Developing a Health Supplement Business - Progress Thread

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So, I reached a pretty big milestone within the last week or 2. I have now officially been working for myself for an entire year.

13 Months ago I was working 40 hours a week as a construction project manager at a small company sweeping floors. I decided it was now or never, I needed to quit the job and give my full attention to my own business. I had $2k or so saved up and have minimal expenses so I knew I had a little time before I would be out of money. At the time I was finishing up a SaaS website that I had worked quite a while on. After working on that project for the first 2 or so months I realized it was going to be a failure so I killed it.

My next move was to do this supplement business so I jumped on it, did some research and quickly bought my first order.

I didnt have time to dilly-dally around, I needed to get started and move fast before I ran out of money. So I just did it, got started, placed the order and kept moving.

You can see how the rest unfolded throughout the thread.

The main takeaway is to just START, once the pressure mounted and I had to make money I made it happen.

You can spend years doing research, reading forums and worrying about random corporate tax loopholes... You'll never start, theres always more to learn. You don't need to know everything right now, get started, tackle problems as they come and be nimble.

As an entrepreneur you're just a problem solver, every day theres a new problem or issue, learn as you go, solve the problems quickly as they come up and move on..

Thats what I've learned in the last year.

I look forward to the next year, I have some big goals for the next 6 months, should be a lot of fun

 

[1step]

I am creating this post to document my startup journey.
I have read many posts on here but have never been an active poster. I certainly don't know everything and have tons to learn. I am open to hear from anyone that's willing to give advice because above all else I want to learn and continue to move this business forward. Its very early on so I am all about testing and doing right now, I don't plan on wasting a ton of time with developing a website, logo, etc all of those will come in the future as I validate the market.

I wanted to start this thread for a couple of reasons, they include
1. Accountability
2. Education, learn from others and further develop my business
3. Keep track and work through thoughts
4. Help or inspire others

The business I have created is a health supplement business. Right now my focus is primarily on a private label supplement, which I plan to sell online, currently on various merchant websites; eventually building my own.

Where I Currently Stand

• I have decided on the product I want to sell initially, I have plans to offer additional products in the future, in my search I found a couple options that looked promising
• I decided upon the manufacturer mainly chose based on price and MOQ
• I designed initial label
• I got my first shipment today (12-4-12), this is just a small test order

Future Improvements

• Need to hire someone to create a better logo, not 100% sure what I want at this point
• Re-design/test the label, after seeing it on the bottle I know it can be improved
• Create website, don't want to get to far ahead of myself yet

Goals for December

• Sell all of the product I currently have
• Get 100% set up through various sales channels
• Place a larger order and receive it before Christmas
• Figure out insurance needs, (probably not the best idea to start selling without this 100% figured out) I will spend time on this but if anyone has advice it would be much appreciated
• Finish re-reading MJs book
• Start testing ppc on second order

That's all for this post, I want to update twice per month in the future. By the next time I update I will have made my first dollar.

 

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[1step]

Its been 2 months since my last update!

Sales
Sales progress is good, so far I am still ontrack to meet my sales goals for the year. I have missed one sales goal for 1 month but made up for that short coming in another month so I am on pace with my goals still.

My goals this month are steep, I will really need to work and sell to meet these goals.

Virtual Assistants
I now have 3 full time virtual assistants. One is a content writer, very good English skills and seems very responsible. One keeps track of my many social media accounts, she also has very good written english skills. Both of these VA's are from the Philippines. I ended up firing one VA that was from India, she was very unreliable and so I felt I had to cut ties with her. My third VA is from Morocco and he is also working on content creation. I am actually just starting him so I dont know a ton about his work habits.

All my VA's started around $2.00 an hour.

MY Product Line
I now have three products listed for sale. My main product brings in the majority of my sales. My secondary product is growing and will soon overtake my original product in sales (this is my plan anyways). My last product is just a side product, I didnt create it to create a ton of revenue just as a supplement product to my others.

Expansion:
I plan to start a fourth product very soon and possibly a fifth soon after. I am currently extremely busy so Im not sure how I will launch the two products but I might give it a go. I hope to hire a full time local employee in the near future which will hopefully relieve some of the pressure thats mounting All of the mentioned products will likely be in similar niches. By the end of the year I would like to be in a new niche as well so thats the ultimate goal. Right now I will develop this "niche" and cross sell products to up my revenue.

Website
I have created my own website and I am now fully able to take sales from that site. I just recently completed this and so far havent recieved any sales from the site. I plan to start promoting it and driving traffic to my landing page soon. Driving sales through this site will be a great way to up my revenue to meet my sales goals for the month. I plan to drive free traffic using various methods including my social media accounts mentioned before. I also have some other ideas in my mind but I am no expert as this sort of thing so it will be very much trial and error to find something that works.

Mastermind Group
The mastermind group that was mentioned in a previous post has been created and we now have about 10 participants. Most of us are just starting companies but we do have a range of experiences. We meet weekly and it is very valuable to talk to others in a similar situation with very different experiences. I know I had learned a ton and I am sure others have had similar experiences. As the group develops I think it will become even more valuable as kinks are worked out, we become more organized, successful and membership is finalized.

I would strongly recommend joining a group in your niche thats similar to this. Even if its just an entrepreneurship group that would probably be ok. But if you can find a group (or create one) in your niche all the better. Its amazing how it started with just a few of us and snow balled to the point where we have a "waiting list" of people we would like to add in the future.

Conclusion
Starting out my goals were always to be here at this point in time but I would be lying if I were to say I knew I would make it. My goals were intentionally high and I honestly didnt believe I could make them. I figured I would try harder to reach the goals and always fall just short. Which was fine with me, but what has happened has been unbelieveable.

Thinking back to last year at this time and seeing where I am now is really wild. Im glad I took the opporunity I had to quit my shit job and do this. I have learned a ton about myself as well as business. This forum has provided a ton of growth for my personally and professionally. I am very much a proponet of taking action and doing but what you can learn from other successful entrepreneurs is extremely valuable and it is well worth the time investment to read threads on this forum as well as watch interviews of successful people. At times it can seem like there is tons of information you have to watch or read now but dont let that slow you down from getting started. its amazing once you get started creating a business and focus some of this information you previously would have thought you HAD to know all of a sudden can be pushed aside and you focus your time on acquiring the really important. So get started and MAKE PROGRESS

I believe eskil has now overtaken me as the most popular supplement progress thread so I have some work to do. Check it out, theres always a link below in the "similar threads" section. He provides a lot of value and you can likely learn more from him then me (probably why its more popular ).

Thats all for me, if you read all this reward yourself with a treat!

 

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[1step]

I made my sales goal this month, woohoo

It seems like I am constantly working, I dont have another job so I do this full time which for me turns out to be 80+ hours a week. Im going on vacation next week and am somewhat dreading it as I have no idea how I will get everything done and it seems like it may cause more stress . Trying to carve out a niche in a highly competitive industry is tough, margins can also be thin selling through amazon.

Its not easy, if you think it is, good luck to you.

The Future

I don't know how this thread will progress or if it will progress. Sure I can keep updating this with my monthly goals but it is a bit boring and not extremely helpful. So maybe I will re-evaluate things to determine a new road for this thread or maybe I will just update less regularly. I am also concerned about the abundance of thievery and copying that seems to be plaguing the forum right now, this is always on my mind when thinking about what I cover.

Did You Message Me?

Sorry if you have messaged me and I have been short with you. I get way more messages than I would have ever expected asking for help or how I did something, most of these messages seem to be from action fakers. If I have been short with you I am just trying to weed out the fakers and time wasters. As you progress I'd love to keep hearing from you and help anyway I can. If I didn't respond at all I probably missed your message.

"Mastermind Group"

It seems the vast majority (only?) people that are still following this thread are people that are starting or thinking about starting a supplement company. I wouldn't mind forming a small mastermind group with some of you that are currently going through the same process. I am no expert so this isn't training, this would be maybe 5 or so of us who have recently started supplement companies (or similar) sharing experiences and learning from each other. maybe skype chats every couple of weeks or once a month. PM or email me if you also might be interested in something like this. Probably would have to limit this to action takers as well, you have a company, placed an order, or you are selling product in some form.

 

[1step]

Month 1 is in the books!

Below I'll go ahead and update my goals for this month being that the month is more or less over this is a great time to update for the final time this year.

Goals for December
Sell all of the product I currently have (20/24 sold) probably wont sell 4 tomorrow but I am happy with this progress
Get 100% set up through various sales channels (finished)
Place a larger order and receive it before Christmas (this wont happen unfortunately. Cash flow and timing problems)
Figure out insurance needs (this is figured out thanks to some help from fellow fastlaners)
Finish re-reading MJs book (done)
Start testing ppc on second order (done)

New Goals for January of 2013
1. I will place a larger order, goal date for this is 1-7, I will be able to put this on my credit card and a new cycle starts then so I can have about 60 days to pay this off. I want to sell all of these by the end of February. That will allow me to pay off my credit card debt before its due but this isnt a huge issue as I have the cash to cover it just dont want to.
2. Sell 30 units in January, I will only have about 2 weeks to sell as my shipment likely would arrive until the middle of the month
3. Work on new product label
4. Create website
5. Learn how to sell on ebay, I have product listed but there must be better ways to sell, I am much better on the amazon platform and have had success there I just havent had success getting attention to my ebay listing so I ned to research strategies for ebay. I want more control!
6. Continue to work on craigslist sales, I feel like theres potential here but havent had luck yet

What I Have Learned and What May Help You
1. Its not a race and its important to manage risks. I have wanted to get ahead of myself many times but I really want to remember to manage risk and not let myself get too far ahead. By continuously testing you can have more information and act in an informed manner
2. Amazon- the amazon selling market is amazing. I have been able to make sales on their platform with little promotion. I do have some experience with the website and have learned a lot about how to get your product out there more but I am still surprised by the number of sales i was able to make. I will say that once i sent the product to amazon for FBA (fulfillment by amazon) my sales have gone up. I am selling multiple items a day compared to maybe 1 every 2 days when I was fulfilling myself. Im sure there is a correlation.
FBA is relatively cheap and saves a ton of time so I plan to use it in the future on my next shipment. I think with all fees using FBA a $25.00 product incurs about 7-8 dollars in fees and shipping costs. I believe before using FBA my fees were $4.00 so it adds 3 dollars for the shipping and packing cost. My shipping costs were about $2.00 per order when I was fulfilling, for the added benefit of the customer getting "free shipping" as well as the amazon prime bonus as well as the fact that my sales have increased this is well worth the costs incurred. And I plan to stick with it.
3. Right now I am relying on amazon a ton and want to move away from that to getting more sales from my own site, I can direct them from my site to amazon for now just want to limit my risk from amazon where they dont control my traffic and sales

 

[1step]

Wow MAJOR PROBLEM!

My sales are slowly ramping up and I cant stop logging into Amazon to check how many I have sold. This is a great problem to have but I do feel like I have been less productive. It is a weird feeling, I remember reading something similar on here and at the time I remember thinking thats pretty stupid just dont check it but now that I have fallen into this trap, I can completely see how this happens!

I want to stop and I know I need to stop, I guess the best way to sum it up is as an addiction. Like the popular thread title "Addicted to Passive Income Deposits"

BTW today I finally sold 10 supplement bottles in a day, I thought I could hit this number but not so quick. I hope to average 10 sales a day within the next month or so. This would be a big step for me and worth a little celebration.

Anyway - have you thought to set up a subscription-based delivery of your supplement?

I havent looked into this yet but I will, I think you have to discount your price 15% in order to apply to this program but I havent looked into it. Either way at 15% it will be well worth the recurring revenue. thanks

 

[1step]

Wow its been almost a month and a half since I last updated this, now is a decent time to post although it wont be a long post.

A Look at My Goals for January of 2013
1. I will place a larger order, goal date for this is 1-7 (I placed this order)
2. Sell 30 units in January, I will only have about 2 weeks to sell as my shipment likely would arrive until the middle of the month (This didnt happen, i didnt even receive my shipment until Febuary, yes it took almost an entire month to receive)
3. Work on new product label (finished the new label, I like it 100 times more than the previous)
4. Create website (the long wait to receive this shipment allowed me time to create a decent website)
5. Learn how to sell on ebay! (eBay sucks, I have no clue how to increase my sales. I think the key is to get way more feedback, buy and sell a ton of small cost items, get good feedback and proceed this way. Not sure, really I am lost and may not pursue this method for awhile)
6. Continue to work on craigslist sales (didnt spend anytime working on this)

So January kind of sucked. I ordered my second shipment the first week of January and received it the first week of February. A month turnaround seems like a bit much to me and I'm not sure I can take that long of a wait. Especially right now as I am trying to grow with no real way to know how much I will sell and how fast.

1. Created my website as well as a few landing pages for PPC traffic. Right now these sites will push traffic to my Amazon listing so that I can increase my sales, rank and traffic on the site. Eventually I will implement my own payment processor but right now I think its important to build up Amazon.
2. Started selling the second shipment. I sent about 75% of my order to Amazon for them to fulfill and am currently working on selling the remaining that I kept. I believe I have sold around 10 units in the past 4 days that I have been able to sell.
3. Created some youtube videos to push viewers from youtube to my new website. I will continue to work on more videos, as I think this is a great opportunity when you weigh hours worked vs impact.

Goals for the Remainder of February
1. I will set an ambitious goal to sell 200 units the remainder of February.
2. Place another order by the end of February (so I can receive it by April lol)
3. Put a little money into PPC to see what my cost is to acquire a sale
4. Get professional pictures taken of my product- quality isnt poor right now but it needs to be better

Things I should research/learn more about
1. PPC advertising- decreasing cpc, copywriting
2. Sales on eBay
3. Selling on Craigslist- what works best, gets most responses

I think thats all for now, I hope to update more often than once every 1.5 months!

 

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[1step]

Goals for March
1.Sales Goal- Sell 300 Units (upped it to a goal of selling 500)- (at the rate I am selling I should make it but will be close)
2. Place larger order (I placed 2 orders of 1000 each so far this month)
3. Look into a second product (In June I hope to expand)
4. Ramp Up PPC Advertising (Next Month)
5. VA creating content - (They are creating lots of content)
6. I want to start learning better copywriting, I dont know how I plan to do this yet but I will figure it out in March!

Sales Progress

So far I have sold around 200 bottles this month, I have a couple shipments on the way to amazon right now for FBA and as soon as they arrive I will switch to use FBA. So, I have fulfilled the 200 I have sold myself which takes a lot more time than I expected. Over the last couple of days I have decided FBA is very much worth the costs, the shipments cant arrive soon enough!

Long Term Goal

I want to generate 1 Million in sales by End of February 2014.

Currently that is my long term goal, make 1 Million in sales in the next year. I have had it for a few weeks now but figured I would go ahead and make it public.

I always laugh when I see a "I want to generate 1 Million in one year" post and you can laugh if you want to, it's ok.

The first post following is usually "So how are you gonna do this?" So, how am I going to do this? I am going to average selling about 110 bottles a day for the next year. Very specific, I know.

How am I going to sell 110 bottles a day? Push hard everyday.

I made a spreadsheet to outline the progress I need to make each month to scale up to meet this goal. It seems pretty reasonable to me.

So far I hit my February goal and am on track to hit the March goal.

What I Have Learned

While I was waiting for my shipments to arrive I read Influence by Caldini and it is a great book. I learned a ton from it and would certainly recommend everyone read it. Theres also a great sketch video on youtube the sums the book up pretty well if you want the 10 minute version.

 

[1step]

Haven't seen any update since a long

Wow, you're right it has been 4 months since my last update. Sometimes as things progress it seems like theres not a ton to write about that would be interesting but then I look back to October of last year and think wow things have changed.

Update:

I went to Beer and Pancakes this year. Meeting people from the forum and putting faces to names and getting to meet so many like-minded people was pretty inspiring. Everyone presented on a topic and there were many helpful ones but the one that has impacted my business the most so far so one about funnels. Don't believe I can reveal a ton of information about it but I completely changing my funnel.

The new funnel has me really excited and I am putting the pieces in place now to implement a high converting way to capture leads from paid traffic. I am also in talks with manufacturers in China to import a new product that will be great for my funnel.

Up to this point the vast majority of my sales have been through amazon. Amazon is what I really know and I have done pretty well with it. Amazon has a ton of potential and can easily scale to 5 figures a month in revenue (for me - this depends on your product offerings obviously). But there are tons of obstacles to amazon as well. With paid traffic you can more or less rely on X sales per day with X dollars spent, with amazon you cant really do that. There is also the control you give up, in theory amazon could shut you down at any minute which probably shouldn't be a huge worry but I don't want to build a long term strategy on amazon alone.

So for those reasons the remainder of this year I will be developing paid traffic methods for my business. So, right now Im planning the funnel and ordering the products. After I get all this figured out I will start to test and optimize. Later in the year I want to add 2 more products to my offering to maximize my revenues. If all goes to plan by years end I will have 2 products manufactured in China and 4 products manufactured in the States.

In February of last year I had set a pretty lofty year goal for myself. I ended up falling short of it as the year just ended within the last few weeks. Sooner than later it will happen..

Mastermind:

In previous posts I mentioned a skype mastermind, that went very well for about 9 months and then it got very slow and died off for a bit. We are in the process of bringing it back to life. Ive learned a lot from the group both from the knowledge shared and how to run a mastermind group. I think the best piece of advice I can give is to create a structured group with a schedule to follow to stay on task. I would also recommend a set of easy to follow rules that stipulate when to kick a member from the group (inactivity, etc).

Just recently started putting the pieces together for an ecommerce mastermind group. This one wont be limited to supplement companies which I think will be good for me as well as the group. Everyone in the group I met at BnP which goes to show the power of meetups like that one. The members have a broad set of backgrounds and I think it will be a great chance to learn from everyone as I move more towards paid traffic.

So yeah, everything's going well with me, thanks for asking for the update.

If people have questions I will chime in but I don't currently envision having super detailed updates all the time. Maybe as interesting things happen I will post updates but for now it just seems like "same ole shit just a different day"

 

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[1step]

has anything big happened in the last eight months or so?

My supplements were run of the mill products that anyone can buy from pretty much any private label company. When I got started selling on Amazon they were relatively competitive but nothing like they are today.

This was over two years ago and a lot has changed since then including a popular amazon coaching course telling everyone and their mom to sell supplements. The popular private label supplement niches have become a lot more competitive since then, specifically over the last year.

Over the last year the game stopped being “try and sell your product and market your brand” and became “sabotage the competitors.” There are tons of shady people selling on amazon (especially in supplements) and competition is fierce even more so in the most popular categories.

With all that being said over the last 9 months I stopped investing time into the business, after that, my sales ranks slowly dropped and eventually the new guys rose to the top and I was left with a few sales a day from long time customers and maybe long tail KWs.

The Future of these Supplements:
I currently have a few bottles left at amazon but have pulled a ton off the site recently and will pull the rest within the coming week. I am going to send all my stock overseas and sell what I have remaining in another market… Or attempt to. Honestly it’s just a test with a friend to see how this smaller growing market performs. I am pretty excited about this – more excited than I have been with this company in awhile. It won’t have a huge impact now, but in the future it could impact my other business significantly. I will spend no time doing this, all I will do is list the products and see what happens.

I know you and others here have started or are starting supplement companies. Maybe some of what I share below can help you with your planning, vision, and strategy.


Mistake:
The way I set up the supplement company was not with a long-term focus. My original goal was to use the supplements to make money to fund another venture (that has long since died). Unfortunately when I had success selling these I let it go to my head and thought that I could parlay that into more of a long term play with my own website and a straight sell offer. In my opinion this was a bad strategy for a variety of reason but one in particular is my product did not lend its self to long-term success.
Lesson: For this product I should have stuck to the original plan, use amazon as a traffic source to get sales and reinvest in other plays with a chance at long-term success.

The best thing… to come out of this venture is that I learned how to sell on Amazon, this can translate to any niche and has served me well in my new business. This is by far the best thing to come out of this venture. I spent a ton of time on Amazon especially early on and I picked up a ton of neat tricks.

The best thing… I did on this journey was get started and get going in the right direction quickly. I went from idea to being sold out of my first order in a few short weeks and kept going from there. I am glad I didn’t spend a ton of time planning and just got started, tried different things and kept moving.

If I could do it all over I would still start the supplement company but I would follow the original plan and use money from it to fund other ventures.


BTW I don’t hate supplements, and am not trying to scare anyone off of it. My strategy wasn't one for long-term success but I still think supplements with a custom formula can be a good option long-term. I have an idea for another supplement, I might try it in the future.

As @theag wrote above, I wrote a little about this company and moving away from it in another thread. https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/community/threads/2015-resolution-provide-more-value.57285/

 

[1step]

Now is a good time to go ahead and update this for the last time in February. First to relive my goals for February and see how I did.


Status Check: Goals for February
1. I will set an ambitious goal to sell 200 units the remainder of February. (If sales hold up (they will) I will have sold around 120 units)
2. Place another order by the end of February (so I can receive it by April lol) (I placed another order today, still smallm next one should be larger)
3. Put a little money into PPC to see what my cost is to acquire a sale (I started this but dont know what cost per sale is yet (limited data))
4. Get professional pictures taken of my product- quality isnt poor right now but it needs to be better (I hope to fix this before the end of the month, my friend has a nice camera just need to find a time that works for him)

Things I should research/learn more about
1. PPC advertising- decreasing cpc, copywriting
2. Sales on eBay
3. Selling on Craigslist- what works best, gets most responses

I will extend this on to March, I didnt really do any of this stuff. The PPC advertising and copywriting are top of my mind right now, the ebay and craigslist arent something I am overly concerned with right now.


What Else I Have Been Working On
1. Creating content- I have been mainly doing this my self. My goals with the content are to drive traffic to my website and sales pages to convert to sales. Some various forms of content include articles, reviews, images, videos, press releases. I think thats about it. Any other content types or suggestions here?
2. Hiring a Virtual Assistant- I have been taking my time asking lots of questions to find the right person this time. Last time I hired a VA I hired the wrong guy and it didnt work out. This time I am trying to ask more questions and make sure we are both on the same page before proceeding. I placed an ad on oDesk and got around 300 responses in a day... thats a lot of applications to weed through. I eliminated certain countries and then eliminated bad feedback scores and then got the list down to around 100. Took those 100 and quickly looked through what they wrote, if it was poor english I got rid of them and if it seemed like a mass produced message not catered to my job I cut them. This left about 30 applicants.
I messaged them all if they would do a test job based on required skills. Some didnt reply and this left me about 15-20 to question further.
I hope to have my final choice by the end of the month. Maybe my next post here will be written by my VA :nono:
3. Other planning activities to scale up faster in the future.


Scaling Up Faster
Right now my inventory is somewhat low so I am left in an odd predicament. I could do some promotion that would lead to an increase in sales. Or I could leave it as is and sell the 10 or so products a day I currently sell. So heres the problem, my next shipment wont arrive for 2-3 weeks. If I sell out of my product too fast I will have nothing left to sell and my sales rank will take a major hit from inactivity. This means when I do get my product and go back to sell it it will take a little bit of time to get back up to where I average this amount of sales per day.
So I think I will just sit on my current sales and hope I can get my newest shipment to amazon before I run out of product. All this time planning and creating the needed strategies and content in order to launch after I get my next shipment, this will hopefully increase my sales per day considerably.
After I sell my remaining order I should be past the cash issues and be able to place a larger order so I can stop worrying and getting grey hairs over these inventory issues. :eusa_clap:


Promotion
Free and cheap promotion methods I plan to use
Social Networks- Twitter, Facebook
Image Sharing Sites- Pinterest, Instagram, Tumblr
Video Sites- Youtube and Vimeo
Written Content- Articles, Press Releases, Answers, similar
Fiverr Services- Fiverr has some unique services that may be helpful, I will test quite a few and see if I can get a ROI. Maybe I will post about this in the future

This Post Seems to be getting rather long, or maybe I am just getting rather tired. Either way I will start to wrap it up and hope you all have found this somewhat useful.


Goals for March
1.Sales Goal- Sell 300 Units (unlike last months crazy goal that I didnt think I could reach, I think I can get this one)
2. Place larger order
3. Look into a second product (YAY more inventory problems :groove
4. Ramp Up PPC Advertising (Per Eskil I need to look into Amazon PPC ads (thanks bud))
5. My VA should be creating tons of content and getting it dispersed in the right areas so I dont have to deal with that crap anymore. I do want to see all the content so I can make sure the quality is good and proofread/edit it. I am probably somewhat of a control freak but I think its important to make sure I know what is representing my brand.
6. I want to start learning better copywriting, I dont know how I plan to do this yet but I will figure it out in March!


Conclusion
I think the visitors that actually come and read this are pretty set now, I am not so worried about what I am talking about. I still dont plan to talk about my brand or niche as I dont want this thread to be found. Regardless of me eliminating those details I hope this helps people out there and you find it useful.
Sometimes I am unsure what you all will find interesting, I talk to Eskil outside of this about some stuff as he develops his supplement brand but I dont feel like a lot of it would be interesting to people not building a sups brand so I dont really think to include it here. If you all are looking for certain information feel free to comment and I will try and address it in the future.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

I will control the brand and product so more or less I am in complete control. Initially I will rely on selling through Amazon and eBay etc so in that regard maybe i am not in 100% control because at any time they could stop me from selling on their sites.

Usually in a control process it is very hard to control distribution. I'm at the mercy of Amazon and all my channels as well (itunes, Nook, etc.). IMO, the control risk in these types of arrangement is minimal (vs being the affiliate of some product whereas you don't even control the product, nor the brand.) The #1 objective of control is to control your product, your brand, and all decision making regarding such. (You get to determine the method of distribution.)

I got my first shipment today (12-4-12), this is just a small test order

That's got to be incredibly exciting!!!

Figure out insurance needs, (probably not the best idea to start selling without this 100% figured out) I will spend time on this but if anyone has advice it would be much appreciated

Absolutely. You want to get liability insurance if you haven't done so ... if someone gets sick consuming your product, you need to be protected.

Hiscox does a lot of entrepreneurial insurance.

Public Liability Insurance | Hiscox UK

 

[1step]

CENTS and Goals for December

I finished reading TMF for the second time so wanted to post about CENTS and other thoughts.

Need: The industry is huge and growing every year. The area that I am targeting is a competitive niche (maybe too competitive, probably my number 1 concern is being another "me too") but there is a ton of need and the product solves a large pain point.

Entry: In theory anyone could start a business similar to this which seems to be common in a lot of internet businesses. But starting a supplement company isn't as simple as say blogging, selling on ebay, network marketing, or affiliate marketing. It does take a significant amount of work, planning, and investment. If we were rating it on a scale of 1-10 it certainly wouldn't be a 10 but maybe around a 6-7.

Control: I will control the brand and product so more or less I am in complete control. Initially I will rely on selling through Amazon and eBay etc so in that regard maybe i am not in 100% control because at any time they could stop me from selling on their sites. However the ingredients in this product are common and there are other private label companies I could go through to fill any product related needs.

Scale: Because of the size of the market and need there is a ton of scale through reach. This is both a national and worldwide problem so while I will focus on the US market there could be room to expand in the future.

Time: There will definitely be room to automate this business. The time requirement will not be huge, at the moment I can use Amazon for fullfilment, customer service and order processing (there fees aren't bad considering the amount of the process they handle). In the future I could use a distributor and handle charges through my site. This could be something to look into as I grow but either way there is room to remove myself from the equation and automate.

Re-Evaluating My goals for December

1. Sell all of the product I currently have (working on it)
2. Get 100% set up through various sales channels
3. Place a larger order and receive it before Christmas
4. Figure out insurance needs, (probably not the best idea to start selling without this 100% figured out) I will spend time on this but if anyone has advice it would be much appreciated
5. Finish re-reading MJs book
6. Start testing ppc on second order

The only thing I have on the front of my mind right now is selling the product, I am still working on getting everything 100% finished with my set up on amazon but come Thursday 12-13-12 everything should be processed and I should hopefully be able to sell my first unit Friday. If everything goes well I will be able to sell everything in a week. Ordering the next shipment and getting it before Christmas may not be possible with this time table, getting my next shipment may not be possible until the 28th. In an ideal world I will be able to place the order on 12-17 and have it on 12-21/12-22.

Its somewhat pointless to try and plan this out though, I just need to focus on selling the product and the rest will work itself out. There really isn't a rush to get it before Christmas as there wouldn't be a way I could turn around and sell it as an X-mas present anyway.

I think I will go make a couple craigslist ads and see if theres any potential there, can't see supplements really selling through CL but I will try now while I have some down time.

Until next time

 

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[Eskil]

Congrats on the milestone. I actually made my first order yesterday for my own supplement. Very excited!

 

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[1step]

"Tough times don't last, tough people do"

Go get it guys, make your own luck

 

[DeletedUser2]

Yeah somewhere in this thread another person mentioned that in Canada it is a bit tougher to go this route. I personally dont know anything about the regulations in Canada but it certainly sounds like a barrier to entry.

we sell in canada.
not that hard.
have a group that will

1. do all the paperwork for you.
2. have a contract manufacture that already has private label stuff approved in canada. you just put your label on it


pm me for details

Z

 

[GPM]

If you can please get a healthy supplement line of product going. I would gladly pay for supplements that DO NOT have artificial crap in it. It seems like every product on the market has artificial colors (Red 40), artificial sugars (aspartame, acesulfame potassium, sucralose), or high fructose corm syrup (HFCS).

I will not buy a single product that has any of those in it and it drives me crazy that most do. Kind of ironic that the majority of supplement brands try to come off as healthy and yet they contain a chemical stew of some of the worst things you can consume.

 

[1step]

Hiscox does a lot of entrepreneurial insurance.

Public Liability Insurance | Hiscox UK

Thanks, I will certainly look into this. As you mentioned insurance is of the utmost importance, this is number 1 on my list. I did find a different supplier that is a little more expensive but they add you to their insurance policy covering product liability. I would assume this would cover me 100% but its something I will have to look into. As this minimal cost spread out bottle to bottle would probably make more sense than shelling out for insurance on an invalidated business.

Although this obviously will not cover the first order I have already received, which would be me at risk in the short term.

It seems like every product on the market has artificial colors (Red 40), artificial sugars (aspartame, acesulfame potassium, sucralose), or high fructose corm syrup (HFCS).

I'd be interested in hearing what kind of supplements you are referring to, this isn't something I pay a ton of attention to. Are you referring to supplements like protein powder?

Insurance needs is my bread and butter (undergrad and job). MJ is right that you will need insurance. In fact more then just product liability( property loss? Loss of stock? Adverse event to someone taking your product?). For health supplements that you are talking about, not all general insurance carriers will insure that since it is of a different risk class that needs more specialized attention.

Thanks for your reply. I have read that insuring ingestibles is considerably more expensive. I have sent you a PM but maybe if you have a chance you could also address my point above about a supplier that adds you to their insurance policy.

 

[1step]

Thanks, I sold out of all my product in the last few days and have placed a larger order. It feels good to be progressing but sucks that I have nothing to sell for a couple days now.

 

[1step]

Quick Update

I spoke to soon during my previous update for February. I ended up meeting my sales goal originally set.

Status Check: Goals for February
1. I will set an ambitious goal to sell 200 units the remainder of February. (I sold over 200 for the month )
2. Place another order by the end of February (so I can receive it by April lol) (I placed another order today, still smallm next one should be larger)
3. Put a little money into PPC to see what my cost is to acquire a sale (I started this but dont know what cost per sale is yet (limited data))
4. Get professional pictures taken of my product- quality isnt poor right now but it needs to be better (I hope to fix this before the end of the month, my friend has a nice camera just need to find a time that works for him)

My sales have absolutely exploded over the past few days. I jumped the gun thinking there was no way I would sell 100 or so in 2-3 days but it has happened!

So, somehow I have met my seemingly ridiculous goal I set of selling 200 units in 20 or so days.

This also means my goal for March is far to low. 300 shouldnt be a problem, I like BHAG goals so I will update my March Goals to Include 500 Sales!

Hiring A Virtual Assistant

In light of the recent developments with sales progress I ended up hiring 2 virtual assistants. Im sure I will be able to keep them busy. I ended up spending slightly more than I had planned going into the process but I am happy with the process and feel I got 2 good assistants that will work out great. One is a male one is female, one from Philippines and one from India. The lady from India has the best written english I have ever seen for someone living in India. English skills was one of my main requirements, I didnt expect to hire someone from India but she seems like a great catch.

My Next Order

I also upped my most recent order to 1000 bottles. I hope to receive around 200 within the next week and then the remaining are probably 3 weeks away.

 

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[DeletedUser2]

Good start!

Keep chugging

Z

 

[Eskil]

Even though you and I talk in private, I still enjoy reading your updates here. They are well written out and really shows a very nice thought process and thoroughness. I think other readers of this thread will find it very useful - even if you're not sharing specifics. The concepts can still be applied to other products.

The VA process is also interesting. I have heard a lot of good and bad experiences with finding VA's. The key is to do the proper research - and it sounds like you definitely are!

Have you thought about finding short-term funding for scaling out, like through a business credit card or charge card? This would be "good debt" anyway that I'm sure you would pay off as soon as the sales revenue came back in.

 

[1step]

If we were on the inside I would talk about it, but dont really want to get into specifics here.

I will say reviews are extremely important. Without reviews and social proof people will buy but the number of people who will buy will dramatically decrease. Its similar to that bell curve you always see, the early adopters and maybe early majority will buy but percentage wise it will be low.
So, you want to certainly get your product out there to get reviews however you can do that. If your product is cheap you can chalk it up to a marketing expense and give away free product for reviews. You could also have friends and family review your product, personally I probably wouldn't ask this favor but every review helps so it would be worth it especially if you are selling an expensive product that cannot be given away for free. Both of these strategies could be tough to manage as ideally you want quality reviews, with real thought put into them.

Also high competition=large pie so even if you can get a little piece it can snowball and as you pick up steam it will just keep going. your sales rank climbs which leads to more sales and then more sales etc. you just want to make sure and get reviews from ones who buy.

Price also factors in, lower prices show up higher on amazons search rankings, if you can break even on your first sales and sacrifice a little for higher search rankings it can help you speed up the process.

I realize this likely hasn't been extremely helpful and answered your question, sorry for that.

 

[1step]

Final Sales count for February was 228 units

I sent an additional 25 Units that I had in my house to amazon so that they can fulfill those. They arrived today. I should be completely sold out of product today or tomorrow. Then its just a waiting game for my next shipment to arrive.

Next update probably wont be for awhile.

 

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[1step]

The biggest hurdle seems to be the serious regulations that Canada has on supplements, there are entire approval processes and you have to have a NPN number before you can even market

wow, that really sucks. High barriers to entry are both good and bad. Keep fighting!

 

[1step]

I'm just going over the numbers, the per pill gram weight is 7.3225..

Sounds huge, perhaps you calculated wrong

My capsules weigh about 0.47 grams, with most of the ingredients in mg or mcg quantities.

Yes, most normal sized pills would weight about this much. It depends on the size of the capsule you use but it seems a rang in weight from 500mg to 750mg is about right. 7.3 grams = 73000mg so youd likely be swallowing a baseball at that point lol

It's become a trend to "lift"

"Do you even lift"

 

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[benhebert]

All of you are trying to launch a supplement without actually doing the research or understanding the market. Go to the customers first and see what they want and how you can offer it. You're not going to enter a competitive market, ramp up some adwords campaigns and expect to cash in big.

People are immune to advertising and paid ANYTHING is just a touch. You might have to touch a consumer 4-6 before they buy and you might not make money until the 2nd or 3rd purchase!

Focus on content generation and getting in places where your market is. Also make something awesome.

 

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[1step]

My Ignition

I want a house and boat on the ocean
I want to travel Europe with my little brother and play lots of soccer
I want to make sure my parents are taken care of
I want to prove the naysayers wrong
I want to own part of a MLS soccer team

 

[Deleted13247]

Insurance needs is my bread and butter (undergrad and job). MJ is right that you will need insurance. In fact more then just product liability( property loss? Loss of stock? Adverse event to someone taking your product?). For health supplements that you are talking about, not all general insurance carriers will insure that since it is of a different risk class that needs more specialized attention. Best bet is to go to an insurance broker( ie marsh{ i do not work for marsh but they are one of the most known in the industry}) and have a discussion. They will tell you what exactly you will need and market it to carriers that specialize in "Life Science". If you would like more info please feel free to PM me.

 

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[GPM]

Almost everything. Protein powder, creatine, nitrous oxide products, recovery mixes, pre workout mixes… It almost ALL has that crap in it. Sure you can buy most things that make up those products in their 100% pure form, but sometimes it is nice to have it in a tasty mix to throw down before or after a work out.

I guess I could just mix them up in the quantities I want, put in some cane sugar or honey and add some vanilla extract or something. There is a business idea right there for you!