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    Saturday, August 28, 2021

    While OnlyFans bans porn and then changes its mind, here's the story of how they've built their porn empire with 100M users within 5 years Entrepreneur

    While OnlyFans bans porn and then changes its mind, here's the story of how they've built their porn empire with 100M users within 5 years Entrepreneur


    While OnlyFans bans porn and then changes its mind, here's the story of how they've built their porn empire with 100M users within 5 years

    Posted: 28 Aug 2021 06:53 AM PDT

    tl;dr Timothy Stokely, by allowing censored content, his pornstars connection, small fees, referral program, and viral business structure (influencers advertise the platform by themselves), he created one of the biggest marketplace for (Porn) influencers

    <quick note: You can find my other posts similar to this one here, and here. I do also have a free newsletter here>

    🥊Strategy & Tools

    • July 1, 2016 – OnlyFans was founded by 33-year-old British tech entrepreneur and investor Timothy Stokely headquartered in London, United Kingdom.
    • July 20, 2016 – It reached first 1000 paying subscribers
    • September 8, 2016 – First 10,000 users
    • July 2018 – Fenix International Limited acquired 70% of the share and currently it is owned by Fenix International Limited, and Timothy Stokely is the CEO.
    • January 9, 2017 – It reached first 100,000 users.
    • February 27, 2017– First $1 million creator payouts.
    • October 5, 2017– First $10 million creator payouts.
    • September 14, 2017 – First million users.
    • December 26, 2018-– First $100 million creator payouts.
    • January 2019 –7 million registered users and over 60,000 content creators.
    • July 4, 2019 – It reached the first 10 million users.
    • January 2020 – Beyonce name-dropped OnlyFans on the "Savage Remix". That translated to a 15% traffic growth and a significant boost to the platform's fanbase.
    • May 14, 2020– First $1 billion creator payout.
    • May 25, 2020 – a 75% increase in sign-ups since March 2020
    • Aug 12, 2020 – Cardi B joins the platform
    • Aug 25, 2020 – Bella Thorne, an american actress, said she earned over $2M on OnlyFans in less than a week from creating an account.
    • Jan 2021 – It reached first 100 million users.

    No Censorship
    OnlyFans got so popular because of its loose censorship policy. That was made on purpose, as Timothy Stokely had founded a few amateur porn sites prior to releasing OnlyFans. This policy brought many adult stars to the platform which could sell exclusive content to their fans but with them, many influencers from outside the adult industry–fitness trainers, models, etc.

    Monetizing the influence
    The platform's tagline is to 'monetize your influence'. There are many influencers that could add onlyfans.com to their revenue streams, but there are also ones that sell and promote dozens of products just to maintain their lifestyle. OnlyFans is a promise to achieve that, which is why it is so attractive to people with large followings.

    Unique business model
    OnlyFans charges 20% of the subscriptions, while the other 80% goes to the creators. That is much less compared to other sites that allow to sell paid content and by this design, it attracts more creators. Adding to a monthly subscription fee, OnlyFans also have many other features that allow creators to earn money from their content, such as pay per view feature.

    Referral program
    OnlyFans pays a 5% commission on all income earned by any creator who joins via their unique referral link, for up to 12 months or a max of $50,000. That's a serious motivation to promote the platform on other channels and do the marketing for it.

    Tim Stokely even said:"I worked on previous platforms prior to OnlyFans and one of the mistakes I made was to focus on building what I felt was a great marketplace. But I didn't, through inexperience, give enough consideration to the growth plan: how was I going to get users onto this marketplace? [That problem was] solved, in the case of OnlyFans, by creating a referral programme, which incentivised third parties to bring creators onto the platform."

    The referral program was also clever enough to use explanatory OG images and descriptions in Twitter cards that communicated the benefits of the platform while being 100% SFW, portraying the platform in a more neutral light.

    Using Twitter Traffic
    OnlyFans is wise enough to not compete with other social platforms. It allows for easy sharing to other platforms, such as Twitter integration, to boost the number of followers. The integration was seamless since day 1 of the platform as the founder knew from his previous experience that he won't generate much traffic on his own.

    The automatic integration with Twitter allowed creators to post referral links and in the early days of live streams, it could automatically post about the live stream happening. Then, when a fan saw the link, he was asked to register in order to watch it–that's +1 for the platform.

    Why Twitter? It had a less strict content policy, and the creators flooded Twitter with their adult (or not) content to drive traffic to their accounts on Only Fans.

    First creators
    Some of the first creators came from previous projects of Stokely. One of them was Dani Hardwood, an adult actress. She first joined the platform and earned about $200 in 18 months. However, then she got creative with the content and involved in making it based on polls with her fans. Among those were Dare Dani Thursdays where she would do challenges such as ordering pizza and opening naked. She then started to make over $1.5M in revenues from her content and started an OnlyFans management agency at later point.

    There could've been more similar cases to hers.

    Paid DMs
    One of the most-used features are paid DMs. Users that subscribe to certain influencers can send them DMs and talk with them, or at least to become a priority in their inboxes. As an influencer, you can also add PPV messaging, which means that you can send someone a content that can be seen by an individual but only if he pays for it.

    There's also a dark side to it. Even many of the influencers post X-rated content, their followers feel lonely and just want to have someone to talk. Loneliness was a big part of the lockdown in most parts of the world, which drove those feeling down to platform such as OnlyFans.

    Making friends with celebrities
    OnlyFans' followers join relatively small circles around their favorite influencers, which creates a more direct and intimate relationship, or at least a sense of it. This drives engagement as many people strive to know someone famous. Here, they can.

    High-profile influencers
    In 2020, many high-profile celebrities joined the platform – Cardi B and Beyoncé are just a few of them – which worked for both sides of the content creation. It brought more followers in but also more creators and that boosted the overall growth of the platform.

    Beyoncé has featured the platform in „Savage Remix".

    Serving an underserved market
    Although the platform's idea wasn't to attract sex workers and porn stars, this no-censorship policy served those whose content was too racy for Instagram, Twitter or Facebook. The adult industry is still huge, though, and OnlyFans became an online place to go for the creators–outside typical webcam sites or Pornhub. The platform witnessed a flood of amateur content creators since COVID-19 broke out in the US.

    Headline Payouts
    Reading about how much one can make on the platform is a motivation to start OnlyFans career. However, according to a study, around 10% of the creators account for 73% of the whole revenue. The top creators make between $30,000 to $50,000 a month, but most of the people there hardly make a hundred dollars. This could be a reason why the minimal amount for payout has been lowered from $500 to $200.

    A pivot
    What ended up to become Only Fans, started as Customs4U. It basically allowed ordering custom-made videos from porn stars and is often referred to as the Only Fans beta.

    High engagement
    The platform ensures that the fan engagement is high. Posts are seen by well over 60% of the fans, and 80% of the DMs sent by creators are seen and opened.

    🧠Psychology

    Exclusivity
    The platform works on exclusivity. Subscribers get a content that can be found only on the platform and feel a part of a small circle around their favorite influencers. They also get the access to them, which makes it even more 'prestigious'.

    Social proof
    Even if from the outside, the platform might be often perceived as made for X-rated content, the number of users, as well as celebrity creators make it a justifiable decision to join the platform. Plus, social proof is always the reason why referrals work so well.

    Naked therapists
    Many of the users simply feel lonely and while paying the subscription, they can talk with the people they follow and like, even if they came for the adult content.

    FOMO
    The Fear of Missing Out often relates to the influencers and social media platforms. The biggest fans don't want to miss any content from the people they follow, so they do that on multiple platforms.

    Another aspect of this is the fact that on many Only Fans accounts, you can't see anything besides the profile picture unless you pay. That means, you'll eventually get counted as a subscriber if you want to know what is posted there.

    Bandwagon effect
    2020 was when the bandwagon effect came into play the most. With celebrities of such caliber as Cardi B and Beyoncé joining or mentioning the platform, less-known influencers learned about the platform and tried it out.

    Motivating-Uncertainty Effect
    New users can't get to know what's inside subscription-only channels, but that's what motivates them to pay. People go crazy for uncertain rewards–look at the slots.

    -------------------------------------------

    That's it! Hope you like it

    submitted by /u/Limejhit
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    Thought I would feel amazing after quitting my job to pursue my side-business full-time; but imstead I feel insanely anxious.

    Posted: 28 Aug 2021 07:04 AM PDT

    I made the decision to quit my job and to pursue my business full-time 3 weeks ago, and it's currently one week in being fully self-employed. I know it's only been a week so I'm trying not to be too negative so soon, but the sudden loss of my second income stream is definitely hitting me harder than I thought it would.

    Most of my anxieties have to do with unfounded fears (will I be able to land a job again, what if this business completely fails tomorrow etc.) but damn if they don't feel real right now. In hindsight I also feel like I might've pulled the plug a little bit too soon, and maybe I should've stuck to it a little bit longer.

    Just feeling that swirling pit of anxiety in my chest right now and I don't know how to process it. Any ords of wisdom or experience would be greatly, greatly appreciated.

    submitted by /u/koreangirl216
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    How many businesses have you failed before succeeding?

    Posted: 27 Aug 2021 07:45 PM PDT

    Curious about everyone's failures. It's a tough road indeed...

    submitted by /u/mmrps
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    I put in my two weeks yesterday.

    Posted: 28 Aug 2021 09:24 AM PDT

    I was a Software Developer at an independent trading firm. For the past year, I've been saving as much as possible, along with learning everything I can about the business and marketing side of running a startup.

    In addition to my savings, I have a couple side hustles (I edit a friends' podcast, have a few crypto investments) to keep me afloat while I build my dream app. If it doesn't work out within a year, I'll be back working for the man.

    Here's to building something profitable!

    submitted by /u/LesbianCasanova
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    16 year old guy looking for ideas

    Posted: 28 Aug 2021 01:27 PM PDT

    Hi there,

    I am looking for something to create a solution for. I was wondering if you have a problem that is bothering you a lot, that I could try to solve for other people as well. I am a kind of developer and I want to do something with AI too.

    submitted by /u/X_CosmicProductions
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    I want to buy underperforming sites or partner with someone that needs help managing them.

    Posted: 28 Aug 2021 07:05 AM PDT

    I've realized I'm not great at starting sites, but I'm good at optimizing existing ones.

    The only sites that I know of are Flippa and Empire Flippers, but they seem shady/low quality.

    Does anyone have tips to find underperforming sites, sites no longer being maintained, or sites simply for sale? I'd also be fine with partnering with someone with an existing site.

    submitted by /u/chestergopherloafer
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    How do I leverage NIL for my business?

    Posted: 28 Aug 2021 01:15 PM PDT

    I have a business in the online education space and I'm currently launching my first ad campaign. I am looking for information regarding how I can leverage the NCAA's new NIL policy to promote my business. Any ideas, advice, testimonials, etc... would be greatly appreciated.

    NIL - For anyone that doesn't know, the NCAA changed it's policy so that student athletes now have the ability to monetize their name, image, and likeness (NIL). Here is a link to their website to learn more.

    submitted by /u/Equivalent-Cake-1283
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    Abusive chargeback, how to handle?

    Posted: 28 Aug 2021 07:55 AM PDT

    I have a customer that's purchased a a total of 8 times from me these past few months. This past week she's been raising one dispute a day per transaction for item not received (I have successful delivery proof per tracking number and fighting each dispute). I've tried sending her emails to ask her to kindly stop otherwise I will take legal action for her committing fraud…but obviously she's continuing to raise chargebacks. Money aside I'm more worried about my merchant account having a sudden influx of disputes in a short timeframe. Any one have any suggestions on how to handle this?

    submitted by /u/dcr0831
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    Advice on Protein Candy Company

    Posted: 28 Aug 2021 08:43 AM PDT

    I recently have embarked on the journey to start a protein based candy company(see post history for more info) and have come to realize I know nothing about starting a company that involves selling food products. Does anyone have experience in this field and can give a young entrepreneur some advice for cutting costs and overall success?

    submitted by /u/GoldHamster888
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    How I Pre-Launched my Product on Reddit to get 1,000 Signups in 1 Day

    Posted: 28 Aug 2021 11:45 AM PDT

    Hey guys!

    Two months ago, I tried a challenge:

    Build the MVP of a startup idea in under 1 day. Then take another day to get 1,000 signups for the pre-launch.

    In this post, I want to share the growth hacks I learned. My background is in software engineering, and these types of posts would always help me, so I hope this can do the same for you.

    I am not some kind of expert. I just talk from personal experience. That challenge was part of a video series "From 0 to 1" that I am doing on my yt channel.

    Using this strategy, I got:

    • 1,463 upvotes and 108 comments across 7 posts in 7 subreddits.
    • 3,500 people came to the landing page and 1,033 signed up to the waitlist
    • It only took 2h to craft the messages and post them on the 7 subs. But I did spent around 5h to make the landing page and the video demo (and this ofc is after I had spent an entire day building the MVP which was the first part of the challenge).

    I am currently working on developing the product, and plan to use this strategy again for the public launch.

    The Idea

    The product I built is a gamified learning platform to teach people how to code.

    I knew there was a need for it, because a lot of people are complaining about online learning and the fact that it's not engaging enough.

    My hypothesis was that gamification could fix it. I wanted to get a bit of feedback before I started building, so I made this quick post on r/learnprogramming. Unexpectedly, it blew up: 1.3k upvotes with 164 comments. (Btw that post got taken 2 weeks later, but I will talk about it more at the end)

    This is nice, because it validated the idea, but also because it provided me with momentum that I could reuse to spin up something quickly. That's why I tried to act so fast. After a day of building the MVP, it wasn't ready to be publicly released yet (still buggy), but it was enough to be able to make a landing page with a real video demo and get people excited to signup for early access. The founder of Dropbox actually used a similar strategy, he hacked an MVP and made a cool video show the concept of how Dropbox would work. Got a ton of signs up like that, and later funding to build the idea.

    I called my platform The Last CodeBender.

    Note that having a catchy name is super important. I thought a lot about it. It's not required, but it does help a great deal. A lot of people signed up just because of the name.

    Find the Community-Idea Fit

    There is a community for pretty much everything on Reddit. That's why it's such a powerful place to validate your ideas and get your first users. If the community picks it up, it's a great sign that your idea as potential.

    First, you need to find all the subreddits related to your niche. For me, it was programming. The best ones I identified were: r/learnprogramming, r/learnjavascript, r/coding, r/compsci, r/programming, r/web_design, r/javascript

    Make sure you check all the rules on those subs, specifically their rules on self-promotion. If you have doubts, just message the mods before posting. It's also possible your post will get taken down no matter how useful it is. If that's the case, message the mods to get the reason. Usually it won't change anything, but worth trying. Sometimes it could just be your messaging.

    In my case, I realized that posting in 7 subs was actually too much. In retrospective, I would do less, maybe 3-4. Because after a few days, mods noticed that I posted the same website in multiples place, so all of my posts got taken down. The other reason was that it was sending people to a pre-launch website with a waitlist, instead of the actual product, which they didn't like (even though the community received it very well, most comments were positive).

    Either way, sometimes you won't know before you try, and as long as you do it genuinely, it's worth trying.

    Craft your message

    Once you have identified the subs where you are confident you can post, it's time to craft your message.

    In order for you to make one that can go "viral", you need to first understand what are the kinds of posts that actually perform well with that community. So spend a bit of time in each sub to study the top posts from the last year and from all time (reddit has a feature to sort through those). Like do pictures perform better, or long texts, personal stories, videos, memes, etc.

    From there, you just have to tailor your post to one of these patterns/structures you identified. It can be the same between subs or it can be different. In some subs I posted a video, in others simply a link to the website with a good title, and in others I posted a lengthy description of the platform and why I am doing it. You have to adapt to each community otherwise it won't perform well.

    Post it & Engage

    As soon as you are done with one messaging, just post it. Don't wait to be done with everything. While you are crafting the other ones, people might react to your current ones which can give you feedback to improve your wording. It's like an iterative process.

    Make sure you engage and reply to all the comments. If those comments can lead to conversations, that's even better! You could reply with just "thanks", but that's too simple, whenever you can, try to ask questions that will lead to more comments. That will boost your post and provide you more feedback.

    Links to the posts I did

    Here is the complete list of the posts I have made. Some succeeded and others failed. Sometimes it can just be a question of timing, that's why I didn't want to limit myself to posting only in one sub. This strategy requires multiple communities for it to reproducible.

    But like I said earlier, if I were to do it again, I would post in only 3-4 of them to avoid being flagged as a spammer and get all the posts taken down.

    ___

    I feel like I wrote a lot but I also feel like I might have missed a few things here (I went into more depth in my yt video since I recorded everything), so don't hesitate if you have questions! I will try to free some time to answer them! If you want to talk privately, you can DM me on Twitter at Zaurbek Stark.

    submitted by /u/ZaurbekStark
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    Eatable Mystery Boxes From India To USA. How successful they are?

    Posted: 28 Aug 2021 07:35 AM PDT

    Have been thinking on this topic for a while. I need some advice on this if its a good idea to start something like this. I have friends ready to drop ship mystery boxes in US. Shipping cost is not that much. Your thoughts are welcome.

    submitted by /u/awesome_developer
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    Who here is successful without a degree?

    Posted: 27 Aug 2021 08:21 PM PDT

    And what do you do?

    submitted by /u/surfnlounge
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    Podcast average monthly revenue for first 90 days.

    Posted: 28 Aug 2021 01:25 PM PDT

    What is a reasonable projection?

    Existing audience via IG (12.3K), sponsor revenue only, no paid adds/ cross promo strategy only

    View Poll

    submitted by /u/buttercupblondiee
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    I’ve got a dedicated active user base that’s very specific and I’m sending 500k+ emails per month. How can I monetize that?

    Posted: 28 Aug 2021 01:17 PM PDT

    Hello fellow Entrepreneurs,

    I've got a sport specific app that has highly engaged users and I'm sending 500k+ transactional emails per month.

    The majority of the emails are "Are you coming to the game?" with a couple call to action buttons.

    How can I monetize these? Is the best bet to reach out to sport/health brands and ask if they want to advertise? How do people charge for these ads? Clicks, opens, or just a monthly fee?

    Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

    submitted by /u/jmar31
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    What are some ways to find out willingness to pay and market validation - without having a product built?

    Posted: 28 Aug 2021 12:32 PM PDT

    What are some ways to find out willingness to pay and market validation - without having a product built?

    submitted by /u/Far-Tale-258
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    How could I expand this?

    Posted: 28 Aug 2021 12:14 PM PDT

    Ive been reselling cars from auctions as a side hustle but now it turned into my main job. I usually list them on social media and seller marketplaces and sell them locally or to people in other states. I've been doing fine but right now I'm not sure how to potentially scale up. Most of my traffic comes from Fb marketplace but I don't have like a business page that shows what I'm about. Should I run google/Facebook ads? Open a Facebook page or website? any suggestion is appreciated.

    submitted by /u/suwoo76
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    Pandora for Hold Music

    Posted: 28 Aug 2021 12:13 PM PDT

    I haven't put too much thought into this. But instead of the cheezy elevator jazz while you're on hold, why not strike a partnership with a music distributor that plays pre-assembled playlists of your favorite genre? Press 1 to hear top-40, press 2 to hear rock hits from the 80s 90s and today, press 3 to hear country, etc. You'll never lose your place in line and music may be interrupted at any point.

    submitted by /u/fenjamin
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    tangible items that make you money

    Posted: 28 Aug 2021 07:48 AM PDT

    most people say if they got money they would buy a nice car/clothes/shoes/toys etc. But what physical item can you buy that "pays for itself"

    my ideas are

    *riding lawn mowers

    *pickup trucks meant for work

    *pressure washers etc.

    -discuss

    submitted by /u/banjobilliejoebob
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    Any success stories of folks who got a SBA 504 loan to buy land &/or construct a building? Thinking about starting a business that needs both.

    Posted: 28 Aug 2021 09:56 AM PDT

    Looking to hear any success or failure stories of folks who secured a loan, or more specifically a SBA 504 loan, to purchase land, construct a building, or both.

    I've been talking with my gf about starting a somewhat niché business for the last few months, then I just found out someone locally has already done it very successfully, which then kickstarted my due-diligence obsession.

    Part of this plan would be to acquire ~1.5 acres of land, and construct a ~2000sqft pre-fab'd steel building which would have a small living area upstairs, but mainly for the retail space below. Either I personally, or the business entity, would own the building, and the other would lease out the space needed as a tenant, which would guarantee a set amount of revenue each month, and give us a place to live until the business kicks off and hopefully we can use that as an Airbnb.

    I would think that using the funds to buy land and erect a building would be preferential to a lender since they would serve as collateral, but would love to hear some other folk's experiences on this. I think we may be looking at a loan somewhere ~$750k-$1m to buy the land, construct & buildout the interior of the building, and have the land excavated/prepped/landscaped.

    submitted by /u/PENNST8alum
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    Tactics on Hiring for New Company w/ Uncertain Work

    Posted: 28 Aug 2021 07:15 AM PDT

    Hello World,

    I work for a property management company. They are regionally based and are thus not local and depend on me to do some maintenance and cleaning and hire local vendors for whatever I am unable to do. The company is looking at acquiring some more accounts that are going to require cleaning services but are going to keep me too busy to do the cleaning myself.

    My idea is to start a cleaning company to win these properties' accounts. I want to hire someone to start part time for this work till we can grow. The biggest unknown, though, is exactly how much these new accounts are going to be willing to pay out for cleaning and how much cleaning they will need - daily, weekly, etc.

    I want to be ready to act and get work done when the opportunity arises but I realize that the idea of convincing someone that your "maybe" job could be a hard sell. Otherwise someone else will get the accounts and I will be leaving money on the table.

    Do I just hire them for an estimated number of hours contingent on the acquisition of these accounts?

    Do I set a pay-price for each cleaning "job" and hire cleaners as private contractors till we can offer a better hiring package? Or leave it at this if it is preferred?

    And one last inquiry for you, Wise Reddit.

    I cannot acquire a company vehicle yet, and if the hired cleaners are my employees, how do you recommend compensating for mileage?

    I am not a cheapskate but I am quite frugal and would like to pay competitively but also secure the business.

    Thank you much.

    submitted by /u/gimvaainl
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    Successful service companies: what's your exit strategy?

    Posted: 28 Aug 2021 09:04 AM PDT

    Selling products (software or hardware) is relatively straightforward, but how do you successfully execute an exit of service based companies like consulting, hospitality businesses? Do they get acquired?

    submitted by /u/supernormalnorm
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    Product proposal

    Posted: 28 Aug 2021 11:38 AM PDT

    Hi all,

    I have a product that will help mobile auto detailing business. How should I contact individual owners and offer my product to them as private label. Thank you

    submitted by /u/tpetrik
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    Novo vs NBKC vs BlueVine

    Posted: 28 Aug 2021 11:35 AM PDT

    Starting an eCommerce business through Shopify and think these are my final three options for banking. Customer service and not getting hit with surprise fees are definitely a priority of mine; headaches caused by the bank are not something I want to deal with too often. If any of you have experience with these banks and can offer any insight that would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

    submitted by /u/simon_hoffman
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    If you know something definitely 100% going to work, but everyone think you're wasting/mocking your time, would you take it?

    Posted: 28 Aug 2021 01:46 AM PDT

    Does anyone else actually use Facebook for their business? I'm trying to learn the specifics of the Boost function

    Posted: 28 Aug 2021 11:20 AM PDT

    Sorry, i bet Facebook isn't as popular as other markets but its one of the best formats imo for flipping collectibles imo. I use sales GROUPS that are for specific audiences, i do not use marketplace.

    There are mechanical differences between a group sales post and a marketplace post, and turning one into the other, as well as differences between local marketplace and items with shipping.

    But I'm specifically referring to posting to sales groups, and using the marketplace feature so that i can promote my posts with group users.

    When you 'boost' a group sale post, you must crosspost to marketplace. It shows a preview of your boosted listing and how it will appear on news feeds, including the group name - so it will boost to more users of those groups?

    When you boost, you use a 3 day campaign that ends when you sell the item. If you mark it sold in marketplace but not the groups, will it continue to boost to group users?

    submitted by /u/Sovarius
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