Thank you Thursday! - July 08, 2021 Entrepreneur |
- Thank you Thursday! - July 08, 2021
- Reminder- if you have to pay someone for their knowledge or “secret” to their success, it’s a scam.
- Spark.
- I took your advice and I got up and did something
- I went from idea to MVP in less than a week! Happy to have finally launched.
- I made $5,000 of a junk vehicle. It took a while but ill tell you how i did it.
- What habits do successful entrepreneurs adopt?
- Looking for advice
- Success Stories?
- Next Steps Accountancy Practice
- I prepared a guide to referral programs
- Should I become a farmers market vendor?
- Is OnlyFans considered a risky business from a payment processor perspective?
- Starting a company, really struggling with customer acquisition for DTC.
- How far should we push the organic foods angle?
- Who would you get free advice from if you could pick anyone?
- Expanding branded product line
- How to get a job at a startup?
- Retainer Agreement (Pay for Access) - First time
- UK BASED SMEs - PRO BONO ADIVCE
- Advice on not giving up
- How to improve sales??
- What would you want to learn in a digital marketing book about presenting online (social media, podcasts, virtual workshops, etc.)
- Is revenue from affiliate links included when you are valuing the website you want to sell?
- Building the Pepsi to the Coke?
| Thank you Thursday! - July 08, 2021 Posted: 08 Jul 2021 02:00 AM PDT Your opportunity to thank the /r/Entrepreneur community by offering free stuff, contests, discounts, electronic courses, ebooks and the best deals you know of. Please consolidate such offers here! Since this thread can fill up quickly, consider sorting the comments by "new" (instead of "best" or "top") to see the newest posts. [link] [comments]  |
| Reminder- if you have to pay someone for their knowledge or “secret” to their success, it’s a scam. Posted: 08 Jul 2021 01:04 PM PDT I realize it's somewhat of a clickbait title, but I'm getting so sick of the "we'll show you how to make money with drop shipping/affiliate marketing/ forex trading/ crypto trading. The reality is, if someone has a "secret" to being so successful, then they're gunna keep it a secret. If you're paying someone for their secret, then their secret to making money is getting people to pay them for their secret to making money. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 07 Jul 2021 11:27 PM PDT Let's just start this rant. First off, I told myself no more restaurant jobs. Yeah. I went back in that shitty industry. So, 2 of my ex coworkers came by to my apartment one day to rant about how bad the GM is in the KBBQ spot and told me to apply as a manager to take proper leadership for the store. And so I did. Got the job, trained as a manager for a week, honestly, I already know how the restaurant works because I worked there for 1 long year before covid. Done. I am at the restaurant with this "bad" GM and, man, all the workers there came to me excited to find a solution to their problems. I tried to talk to the GM there about how to fix all these problems that the hourly employees are having and he just fucking brushed it off. And this is what he said, " we are making sales everyday, we are doing great. No problems" At this point, I see that everyone has been overworked, sent to the ER because of severe dehydration, horrible customer service, etc. I told corporate, director of operations and HR about the problems and they just side the GM because I have only been there for a week. The whole company is full of externals and I know the business ins and outs more than any of them. They fired me. This is the spark. I was so frustrated to see hourly employees treated like shit, overworked, and not cared for. I was a server, busser, cashier, cook prep, everything. I understand everyone's fucking struggle in the restaurant. SO, with that being said, I told myself...why not just make my own KBBQ spot? I know the suppliers, the people, the way the restaurant is supposed to run. It would be a replica but with better management, better service, modern looks and social media worthy. I am currently in Irvine, CA and I am going to compete against my old restaurant. I am getting a business plan together, seek investors or loaners, and I am putting all my effort into this restaurant. Covid wasted 1 year of my life and I am here to double my time. Thank you guys for reading this. [link] [comments]  |
| I took your advice and I got up and did something Posted: 08 Jul 2021 09:20 AM PDT It's not the most fantastic idea but it's a start. I had the idea to buy glass jars from second hand stores and make sealed terrariums (plants in a jar). Ive secured a free spot at the farmers market this weekend to sell my terrariums to get experience on making sales and hopefully get some feedback and make connections. I met a guy last week and explained my terrarium idea. He said "you don't need the money right now, you need to experience, even if you make 10% profit to start thats ok. You need to get a taste for selling a product." That made a lot of sense to me. Anybody have any other advice for selling at the farmers market? [link] [comments]  |
| I went from idea to MVP in less than a week! Happy to have finally launched. Posted: 08 Jul 2021 09:57 AM PDT As the title states, I finally launched my startup. It's been a crazy year of a lot of procrastination, and putting it off but it's finally here. I've had many ideas over the year, and one I was sitting on for quite some time. I ended up putting that start up to rest as I didn't have the knowledge or capability to continue it. It was hard but for the best. All of sudden with this startup, we went from idea to MVP in less than a week. For anyone interested, it's called Over Easy News. Business news made over easy with a side of knowledge. It's a newsletter that drops 3x a week that delivers easy to read business news all while teaching about business. I came up with the idea literally a week before launch. I brought it to my wife and asked her what do you like more news or education? She choose education and I responded, "ehhhh... I like news better." Sure enough later that night at work it hit me, "why don't I just do both!" And so that's what I did. I quickly builded the site couple days later and got it up and running. Articles are being written almost everyday now by me and its going great. We launched on product hunt yesterday. We did ok, better than I expected and are just happy to have launched! This sub has given me a tremendous amount of motivation over the years! :) My one advice to everyone is if you have an idea, make your MVP and launch!!! Do NOT wait!!! My struggles now are finding a good co-founder & marketing. Marketing is my weakness but I'm working to improve. I hope to bring someone on the team with more expertise in this area. Feedback on the startup would be greatly appreciated. Thank you! :) [link] [comments]  |
| I made $5,000 of a junk vehicle. It took a while but ill tell you how i did it. Posted: 08 Jul 2021 02:42 PM PDT I ran into a Facebook marketplace ad. Guy had a truck, 2003 f150 with a snow plow and salt spreader. The truck itself was junk. They didn't treat the frame so the salt ate through it and it became unsafe to drive. People called me stupid when I paid $1,500 for basically a scrap truck. But over the past 4 months I have been selling parts off of it. Turns out, which I already knew, that it's a popular truck in my area. So parts were in high demand. Tommorow I take what's left, which isn't much, to the scrap yard. One man's trash can be another man's treasure. [link] [comments]  |
| What habits do successful entrepreneurs adopt? Posted: 08 Jul 2021 01:59 PM PDT What habits have helped you or other entrepreneurs and what habits have slowed down your success? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 08 Jul 2021 07:55 AM PDT I am looking to start my own business but right now I still have a job that pays the bills. It's a great flexible remote job which I am grateful for, however I just don't like the topic anymore. My husband is an entrepreneur himself so financially we originally figured it would be best for me to have a stable job with stable income while he ventures. He is still in the beginning stages where his venture isn't generating any income. The problem is that I have lost passion for my normal job and want to pursue entrepreneurship on my own. However, I don't want to end up homeless if I were to quit my job. Every time I sit down for work, I get a large sense of anxiety and feel like I hate everything I do. But when I plan for my own business goals or even when I plan alongside my husband for his business goals, I feel 10x better. I was wondering if anyone has any advice for me because I feel completely lost. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 08 Jul 2021 03:36 PM PDT Question: How do most ultra successful entrepreneurs make their fortunes? For example, I was reading about Paul Pelosi and the basic storyline is went to undergrad, got MBA, then started a consulting firm, then, became multi-millionaire. Buffets story is similar. The gist of all these stories is did X, then became filthy rich. They all lack details in how it all happened over time. Anyone have some good, detailed, success stories? [link] [comments]  |
| Next Steps Accountancy Practice Posted: 08 Jul 2021 02:49 PM PDT I have had my own Accountancy Practice for 8 years , 6 full time including myself as director. I have approx 6000 euro per month in profit before I take anything , while it's good and has been over last few years , I am finding I am running into roadblocks , the amount of clients we have now means my phone is always ringing. I try to delegate but there is many times I cannot , and I feel like controll and oversight is slipping and will slip more the larger we get. I am well aware this is a classic business owner working in the business rather than on it , but as a Accountant they want to talk with me. As far as team goes all 20s early 30s in age , variety of exam progress / nearly finished , flat organization no manager , authority other than myself , everyone has there own expertise and blocks of clients. I know what the problem is but don't have a solution. I have thought of offering one or more long term staff a profit percentage , leading to more ( but then that may sour the office , at the moment all are equal in status ) So business owners / Accountants of redit , how do I leave the trenches and work on the business. And make it larger and go to next step [link] [comments]  |
| I prepared a guide to referral programs Posted: 08 Jul 2021 12:56 AM PDT While preparing this write-up on referral programs, the first thing I thought about was: If I see another Dropbox example, I swear I'll lose my sh$#! Jokes aside, referral programs can be life-changing for your business. In short, a referral program is when you reward people for talking about your business. It's not purely word-of-mouth, it's not really corruption. Let's say it's in between. Here is how to rock them:'Promise I won't talk about Dropbox' ------------------------------------- TLDR: First, choose if you want a middle or bottom-funnel referral program. Make sure the rewards are exciting and say something about your brand. Make sure to have a great referral CPA. If you can make it like a game, and give a higher purpose for people to participate. Email and in-product are usually the best places to advertise your referral program. ------------------------------------- 1/ Just a nudgeReferrals work because people are already on the verge of telling their friends. Only fans of your content or customers already in love with your product will play the game. You're only pushing them over the edge. The formula is: great product or content + fans + nudge = accelerate word of mouth. 2/ Audience or orders?Choose the objective of your referral program. You can focus on growing fans of your content or fans of your product. The question is which part of the funnel do you want to strengthen more? If you choose a middle-funnel referral program: you'll ask for emails, you'll get more subscribers, but you need a great content offer. If you choose a bottom-funnel referral program: you'll ask for orders, you'll get more sales, but you need an established product with fans. 3/ Perceived valueIt's ok if the gift value is "objectively" quite low. Don't forget you're talking to fans. They don't just do it for the gift, there is social value in it too. The formula is: Action requested =< (gift value + social reward of sharing something good) 4/ Don't underestimate your fansOffer exciting and valuable rewards. Some of your fans will work really hard for those rewards. Tesla offered a $250k limited-edition car. Very hard to get. Well, Andy Slye got it. Andy is a Tech YouTuber and the world's #1 Tesla referrer. He earned +$500k in referral rewards. Andy generated Tesla 1200+ referred customers, millions of views on YouTube, and + $54M in sales (est.). 5/ Express your brandAn Amazon gift card is nice. But how about gifting something that:
6/ One reward VS journey of rewardsYou can create a journey of rewards with multiple milestones, or you can focus on one reward. Both have advantages. I tend to like the journey more because:
Example of one reward: Refer a friend, give 20% off, get $75. Example of a journey of rewards: Refer 5 people get a shave cream, refer 10 people get a new blade, etc... 7/ Cost Per Acquisition nailedMorning brew is a newsletter/media company. Their referral program grew their subscribers from 100k to 1.5m in 18 months. And they couldn't have dreamt of a cheaper acquisition channel. Their referral CPA was $0.25 compared to a $3 CPA on traditional paid channels. Make sure you nail your CPA as well. 8/ We love to playHighlight the referral count of your referrers. It has to feel like a game and you're scoring points. Make sure you're encouraging participants to unlock the next milestone and the prizes are clearly displayed. 9/ We love causesMany people don't like to claim rewards:
Give a more noble reason for people to talk about your brand. Just like Tesla does. They display how many pounds of CO2 and how many gallons of gasoline are saved thanks to your referrals. 10/ Promote it where your fans areEmail and in-product are usually the best places to advertise your referral program. This is where your fans hang out and will be more receptive. 11/ Limited timeYou don't have to commit to a referral program forever. It can be a temporary stunt. T-Mobile did this in 2016. They offered stock in the company in exchange for referrals. The PR wave that came from it was impressive. Bonus (1)Should you offer the reward to the referrer only or to the friend as well? Two-sided incentives (ex: "Give $15, Get $15") are usually encouraged because:
Bonus (2)**Referral code or unique link?** Usually, if you're dealing with high-value referrals for example like selling Teslas, you'd prefer to use a code. Unique referral links are not very reliable. With incognito mode, ad blockers, etc. it can fail to track. Bonus (3)If you're offering gifts (objects or experiences), choose ones that generate conversations, pictures and will be seen by others. This explains the unusually high number of gifts being stickers, mugs, hoodies, travel... Thanks for reading! Anything to add to this guide? Lmk in the comments. B. PS: You can read the full case study here (there's also a newsletter if you're interested in subbing). [link] [comments]  |
| Should I become a farmers market vendor? Posted: 08 Jul 2021 01:27 PM PDT Hi friends, I have a very small frozen vegetable based food product for kids and have been selling locally to parents. It's been really successful and I want to expand. It's something that doesn't exist in the market and parents love it! I was accepted into a farmer's market here in New Jersey but the vendors fee for the season is $750. I only have one product and I sell it for $4. The market is every Saturday from 9am-2pm. I would have to sell a crapload of packages to just make the vendors fee back. Should I do it? Is it mostly to get my business out there? What if I don't sell many packages?? Im the only person in my business and don't have any employees. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks so much 💜💚 [link] [comments]  |
| Is OnlyFans considered a risky business from a payment processor perspective? Posted: 08 Jul 2021 09:39 AM PDT I know that adult sites are mostly tagged as risky business from a payment processor perspective. Is the same case for OnlyFans? How do they handle those payments? [link] [comments]  |
| Starting a company, really struggling with customer acquisition for DTC. Posted: 08 Jul 2021 09:09 AM PDT Hey guys, I am starting a company with my family. I am 27 and my parents are both boomers, we are launching a produce box company (don't want to go into further detail on what it is to not dox myself). We are good on the operations and the finances, but our biggest issue is customer acquisition. We are a new company, and I would like to keep the budget low on instagram and facebook ads. Honestly, with this area of sales and marketing I am clueless.. any advice is appreciated. I want this to really succeed and two of our competitors with similar concepts but different products are killing it in the market. [link] [comments]  |
| How far should we push the organic foods angle? Posted: 08 Jul 2021 12:13 PM PDT So we are starting up again my wife's food truck. All our food, down to veggies is organic. Some of the meat is locally grown but the meat I order is still organic. How far should I push the fact the food is organic? Right now she doesn't advertise that fact at all. We didn't purposely buy organic food for it, it just happened that way. [link] [comments]  |
| Who would you get free advice from if you could pick anyone? Posted: 08 Jul 2021 12:10 PM PDT If not a specific person could maybe a generic skilled professional [link] [comments]  |
| Expanding branded product line Posted: 08 Jul 2021 12:00 PM PDT We've been expanding our business to include merchandise like t-shirts, hoodies, and caps. However, while packaging up the clothing we got the idea to include small gifts that relate to our business like fish hooks, fishing line, etc. The problem is that we don't have any of these items packaged and branded. We buy from a vendor and use in our business. If we wanted to start selling these types of items in our merchandise store, where would we start? How does a small business find a company who is already manufacturing high quality items and get their brand on them? Clothing was easy, but this is completely new to us. Any help is appreciated. [link] [comments]  |
| How to get a job at a startup? Posted: 08 Jul 2021 11:58 AM PDT I graduated with a degree in telecommunications (lol) in 2016. I currently work in pharmaceutical manufacturing. It's interesting work but the coolest part to me is that I got an opportunity to work in a completely new building and help figure everything out. I really enjoy the scrappy feeling of it and learning new stuff all the time. But once things get running smoothly I kinda get bored. I have a Google Adwords cert that I did because I was bored and trying to figure something out. But I think working at a startup would be a lot of fun because I want to wear a lot of hats. I was figuring I could get more marketing certs and try to intern someplace in my off time. Does anyone have any tips? [link] [comments]  |
| Retainer Agreement (Pay for Access) - First time Posted: 08 Jul 2021 11:44 AM PDT Hey r/Entrepreneur folks, I have a long standing client who I have recently completed a large long term project for, and they would like me to present them with a retainer proposal for ongoing services to handle things as they come up. The project is not likely to take much of my time on a weekly basis,, and I want to be fair to them in what I propose, which would be pay for access rather than pay for task.. The intent would be if it was regularly more or less time than I expected, then we could adjust for the following 6 months. I have two approaches:
Any thoughts on either of these approaches and things I should consider that would leave me in an unfortunate position or cause confusion in the billing mechanisms? I have never drafted an agreement like this before and need some good templates to develop one from. There is no IP involved and we have a solid, trustworthy relationship. I have googled this, and most of what I find is legal or marketing/creative related and not really appropriate for what I do. The client is not hurting for cash or has any cashflow issues, so whatever method i propose will likely be fine for them, I just need to make sure I inform myself of pros and cons. [link] [comments]  |
| UK BASED SMEs - PRO BONO ADIVCE Posted: 08 Jul 2021 07:50 AM PDT Hi all, I work for All Together (www.alltogether.company). We are a not for profit social enterprise, specialising in one to one advice for CEOS (founders, or leaders) given by CEOS. We have over 80 volunteer advisors from companies including Graze, innocent drinks, Hobbs, Boden, Channel 4 and Manu many more who are willing to provide up to 5 hours of pro bono advice (free!). No catches! Please check out our website and apply. we have helped over 200 SMEs so far and want to get the word out even more [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 08 Jul 2021 11:29 AM PDT I've wanted to be an entrepreneur since I was 17 and I've tried just about everything except for a traditional brick and mortar business. I've tried affiliate marketing, Amazon FBA, Shopify drop shipping, print on demand. I run a semi successful Instagram page that I plan on monetizing. However lately I've been extremely demotivated about even continuing with entrepreneurship, I'm turning 25 soon and I still haven't seen the success I want and I just feel like giving up. A part of me knows I'm never going to be happy working on someone else's time but am also just fed up of feeling alone on this journey I have no other entrepreneurs around me and I just feel like I'm constantly failing and not making progress or I'm not trying hard enough. Does anyone have any advice on what to do? TDLR: looking for advice on not giving up, been at entrepreneurship since 17 years old now 25 and thinking of throwing the towel in. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 08 Jul 2021 11:00 AM PDT First-time poster here. I am looking for advice on a business I started in 2019. Background on the business: We started up a small spice/seasoning business in 2019 (right before the pandemic) in South Africa. It is my partners' family recipe for an all-round bbq & cooking seasoning mix which is really fantastic. They developed the recipe years ago and have always used it in recipes that proved it to be a hit. Later on, they bottled the seasoning to give as gifts for Birthdays and Christmasses and so on, this also proved to be very successful as most people would ask for refills frequently. I decided to take the product on as a personal business venture by bottling and branding it and selling it to a wider retail market. We entered the market in 2019 after some proof runs with packaging etc. Background on me and my partner: My personal experience with starting a business is not a lot, I am a freelance graphic designer with experience in packaging design and moderate web development. I have extensive hospitality industry experience and I'm pretty OK at social media management and marketing. My partner (life and business) has great experience in sales and manufacturing but he is not as well experienced in technology (ie. social media etc). We do unfortunately have limited funds at this time, as we have put a lot into our business with development, transport, getting samples out, etc etc. We have a new partner in our business who is currently helping with sales and a bit of funding. -- The current state of business: We have done OK with sales (given Covid and not everyone buying), we've opened a few retailers across the country, we have few local celebrity endorsements, and have a good loyal following. The main issue is online sales and getting new retailers to take a chance in trying the product. We can't afford to leave every retailer in the country a sample but we still try and do. It is a good, quality and tasty product. It looks good and sells well in person, but how do you drive more sales online? I think from the time we started our online shop in 2019 we have only gotten 3 sales, which is way below what I was expecting. The big retailers won't look at us twice, the reasons being Covid and an overstocked market of spice. What is a good step to take to advance our online sales? I am happy to give more information if needed and also thank you for taking the time to read! TLDR: New business started in 2019, looking for advice on how to drive online sales. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 08 Jul 2021 10:34 AM PDT Self explanatory. Writing another book and want it to be as helpful as possible! [link] [comments]  |
| Is revenue from affiliate links included when you are valuing the website you want to sell? Posted: 08 Jul 2021 10:19 AM PDT |
| Building the Pepsi to the Coke? Posted: 08 Jul 2021 06:09 AM PDT So I am an importer who distributes to other wholesalers. There is this one item, let's just call it "Coke" to make it simple. We have very good volume on it and it's become incredibly popular here over the past 2 years. But here's the catch... There's nothing special about it other than an excellent job on branding and having distributors here willingly promote it. I've been in the industry for a decade and there's been plenty of products like this, but none were differentiated from each other and the distributors did a terrible job marketing them. The worst part is I recently found out that "Coke" didn't even have it's own "secret recipe" and that there was nothing proprietary about it. In fact, it was just a rebranding job done 2 years ago. It's basically no-name cola that they turned into Coke. It always amazes me how clueless consumers are. I'm a big believer in blue ocean strategy, so I would rather find a new item as opposed to try and compete against this one. But considering I do control a decent amount of volume on it already, the thought has occurred to me to make my own competing brand. After all, it's literally just labels. There's really nothing special about this product. I've already looked into doing it myself. I can't make a nice graphic box like them as it's too expensive, but I can make the product labelling. I have customers who can TRY it, and I have a small but faithful social media following to promote it for my customers (probably the largest in my industry locally tbh, social media is lacking in this field). Is this a fool's game trying to compete like this? [link] [comments]  |
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