Thank you Thursday! - January 13, 2022 Entrepreneur |
- Thank you Thursday! - January 13, 2022
- I hired content writers from 17 different websites, and most of them were scammers.
- I asked the maker behind Potion, ($4,169 MRR) Noah Bragg (@noahwbragg), what 3 habits changed his trajectory + enabled his success
- Words of encouragement
- My lil bro asked why we're so poor. How can I generate wealth quickly for his sake?
- I built my online business from zero to $1m over 10 years.
- Let's build a healthy catalog of B2B products to solve a real pain
- In a world where we glorify successes, we must also shine a light on our failures. What are your failures?
- It took me 5 years of sacrifice in almost every area of my life to make a living as an entrepreneur and now my biggest concern is how long it will take me to be able to find a way to do what I do without the anxiety of losing it all and to maintain a healthy life.
- New vehicle tinting business advice. ?
- Side hustle advise!
- If you're having trouble finding ideas, you may be overthinking it (or just lazy)
- Feel like I’m too inexperienced to run a startup?
- Post your company name and the pitch in one sentence, and I’ll design a logo based on my interpretation
- Discord is worth $15 billion. 7 years ago they got their first users through Reddit
- Added very barebones e-commerce to my website. Would love any suggestions. Thank you.
- Do any of you actually *like* meeting with sales reps?
- What is your preferred website builder and why?
- Teleservices
- Referral compensation plan, questions.
- Can I start a business only to bid on government contracts?
- looking to meet up with Amazon sellers
- looking to meet up with Amazon sellers
- I made 260$ from subscriptions in the first 10 days of lunching my app!
- Virtual Assistant 5$/ h
- Begin day with optimism and end it with self-doubt
| Thank you Thursday! - January 13, 2022 Posted: 13 Jan 2022 02:00 AM PST Your opportunity to thank the /r/Entrepreneur community by offering free stuff, contests, discounts, electronic courses, ebooks and the best deals you know of. Please consolidate such offers here! Since this thread can fill up quickly, consider sorting the comments by "new" (instead of "best" or "top") to see the newest posts. [link] [comments] |
| I hired content writers from 17 different websites, and most of them were scammers. Posted: 13 Jan 2022 06:36 AM PST I've been wanting to publish more content on my site. So I decided to hire a writer to help. It turns out that there are tons of places to hire writers online:
So I thought: Why not waste a bunch of money and turn this into a big experiment? So I tested 17 different websites for hiring writers and outsourcing content. I spent an embarrassing amount of money. And by the end of it, I'd reviewed 359 articles from hundreds of writers. The results were a minefield.
Surprisingly, these issues came up at practically every pricing tier. Whether the fee was under $0.01/word or over $0.50. Whether through a job board, a freelance platform or a content-writing service. Some sites even reinforced bad behavior. For example, I wouldn't recommend any site that offers article spinning as a service. Or any platform that lets writers hide unfavorable client reviews. (I'm looking at you, Verblio. Both Verblio writers I tested sent me plagiarized articles.) Luckily, a few sites were much, much better. Here were my favorites: Best writing service: Express Writers (expresswriters.com) $600 got me a 2k-word article at their "authority content" tier. It was clear and concise. Well-structured and well-researched. And backed up with good examples and links to relevant resources. I gave it a 4 out of 5 for content quality. Best inexpensive and fast writers: WriterAccess (writeraccess.com) At $0.15 per word for their most expensive tier, I didn't expect WriterAccess to be very good. It isn't as good as Express Writers. But it might have the best price-to-quality ratio of any option out there. I gave it a 3.5 out of 5 for writing quality. And it only took 4 days to get a 1,600-word article. Best budget content mill: iWriter (iwriter.com) iWriter's pricing ranges from under $0.01 to $0.07 per word. I spent $145 for a 2k-word blog post. The writing won't blow your socks off. But from my testing, the quality coming out of iWriter beats every other budget content mill. I only gave it at 1.5 out of 5 for writing quality. But that's good enough for low-competition affiliate blogs. Or anyone who thinks quantity > quality. Best writing jobs board: ProBlogger Jobs (problogger.com/jobs) I bet half the pro writers in the world have applied to jobs on ProBlogger. You can use it to find freelancers for one-off or ongoing projects. Or to recruit full-timers. A $75 job listing gets you dozens and dozens of applicants. If not 100+. Alternatively, another great — and free — writing job board is the r/HireaWriter subreddit. My listing there brought me 85 applications within a week. When using any job board, I recommend setting up a Google Form for your application process instead of using their application management system. (Because when you're dealing with that many applicants, you need to be able to quickly glance through them.) Best freelance platform: Upwork (upwork.com) The haters are wrong. I've hired 60 Upwork freelancers over the years. But with so many low-quality freelancers there, it can be like finding a needle in a haystack. The key is having the right hiring process. Otherwise you'll waste a lot of time. For this experiment, I hired two different writers on Upwork. One interesting thing about Upwork is that you don't always get what you pay for. The first writer charged me $0.40/word, and I would give her writing quality a 2 out of 5. Not good. The second writer charged $0.10/word, and his writing was a 3.5 out of 5. Pretty decent! Good enough for most blogs, and great for the price. (Note: People Per Hour is a good alternative to Upwork if you don't mind British English. But I don't recommend their Fiverr-style individual services. Just stick to the freelance marketplace side.) If you're curious, I also published lots more details about my experience with all 17 sites in a blog post yesterday. (It's just a blog post, no email address required or anything.) That post includes:
Plus more detailed reviews of all 17 sites, with writing excerpts of the work I received. [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 13 Jan 2022 02:59 PM PST A little bit about Noah Bragg:
I reached out on Twitter to ask what 3 habits changed his trajectory and enabled this awesome success. Here's what he said 👇 3 Habits that changed Noah's trajectory:
Noah's habits inspire some simple reflection for us still trying to figure it out: When is your brain firing on all cylinders? Do you love what you're working on? Are you sharing your progress along the way? If you want to learn more + you need some inspiration, I highly recommend following Noah on Twitter 👉 @noahwbragg. He just posted a great video talking about how he decided to quit his job and go full-time on this company. P.S. I asked the same question to 15 other amazing indiemakers including Aprilynne Alter (Currently making $100/day on youtube alone) Damon Chen (his product is making $100 ARR 😱) Michele Hansen (reached $1 mil in revenue in 5 years) I'll post one here on Reddit every now and then (if people like these) but if you want to read about past makers you can view all of them here blog.makerofhabit.co (or subscribe to get them in your inbox) [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 13 Jan 2022 11:02 PM PST I thought this might energize some of us who are going through a rough patch. Stay strong! [link] [comments] |
| My lil bro asked why we're so poor. How can I generate wealth quickly for his sake? Posted: 13 Jan 2022 11:50 PM PST I grew up poorer than most kids my age and its whatever, I got by. But when my 11 year old brother comes to me saying he went to his friend's house and they had this and that, and asks why we're so broke, it hurts to keep telling him things will change when it doesn't seem like it will anytime soon. Our parents are unskilled and getting old so I can't rely on them, I've gotta be the one to step up. I'm 22 and currently unemployed. I could get a 9-5 but what I want to know is what's the best path to make the most amount of money in the shortest amount of time so I can give him a great childhood from what remains of it? I'm willing to do anything honestly as long as it's legal. [link] [comments] |
| I built my online business from zero to $1m over 10 years. Posted: 13 Jan 2022 09:36 PM PST Please note: I'm now posting this sort of thing on linkedin. If you like it, HMU and I'll fire you a link to my profile. If you hate it, that's ok too. This is my first one so honestly it probably sucks a bit. Hopefully I'll get better from here. I built my online business from zero to $1m over 10 years. Today, I can do it in 1-2 years. 👇 Go from zero to lamborghini in 1-2 years by doing this 👇 1 - Solve one very specific problem Most online businesses don't do this. Every day, I see digital marketing agencies offering a long list of services - web design, SEO, content writing, development, paid ads and more. As an entrepreneur, I would never engage a business like this. I'm looking for the specialist who absolutely crushes their one thing. Here's how to become a specialist in digital marketing: 1 - Select a niche within digital marketing Go all in on that one thing. Don't offer a range of services to suit a vast number of clients. Don't say you'll put together custom packages to suit every client. Hell no. That's station wagon thinking, and we want lambos. Do everything focused on just that one singular service, and do it well. Be the best at that one thing, and your business will thrive. 3 Examples: Niche: PPC Ads Niche: Copywriting Niche: E-Commerce Web Design Finally, here's a real world example I just made as a side hustle. I've done no marketing at all apart from mention it in a few facebook groups. It's become so popular I am having to rapidly hire more contractors. I'll link to it in the comments if anyone wants to check it out. Niche: SEO Are you starting a business in 2022? What problem will you solve? How did you niche down? *Results may vary. [link] [comments] |
| Let's build a healthy catalog of B2B products to solve a real pain Posted: 13 Jan 2022 09:46 PM PST Finding your business through Google without SEO is hard. Finding your business through Twitter without an audience is hard. Marketing your product without a team is hard. No one cares about social media ads anymore. So how do we find customers for our business? or how can customers find us if we aren't visible? This is a pain that affects both parties. Customers' options are limited even though the market has a plethora of good options because of this visibility problem. If you want your B2B product to enlist there, please fill this form. It's free. I'll email you once your product is live on the catalog. [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 13 Jan 2022 05:44 AM PST All the businesses I've started that failed (and reasons why):
And my fair share of bad investments. Doesn't matter if you keep learning and moving forward. Currently have fun with BuyAndSellABusiness.com :) Looking forward to reading your comments. [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 13 Jan 2022 11:53 PM PST Everyone around me from family to fiancé all see me as the confident problem solver who has it figured out but I don't. Im constantly worrying how to keep business coming in and how to find a more efficient way to do what I do. I work 12-13 hrs Monday through Friday and 3-4 hrs Saturday Sunday. Im 31 I can't imagine doing this another 5 years especially when I'm living with a wife and kids. Im looking for ways to better handle these problems. Im open to advice, book recommendations, even online therapist that specializes in helping entrepreneurs. [link] [comments] |
| New vehicle tinting business advice. ? Posted: 13 Jan 2022 11:37 PM PST Hi can anyone spread some advice or tips on a startup vehicle Window tinting business? Type of premises, tools, supplies etc? I'm based in UK. [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 13 Jan 2022 11:35 PM PST I am currently working 21-21 and looking to use my skills on my off time. Does anyone have any advise on starting a boat driving school or something along those lines? Anything you have is always appreciated! [link] [comments] |
| If you're having trouble finding ideas, you may be overthinking it (or just lazy) Posted: 13 Jan 2022 12:28 PM PST I read a lot of posts on here from younger entrepreneurs who say they want to have their own business but they have no ideas. Guys, the ideas are all around you. If you're willing to work, then it shouldn't be difficult to find a business to get into. Instead of trying to invent a type of business that's never existed before, look all around you. Drive down the street and you'll see a landscaping company, a plumber, electrician, a builder, a pool company etc. Sure, they're not sexy and glamorous like a tech startup but the reality is most of us are not going to be tech startup tycoons. If you want to make a decent living from a dependable business there's lots of trades out there that you could learn. Now, if your goal of being an entrepreneur is to be the idea guy and hire all the talent, then the reality is you probably just don't want to work, in which case it doesn't matter what type of business you try to start - - it won't work out. For the young guys out there, before you start a business you may need to get some practical experience. I know nobody wants to get their hands dirty, but the reality is it's hard to start a business and be an expert at something if you've never done it before. Skills are acquired over time, not overnight. Everyone loves to glamorize startup culture, and idolize those who seem to have won the game. But the reality is those people are akin to lottery winners. Out of the millions of people who try, only very few will reach the top. The rest of us can still succeed but it's more likely that it'll be in the form of a lifestyle business. It'll pay the bills maybe let us go on vacation once a while, but it's not going to land us in magazines and we're not going to have unicorn status. [link] [comments] |
| Feel like I’m too inexperienced to run a startup? Posted: 13 Jan 2022 05:04 PM PST I'm young and just recently graduated university, however I don't necessarily feel like my degree has equipped me with the skills to grow and scale a startup. My current startup is an online delivery business and I came up with the systems, design, and overall process and outsourced to a local external development team based in the UK to develop it for me. As we reach closer and closer to launch, I feel like I'm just "doing it as I go along" and I don't know exactly what I'm doing - I have a detailed plan and vision but whether or not I can execute is completely down to fate. I don't use the word "fate" lightly, but considering this is completely new territory for me in terms of managing a small team and a full business, I feel like I need to throw myself in the deep end and learn to swim. My only real experience in business is managing my families restaurant in which I was in charge of coordinating employees, improving ordering systems, and managing customers satisfaction. I managed to increase our revenues by a large margin but I felt like it was mainly basic social and logical skills that I utilised and not necessarily anything special. Did anyone feel this way when they first ran their business, and if so how did you prepare for something that you had no real experience in? [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 13 Jan 2022 06:09 PM PST Post your company name and the pitch in one sentence, and I'll design a logo based on my interpretation. If you already have a logo, please also send it by URL. Maybe this can help generate some good discussion and feedback for your company (and my work!). [link] [comments] |
| Discord is worth $15 billion. 7 years ago they got their first users through Reddit Posted: 12 Jan 2022 06:46 AM PST Discord was created by two avid gamers, and it's got a great startup story. The chat app actually emerged from a gaming studio, run by Discord's founders. The studio developed a multiplayer game with an inbuilt voice function to help players communicate. After realizing that the best part of their game was the inbuilt chat, they focused on building that feature into a product. And so they created Discord, a way for gamers to communicate with each other more easily. The platform featured a clean, easy-to-navigate design. It was also completely free to use. Discord launched through Reddit in 2015. The launch started when one of the founder's friends shared a server link in the subreddit for the game Final Fantasy XIV, hoping that people would use it to discuss a new expansion to the game. Once people joined the server, Jason Citron and Stan Vishnevskiy (Discord's founders) were there to welcome users, let them know what Discord was all about, and listen to their feedback. As a result, people started going back to Reddit, talking about how cool Discord and its developers were. This led to a couple of hundred people signing up for the platform and checking it out. This way, through word of mouth within the gaming community, Discord started growing. After a lot of growth, Discord has gained a valuation of about $15 billion thanks to its latest investment round of $500 million. A pretty cool story for a couple of guys that first posted about their business in a subreddit. EDIT: Here are a couple of resources to learn more about Discord, how it works, and how it started: Video on the story https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5cjUMPPAiE https://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/what-is-discord/https://www.businessofapps.com/data/discord-statistics/https://www.cbinsights.com/research/report/how-discord-makes-money/ [link] [comments] |
| Added very barebones e-commerce to my website. Would love any suggestions. Thank you. Posted: 13 Jan 2022 03:23 PM PST I will add other products in the future. I would like to start with this for right now. We get about 400 visitors to our site organically of people just looking to get their phone repaired so I'd thought I'd add this as an option for people who would just rather buy a phone than just repair it. This doesnt cost me anything but time to set up so I'm happy with it so far. Shipments are also super easy on the backend as well. Pricing will be updated weekly [link] [comments] |
| Do any of you actually *like* meeting with sales reps? Posted: 13 Jan 2022 05:34 PM PST As a sales rep right now I'm curious if anyone actually enjoys strategic conversations with sales people in meetings? Maybe some meetings are good but others are horrible? I'm thinking the whole sales process in B2B could be automated with an algorithmic/AI/ML type of bot, but I'm also an idiot so curious what you all think. [link] [comments] |
| What is your preferred website builder and why? Posted: 13 Jan 2022 02:39 PM PST I have a very small landscaping company and I want to create a website. What would you recommend to use to create a website? [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 13 Jan 2022 08:35 PM PST What is a high cost, repeatable service, in a secular trend that can be done virtually. My partner is employee #2 at a therapy practice that transitioned into a teletherapy business due to the pandemic. As a result, they have been able to scale from 10 to 80+ doctors across the country. They now have 8+ office managers/admins that take care of back office. The practice just provides marketing, back office like booking appointments and billing, and taking care of clinical issues. They are making 75k-100K per clinician hired before costs. They continue to grow at breakneck speed. This is the best business model I've ever seen that isn't big tech or SaaS. What other industry can this be replicated in? [link] [comments] |
| Referral compensation plan, questions. Posted: 13 Jan 2022 08:13 PM PST This is the best sub I could think of to ask a question like this, perhaps another sub would be better? Anyways, we're working on a referral compensation plan for our real estate IDX/CRM solutions. We're thinking $500 per signup + 20% of first year spend on any services, marketing or design work we do for the client. Looking for some feedback on a plan like this, has anyone done something like this before and did it work well for them? [link] [comments] |
| Can I start a business only to bid on government contracts? Posted: 13 Jan 2022 08:08 PM PST (Ignore the username I've had this account for a long time.) If there's anyone here that are government contractors or have experience in the field I have a question. Say I wanted to start a business for the sole reason to bid on government contracts all around from A-Z (obviously leaving out military hardware and things I need permits for) without being a specific company like a janitorial or construction company and only to bid on contracts that I have the capitol and means to fulfill would that be possible? Let's say I start a contracting business and I find a random contract for something random like idk 1,000 pairs of socks for the military or something (not sure if that's something that the government does contracts with but I'm giving an example) and I have the capitol to fulfill the order and I find a manufacturer or supplier could I bid on said government contract [link] [comments] |
| looking to meet up with Amazon sellers Posted: 13 Jan 2022 07:34 PM PST Hello everyone, we are interested in teaming up with people who specifically working on Amazon or people who would like to work on Amazon. We are highly experienced in Amazon PL & we can assist you with anything related to Amazon. If you have any questions or queries regarding Amazon then please get in touch. We cant self promote on this platform so therefore I can't highlight all of the skills and experience I have gained over the years so feel free to DM me if you would like more information on how we can help you. [link] [comments] |
| looking to meet up with Amazon sellers Posted: 13 Jan 2022 07:34 PM PST Hello everyone, we are interested in teaming up with people who specifically working on Amazon or people who would like to work on Amazon. We are highly experienced in Amazon PL & we can assist you with anything related to Amazon. If you have any questions or queries regarding Amazon then please get in touch. We cant self promote on this platform so therefore I can't highlight all of the skills and experience I have gained over the years so feel free to DM me if you would like more information on how we can help you. [link] [comments] |
| I made 260$ from subscriptions in the first 10 days of lunching my app! Posted: 12 Jan 2022 04:19 PM PST Hello, 20 days ago I decided to do an application for iOS and 10 days ago I lunched my application on the app store. Today it hits 260$ in subscriptions! As a developer with the first SaaS app this was a new experience that I learned a ton from and I'd like to share all what I learned (long post ahead)! To start the app is a bio page maker. It is similar to linktree as an idea, but very different in the design and implementation. My pain point was that linktree doesn't have an iOS app, and updating regularly the page via the phone is quite a hassle. Being the eager developer I am, I decided to do my own app. I was skeptical if I should do it or not. But after some research, I found that this niche is not overly crowded in the app store. Basically two apps are the leading ones in the app store and both are for from the same company! Yeah the company is making a competition against itself. However since my study showed that this area is not overly crowded in the app store, I decided to take my shot. Here was my first mistake, I'm a developer and not a businessman. We developers do have a ton of experience doing the best product but we have no experience in branding. I was thinking of the name for the app and settled with linkstree since it is very similar to linktree. I thought having a similar name leads to appearing in the search if someone searched for linktree. I also thought that having a similar name makes the app self explanatory. After release and when the app started collecting users, some people pointed out that having a very similar name has two big problems. #1 is that since I'm in the same area as linktree, a very similar name can lead to trademark issues. #2 is that having a similar name may confuse people to thinking they downloaded linktree and not my app. To be honest this feedback was very important to me as I didn't look at it that way at all if this wasn't highlighted. After I got this feedback I changed the name from to 'Tree Links'. It is still somehow similar but in no way a person can confuse 'Tree Links: Bio Page Maker' to 'Linktree'. I also changed the logo to look entirely different that linktree. After 1 week of development, the app was ready to be released. I decided to put aside 150$ for marketing for this app and call it a day. Since I'm a developer and not a businessman, this 150$ is from my full time salary. I know 150$ seem like peanuts but I wanted to see if the 150$ gives its return of investment. Here is the shocking part, After the release I realized that this kind of app self markets itself. I discovered after the release that the number of users is increasing exponentially without any explanation. Low and behold in the same day the app s released I got 3 paying customers! But how did they? Turns out when a user makes a bio page he gets his custom link (example: treelinks.co/catz) and the user adds it to his instagram or tiktok or reddit, etc.., followers will click this link. Many followers will then click on the product name on the bottom of the link, downloading the app, making their own links and the loop goes on and on! I ran the ads regardless but noticed that the ads did next to nothing with respect to the organic reach. After 11.5$/150$ spent I stopped the ads. 11.5$ got my 0 paying customers. When the app scaled to +500 users, I started reaching my limits in term of backend services and needed upgrade my plans to keep everything smooth. These services cost money ~70$ a month all in all. But hey if I did 250$ in 10 days then it's a good deal! Also with scaling, the smallest problem starts to become big. I had to optimize the image upload and render dramatically because leaving them as is would lead to a big fat bill at the end of the month. I had to roll quick updated to address multiple issues before they scale. One last thing I saw is that I only got the sales when I lowered my prices. My competition plans are a minimum of 3.99 a month (for the Pro) and up to 39.99 a year in IAP (for the premium). I priced my subscription offers 1.99 a month or 14.99 a year. From the data I have, between each 5 subscriptions almost 1 is a yearly. Today to my surprise, my app is appearing as the 3rd result in the app store, just under the two competitors I mentioned earlier. That's a big win as it drives a ton users. When I released the app it would appear as the 10th or 11th. I'm learning a lot from this experience! And what started as a small side project started actually bringing money! I know the numbers may seem little but seeing it works feels awesome! I'll definitely be posting my new learnings in the near future! [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 13 Jan 2022 07:24 AM PST Hi there. I'm a Virtual Assistant from Venezuela I'm looking to help entrepreneurs. My skills are writing content, writing blogs, write documents, emails, Canva design, social media, research, translations Spanish - English and administrative task. Samples and references by email! Previous jobs: •Best buy Canada •Marketing service Curazao Pm for more info. Thanks! [link] [comments] |
| Begin day with optimism and end it with self-doubt Posted: 13 Jan 2022 07:20 PM PST Does anyone else experience this cycle every day? I'm in the very first days of my very first business. I have a day job but I spend as much time as I can working toward my product launch. In the mornings I'm excited and totally sure my first product will be a hit. But every day I hit a wall and by bedtime I'm sure this is all just a massive waste of my time and energy. If you've been here I would love to hear about it… [link] [comments] |
| You are subscribed to email updates from Entrepreneur. To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google, 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, United States | |
No comments:
Post a Comment