow entrepreneurs, I've been working in geospatial tech for 3 years since college, currently at a major international tech company. The pay is great, I love the team and my boss, but the work itself is getting dry and there doesn't seem to be much hope for change in the type of work I'm doing. Some of my co-workers and I are starting a small local ISP in my city, and much of the day-to-day operations, professional networking, government and public relations, etc., falls to me (willingly) as the least IT-savvy but most extroverted of our little crew. As such, I'm finding it increasingly difficult to balance the schedule of a day job with launching the business, since most of my work on the business by necessity happens during normal business hours. As much as I want to keep the 6 figure income, both for stability and for ability to invest in the business, I'm starting to see it as an inevitable necessity to leave the day job in order to focus on entrepreneurship. However, until or unless we can secure funding to both buy equipment and pay ourselves, I need to make mortgage payments, continue to save for the future, etc. I have a passion for brewing and there's a 3rd shift Cellerman position open at my favorite brewery down the road. I'm pretty well qualified thanks to being a relatively strong and healthy guy and having some experience with home winemaking, and I've applied Both I and my wife are concerned about how the schedule would impact my health and wellbeing, our family, and time for friends and hobbies, but it's incredibly important for me to be able to get this business off the ground, and I have faith we'll be able to make it work. I'm hoping to get some insight from others who may have worked night jobs while launching their businesses as to the pitfalls, pros and cons, etc. My hope is that my passion for both the business and for beer and brewing, the quality reputation this brewery has as an employer, and taking advantage of resources on alternative sleep schedules, can all combine to make this a viable transitional step toward full-time self employment and even facilitate my longer-term dream of one-day opening my own microdistillery. Thanks in advance for any thoughts, advice, and other feedback you may have! [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: In the process of writing an ebook. Where would be the best place to sell it? [link] [comments]  |
| I need to sell 35 bags of coffee everyday to quit my day job. Posted: Is that possible? How? 35 bags a day. I live in one of the most remote place in the Americas. 35 bags a day. lol. Is it a crazy idea to sell coffee ONLY online? Maybe I should consider finding outlets in Alberta, southern BC and maybe going on Amazon. But coffee has a very limited shelf life, like 2-8 weeks. Total cost is $14CAD per bag. I sell them at $19 CAD. I need a hug. [link] [comments]  |
| Quick tips on maintaining high energy levels, day after day Posted: Very important in entrepreneurship is the ability to persist, and continue to work hard, day after day, for weeks and months at a time. Having high energy levels each day makes this 10x easier. Here are a few tips to keep your energy levels high:
I see people who have been drinking the same amount of coffee, day after day, for years. That's fucking stupid. After a while the effects start to diminish and it gets to the point where it hardly has any stimulative effects on you besides keeping the crankiness and withdrawal symptoms at bay. Every 3-6 weeks, I'll take one full day off caffeine. You'll read online that it takes way longer than that for a proper tolerance break, but trust me, that's bullshit. I take one single full day off, then the day after that, I drop my caffeine intake to half of what it was before the break, and I'm in the fucking zone. If you want to take more than one day off, go for it, but I've found one day is all I need. Consistency with caffeine intake is also important. If you're drinking 7 cups one day, 2 the other, your energy levels will be completely unpredictable. At the start of a caffeine cycle for me, I do 4 heaping scoops of coffee. Gradually, every 3-5 days or so, I'll increase that to 4.5, then 5, then 5.5, etc, all the up to around 7.5 or 8. That's about my peak, as that's where I notice I begin to feel overstimulated after 4-8 weeks of daily caffeine. Once I hit the point where I just feel internally like, kinda overstimulated, like I could use a day off, I plan for my next tolerance break within the next few days. The details of my particular system don't matter, it's just what I've personally fine-tuned through years of trial & error with caffeine. I used to just chaotically drink cup after cup in college and that was fucking stupid. The important thing is: Develop a system where you can fine-tune your levels of caffeination to a consistent degree so you know exactly what energy levels to expect each day, and also take a tolerance break every 3-6 weeks so that you're consistently actually being fully stimulated by the caffeine. When you re-start, drop your intake to half of where you were at, then gradually ramp up, to sort of scale up your level of intake to match up with the tolerance build-up. Works wonders for me. 2) Wake up without an alarm clock each day. When you're fully rested, you're going to be much more energized, effective, and motivated than if you're running on sleep that was interrupted and cut short by an alarm clock. Your body needs sleep. Deprive yourself of sleep consistently in life and enjoy having Alzheimer's when you're 70. Sleep as long as you need to each night to wake up naturally, even if that's 9 or 10 hours on some days. Others it'll be 6-7. Sometimes even less depending on your body's individual needs. If you're going up against me in my industry and you're in this foggy, groggy state all day because you're getting 4 hours of sleep each day, I promise you your decisions are going to be shit, your work ethic will be weak, and you're almost certainly going to get smashed. Your key business decisions are going to be made from a place of laziness, fatigue, exhaustion. Think about how stupid that is, especially compared against the high-energy contrast of the person who's well-rested, fully energized and ready to attack the day. And even if, on paper, you may theoretically have more hours to work, you're going to be working, thinking & functioning totally sub-optimally. Days I'm tired, it's very clear to me that I work slower, have the urge to take way more breaks, get easily distracted more often. You're just way less effective that way. Better to have 15 hours at 100% than 19 at 40%. 3) Keep your food intake light for the first half of your day. Also, find foods to consistently eat at consistent times of the day that keep your energy levels high. For me personally, it's one cup of coffee first thing in the AM, with a little bit of milk and sometimes sugar. I drink that on an empty stomach and just let myself get nice and stimulated for the first hour or so of the day while immediately jumping into my most important business tasks first things while I'm most energized. Then I'll drink a can of V8, and have a yogurt shortly after that. Than maybe an hour later, I'll have some breakfast sausage links with milk, sometimes with some salsa sprinkled over the sausage. It's very weirdly specific, but I've found that this particular diet, in that particular sequence, keeps my energy levels insanely high for the first half of my day. I keep it light, I'm not eating these enormous calorie-rich meals (like stacks of pancakes etc) that make me tired as shit. I basically just eat enough to keep hunger at bay, eating things that I've found make me feel best internally. It's not even about "Food X is healthy to eat" for me. It's just, I've found that eating these specific things in this sequence keeps my energy levels highest and makes me feel best and most energized and motivated. Find what foods in what sequences works best for you, then stick with it. Also note that the combination of all three of these has a compounding effect: When I don't get much sleep, yet follow my caffeine & dietary protocol, I feel like maybe I'm at 60%. But when I get a full night's sleep, follow the caffeine protocol AND keep my food intake light according to the foods I've found keep my energy level's highest, the three of those in combination make me feel my best. Also note that when your food intake is light, you don't need to drink cup after cup of coffee. For me personally, since I eat very little for the first half of the day, just one cup is enough to get me in the zone. But if you were eating these big-ass 1300 calorie meals that gave you a food coma at 10am, you'd probably be tempted to guzzle more coffee -- which wouldn't be needed if you kept the food intake light. Any other tips? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: Every year, I like to share how our business has performed over the previous year and how that impacts on our business and personal finances. My hope is that being transparent about our revenue, expenses, profits, challenges, and plans is helpful to other small business owners. The aim is to:
Let's get into it. (I'm sorry there's not a TL;DR, but I hope you'll find reading this post worthwhile) About us and the business
Our business principles
Alright, let's get into the finances. Our business revenue, expenses, and profits in 2020I've shown our business finances below, rounded to the nearest $1,000. I've also included 2019 figures in brackets next to each, so you can see how they changed. Any disparities are likely to be rounding errors. Revenue in 2020: $125K vs. 2019: 146K
Revenue thoughts
Expenses in 2020: $21.2K vs. 2019: 24KI've shown our business finances below, rounded to the nearest $100. I've also included 2019 figures in brackets next to each (Rounded to nearest $1,000), so you can see how they changed.
Expense thoughts
Total profits (pre-tax) in 2020: $104K vs 2019: $122K
Taxes (self-employment, federal, state) in 2020: c. $27K vs 2019: c. $33K
"Take-Home" Pay after expenses and taxes in 2020: $77K, 6.4K a month vs 2019: $89K, $7.5K a month
Monthly living expenses $4.5K a month in 2020 and 2019, $55K a year
Disposable income in 2020: $1.9K a month, 23K a year, vs 2019: $3.3K a month, $39K a year
Financial summaryOK, that's it for all of the finances. To summarize our annual 2020 figures (any disparities are rounding errors):
Looking purely at the figures, my conclusion is that COVID19 had an impact on our finances, but we were still able to stay ahead of our costs and maintain a good standard of living. Here's how 2020 compared to 2019
My thoughts for 2020, 2021, and beyondIf there's one thing 2020 taught me, it's that small businesses have to be prepared and adaptable. Here's what I learned and what we are going to do: Diversify even more We were already pretty diversified with our client base prior to COVID, but losing just two major clients put a sizable dent in our income. I'm focussing even more now on getting clients across a wider range of industries. Maintain healthy savings We have six months of living and business expenses in ur bank accounts, and although we did need to dig into them a bit, having that money there significantly reduced our stress levels. Keep contributing to longer-term investments We delayed our retirement contributions while our revenue was unsteady, but caught up towards the end of the year. The compounding effect is so important that I didn't want us to miss out. Get government help I applied for an EIDL loan when our revenue took a nosedive. I've repaid the loan since, but the short-term security that provided, together with the small grant, was still very helpful. Automate wherever possible I want to save time, effort, and cognitive load so integrating all of our apps together lets me streamline that process, putting aside more time for paying work. Focus on inbound marketing The months of May through June / July were very quiet. I completely rebuilt my freelance writing website to drive up organic search performance. It worked, and all of our inquiries are now 100% inbound, with around 20 writing-related keywords in the top 3 Google results. Previous work on our editing website means we have about 25 there in the top 3. Focus on value, not price All of our rates are published openly on our websites, which isn't something that a lot of freelancers do. We find that's very helpful for pre-qualifying leads, and also sets an expectation for the quality of work a client can expect. I also rewrote all of our "services" pages to speak to how we can help clients and make their lives easier. In a time of COVID, people already have so much cognitive overload, and what to hire experts that can make stuff happen, without much oversight, so that was a real value-add for our target audience (mainly B2B clients, marketers, and agencies needing people with technical knowledge). Maintain independence over your work Although we do get some work through the Fiverr Pro freelance platform, all other work is either through marketing agencies, or directly with clients. I find this level of control very helpful, as it means I can speak directly with clients. Be exceptionally professional, but friendly at the same time We don't see ourselves as "just freelancers" but as running a business that's as professional as those we serve. That means being very flexible and reliable, responding rapidly to questions and communications, staying completely on top of work, and being friendly and hassle-free, and charging fair, transparent rates. Emphasize proactive communications Part of business professionalism is keeping clients informed, rather than them coming to us. That means weekly emails and updates on when work will be returned, checking in, and such. Keep your pipeline full I've struggled with the balance between existing work commitments and taking on new clients. I could move to retainer contracts, so that's something I'm thinking about. As it happens, our revenue does vary a fair amount from month to month. Help your professional community We all grow through sharing knowledge with our peers (hence the reason for this post). It sharpens up your thinking, lets you see how other people are doing, optimizes your approach, and gives you a warm, fuzzy feeling! Realize that at some point in life, freedom and time are as important as money I'm not sure when it happened, but I've grown to value independence over my work, and choosing to do only what I want to as equally important as earning money. Now, that's probably because I have enough money, but chasing the dollar is no longer as important as it once was. Play with dogs! Because, y'know, working from home must have those benefits, right?! Alright, I think that's it. Thanks very much for sticking with me through this. I'm happy to expand on any of these points or answer any questions. Over to you! [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: Hi guys, I am a student currently making a project about web development and E-commerce. Currently am doing customer research that is primarily for people which are self-employed, have your own business, company, e-shop, website, or plan to set the business in the future. You can fill my Google questionnaire CustomerSchool Project research (take less than 2 minutes) or if I may ask you for a bit of help and advice: What is essential for you when you are choosing the services? Thank you very much [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: We have business in which we are required to directly negotiate with many petty sellers. We have to be polite as well as tough during those as they should come back again with their produce. So, how to strike the balance between politeness and toughness? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: Hello! This is Alex with Readlax! The problem we're trying to resolve is Brain Productivity. Every successful person wants to be smart and healthy. Readlax provides web and mobile brain games and workouts. It includes: Improve memory, read faster, increase focus, and visual span — with Readlax brain training app. Just Try here https://www.readlax.com/en [link] [comments]  |
| Understanding Software & Dev Communication Basics Posted: I have an idea that for the past while I wanted to quit my job to pursue. I want to hire a team to develop an app that's somewhat complex. I finally have the funding and I understand extremely well the market I'm targeting. I just really want to understand how to manage or talk with software developers although I do not have a technology background. I've worked in smaller companies before and dealt with UI/UX, some back office programmers, etc but I don't understand all the general aspects to transparently discuss any issues/challenges that could arise with the team. I also was somewhat dependent on technical coworkers when needed. I'm not looking to completely learn CS or become a software engineer or learn a computer language, I'm just wondering if anyone has a place they'd recommend I start to specifically deal with a team hired to built an app. [link] [comments]  |
| I started making tutorials for woodworking projects to try and drive traffic to my website. Posted: I'm the guy who started making ceramics in his apartment after being laid off due to COVID. I've always been kind of a "maker" and when I do make things I usually design them myself instead of following some sort of tutorial. Well a few years ago I made an elevated bed for my dog. Yesterday I tried to put a quick tutorial together for people that may want to make one of their own and put it on my website https://prattceramics.com/ Up to this point, my website has just been used to sell my ceramics. I added a tutorials tab and posted this, with no intention of selling plans or making people pay for it. Why would I do this? This isn't even related to ceramics. I know. Most of my followers (not many) have followed be because I have shown the process I used to design and make my ceramics. I figured most of them may be makers or do it yourself types that also appreciate the amount of work that goes into making quality things and be interested in my products. I added the tutorial, which is just a slideshow with descriptions and not that great. I did this project years ago so I didn't actively make it from scratch, I just showed assembly. I posted the same thing to Imgur with a link to my site and it has about 2.5k views. I've gotten a few new followers and my website traffic is much higher than it usually is. I don't know if this will result in more sales in the future(I don't have anything available right now), or people will only become interested in the tutorials. Either way, more viewers usually isn't a bad thing. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: I was part of an IPO that almost immediately failed. One of the lessons I learnt was around growing by region. We were based in Australia but quickly grew into Canada, then UK. The lesson learnt here was the difference between talent and culture. Finding the right talent in Toronto was really easy, good strong sales force with wonderful experience. The only issue was they all lacked the knowledge of our culture back at HQ. The converse of this was taking a sales leader from our HQ to open another office in UK. They brought the standards, culture, know how and communication rhythms. This has a massive effect on culture, who we hired locally, the behaviour traits we looked for and ultimately results. The UK thrived and ended up outperforming all other offices and the standards were sky high. The Canadian office was an indefensible failure, we went through managers, staff and offices. Burnt through cash and achieved very little. In short, export the right people to grow your business. Use your HQ as a talent incubator and give responsibility to the people who model the best of your culture. [link] [comments]  |
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