Greetings! Seeking advice on my startup progress

[winfinite8]

Hi All,

First, thanks to MJ DeMarco for Fastlane Millionaire - a concise and powerful book. It has been an important work in refine my ambition towards increased future success. I have been following the Fastlane Forum for some time and wish to join to solicit your valuable advice on my first startup.

For a backgrounder on myself, please refer to the bottom of the post.


My Startup Progress
I had ended my employment June 20, 2014 to pursue my entrepreneurial passions. I had not taken much vacation in the past few years so thought, maybe I'll take a month off to recharge. After about 1 week, I got a little restless and ventured into my first startup: Selfiestick.

I noticed enticing trend with selfies and the selfie accessory, monopod or, as I prefer to market it, a selfie stick.

From there, I reached out to several suppliers and validated samples from each. At the same time, I setup placeholder website with company logo to quantify interest in this product by end customers with a pseudo shopping cart/email form. Based off the response, I believe the idea was a valuable one.

Upon this, I selected the most favourable supplier, negotiated unit costs, designed gift box packaging and finalized other last details then placed first bulk order. During this stage, also established necessary social media presence.

Received my first bulk order Aug 15, 2014 and commenced on sales campaigns from there. The product is listed on my company website: www.selfiestick.ca along with AMZN, ebay and etsy.


Fastlane Forum Advice
My current sales are about 0.8/day. My web traffic is steadily increasing (see attached chart).

Any ideas on how to crank the sales volume up?



My Background Prior To Startup
I have never been exceptional at anything, however I work hard(a learned habit that anyone is capable of) and I believe I have effectively learned how to learn. This allows me to understand the fundamentals of most concepts quickly. Many mistake this for intelligence.

In highschool I joined the world's largest company to make money. Started at the bottom, clean toilets, retrieve shopping carts, etc. Continued this in university(English Lang&Lit, mind in Tech Writing). Upon graduation, worked with the world's largest retailer for a few months full time then enjoyed a series of promotions. By age 21, I was effectively managing a store located in Niagara Falls with annual revenue of $50mm(CAD)/year and 250 staff. While it was interesting and challenging and would lead to lucrative finances, it would not be beneficial to my long term personal health - long working hours, on holidays, tough on family/friends, high degree of stress.

After this, I joined a company that develops, manufacturers, markets, distributes and sells consumer electronics. I joined at entry level position - testing products and writing instruction manuals. Within 2 months I was promoted to Assistant Product Manager, then approx. 16 months later, Product Manager. My first year as Product Manager, I rationalized product line up and increased revenues from $10mm/yr to 15mm/yr in CCTV category. The following year I helped the company by developing 6 new video baby monitors (5 ODM/1 OEM) in the span of 12-14 months, a feat I don't believe has been accomplished by any other company. This helped take the company from a relative unknown to 3rd in global sales by volume (surpassing famous brands such as Samsung, Sony, vtech, Newell Rubbermaid).

At age 28, I realized that I would never be able to accomplish my life goals by working for someone else(Nissan GTR, residence in Canada(summer)/Philippines(winter)). I had accumulated some money in my life but was always unsure with where to invest it. I have no confidence in stock market, don't like RE game so concluded I should invest in myself, as I believe I will have success. Rather than pursue education, which I would consider a poor investment at present time, I realized that I could use this money to fund myself while I launch my own enterprises. So, after 6 weeks notice, I left my company June 20, 2014 to pursue my entrepreneurial passions.

 

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[Jam Wheel]

Welcome to the forums (hilarious av by the way... uh, took me a minute to figure out the graphic *blush*)

I will leave the hard core conversion and optimization discussion to the experts, but are you noticing an uptick in conversions to sales as you are increasing in website views, or has that been about the same?

I checked out the website - to me its serviceable, but I would want to know how this object is different from others on the market. I have seen people using these here in London, and while I don't do the selfie thing, I can't imagine that the products are much different? Whats your Value Prop (or USP I think we call it here)? Does it align with the values of your core market/users?

Are there other accessories that would go well with the selfie stick at any point along the selfie journey? A carrying case for it, maybe something that allows it to convert to a tripod, an attachment that allows you to use it with normal cameras, something like that? Then you could have more than one product on the site. Also, these always seem like something you would take on a vacation rather than every day - potential build something with travel photography accessories in mind.

The name is strange to me - initial thought was that it had something to do with displaying selfies, not helping to take them. Then again, I would have no idea how to even begin searching for one of these.

Just some thoughts!

 

[winfinite8]

Thanks for your reply, Jamwheel.

Thus far, there has not been a correlation between increased web traffic and increased sales. It has been 2 weeks since I have started the campaign to increase traffic.

Vs. the market, the main differentiating factors are:
1. built-in bluetooth button so you don't need to set camera timer on cell phone
2. shipping from Canada/risk-free trial
3. better marketing than chinese manufacturers (unique images, mktg copy)

USP #1 causes an increase in my purchasing cost (about 3X more than one without the bluetooth button).

 

[Timbonitus]

Hi All,

First, thanks to MJ DeMarco for Fastlane Millionaire - a concise and powerful book. It has been an important work in refine my ambition towards increased future success. I have been following the Fastlane Forum for some time and wish to join to solicit your valuable advice on my first startup.

For a backgrounder on myself, please refer to the bottom of the post.


My Startup Progress
I had ended my employment June 20, 2014 to pursue my entrepreneurial passions. I had not taken much vacation in the past few years so thought, maybe I'll take a month off to recharge. After about 1 week, I got a little restless and ventured into my first startup: Selfiestick.

I noticed enticing trend with selfies and the selfie accessory, monopod or, as I prefer to market it, a selfie stick.

From there, I reached out to several suppliers and validated samples from each. At the same time, I setup placeholder website with company logo to quantify interest in this product by end customers with a pseudo shopping cart/email form. Based off the response, I believe the idea was a valuable one.

Upon this, I selected the most favourable supplier, negotiated unit costs, designed gift box packaging and finalized other last details then placed first bulk order. During this stage, also established necessary social media presence.

Received my first bulk order Aug 15, 2014 and commenced on sales campaigns from there. The product is listed on my company website: www.selfiestick.ca along with AMZN, ebay and etsy.


Fastlane Forum Advice
My current sales are about 0.8/day. My web traffic is steadily increasing (see attached chart).

Any ideas on how to crank the sales volume up?



My Background Prior To Startup
I have never been exceptional at anything, however I work hard(a learned habit that anyone is capable of) and I believe I have effectively learned how to learn. This allows me to understand the fundamentals of most concepts quickly. Many mistake this for intelligence.

In highschool I joined the world's largest company to make money. Started at the bottom, clean toilets, retrieve shopping carts, etc. Continued this in university(English Lang&Lit, mind in Tech Writing). Upon graduation, worked with the world's largest retailer for a few months full time then enjoyed a series of promotions. By age 21, I was effectively managing a store located in Niagara Falls with annual revenue of $50mm(CAD)/year and 250 staff. While it was interesting and challenging and would lead to lucrative finances, it would not be beneficial to my long term personal health - long working hours, on holidays, tough on family/friends, high degree of stress.

After this, I joined a company that develops, manufacturers, markets, distributes and sells consumer electronics. I joined at entry level position - testing products and writing instruction manuals. Within 2 months I was promoted to Assistant Product Manager, then approx. 16 months later, Product Manager. My first year as Product Manager, I rationalized product line up and increased revenues from $10mm/yr to 15mm/yr in CCTV category. The following year I helped the company by developing 6 new video baby monitors (5 ODM/1 OEM) in the span of 12-14 months, a feat I don't believe has been accomplished by any other company. This helped take the company from a relative unknown to 3rd in global sales by volume (surpassing famous brands such as Samsung, Sony, vtech, Newell Rubbermaid).

At age 28, I realized that I would never be able to accomplish my life goals by working for someone else(Nissan GTR, residence in Canada(summer)/Philippines(winter)). I had accumulated some money in my life but was always unsure with where to invest it. I have no confidence in stock market, don't like RE game so concluded I should invest in myself, as I believe I will have success. Rather than pursue education, which I would consider a poor investment at present time, I realized that I could use this money to fund myself while I launch my own enterprises. So, after 6 weeks notice, I left my company June 20, 2014 to pursue my entrepreneurial passions.

Haha, I knew I recognized the website from somewhere. You commented on Bold and Determined's article about taking off the mask and building a business, mentioned your website. I took a look and thought it was a cool idea. I use the name "Timothy Torrents" when I comment on websites. Seems like you have a nice little business plan there. I know where I live, in Taiwan, everyone is a huge fan of the selfie-stick, people sell them on walking streets, there's always a little crowd around those stands.

Since you have a website, it's just a matter of increasing traffic to increase sales. There's a lot of different ways to send traffic. The fastest, I think, would be video marketing or paid traffic like Google or Bing ads. The slower but more stable route would be article writing (targeting specific keywords), networking with similar websites, leaving comments on other blogs, writing guest posts on popular websites, and sharing your articles in niche specific forums.

That's what I think. Wish you the best!

 

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[winfinite8]

Thanks Timbonitus,

I should more aggressively attack the routes you have proposed, that should help. To date, I have been focussing on social media and google adwords, and while this has been generating traffic, it may not be the most qualified. I have interview with local newspaper today, which should help establish some weblinks and get some more eyeballs on it.

Been following B&D for quite some time,it's a great site/community.

Whereabouts in TW are you located? Did you relocate there or resident all your life? I have travelled there many times, one of the most endearing places in the world to me.

 

[Timbonitus]

Not really, I was dragged here with my parents, I live in Taipei.

Yea, the B&D community is awesome. You should also follow Danger and Play - excellent website.

Adwords could work, but I think it's a matter of testing different campaigns and tweaking your website's copy for maximum conversions. It takes awhile to find the perfect combination but once you find it, there's not much else to do. Something that also might work, is to find photography related forums and share a link to your website in your forum signature.

 

[winfinite8]

Yes, I also follow Mike at D&P.

 

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[Myelin525]

Hi.. I came across your post and I immediately thought - dropshipping. Did you ever try to find someone to dropship the product for you? Are you shipping them out by yourself? I run a business in Korea - education - and I'm thinking about getting into the online space. One thing that appeals to me is dropshipping because it seems like a fairly low barrier to entry and I'm not too far from China so that makes contacting people a little easier, timezone wise.

Anyways, hope it's going well for you! Did your sales end up picking up?

 

[winfinite8]

Thanks Myelin525.

Sales are slowly growing. At current rate, doubling every month, for three in a row. If that trend continues, that would be great.

In regards to dropshipping, you are right, barrier to entry is low. For this project, I had modified the product a little bit to provide me some unique advantages. As such, I've helped to increase some barriers from preventing others from directly copying.

However, this business in many ways is now on coasting phase which has freed up time to create new money trees.

 

[Myelin525]

Thanks Myelin525.

Sales are slowly growing. At current rate, doubling every month, for three in a row. If that trend continues, that would be great.

In regards to dropshipping, you are right, barrier to entry is low. For this project, I had modified the product a little bit to provide me some unique advantages. As such, I've helped to increase some barriers from preventing others from directly copying.

However, this business in many ways is now on coasting phase which has freed up time to create new money trees.

That's great to hear! It's inspiring to see a business unfold and then slowly become more and more successful. Sometimes, we only see the end result and forget that often times, things start out slowly.

Right now I'm helping a client of mine market some new dental technology by helping design a landing page. It's a pretty complicated product to explain, so I'm not sure if my copy is good enough right now. http://qscan.instapage.com/ (Although it's "live", I haven't marketed it anywhere yet. Still need to fact check with the doctor and hopefully get better image copies)

Did you get help on this site from anyone when it came to copywriting and website look?

 

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[winfinite8]

Yes, you are right about that. My impatience as self-defeating initially, but a valuable lesson to learn. An avalanche starts with a snow flake.

The product you are selling looks quite interesting.

I completed the copywriting, web design and images independently.

For copywriting, My first versions weren't nearly as good as the versions I have today. After reading other successful marketing copy, I would again re-write my marketing copy to make it more and more effective. I continue to look for ways to improve it.

For web design, I developed it from Wordpress. Wordpress can help you provide a professional looking design with a relatively small amount of experience from you (in comparison to doing everything from scratch with CSS/XHTML etc.). As well, the amount of plugins or tools you can install, for free, is exceptional.

Also important was using your own URL, such as www.qscan.com rather than public hosting. It adds to perception of credibility. Will you pursue this method?

 

[tafy]

Tthat landing page isn't mobile responsive at least for my phone

 

[Xing_DaVinci]

A few marketing ideas.
Hold a contest on twitter, to see who could get the most retweets While using the selfie stick, and link to your site.
Also set up a selfie Gallery so people can upload selfies to your site for their first selfie with the stick.
And another route is to do an affilite program. It doesn't have to be a % but could be like a 25cents

 

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[Myelin525]

Yes, you are right about that. My impatience as self-defeating initially, but a valuable lesson to learn. An avalanche starts with a snow flake.

The product you are selling looks quite interesting.

I completed the copywriting, web design and images independently.

For copywriting, My first versions weren't nearly as good as the versions I have today. After reading other successful marketing copy, I would again re-write my marketing copy to make it more and more effective. I continue to look for ways to improve it.

For web design, I developed it from Wordpress. Wordpress can help you provide a professional looking design with a relatively small amount of experience from you (in comparison to doing everything from scratch with CSS/XHTML etc.). As well, the amount of plugins or tools you can install, for free, is exceptional.

Also important was using your own URL, such as www.qscan.com rather than public hosting. It adds to perception of credibility. Will you pursue this method?

Thanks for the feedback! I thought about it and you're right. Credibility is everything.

I purchased the site: premiumdentalcare.com (the site is still being designed)

I was thinking about two different strategies:
1) Use leadpages.net - pay the $37 / mo - and launch a full on campaign using their software services.
OR
2) Use FB adwords and link it to the website and just test market it - see if I can get any emails.

I think I'm leaning toward #2.. since I want to know gauge interests first.

You have any thoughts on test marketing? I read your post on how you set up a psuedo cart, shopping form? How's that work, if you don't mind my asking?

I think with this product.. there's one huge barrier - the price is $180...(it's patented technology)

So I'm thinking that I need to do an email campaign first, just to educate the market with 2 or 3 emails, before hitting them with the price tag. Or just try to market only to dentist's offices...

But enough about me ^^ How's your other ventures going? Making good progress?

 

[winfinite8]

Thanks for the feedback! I thought about it and you're right. Credibility is everything.

I purchased the site: premiumdentalcare.com (the site is still being designed)

I was thinking about two different strategies:
1) Use leadpages.net - pay the $37 / mo - and launch a full on campaign using their software services.
OR
2) Use FB adwords and link it to the website and just test market it - see if I can get any emails.

I think I'm leaning toward #2.. since I want to know gauge interests first.

You have any thoughts on test marketing? I read your post on how you set up a psuedo cart, shopping form? How's that work, if you don't mind my asking?

I think with this product.. there's one huge barrier - the price is $180...(it's patented technology)

So I'm thinking that I need to do an email campaign first, just to educate the market with 2 or 3 emails, before hitting them with the price tag. Or just try to market only to dentist's offices...

But enough about me ^^ How's your other ventures going? Making good progress?

Hi Myelin,

Great, I think every bit of credibility/professionalism helps. Any weak pt is chance for customer to lose confidence, leave site, lose sale.

Regarding market testing, I completed that before launching this project. I think it's a very important step to help avoid malinvestment. I used Google Adwords, and it cost me about $35.00-$50.00 USD (as the keywords were very low cost at the time). I had a "dummy shopping cart" which was actually just an email form. For the email form, I used Wufoo, which allows you I think 3 or 5 free surveys. As well, Wufoo has plugin so it can go right to Wordpress or perhaps other web site. If the customer completed the email form, it indicated to me that they intended to purchase the product.

After launch I advertised with both Google Adwords and Facebook Adwords. My conversion on Google was relatively low, but was driving a little bit of traffic. Facebook adwords seemed great, the cost was lower than Google Adwords (once I found a good system) and I was getting a lot of Likes on my FB page. However, I think FB Adwords is a bit deceitful and I am not sure they are real customers, rather they are bots or FB affiliates paid to like pages. I did not convert 1 sale from FB adwords.

For your market, I don't think the price is too crazy, provided it works well. I think customers are willing to invest quite a bit for health & beauty products.

 

[Myelin525]

Hi Myelin,

Great, I think every bit of credibility/professionalism helps. Any weak pt is chance for customer to lose confidence, leave site, lose sale.

Regarding market testing, I completed that before launching this project. I think it's a very important step to help avoid malinvestment. I used Google Adwords, and it cost me about $35.00-$50.00 USD (as the keywords were very low cost at the time). I had a "dummy shopping cart" which was actually just an email form. For the email form, I used Wufoo, which allows you I think 3 or 5 free surveys. As well, Wufoo has plugin so it can go right to Wordpress or perhaps other web site. If the customer completed the email form, it indicated to me that they intended to purchase the product.

After launch I advertised with both Google Adwords and Facebook Adwords. My conversion on Google was relatively low, but was driving a little bit of traffic. Facebook adwords seemed great, the cost was lower than Google Adwords (once I found a good system) and I was getting a lot of Likes on my FB page. However, I think FB Adwords is a bit deceitful and I am not sure they are real customers, rather they are bots or FB affiliates paid to like pages. I did not convert 1 sale from FB adwords.

For your market, I don't think the price is too crazy, provided it works well. I think customers are willing to invest quite a bit for health & beauty products.

That's awesome advice. I'm looking up wufoo right now! I like that you test marketed first - that sounds like the way to go.
I'll keep you posted ^^

 

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[Myelin525]

That's awesome advice. I'm looking up wufoo right now! I like that you test marketed first - that sounds like the way to go.
I'll keep you posted ^^

Hi!

Long time, no talk.

Hope all is good in the selfie stick world! My nephew just got one for his birthday. Looks like it's catching on more in the US ^^

Anyways, you've been so helpful in the past, I hope you don't mind if I ask another question. But first a quick update - I've been working with Facebook Adwords - Watched a couple of youtube video and then launched a FB page re: real estate - I ended up with about 80 Likes for $5..I thought that wasn't so bad!

I've also made some progress with the 'dental product' site I mentioned before - new landing page, custom URL, a little more info:

http://www.premiumdentalcare.com/

I did more research on beauty products and cosmetics and personal 'medical devices' and you're right - those products definitely can get a little pricey.

Anyways, if you have had any feedback for me on the site, that'd be great. If not, no worries! I know everyone's busy nowadays.

(The site isn't completely ready - links, etc. are still being added. I want to add the a BLOG & CONTACT PAGE as well.)