Diary of Opening A New Business

[Polarbeans]

Seems like some things never change...

Sums up just about how I feel right now.


Also i would like to thank Jack for sharing all this amazing information and his story. I signed up to the forums just because of this thread.

I will stay active.

 

[ThexArm]

Very inspirational and thought provoking thread. I wish I could go through 650 comments on the thread... Had the op made $10 mil in 24 months or not? The thread gone on for too long and still going. Just wondering...

 

[csalvato]

Its ok, half the people in the board knew, just the two that responded to him might of heard something else when I said it.

Thanks @JackEdwards & @jon.a . I hope you don't mind my skeptical eye - I find not questioning things gets me in trouble.

 

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[Bigguns50]

@JackEdwards .. So I've followed this and 1st and foremost...CONGRATULATIONS ! Well done.

2nd, I personally don't care if it's auto parts or balloons. What interests me is what opportunity did you see ? Did you see weakness in the competition ? Or an undeserved market ? Did you attack at a different angle ? etc.

I'm not asking for details....just in general if you can say.

 

[xmartel]

Here is an update to this thread. Over the last 120 days I have been in the process of selling this business as another business I have opened has peaked my interest. In a totally unrelated industry.

A bunch of my competitors came together as a group, and offered me a bit of change to sell the business so they can get their customers back. (which I have slowly been taking away) As we have inventory, loans, accounts receivables etc it took a bit of time, but we are right there on the numbers and have agreed to and in the process of making the deal work and splitting up the customer base among the group. It is a great deal for all involved. This is the 2nd time I have sold a company where the main reason is for me to go away.

The 100 million when I started is not going to happen, I thought I could will my way up to that point, but nope. Can't seem to get their without putting in huge amounts of cash.

And I do not know what the other people told you csvalvato, but jon.a was correct and the business is in the wholesale auto parts industry. Good Luck to you.

Congrats Jack!

This thread has been life changing. And thanks again for meeting with me last year. With the wisdom you've shared, even if my current business failed (it's growing very quickly at the moment), I'll never have to go back to the slowlane.

Are you going to start another thread similar to this one for your new business?

 

[pickeringmt]

Awesome to see an update here!

Congrats on the sale - it sounded like your heart had already moved on anyways, so I'm sure it is a positive thing even if you didn't hit 100 million.

I'm looking forward to the next thread as well.

 

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[ThexArm]

And nobody will have to bother snooping around forum content creators' successful businesses because no one who remains active here here will have a successful business anymore.

I read first few pages which were most informative in terms of starting a business and initial startup issues with employees etc. then it become a little bit repetitive. My aim is not to snoop around as you suggested but to highlight the point that any successful startup business may not achieve what it set out to achieve in financial terms but it does become successful by repetitively doing the things it does best. A lot of people on the forum wants to achieve financial success in very short period of time and this thread highlight that fact that it takes time to build a business, create a structure around it and scale it such that you are able to sell it.

Here is an update to this thread. Over the last 120 days I have been in the process of selling this business as another business I have opened has peaked my interest. In a totally unrelated industry.

A bunch of my competitors came together as a group, and offered me a bit of change to sell the business so they can get their customers back. (which I have slowly been taking away) As we have inventory, loans, accounts receivables etc it took a bit of time, but we are right there on the numbers and have agreed to and in the process of making the deal work and splitting up the customer base among the group. It is a great deal for all involved. This is the 2nd time I have sold a company where the main reason is for me to go away.

The 100 million when I started is not going to happen, I thought I could will my way up to that point, but nope. Can't seem to get their without putting in huge amounts of cash.

And I do not know what the other people told you csvalvato, but jon.a was correct and the business is in the wholesale auto parts industry. Good Luck to you.

Thank you Jack for sharing an update. It's very commendable to see you sharing your experiences and knowledge here. I have, for one gained a lot from your experience through this thread. Good luck with your new venture.

 

[Wuz]

its better to not know the specifics about the business we are talking about . we are free to apply his advice in wherever industry we re working on.

Now some people think that all his valuable advice only fits in the industry he mentioned...

 

[andviv]

So you entered the ads in craigslist?

How did that work?

What emails did you get back from people interested on this opportunity?

Or you are not going to try it yourself?
Why not?
What's there for you to lose?

If it does not work as you want, tweak it until it does. No?

Or is there any cost associated with trying that and you are not willing or capable to pay that free craigslist ad?

I am curious as to what you need in order to go after your own venture...

 

[Mike Kavanagh]

For someone who doesn't care, you're doing a good job of faking it. This makes me nervous. The fallout of digging like this basically made @JasonR stop posting, @biophase seems to be way less active since those two scammers sniffed out and ripped off his two businesses (can anyone blame him?), Jack posts very infrequently, LikWid posts very infrequently, pretty soon we'll be left with a forum full of posts like this:

And nobody will have to bother snooping around forum content creators' successful businesses because no one who remains active here here will have a successful business anymore.

Not to mention the disappearance of Zen and ICK being much less active.
Bad apples poison the well.

 

[csalvato]

@csalvato You have been around a while. You're an INSIDERS and you have access to Jack's INSIDERS Conference Call (I thought it was good and credible). Jack provided many a phone calls to help others and he attended the C&B earlier this year, allowed access to himself and even presented. Let's move on.

To my knowledge it wasn't recorded.

And to be frank, it DOES matter if this is fiction. If i want to read a fictional book about building a business, I would buy a book. If I am looking for a mentor (even an indirect mentor), I want to know he is credible.

Sorry, I disagree.

 

[Bigguns50]

But trying to upsell $75 calls into paid mentorships is another level.

This was money via PayPal for a family in need ?

 

[redsfaithful]

What up-sell? I didn't get offered an up-sell.

Somebody did according to csalvato's PM.

 

[jon.a]

Somebody did according to csalvato's PM.

I'm sloow today

 

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[Wuz]

"You think they would say, "Nice parable bro!" ?"

if i apply what he said and i get results, he could even tell me that his advice was totally made up from his imagination. I would still have the results in my pocket.

If you follow a person for too much time without applying and verifying if what he/she said have some kind of sense, you re the only one to blame.

 

[Kyler White]

how much did you sell the business for and I don't remember if you mentioned if all the companies paying you are paying you the same amount

 

[Threenuc]

I don't know how the wholesale business works exactly, but Jack spent ~$10k on setup. That leaves him with $5k of money to work with - as in buying products, yet he never mentioned buying anything. How could that part of the business work?

 

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[andviv]

@Threenuc that is a great question...

In many cases the reseller does not purchase and holds the merchandise, it only sells them, pays the provider, and they send the product to the buyer.

Makes sense?

 

[Deleted28123]

good luck

 

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[randomnumber314]

I don't know how the wholesale business works exactly, but Jack spent ~$10k on setup. That leaves him with $5k of money to work with - as in buying products, yet he never mentioned buying anything. How could that part of the business work?

I'm not commenting on Jack's business, but if you close the sale and charge up front, the customer technically pre-purchased the stuff for you. It's a pretty common tactic, and a good way to reduce exposure to losses.

 

[Threenuc]

And how do you beat the competition in such a scenario? Jack had 5k (while the big companies had much more) and in the end he came out on top. I understand a good USP plays a role, but what USP can you have in auto part wholesale apart from price? Undercutting people rarely ends well anyways.

He had the telemarketers, but you can't just call any company and say "buy from us" and they'll switch from the wholesaler they might've used for years.

 

[mnov5534]

I stumbled on the Fastlane Forum before Christmas last year when I was reading some business articles and blog posts. Can't even remember how I got here, and then I found this thread!

I've never read a 30 Page thread on any forum before, but this one has been real gold!! I guess I'm lucky to have found the thread when the journey was over, or the wait would have driven me crazy wanting to know what happened next.


@JackEdwards thank you for sharing your journey with us, and it's amazing that you kept the updates coming for years! This is definitely a thread I've bookmarked and will keep coming back to for inspiration and motivation.

I can see you had plenty of experience starting and running businesses, but one thing I do wonder is how you were able to break into a tightly controlled industry, with established supplies?

Cold calling, or you had some partners or relationships within the industry to get a foot in the door?

Also at what point did you start to feel you're onto a winner and were able to validate the business idea as being worth pursuing, rather than being a fun project that may or may not go places? Was it after reaching a certain amount of turnover, growth rate or something else?

 

[Lagron]

I will neither solidify nor demolish your point.

There are a few things that you'll have to think about, you can't just read, for reading's sake.
No one will spoon feed a man unless that man is their father, and even then- instead, we prefer to pay to have them spoon-fed by another.

 

[thidr0]

What am I missing here? What am I supposed to learn from this thread?

I spent a week reading an entrepreneur workshop transcription from Stanford that had the Justin TV guy, AirBnB, etc and they shared all kinds of detailed insight.

Here I read 15 pages of vagueness from a guy who gauged his business in terms of office size, employee size, and outlandish future valuations. Absolutely nothing of value whatsoever.

Why does Jack sound like a fake? What am I missing here? Why is everyone so inspired by a guy who gives nothing substantial in the form of insight?

Im not being a jerk. I like this forum but this thread compared to the Y Combinator classes I read elsewhere seem like the fakest, void of value field of red flags in this entire forum.

What lessons am I supposed to be learning from this thread? It just seems like an episode of American Greed without the sexyness.

I agree with a lot of what you said. How to Start a Startup was very valuable and detailed and more in the muck.

But this to me is a bit of a different view from somebody who pulled it together on a shoe string, stayed lean, found a boring business, didn't need VC money or to build a fancy software. It's a different way of looking at entrepreneurship and here the biggest skills are taking action and selling -- think used car lot and not Tesla. So here it's not about the typical YC skills like product development, innovation, being on the edge of a surging market, etc. This thread is an inspiration of what fearless action could reasonably accomplish. That's all.

 

[lrryjrry]

Thanks @JackEdwards & @jon.a . I hope you don't mind my skeptical eye - I find not questioning things gets me in trouble.

I totally agree.. If anyone lying in this forum it will defeat the purpose on this forum and a waste of time spent hours and days of reading it! Can he at least provide the link to his company to MJ?

 

[lrryjrry]

By the way, do you know the links to some good threads in this forum you recommended to read? of course, real success stories threads.

 

[lrryjrry]

Looks like all good ones, I am hoping to see some whole sale start ups as I work for whole sale industrial involving getting products from China. I am not being cheap, but I am not sure if there's a need to be an INSIDERS. the membership fee is a little high and I have just been to this forum for 3 days. However most of the links you provided are for INSIDERS only.

 

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[Trevor Chaumont]

Some great threads you should check out (some require INSIDERS subscription):

@csalvato's Thread - My thread, explaining how I started a website consultancy in March, and just had my first 5-figure month

@G_Alexander's Thread - Launching businesses and buying rental properties

@Likwid24's Thread - Going from idea to imported product to Shark Tank investment while funding his venture through a painting business and firefighter job.

@AllenCrawley's Thread - Building a product brand from scratch.

@JAJT's thread - Building an importing business

@biophase's thread - Creating an Amazon eCommerce business from scratch, selling it to another forum member, and watching that forum member run with it

@Eskil's first thread - Starting a supplement business from scratch.

@Eskil's second thread - Creating a physical product business from scratch.

There are many other good ones. Can't take the time to list them all. Once you are around a bit you will get an idea of where the winners are.

Thank you very much for these

 

[Jenk Armada]

Great information in this thread. Is it true? who knows, but does it really matter? Valuable information regardless.

Did enjoy the read and progress. Something in this thread has changed the way i see certain things, that little push i needed to solve a minor problem i had with running my business. All good though!

I would just like to add, the information i was referring to wasn't just because of Jack, but the other FL members, great info! Thank You.

Peace.

 

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[Simon Ashari]

Finished skim reading this thread yesterday and I think he was selling tires. I guess he meant it literally when he said he is putting a 'spin' on it.

I imagine rubber is not that expensive and there are businesses that are doing deliveries all day every day so they constantly need new ones. More particularly it could be long distance heavy trucks - they have 18 on them plus a couple of spares.

The companies that are servicing these trucks might be limited by their storage space, so somebody who did the sales for them and delivered the tires right on time as they are needed could take his cut and still make them richer. Would that be too complicated to work?

I'm curious to know what it is too.

Interesting theory though.