Come Watch Me Build a Lifestyle Business That Makes 2k+ a Week

[MythOfSisyphus]

6 years ago I left the rat race to start a salon supply business (my backstory is here) and I’ve documented part of my journey to FU money in this thread.

Unfortunately the salon supply business is currently going through a very lean period due to covid. Lockdowns have meant that many of our customers cannot operate and therefore are not buying our products and our suppliers are unable to provide a lot of what we need.

While making less money sucks, the silver lining is that I’m in a situation where I have the time and opportunity to start another business (something I briefly considered when covid started last year, but I incorrectly assumed at the time that covid would be a temporary situation - I now know better)

As was the case with my last thread I won’t be disclosing the exact niche but I’ll be providing as much detail as I can including expenses & revenue.

I don’t have an ebook, a course or coaching sessions to sell. I just want to document my journey to help other people and to keep myself accountable to taking the action I need to take.

Like the salon supply business, the products I’m going to sell are also in the beauty niche, however these will be aimed at the home consumer rather than B2B which I’m hoping will make the business somewhat covid-proof.

I’ll be starting with a budget of roughly 4-5k (the same as my previous business). I’ll dedicate around 1-2 hours a day to this new business and will be aiming to make 2k profit per week within 6 months of launching (aiming to launch around October this year)

If I can pull this off, then so can you.

I’ll provide regular updates with what I’ve worked on and will do my best to answer any questions.

 

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

[MythOfSisyphus]

Update:

I've written the expected expenses for getting the business up and running below (all costs are in AUD)

I had a logo designed last year when I initially came up with the idea for this business and also purchased the .com and .com.au domains so those expenses are set.

This week I'll be purchasing some products from competitors websites and also some samples from suppliers to compare them to.

The website expenses are quite steep because I'll be adding this website on to our existing shopify plus plan which costs and additional 250 USD per month (around 350 AUD) for the sake of convenience. A basic shopify plan is only around $40 AUD a month and is what I would recommend for anyone else making their first ecommerce store.

There's probably some other expenses I haven't thought of but I'll add those in as I come across them. There are also some things I'll be utilising from the existing business such as shipping boxes and packing materials etc but I'll estimate those costs and add them here as best I can too.

	Budgeted (AUD)	Actual (AUD)
Competitor Research	$200
Supplier Samples	$300
Logo	$763.40	$763.40
Domains	$48.52	$48.52
Website related expenses	$500
Initial Stock	$2500

Steps I've taken so far this week include:

• Liaising with suppliers on Alibaba to arrange samples
• Keyword research for SEO. (Identifying the main keywords and the secondary keywords I'd like the website to rank for)
• Finding and documenting competitor websites
• Researching competitor websites to identify their strengths & weaknesses
• Signing up for competitors email lists

 

[Cool_Llama]

I don’t have an ebook, a course or coaching sessions to sell. I just want to document my journey to help other people and to keep myself accountable to taking the action I need to take.

I'm rooting for you! Wishing you all the best on your new business!

 

[woken]

Any updates @MythOfSisyphus ?

 

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

[MythOfSisyphus]

Any updates @MythOfSisyphus ?

Sorry, I've been completely absent for some time. While very slow, I have been making progress with this new business. We launched in March and sales have just started coming in, in the past 2 weeks. Nothing to write home about yet, but I'll try and get to a detailed up date soon.

 

[MythOfSisyphus]

Alright. Time for a long, long overdue update on this business. I really did have intentions of doing frequent updates but my main business has taken up a lot of time trying to get it back to where it was post covid. This past financial year was our worst since the business began but things are starting to recover.

As for this new side business I simply haven't had the time to put into it that I needed to. I definitely won't be getting anywhere near the 2k per week profit within 6 months goal I originally set but I'm okay with that. My time is better spent on the main money maker at the moment.

I think a more realistic goal for this business under the new circumstances would be reaching 20k a month in revenue (around 2k per week profit) by late 2023 / early 2024.

Despite the lack of time I've had things are going okay so far despite only dedicating a handful of hours to it each week.

TOTAL STARTUP COSTS FOR THE BUSINESS: Approx $3,200 (Including Stock, web and domain expenses and $700 for a logo I didn't end up using in the end anyway)

REVENUE REPORT

MARCH (LAUNCH): $0
APRIL: $0
MAY: $96.95
JUNE: $240.25
JULY: $894.40
AUGUST (SO FAR): $896.30

As you can see it's been very slow going but that's to be expected with how little time I've been able to put into it. And from experience I know how quickly things can snowball once things start to move. The fact we're converting well and making sales means we have one of the hardest parts done. It's really just traffic I have to focus on now.

At the moment almost all of our traffic is paid. This is partly because I haven't done as much work on SEO with this business as I did with my last one and partly because the work I have done takes a while to pay dividends. At the moment we're on about the 3rd of 4th page of google for most of our main keywords. Realistically I think we should be able to rank on the 1st or 2nd page eventually without a lot of SEO work.

There's a stack of other things I still haven't got to that will make a big difference as well. Most notably...

• Setting up email flows for the mailing list
• Creating retargetting ads on facebook
• Creating lead gen ads on facebook
• Setting up a review app (we use judge.me on our other business)
• Regular email campaigns
• Regular social posts
• Expanding the product range
• Regular sales and promotions

So there's a lot of money still on the table here.

Anyway... I'll try and do another quick update next month and promise I'll try and keep them regular from now on. I'll also try and answer any questions that come in when I can.

 

[DavidePaco00]

Update:

I've written the expected expenses for getting the business up and running below (all costs are in AUD)

I had a logo designed last year when I initially came up with the idea for this business and also purchased the .com and .com.au domains so those expenses are set.

This week I'll be purchasing some products from competitors websites and also some samples from suppliers to compare them to.

The website expenses are quite steep because I'll be adding this website on to our existing shopify plus plan which costs and additional 250 USD per month (around 350 AUD) for the sake of convenience. A basic shopify plan is only around $40 AUD a month and is what I would recommend for anyone else making their first ecommerce store.

There's probably some other expenses I haven't thought of but I'll add those in as I come across them. There are also some things I'll be utilising from the existing business such as shipping boxes and packing materials etc but I'll estimate those costs and add them here as best I can too.

	Budgeted (AUD)	Actual (AUD)
Competitor Research	$200
Supplier Samples	$300
Logo	$763.40	$763.40
Domains	$48.52	$48.52
Website related expenses	$500
Initial Stock	$2500

Steps I've taken so far this week include:

• Liaising with suppliers on Alibaba to arrange samples
• Keyword research for SEO. (Identifying the main keywords and the secondary keywords I'd like the website to rank for)
• Finding and documenting competitor websites
• Researching competitor websites to identify their strengths & weaknesses
• Signing up for competitors email lists

Hello! I was wondering if SEO is still important this days.

Do You use any tools to help You finding keywords?

Thanks

 

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

[MythOfSisyphus]

Hello! I was wondering if SEO is still important this days.

Do You use any tools to help You finding keywords?

Thanks

Google have pushed organic results further down the page but yes, it's definitely still important. It provides long term, free traffic. It's definitely worth putting the effort into it up front as it will pay off down the track.

My main business gets at least 5,000 visitors a month from organic search results. And all that is from maybe a solid 10 hours of off site SEO in the beginning and simply making sure I've used good SEO practices when creating new web pages since.

Main tools I use for keywords are the google ads keyword tool and SEMRush.

 

[DavidePaco00]

Google have pushed organic results further down the page but yes, it's definitely still important. It provides long term, free traffic. It's definitely worth putting the effort into it up front as it will pay off down the track.

My main business gets at least 5,000 visitors a month from organic search results. And all that is from maybe a solid 10 hours of off site SEO in the beginning and simply making sure I've used good SEO practices when creating new web pages since.

Main tools I use for keywords are the google ads keyword tool and SEMRush.

Thank You! I really aprreciate the value You cage to me!

Last question, Do You suggest any books to start learning about SEO?

Cheers

 

[derraf]

Alright. Time for a long, long overdue update on this business. I really did have intentions of doing frequent updates but my main business has taken up a lot of time trying to get it back to where it was post covid. This past financial year was our worst since the business began but things are starting to recover.

As for this new side business I simply haven't had the time to put into it that I needed to. I definitely won't be getting anywhere near the 2k per week profit within 6 months goal I originally set but I'm okay with that. My time is better spent on the main money maker at the moment.

I think a more realistic goal for this business under the new circumstances would be reaching 20k a month in revenue (around 2k per week profit) by late 2023 / early 2024.

Despite the lack of time I've had things are going okay so far despite only dedicating a handful of hours to it each week.

TOTAL STARTUP COSTS FOR THE BUSINESS: Approx $3,200 (Including Stock, web and domain expenses and $700 for a logo I didn't end up using in the end anyway)

REVENUE REPORT

MARCH (LAUNCH): $0
APRIL: $0
MAY: $96.95
JUNE: $240.25
JULY: $894.40
AUGUST (SO FAR): $896.30

As you can see it's been very slow going but that's to be expected with how little time I've been able to put into it. And from experience I know how quickly things can snowball once things start to move. The fact we're converting well and making sales means we have one of the hardest parts done. It's really just traffic I have to focus on now.

At the moment almost all of our traffic is paid. This is partly because I haven't done as much work on SEO with this business as I did with my last one and partly because the work I have done takes a while to pay dividends. At the moment we're on about the 3rd of 4th page of google for most of our main keywords. Realistically I think we should be able to rank on the 1st or 2nd page eventually without a lot of SEO work.

There's a stack of other things I still haven't got to that will make a big difference as well. Most notably...

• Setting up email flows for the mailing list
• Creating retargetting ads on facebook
• Creating lead gen ads on facebook
• Setting up a review app (we use judge.me on our other business)
• Regular email campaigns
• Regular social posts
• Expanding the product range
• Regular sales and promotions

So there's a lot of money still on the table here.

Anyway... I'll try and do another quick update next month and promise I'll try and keep them regular from now on. I'll also try and answer any questions that come in when I can.

Wow, great content, thanks for your posts!

Where do you store your products? I mean, do you use Amazon FBA or another method? I would love to hear more about that if you can share.

If you also can share about this, what methods do you use to find good suppliers in China? For me, this is always the most difficult part when thinking about building a new physical product.

 

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

[MythOfSisyphus]

Thank You! I really aprreciate the value You cage to me!

Last question, Do You suggest any books to start learning about SEO?

Cheers

You're welcome.

There might be some good books out there but no, I just used free readily available information online and then trial and error.

I originally started out creating small websites as an amazon affiliate and this was a great way to learn.

 

[MythOfSisyphus]

Wow, great content, thanks for your posts!

Where do you store your products? I mean, do you use Amazon FBA or another method? I would love to hear more about that if you can share.

If you also can share about this, what methods do you use to find good suppliers in China? For me, this is always the most difficult part when thinking about building a new physical product.

I have a 200 square metre warehouse that this business and my main business run out of.

In the beginning I started in 8m square bedroom in our house (and that was enough space for the first 2 years or so before we built a 50m square shed in the backyard and moved the business into there. That lasted about 2 years before the business outgrew it and we moved to the warehouse here in late 2019.

I never used Amazon FBA and cover the reasons in another thread which I'll paste here...

I considered it very briefly. The main reasons I decided against it:

1) The cost - compared to paying my own employee to pack and ship the cost was quite prohibitive and meant that we wouldn't be able to compete with many of our competitors on price.

2) Attention to detail - The products we ship are quite delicate and prone to small defects that someone who is unfamiliar with the products wouldn't be able to pick up on. At least once or twice a day my staff find faulty products that otherwise would have gone out to customers (and yes - ideally this shouldn't happen at the manufacturing level but with thousands of products shipped each week it's a reality).

3) cross training - My staff that pick and pack orders also respond to email queries throughout the day (the ones that don't require my input anyway)

These were the main reasons but I also didn't like the idea of outsourcing such an important part of our customer service. Basically I wanted full control of what our customers were receiving.


Regarding sourcing products from China...

I've always exclusively used Alibaba and it's not as bad as some people make out. A few tips to help you though...

1. Look for suppliers that have been operating for quite a while and use the 'verified supplier' tickbox to filter (this doesn't guarantee good suppliers but will filter out some of the poor ones).

2. Have a budget in mind for testing samples and be prepared to try at least a few different suppliers.

3. Keep track of which suppliers you're dealing with in a spreadsheet and rate them on things like how promptly they reply to your queries (anyone who takes longer than a day usually indicates they'll have poor communication once you start dealing with them long term). Also rate them on how quickly they send the samples, how helpful they are with your questions or concerns and obviously the quality of the samples you receive. Also ask them how long there lead times are for a large order. I found having all this information on hand was really valuable when it came to selecting the right supplier.

4. Be very, very specific with exactly what you need. Especially for products with lots of customisable options. If possible have them create an individual unit or prototype (this often isn't possible but always ask) and send you photos before they ship. If they can't create a single unit then at least have them send you an image of the products before they ship in case there are any major problems.

5. It's not usually worth haggling in the beginning and can often be insulting to them. If their up front prices are decent then just accept them. Once you've established a long term relationship and placed a few large orders then talk price with them.

 

[DavidePaco00]

I have a 200 square metre warehouse that this business and my main business run out of.

In the beginning I started in 8m square bedroom in our house (and that was enough space for the first 2 years or so before we built a 50m square shed in the backyard and moved the business into there. That lasted about 2 years before the business outgrew it and we moved to the warehouse here in late 2019.

I never used Amazon FBA and cover the reasons in another thread which I'll paste here...

I considered it very briefly. The main reasons I decided against it:

1) The cost - compared to paying my own employee to pack and ship the cost was quite prohibitive and meant that we wouldn't be able to compete with many of our competitors on price.

2) Attention to detail - The products we ship are quite delicate and prone to small defects that someone who is unfamiliar with the products wouldn't be able to pick up on. At least once or twice a day my staff find faulty products that otherwise would have gone out to customers (and yes - ideally this shouldn't happen at the manufacturing level but with thousands of products shipped each week it's a reality).

3) cross training - My staff that pick and pack orders also respond to email queries throughout the day (the ones that don't require my input anyway)

These were the main reasons but I also didn't like the idea of outsourcing such an important part of our customer service. Basically I wanted full control of what our customers were receiving.


Regarding sourcing products from China...

I've always exclusively used Alibaba and it's not as bad as some people make out. A few tips to help you though...

1. Look for suppliers that have been operating for quite a while and use the 'verified supplier' tickbox to filter (this doesn't guarantee good suppliers but will filter out some of the poor ones).

2. Have a budget in mind for testing samples and be prepared to try at least a few different suppliers.

3. Keep track of which suppliers you're dealing with in a spreadsheet and rate them on things like how promptly they reply to your queries (anyone who takes longer than a day usually indicates they'll have poor communication once you start dealing with them long term). Also rate them on how quickly they send the samples, how helpful they are with your questions or concerns and obviously the quality of the samples you receive. Also ask them how long there lead times are for a large order. I found having all this information on hand was really valuable when it came to selecting the right supplier.

4. Be very, very specific with exactly what you need. Especially for products with lots of customisable options. If possible have them create an individual unit or prototype (this often isn't possible but always ask) and send you photos before they ship. If they can't create a single unit then at least have them send you an image of the products before they ship in case there are any major problems.

5. It's not usually worth haggling in the beginning and can often be insulting to them. If their up front prices are decent then just accept them. Once you've established a long term relationship and placed a few large orders then talk price with them.

Here in Italy I ', working with a guy right now ( he's called EnzoBlack) who's in touch with supplies that ships products in 10 days.

That could be a way to bypass one of main problems with chinese suppliers: lead time of delivery.

(Studying logistics for 2 years has been helpful, altought I realized that i don't wanna work as an employee in that field).

Thank You very much because You are all inspiring me to work towards my goal of making a profitable e commerce. On this forum I realized that is possible. Anyone can really live the life of his dreams.

Cheers.

 

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