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22 Year old with a system problem..

Fassina

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Brazilian, 22, male.

I've tried several things, most of them failed, I 'know' why or at least think I do.
Mainly, lack of proper market research and a tendency of rushing things and a lot of sunk cost fallacy to tie me down.

Current business "profited" 50$ this month with 5 sales. This is sales profit mind you, not actual profit.
Main issue is it doesn't scale, these are not products people buy again often enough (it's furniture*) with a small margin and cost. Could pay for backlinks to increase profit margin, I'm thinking about it, not sure if it's worth it.

..(Improper market research)..

My issue isn't in setting businesses up, I can do that, and have done it several times. My issue is getting to profitable.

If I have a clear next action I get it done, the problem is when you have to wait for the results to do the math. This ruins my momentum and slows me down tremendously. I'd rather have something specific to do everyday than this vague 'check numbers and wait for the marketing to work, do the math optimize and wait again.'

I optimize in 3 hours, now I have to sit around waiting for a week. It's hell. I understand the appeal of a brick and mortar biz now, you can at least go to the office and fake action all day to keep your momentum up, not so much online.

Any advice on building systems for this type of inconsistent action requirement tasks ?

Should I drop this current biz and spend the time opening a better one with better market research ? Or should I spend the next 6-12 months building this into a small income source ? Sunk cost ?

Any advice on dealing with a parent that wants you to inherit his biz, but you don't want to because you want to move to a different country and his biz can't be automated ?
 
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Akeem

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Once upon a time, not very long ago, I came across a product on eBay and was amazed at how many were sold by the seller. I did a bit of research, market research and every other form of research and decided to jump on board the train to sell this product. Within the first 3 days it started selling like crazy. I was hitting 15 sales a day, then 21, then 44 and even reached a peak of 75. It was a product which I could sell without needing to physically post anything (virtual item) so I decided to bulk buy the product and automate the entire process. In my first week I made a 4 figure profit (yeah, really). Now I'm not going to go into detail as to why it was eventually taken down as that's a story for another day, however, I learnt something very valuable once it was taken down.

The first thing I learnt was easy money, more often than not, is wrong money. I wasn't selling an illegal item but I just didn't research the background of this item accordingly and as a result the copyright owner notified eBay and eBay obliged in taking my listing down.

The second thing I learnt was that once you start making money, it becomes habitual and you naturally start learning from the trends and end up scaling to increase that profit.

The point behind my story is, since my accidental bump-in with a 4-figure salary per week, I have become more confident in knowing I am able to make a success out of myself. Don't sweat the small stuff. If your products aren't selling, research and do what you can do and if it still fails, it might just be time to move on. Learn from your mistakes and ensure you don't make the same ones again. Take up your father's (non-automated business) just to learn. Learn about cash flow, profits, profit margin (and the importance of profit margin) and learn about scaling etc. Get a few lessons in the bag before you go ahead and start another business. Learn before you earn, that's the motto.

P.S. I used my failed 'business' and all the lessons it taught me to start another one, this time learning from the past, and I can safely say, it paid off. Just be patient. Patience is key.
 

lowtek

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Welcome to the forum. Since you're Brazillian, I won't make the mistake of thinking my advice, from an American perspective, is particularly insightful. Best I can advise is to sit down and talk with your parents and see what can be done.
 

MJ DeMarco

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Any advice on dealing with a parent that wants you to inherit his biz, but you don't want to because you want to move to a different country and his biz can't be automated ?

And yet you started a business that also can't be scaled?

22 Year old with a system problem..

System problem, or a scale/production/distribution problem?

Sales indicate people like your product.
 
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biophase

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Current business "profited" 50$ this month with 5 sales. This is sales profit mind you, not actual profit.
Main issue is it doesn't scale, these are not products people buy again often enough (it's furniture*) with a small margin and cost. Could pay for backlinks to increase profit margin, I'm thinking about it, not sure if it's worth it.

I optimize in 3 hours, now I have to sit around waiting for a week. It's hell. I understand the appeal of a brick and mortar biz now, you can at least go to the office and fake action all day to keep your momentum up, not so much online.

Any advice on dealing with a parent that wants you to inherit his biz, but you don't want to because you want to move to a different country and his biz can't be automated ?

1) What kind of furniture has a $10 margin? Scale doesn't mean people have to buy it again, do enough people want it in the world?

2) Not sure your scenario of a brick and mortar is any better. Action fake while paying rent and utilities all day?

3) Are you sure the business cannot be automated?
 

Fassina

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And yet you started a business that also can't be scaled?
I started this one on a whim, after my previous attempt failed.

As an aside, dropshipping doesn't work in brazil unless you are willing to be scammy and *hide the 40-60 day shipping and import tariffs the customer is going to have to pay on delivery.

I just slapped these things on my previous store and tested some ads on it. Also I did before reading Unscripted , but yes it wasn't a great idea.
To be 100% honest, this biz could be scaled to ~100k profits per year max. It'd take 2-5 years and require employees, managers and large sales volume but it's doable I just don't think this ROI is good enough.
System problem, or a scale/production/distribution problem?

Sales indicate people like your product.

By system problem I meant that I find it really difficult to build a system to work on my business because the actions aren't repeatable or frequent enough. I can't treat it like my other systems i.e exercising everyday at a set time. Because most of the time you can't do much other than wait for results or lack thereof so you can adjust and optimize.

That's the main advice I'm looking for. Do you create a fake action routine for those days when there's nothing to do just to keep momentum going ? Do you add a weekly or 2x/week checklist task you have to complete ?

...Actually I think I got that ;P
 

Fassina

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1) What kind of furniture has a $10 margin? Scale doesn't mean people have to buy it again, do enough people want it in the world?
Small stuff that has cheap shipping. I can improve the margin with SEO instead of ads, and by using some shipping contracts that reduce shipping costs by 1/3.
I could maybe profit 20$ per sale of this specific product.
It's easier to scale if people buy it frequently, it lowers conversion costs by a lot, and helps ads increase / grow the business instead of just keeping it afloat.

2) Not sure your scenario of a brick and mortar is any better. Action fake while paying rent and utilities all day?
I agree it isn't better, but I can understand the appeal of it.

3) Are you sure the business cannot be automated?
Both technically can, but not 100%. I'd have to live in the area to put out occasional fires because they aren't 100% digital. But that's not ideal if you want to move to a different country.

The point is, I want to have a comfortable income before I move. I don't want to move to a different country to work for less and live worse than I do here.
 
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FreedomforEarl

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Small stuff that has cheap shipping. I can improve the margin with SEO instead of ads, and by using some shipping contracts that reduce shipping costs by 1/3.
I could maybe profit 20$ per sale of this specific product.
It's easier to scale if people buy it frequently, it lowers conversion costs by a lot, and helps ads increase / grow the business instead of just keeping it afloat.


I agree it isn't better, but I can understand the appeal of it.


Both technically can, but not 100%. I'd have to live in the area to put out occasional fires because they aren't 100% digital. But that's not ideal if you want to move to a different country.

The point is, I want to have a comfortable income before I move. I don't want to move to a different country to work for less and live worse than I do here.

I heard from a farmer that Brazil are buying all our soybeans and then selling to China! I got some hookups
 

Fassina

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I heard from a farmer that Brazil are buying all our soybeans and then selling to China! I got some hookups
That's possible, idk if it'd be profitable with our current super inflated currency. Also I don't think 'farmers' here have that kind of global mindset. There might be commodity traders doing some interesting things with it though.
I'm not really informed in this subject, so you could likely know better.
(They might also do it to launder money, i.e they got this money illegally and need to find a way to make it legal even if at a loss, that's quite common here.)

What do you mean by hookups ?
 

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