I just got laid off. My e-commerce business has had 0 sales. Get another temporary job or go full force?

[AaronA]

I have really valued this forum since I found it 1-2 months ago. In the last 6 weeks I've started an e-commerce business selling proprietary products. I built a website, launched some landing pages, started building an email list, started growing social media following, opened an online store. I have not done a first inventory order on my product because I've been hashing out a few details with the manufacturer, but I'm close there and do have some funds for the first order. I've had the product up for pre-order / pre-sale with no buyers.

An hour ago, I learned that I am part of a 30% workforce reduction from the software start up where I was employed.

I'm confident I could find another full-time job before my severance runs out. But I don't want to.

I'm not yet confident that my e-commerce business could replace my income before my severance runs out.

Advice? How do I go from $0 in sales to profiting at least $11k/month before the end of the year? Or, do I temporarily fill another job while the business grows to replace my income?

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[KiwiEC]

Do you have some savings?

If no, take at least a part-time job to pay the bills.

 

[ZackerySprague]

Job then work on the side.

 

[WillHurtDontCare]

@AaronA just get another job.

You haven't figured out how to get sales yet, and ecom is a somewhat cash intensive business. You'll need funds for ads and new inventory.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[johnp]

First, sorry to hear.

My advice from someone who has been there: Unless you have money to fallback on or are cool with going without insurance eventually (no clue what your situation is), then your number one priority should be getting income.

Maybe that's a job, maybe not

I was laid off about a year ago and I had a business that was at $6K MRR at the the time. Even then, I was employed again within 2 months. In my case, I had no choice because I had a family to support.

I saw this event as a threat to my life.... I don't get how people are always so clam about this stuff.

My process was this:

First 24 hrs
- Get laid off
- get pissed for a day
- Set my company's stupid swag on fire

Then after that
- No more screwing around
- Immediately get to work on finding another job
- Cut as many expenses as possible to get runway
- Email my lists and offer services
- Start applying to jobs at the same time.
- Keep working on my business

It's really not hard to do both - apply to jobs and work on your business. Cause what if you don't hit $1K/mo? It's hard.

Ans ask yourself... If you don't have cashflow 3 months, or 6 months from now then what does your life look like? then make your decision.

It's about survival in these situations. Nothing else matters.

 

[amp0193]

I'm not yet confident that my e-commerce business could replace my income before my severance runs out.

It won't. Get another job ASAP. Bank any overlapping severance as a nice windfall.

Advice? How do I go from $0 in sales to profiting at least $11k/month before the end of the year?

Sell a product with extremely good margins that is in demand enough that people are willing to pre-order it. With pent up demand like that, you could maybe see some significant traction out of the gate.

But as that doesn't seem to be happening thus far, probably most prudent to keep your expectations in check and make sure you have an income coming in while you figure it out.


My business was launched with nothing but preorders with a 6 month lead time. Pre-sold $50k worth of product, then took that money and ordered a container of inventory. Was like riding a rocket ship for next 3 years.

But even with that demand, it didn't mean I had much available cash to take out of the business, It took until year 4 until I could bump my salary to 120k, because until then everything extra was all getting plowed back into more inventory to keep up with growth.

 

[MichaelKove]

If you're a software dev, try freelancing (you'll make more if you do it FT). Reach out to agencies and see if you can contract for them - for whenever they have overflow.

I am a software dev (freelancer of 17+ years) and contracting for agencies has been my go-to method to get some income when I didn't have legit clients.

guys are correct,

eComm is extremely cash intensive startups. I tried eComm (back when dropshipping days) and even without inventory I'd blow $500-1000/mo on just ads in testing products to see if they get traction. Plus misc Shopify plugins costs.

You could get a job, but job would require you to be there FT and finding a job can take months of almost full-time like work, going through interviews, doing the "song-and-dance" for managers that don't even make decisions.

Another beautiful thing about freelancing (if you're in US) - you can deduct your expenses from eComm @ your LLC

What kind of work did you do?

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Epynok]

I have really valued this forum since I found it 1-2 months ago. In the last 6 weeks I've started an e-commerce business selling proprietary products. I built a website, launched some landing pages, started building an email list, started growing social media following, opened an online store. I have not done a first inventory order on my product because I've been hashing out a few details with the manufacturer, but I'm close there and do have some funds for the first order. I've had the product up for pre-order / pre-sale with no buyers.

An hour ago, I learned that I am part of a 30% workforce reduction from the software start up where I was employed.

I'm confident I could find another full-time job before my severance runs out. But I don't want to.

I'm not yet confident that my e-commerce business could replace my income before my severance runs out.

Advice? How do I go from $0 in sales to profiting at least $11k/month before the end of the year? Or, do I temporarily fill another job while the business grows to replace my income?

Do you have enough money to last you a few months so you can work on your business?

If yes, go full force on your business at the least till a point where you can sustain yourself with your profits
or
If no, get a temporary job and work on your business till a point where you can cover your expenses predictably.

You need to buy time with the profits you make.

 

[Timmy C]

Get a job ASAP man.
You need money right now.

 

[Timmy C]

Do you have enough money to last you a few months so you can work on your business?

If yes, go full force on your business at the least till a point where you can sustain yourself with your profits
or
If no, get a temporary job and work on your business till a point where you can cover your expenses predictably.

You need to buy time with the profits you make.

Using up a big chunk of his savings to "maybe" make some money seems like a terrible idea.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[MitchC]

10-20% margins. Likely lower while you learn.

You’d need to be doing 50-100k a month in sales to net 10k a month.

Let’s say inventory costs are 20% on the low side.

Lead times around 2 months on the low side.

That’s like 40k cash needed for inventory to get those numbers. And that’s best case scenario.

Everyone else has said it so I’m not going to say it but you know what you need to do

 

[MitchC]

Do you have enough money to last you a few months so you can work on your business?

If yes, go full force on your business at the least till a point where you can sustain yourself with your profits
or
If no, get a temporary job and work on your business till a point where you can cover your expenses predictably.

You need to buy time with the profits you make.

Horrible advice, ecommerce does not work like that especially with a proprietary product that’s not even ready yet

 

[Panos Daras]

The same happened to me 3 months ago. The company I worked for went bankrupt and I was about to be without a job. My e-commerce does not make sales to cover expenses, so I put out my application shotgun and applied everywhere. Found a job within a month.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[LightHouse]

Your situation doesn't make your question different from the 1000 other people asking " How can I make 10k in 2 months?"

It's the same BS hoping there is some magic trick. There isn't, and we also have no idea what you are selling so all answers would be BS.

Get another job, and continue that nights & weekends grind on the site until the income surpasses the job income and then consider leaving.

The big point here, if you are building a business, you can't be in a scarce mindset playing to not lose. You won't make the right decisions in the business, you will just be desperate, then out of cash.

 

[AaronA]

Thanks for the advice here. The plan now is to pick up another job until the sales get to a place to sustain my lifestyle. The plan always was to build it up and quit within 18 months. For the couple of weeks where I'm in-between I'll pursue the business like crazy. Thanks again for your thoughts.