Stuck in neutral...

[Gary M]

Hello fastlaners,

I am reaching out for help. I am walking around my city, looking to be struck by the thunderbolt of a Fastlane idea. I have heard and read of entrepreneurs who have had this "moment." I am desperately looking for mine. I am looking to start an online retail business of some kind. I am looking for a niche, one that suits me and one that I know is the one. Just watched a good mentor show on Bloomberg TV about homewetbar.com. Good show, good niche driven website that basically sells all sorts of bar/party/guy stuff, if you will (everything from drinking helmets to martini kits). Now, i actually do not care for the products but I do like that he has found a niche and is going for it. The mentor was Ben Fishman, CEO of Rue La La. Anyway, I thought if I asked you fastlaners and put my issue of not having an idea out into the universe, the universe will answer back to me.

I promise you all, I have the work ethic. It is a part of me. I worked on Wall Street as an equity trader at one of he biggest shops on the street and my focus was international markets (Latam, Europe, U.S., Asia, etc). I am a overachiever without a college education. I was let go due to downsizing at the end of June. I will have another opportunity early in 2012 to continue on but in my heart of hearts, I want to be an entrepreneur. I have known this for quite sometime. I do not want to go back to the corporate culture. I want to be in control of my future, not someone else. And, after reading MJ's life changer of a book for me, now is my time. But it is like I have writers block. I do have some ideas but they may be a little far fetched right now. Or, maybe they are nor that far fetched and fear is taking over because they are HUGE tasks. I am looking for the Law of Effection. I want to effect millions. And I want to experience passive income. I have been submersing myself in all sorts of entrepreneurial books. I have the tools and the drive. And I even have a little bit of capital.

I know I can't ask any of you for THE idea and this is not about that. I thought that talking it out in this forum could help me and get me into gear.

Thanks for your feedback in advance, I look forward to chatting.

"Never let the fear of striking out get in your way, the next pitch could be a Grand Slam!" - Babe Ruth

 

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[MediaMonty]

The best way to come up with ideas is to do research. Pick up and browse Entrepreneur magazine, highly recommended just to do research on what type of ideas are working for other entrepreneurs. Pickup copies of the Wall Street Journal, browse through it. Browse through autobiographical books in the business section in bookstores. The information you're looking for is out there, just have do dig deeper and do the research.

 

[Gary M]

TYVM MediaMonty...much appreciated.

 

[Rickson9]

The best way to determine if an idea can be executed is to try to get a customer to pay you money.

The market is always the final arbiter.

Good luck!

 

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[GiorgioG]

I am looking to start an online retail business of some kind. I am looking for a niche, one that suits me and one that I know is the one.

As someone who's in the same general boat, I don't think there's any way to 'know this is the one'. I think the "big secret" is: believe in yourself, give the execution of an idea everything you've got, and if in a predetermined amount of time you aren't reaching the numbers you planned on, make a determination to cut your losses and try again...repeat this until you make it.

A few years ago I entered a niche (hosting apps for software development companies), after a year or so I had about 120 paying customers (back when Twitter was just a small sliver of what it is today, I hosted their helpdesk site), and making about $1k/month. Not bad, but I was making way more as a developer contractor. The problem with a web-hosting business is that it's "easy" to start one. I had a bit of an advantage since I was hosting apps (FogBugz, HelpSpot, Subversion) who's creators didn't offer hosting themselves. Some script kiddie hacker found a PHP exploit and made a mess of a couple of servers, and I opted to call it quits after putting it all back together. I wound up selling the company's assets to a bigger, more successful web-hosting company - for less than $5,000. Why? It wasn't worth the hassle (waking up at 3am to fix a server, or to setup a new customer), and more and more companies started offering hosted versions of their software.

Very long story short, the market was small (you had to buy licenses for the software (not from me)), someone else controlled the products themselves, and they could cut me out anytime they liked (and 3-4 months after I sold out, FogBugz began their hosted service.) I "failed" but I learned a lot about running a business in a general sense (sales, marketing, operations, dealing with merchant accounts, credit card processing, taxes.) I didn't do enough research before going into this venture, but it was still worth doing for everything I learned.

I say pick 3 ideas, research and eliminate the weaker ones, and execute the hell out of the one you choose.

 

[458]

Are you an expert in any industry? Try and start there when searching for fastlane ideas. This is a double edge sword however, you know all the pitfalls to every situation so try and avoid not taking action if you come up with something.

 

[Vigilante]

I am NOT convinced you have to start in your END GAME.

Start.

Read the threads here about Craigslist and eBay. Start. Get your feet underneath you. Don't get preoccupied with owning a segment or industry or niche today. Start.

Read the threads. I could literally, overnight, make 10k per month buying and selling on Craigslist. Start there and see where it takes you. Develop your core competency over the next few months. But take all of the time you have spent pondering and mentally wandering... and start. Tomorrow.

You are waiting for the dream scenario. Don't wait. Get some experience in eCommerce. Get some experience in customer interactions. Make some money. Worry about next month next month. For today, just get your a$$ in gear. Start doing something that will lead you where you want to go eventually.

I literally see your starting point in the Craigslist and eBay threads on this forum. You can do that WHILE you dream up the home run. You don't need a home run TODAY. You need a start. So start.

 

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[Gary M]

As fate may have it Vigilante, I re-read the entire eBay thread here last night and the CL thread. I literally just bought a calendar to track my progress. Today's entry was starting with a $1,000 bank for eBay/CL buying and selling. My thought process was to LEARN something. I can read all I want but wont really LEARN until I roll up my sleeves. Because as we all know, you cant hit home runs (or a single for that matter) sitting in the dugout. Thank you for getting me out of he dugout. I will be keep you up.

 

[Vigilante]

Two quick followups.

1. "luck" is not in our vocabulary. losers rely on luck. you are about to work your a$$ off. you are about to do what most people wouldn't, so that down the road you can live like most people can't. You already know you have the right work ethic. Now, you just need to add a new street education to your already existing drive.

2. CL - make 50 obscenely LOWBALL offers. You are looking for the 1-2 people that are desperate, just want to get rid of something, or need cash. What do you care? Worst case they say NO. Your goal is to buy SO LOW that you increase your own margin. Never offer a market fair price. You gotta buy LOW... and sell HIGH. I once read that Trump would make 100 offers on 100 buildings before he would find someone to say YES.

3. Buy on CL and SELL on eBay and CL. Listing costs on eBay are now cheap... it is the success fees where the high costs reside... which is OK if you bought right to begin with.

Good luck. Kick a$$. Get some serious cash flow going, and THEN start working on your mid term plan.

 

[Gary M]

Awesome advice and inspiration Vigilante, thank you! One question on the 50 lowball offers. Do you have a time frame? 50 offers a week?

 

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[Vigilante]

Kind of depends on your bankroll and targeted merchandise. For example, the first time I flipped a vehicle (just to demonstrate to my teenage son what was possible...)

We made about 10 crazy offers on used Ford Ranger pickup trucks. The 10th offer was accepted. I would be working 3-4 of them at a time. More than that would have been a waste of time as we only wanted to do 1, and really didn't have a bankroll to do more at the time.

We bought the 1, put about $50 into it for a surface level detailing, and doubled our money in a week on that little truck. Resold it back on Craigslist. Never registered the title in my name... just took the previous sellers executed title and gave it to the new buyer along with a bill of sale.

If I were concentrating on Xbox games (which would be good because it's typically KIDS that are dumping them to go buy something else)... I could handle several wins at a time.

Research the market. Look on eBay not at what is currently LISTED, but at what historically has SOLD and at what prices. (click on ADVANCED near the search bar on eBay, and mark COMPLETED LISTINGS before you do your search. this will return results on what the actual selling prices were vs. simply what is listed).

The key to this business as the guys running the CL and eBay threads on this forum will tell you is high margin and rapid turnover.

 

[Gary M]

Many thanks! I will keep you informed.

 

[Vigilante]

Some dreamers are like New Year's Resolution makers.

They start out EXCELLENT. For a week or two, they are ALL IN.

The third week, the fun is gone and the excitement of starting some thing NEW starts to fade.

The work sets in. Somewhere around week 4-5, they start to cheat on their resolution.

If you have a gym membership, you can see it every January. They gyms are PACKED.

By June, you can bowl down the isles of the same gym.

By the time the holidays roll around again, they realize they are completely off the wagon, and come New Years they resolve to climb back on again.

Time will tell if you are a resolution maker, or a FASTLANER...

 

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