Thread: Joined FL in late 2007 w/10K+ in CC Debt. Now biz averages 170K/month. AMAA

Sure... it took what felt like forever. Even when we had some success and sales, we had more problems. Like -- we have to hire somebody to do all this customer service. Or: we have to spend all of our money to buy more products! We had to learn about the #'s, watching our inventory turns, and taking big money risks (for us, especially at the time, any money was a big money risk).

I think one of the baked in advantages for us was that we weren't doing software or information products or blog blog blogging. We were building hard goods products that solved a problem for people. Shitty parking equipment? Buy mine. Hate carpeted cat furniture? Check out my cool cat furniture.

No product = no conversation. No information. No money.

Once we decided on our first products, we pushed as hard as we could to get some market assurance they'd sell from our photoshop mock-ups (landing pages with PPC campaigns) and on the development side with suppliers to deliver a workable prototype. Once we got something half-sellable, we got a loan and orded a less than container load first order run. We made just enough money on some sub-par quality stuff to order our second round. Most important thing was that we had customers, and we were in business.

1) Get in business. 2) STAY in business. 3) Keep innovating.

It takes a long time to pay off, generally. Our first 2-3 years were very, very difficult. Constant hustle and cash constraints. Hence the 1,000 Day Principle. Full time focus past your first invoice for 1,000 Days, and that's pretty much what it takes from what I've seen (and in my position I get to see 100's of businesses annually). That's 1,000 days till you come up for some air and make some decent money. That's just the beginning...

I have seen some wizards do it faster

Also, small point but, you aren't trying to build something for yourself.

Originally Posted by klh6686

Holy crap, I somehow almost missed this thread, good thing I found it though!

Awesome intro and I love your eagerness to tell it how it is!

Perhaps you can shed a little more light on how the beginnings of your business were? I mean was it pick a product and it blew up over night or what? Just like many others on this site I'm pretty clueless but working on some deals to try to bring some value to a market and build something for myself. It's great to hear about other's first steps as I'm taking mine.

Thanks for your willingness to share with us!

Originally Posted by TropicalGuy

Speaking of books getting you ahead in life, WOW this one is amazing:

The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business

Great Book - thanks for mentioning it. For members of the community interested the science of success habit installation, I invested about 80 hours into researching many of the leading experts. I then made a list. Here are some of them:

The Kaizen Way - Dr. Robert Maurer
BJ Fogg - (Stanford Persuasive Technologies Lab)
Nir Eyal
ZenHabits.com Blog
also:

The Compound Effect
The Slight Edge

Talent Is Overated
The Talent Code

Originally Posted by Yussef

Please keep up the good work and maybe I can buy you a brew in Thailand some day.

Look me up. I'll throw in on some beers as well

Originally Posted by gogiver8figs

Great Book - thanks for mentioning it. For members of the community interested the science of success habit installation, I invested about 80 hours into researching many of the leading experts. I then made a list. Here are some of them:

The Kaizen Way - Dr. Robert Maurer
BJ Fogg - (Stanford Persuasive Technologies Lab)
Nir Eyal
ZenHabits.com Blog
also:

The Compound Effect
The Slight Edge

Talent Is Overated
The Talent Code

One of the top books out there on behavior change that doesn't get enough press is "Changing for Good" by James Prochaska. I think it's not popular because it's not formulated like the top self help books with cool acronyms and dramatic case studies. It's just a concise breakdown by a top researcher in the field of exactly what strategies to use to change, and when to use them.

If you allow I have another question for you:

Jason Nazar talks in this video about the one most thing founders need to focus on in their business.

The One Most Important Thing in Your Business

Specifically in your business, what were the most important things (not only the first one after starting your biz) you've done over the years for your business that you know had the biggest impact?

Thanks a lot, I think the community appreciates your effort over here very much

I follow this advice: I forget where I got it but I call it "MIT" = "most important task." You want to move your biz forward in some way everyday. For my team members I call it "TWIB" or "this week's big initiative" so weekly they are responsible for reporting on that.

Outside of that it's a really difficult question to answer. I think the biggest thing is to focus on the practice of entrepreneurship. If other entrepreneurs aren't excited to hang out with you, you should ask yourself why.

I love this quote recently pulled out by Paul Graham:

"You want to know how to paint a perfect painting? It's easy. Make yourself perfect and then just paint naturally. " Robert Pirsig

In other words, the practice is more important than the object. Find a way to become an entrepreneur. Hang out with us. Befriend us. Do projects with us. Eventually.....

If I didn't get at it, feel free to ask again

Happy new year !

Originally Posted by TK1

If you allow I have another question for you:

Jason Nazar talks in this video about the one most thing founders need to focus on in their business.

The One Most Important Thing in Your Business

Specifically in your business, what were the most important things (not only the first one after starting your biz) you've done over the years for your business that you know had the biggest impact?

Thanks a lot, I think the community appreciates your effort over here very much

TropicalGuy,

Nice to have you on board. I am interested in your story, even though my primary path is real estate. Outside of my real estate investing, I have dozens of ideas (ideas = non-valuable; opportunities = attract cash), own several domains and have some contacts for a few eCommerce niches I may delve into later this year.

My short to mid-term goals are to get out of my job as soon as possible (gleaning all finance skills I can from it), expand my real estate holdings with the purchase of a 30+ unit apartment building, gain control of two seller financed mobile home parks and begin a non-public real estate fund. Cash flow is currently growing, and once I am at a stable level I will plow all gains into business product opportunities (likely utilizing eCommerce sales channel) and additional value-add multi-family real estate properties.

All information aside; I look forward to learning from you and acting as a sounding board for any real estate ideas you may be curious about. At the end of the day, we are all here to push eachother forward.

Here is to 2013

Best,

G

Dan Dizzle,

I would like your thoughts on a new strategy I am testing. I figure that since I am selling products, services and information online, visibility is critical if I stand any chance at selling anything. My thinking is that it doesn't matter how good your product is if no-one knows it's out there, right?

This is a system I am using.

So I have spent the past 6 months learning how to seek out exact match keywords and phrases related to my niche or products and ranking my sites on the first page of phrases with no less than 2500 local exact match keyword searches per month. My sites always have the exact keyword included in the url as well the description, I then use market samurai (about 5 indicators) to see what the first page SEO competition looks like before I go after the organic first page search spot. I summarized the process a lot here but I intend to apply this to an online furniture store (and a few other sites) that I am starting but noticed that you mentioned cpc.

Do you guys incorporate any SEO strategies for your product sites or is it all CPC? And how do you feel about SEO or is it just more efficient for you to pay to place an add versus going after free traffic?

Thanks G! Biz sounds great best of luck with it and happy new year!!

Originally Posted by G_Alexander

TropicalGuy,

Nice to have you on board. I am interested in your story, even though my primary path is real estate. Outside of my real estate investing, I have dozens of ideas (ideas = non-valuable; opportunities = attract cash), own several domains and have some contacts for a few eCommerce niches I may delve into later this year.

My short to mid-term goals are to get out of my job as soon as possible (gleaning all finance skills I can from it), expand my real estate holdings with the purchase of a 30+ unit apartment building, gain control of two seller financed mobile home parks and begin a non-public real estate fund. Cash flow is currently growing, and once I am at a stable level I will plow all gains into business product opportunities (likely utilizing eCommerce sales channel) and additional value-add multi-family real estate properties.

All information aside; I look forward to learning from you and acting as a sounding board for any real estate ideas you may be curious about. At the end of the day, we are all here to push eachother forward.

Here is to 2013

Best,

G

Y-Money,

I think your product is very important. Let's say you ship it to 5 people. Are those 5 people going to sell it (or mention it) to the next 5? If you are still the development stage I would consider baking in a 'viral' element to your products.... something remarkable.... something worth sharing and talking about.

Regarding the SEO strategy-- you are probably over-thinking it. Better to have one article that is interesting and sharable to your target market than 25 covering keywords. That said structure your content well and publish as often as makes sense.

CPC vs. SEO will depend a lot on your product, but generally if one works the other should because they are the same thing. If you can't buy an add for premium SERP placement you can't afford the SEO either. A lot of people will pursue SEO anyway b/c they don't see the cost of it because they are just spending their time on it. That doesn't, however, mean it's free!

Anyway, if you are spending 6 months testing an SEO strategy, you aren't getting into the furniture biz, you are getting into the SEO biz.

Here it is:

Y MONEYZ CONTENT SPREADFIRE SEO MANAGED SERVICES

297/MO for 4 KEYWORD TARGETS

Here's what you get:

-Blah
-Blah
-Blah

See also: SupremacySEO and SEOPartner.com

Originally Posted by Yussef

Dan Dizzle,

I would like your thoughts on a new strategy I am testing. I figure that since I am selling products, services and information online, visibility is critical if I stand any chance at selling anything. My thinking is that it doesn't matter how good your product is if no-one knows it's out there, right?

This is a system I am using.

So I have spent the past 6 months learning how to seek out exact match keywords and phrases related to my niche or products and ranking my sites on the first page of phrases with no less than 2500 local exact match keyword searches per month. My sites always have the exact keyword included in the url as well the description, I then use market samurai (about 5 indicators) to see what the first page SEO competition looks like before I go after the organic first page search spot. I summarized the process a lot here but I intend to apply this to an online furniture store (and a few other sites) that I am starting but noticed that you mentioned cpc.

Do you guys incorporate any SEO strategies for your product sites or is it all CPC? And how do you feel about SEO or is it just more efficient for you to pay to place an add versus going after free traffic?

Originally Posted by TropicalGuy

I don't think you need to do it on your own first. It's probably a case of the resistance if you are doing too much prep. You just need to know enough to ask the right questions. Spend some real time sitting with and analyzing their web strategy and sites. I think this is the part people miss: your time won't be wasted. Even if the guy tells you to f-off, you can take that analysis to the next guy and say: check this out.... And so on. So yeah, working for others will be more useful in the beginning because you'll be working on a business that has some momentum and real assets... you'll learn a lot faster ...

Thank you very much.
Where would you advise looking for entrepreneurs receptive to this? I know here on the forum could be a good place to start..
One idea I've had in the past was in setting up a site where entrepreneurs could
outsource work tasks to english speaking apprentices looking for mentoring in return. What do you think of this ? Like tropical MBA virtual internships..

Wow! this thread is killer, a lot of good info in here. Thanks for sharing Dan. And congratulations on all your success and continuing success. Very inspiring!

I was wondering if you might have any advice for me? anything at all, would love to know your thoughts. Thanks!

This is my business > Pixel Prints

Cheers,

-Mark

Originally Posted by TropicalGuy

I think your product is very important. Let's say you ship it to 5 people. Are those 5 people going to sell it (or mention it) to the next 5? If you are still the development stage I would consider baking in a 'viral' element to your products.... something remarkable.... something worth sharing and talking about.

I think this is one thing that is entirely underestimated by entrepreneurs.

Originally Posted by TropicalGuy

if you don't have a phone number on your website, you are leaving it on the table.

Indeed, I found a tel # will increase conversions.

Thanks for sharing your experiences "AMA" style.

Originally Posted by MJ DeMarco

I think this is one thing that is entirely underestimated by entrepreneurs.

Yup, it only took one sentence to make Dropbox a billion dollar business:

“For every friend who joins Dropbox, we’ll give you both 250 MB of bonus space.”

or:

“For every company that your company invites that joins Dropbox, we’ll give both companies 50 GB of bonus space.”

Thanks for this thread. I actually listen to your prodcast, and you guys know your stuff. Thanks for doing this!

The only question I have for you, is how do you find the ideas for your products? That's something I seem to struggle with.

I tried something like this idea and although there was a lot of interest, I found myself being a low-paid baby sitter. Tons of problems as a biz model so I'd skip it if it's your first big run. I actually was email recently from a start-up doing exactly this (and they hand raised a seed round!), and I explained the same to them.

You'll find entrepreneurs through their Twitter, Facebook, Blogs, Forums, etc. The good ones won't be seeking free work or apprentices because they are very busy and they pay people to work for them. The biggest mistake people make when people decide to take this advice is they don't understand how hard it's going to be. This is both the hard and important work in business-- building high level trusting relationships. I'm sure that's part of the reason there is no good push-button service for it (that I know of). I talked a little bit more about this yesterday:

Episode #136

Originally Posted by Swift T

Thank you very much.
Where would you advise looking for entrepreneurs receptive to this? I know here on the forum could be a good place to start..
One idea I've had in the past was in setting up a site where entrepreneurs could
outsource work tasks to english speaking apprentices looking for mentoring in return. What do you think of this ? Like tropical MBA virtual internships..

Hey Jason I actually struggled with this at the beginning too, like how on earth do people pull this stuff out of their asses? Ian my biz partner is one of those guys who goes to the gas station and has 10 ideas on products that would improve it.

5 years later I do the same thing, I think it's a muscle somewhere-- but what I've learned is this: do what you are already doing. What are you already buying and using? Can you copy and improve it? Distribute it to a new market? Who doesn't know about it? And so on...

It's tough to dream up a product out of the blue and get it to market. Instead get a job working for a small product firm where that type of behavior is normal.

Are you currently buying any online services? SEO copywriting? Does it solve all of your problems?

Does my podcast solve all of your problems? Isn't there something it's not doing that the world would find useful?

How about this forum?

And so on....

Look at what is already in your hands and uplevel.

Originally Posted by JasonR

Thanks for this thread. I actually listen to your prodcast, and you guys know your stuff. Thanks for doing this!

The only question I have for you, is how do you find the ideas for your products? That's something I seem to struggle with.

Here's some more info regarding the retention philosophy you and MJ are eluding to and I brought up with Yussef:

Startup Metrics for Pirates: AARRR! - Master of 500 Hats
Episode 112 | Startup Metrics for Pirates | Startups For the Rest of Us


TLDR version is: if your product isn't working for your first 20 users, why spend your resources finding the next 20?

Originally Posted by TK1

Yup, it only took one sentence to make Dropbox a billion dollar business:

“For every friend who joins Dropbox, we’ll give you both 250 MB of bonus space.”

or:


“For every company that your company invites that joins Dropbox, we’ll give both companies 50 GB of bonus space.”