I have wayyy too many ideas and I unfortunately have contracted sos or shiny object syndrome. Obviously I say this in humor but truthfully, it seems like unforseen events tend to throw me off of a path, and then it takes me time to get myself back. Generally then, I'll find a way onto something more workable for the situation I'm in.
This thread is going to be my progress thread, and hopefully some of you will be able to follow along. I say this because you'll notice that as I add things here, many times they'll be scattered or cluttered thoughts. Sorry about that, its just the way I roll as I adapt around my situations as best I can. Hopefully I do show progress here and not just an endless circle.
Shiny Object #1
I started almost a year ago with one idea that actually got people to sign up and want to pay for the service but I told everyone that I wouldn't take their money until I had enough people on board to produce.
It was at around this point that my cashflow had stopped (my entrepreneurial life story) so my fear reflex put me into deep conserve mode (as it always does), and I let this idea slowly die while giving myself the ol' comforting, I'll be back.
Now your first thought is probably wondering why I didn't get a side job or try some hustle and I did try some of the craigslist stuff that I've been learning about here, but that didn't work for me. A job is something I absolutely would have done, but my main issue right now is I was in a work accident, and 2 years later I still need two more surgeries. One on a knee and one on a hand. Nuff said.
For you process junkies though, I did learn quite a bit which I will share here, and my plan is to come back when I can.
So, the work I did to get to the point of having customers sign up with shiny object. 1 (s.o.1) started with research, then phone calls to businesses to see who would agree to get what I had going in their stores, universities, bars and restaurants and several other places that would benefit my customer.
This took some time to get organized, because aditionally on the other side I had to contact several manufacturers until I found one out of state who could produce it and transport it to the distributor I had set up, for a price that was much less than anyone local.
The trick I learned which enabled me to get my price down like this was to find a similar product in material, shape and design, and find and contact their manufacturer.
The reason why this helped keep the costs so low was because this manufacturer doesn't need to make any significant changes to their machines, and could just make my item using the existing settings on the machine, and then piggyback on the truck that was already on a schedule to move from there to here.
Next, after this, in order to reach out to the potential customers google and youtube became my friends along with facebook and gimp and from scratch I completely taught myself how to build a wordpress site with an effective landing page that got emails, and I used facebook to connect with groups that were in my niche.
Gimp was a major pain in the a$$ for me to figure out but was necessary because I had to design several replicas of the items for the landing page to give my potential customers a solid idea of what it was I was selling.
I've learned much more since and will be back to this, because I did too much work to get to this point, but my financial capability is still not where it needs to be to push this through at the moment.
#2
I went looking for another way to make some cash and a friend of mine said he had some things I could sell on ebay and we'd split the cash.
So, I took some of the lessons I learned from the forum here about presentation and how to write copy and went for it. And to mine and my buddies surprise, the first thing I listed had a bidding war not even two hours after I put it up, and what my friend thought would go for around $350 ended up selling for $540 and bam! Cashola!!
So, fast forward to now, currently we have developed a system through trial and error where we are learning exactly what our buyers want through excellent communication and customer service via the ebay messaging system and now our listings are getting $600-900+ easy. We both pocket some, and then put the rest back into inventory.
Currently, we're guessing our inventory is worth around 6 or 7k, and its growing every couple weeks to a month.
#3
So, we then started discussing some of the things I've learned here and out of nowhere an idea came to me and we both realized the (massive) hole this idea could potentially fill, so I hopped on elance and found an out of country chemical engineer who said he could do this for less than $500 and 5 months later after going back and fourth while purchasing testing equipment on our end and going through several tests each time tweaking it to get better, we finally have a formulation (several varieties actually - our chemist was awesome).
I'm currently in the process of learning exactly how to get this thing licensed using the Stephen Key method by finding a company that has shelf space in the market this will fit in.
Yeah I'm basic with some of the ways I process info, but win or lose, I'm going for it and my friend is funding it because he has seen results.
#4
Shiny Object 4 ties into #3, and I'll post what's going on there in a week or so.
4 fits Stephen Key's system much better because the idea is so much easier to accomplish.
The whole reason behind 4 is because its a solid idea that has an absolute need, and its something that can be manufactured cheap because like 1, it could use existing settings on a manufacturer's machine.
In truth, its such a simple thing that I'd like to use it for practice for when I start calling companies and training my self how to do this.
Hopefully this self-training will minimize some rookie mistakes before working towards getting a solid deal for 3.
So, with 4, I just ordered some things off of ebay, and I'll be making my prototype as soon as I have all the parts.
I will be back in a week or two with an update. Once I have everything to make my prototype, I will be following Stephen Key's system exactly as it is written in his book.
This thread is going to be my progress thread, and hopefully some of you will be able to follow along. I say this because you'll notice that as I add things here, many times they'll be scattered or cluttered thoughts. Sorry about that, its just the way I roll as I adapt around my situations as best I can. Hopefully I do show progress here and not just an endless circle.
Shiny Object #1
I started almost a year ago with one idea that actually got people to sign up and want to pay for the service but I told everyone that I wouldn't take their money until I had enough people on board to produce.
It was at around this point that my cashflow had stopped (my entrepreneurial life story) so my fear reflex put me into deep conserve mode (as it always does), and I let this idea slowly die while giving myself the ol' comforting, I'll be back.
Now your first thought is probably wondering why I didn't get a side job or try some hustle and I did try some of the craigslist stuff that I've been learning about here, but that didn't work for me. A job is something I absolutely would have done, but my main issue right now is I was in a work accident, and 2 years later I still need two more surgeries. One on a knee and one on a hand. Nuff said.
For you process junkies though, I did learn quite a bit which I will share here, and my plan is to come back when I can.
So, the work I did to get to the point of having customers sign up with shiny object. 1 (s.o.1) started with research, then phone calls to businesses to see who would agree to get what I had going in their stores, universities, bars and restaurants and several other places that would benefit my customer.
This took some time to get organized, because aditionally on the other side I had to contact several manufacturers until I found one out of state who could produce it and transport it to the distributor I had set up, for a price that was much less than anyone local.
The trick I learned which enabled me to get my price down like this was to find a similar product in material, shape and design, and find and contact their manufacturer.
The reason why this helped keep the costs so low was because this manufacturer doesn't need to make any significant changes to their machines, and could just make my item using the existing settings on the machine, and then piggyback on the truck that was already on a schedule to move from there to here.
Next, after this, in order to reach out to the potential customers google and youtube became my friends along with facebook and gimp and from scratch I completely taught myself how to build a wordpress site with an effective landing page that got emails, and I used facebook to connect with groups that were in my niche.
Gimp was a major pain in the a$$ for me to figure out but was necessary because I had to design several replicas of the items for the landing page to give my potential customers a solid idea of what it was I was selling.
I've learned much more since and will be back to this, because I did too much work to get to this point, but my financial capability is still not where it needs to be to push this through at the moment.
#2
I went looking for another way to make some cash and a friend of mine said he had some things I could sell on ebay and we'd split the cash.
So, I took some of the lessons I learned from the forum here about presentation and how to write copy and went for it. And to mine and my buddies surprise, the first thing I listed had a bidding war not even two hours after I put it up, and what my friend thought would go for around $350 ended up selling for $540 and bam! Cashola!!
So, fast forward to now, currently we have developed a system through trial and error where we are learning exactly what our buyers want through excellent communication and customer service via the ebay messaging system and now our listings are getting $600-900+ easy. We both pocket some, and then put the rest back into inventory.
Currently, we're guessing our inventory is worth around 6 or 7k, and its growing every couple weeks to a month.
#3
So, we then started discussing some of the things I've learned here and out of nowhere an idea came to me and we both realized the (massive) hole this idea could potentially fill, so I hopped on elance and found an out of country chemical engineer who said he could do this for less than $500 and 5 months later after going back and fourth while purchasing testing equipment on our end and going through several tests each time tweaking it to get better, we finally have a formulation (several varieties actually - our chemist was awesome).
I'm currently in the process of learning exactly how to get this thing licensed using the Stephen Key method by finding a company that has shelf space in the market this will fit in.
Yeah I'm basic with some of the ways I process info, but win or lose, I'm going for it and my friend is funding it because he has seen results.
#4
Shiny Object 4 ties into #3, and I'll post what's going on there in a week or so.
4 fits Stephen Key's system much better because the idea is so much easier to accomplish.
The whole reason behind 4 is because its a solid idea that has an absolute need, and its something that can be manufactured cheap because like 1, it could use existing settings on a manufacturer's machine.
In truth, its such a simple thing that I'd like to use it for practice for when I start calling companies and training my self how to do this.
Hopefully this self-training will minimize some rookie mistakes before working towards getting a solid deal for 3.
So, with 4, I just ordered some things off of ebay, and I'll be making my prototype as soon as I have all the parts.
I will be back in a week or two with an update. Once I have everything to make my prototype, I will be following Stephen Key's system exactly as it is written in his book.
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