Escape the Borg! - My Journey to Freedom, Ecommerce

[PTP]

Okay, cool! I'm glad you're still going... after reading it all last night, I feel involved in your process! haha

What about the part about your manufacturer wanting you to sell at a higher price, or he was gonna stop supplying you. Was that your Chinese guy? What do those guys even care about prices!? And who was pressuring him... I was very confused about that part!

Yeah I logged on the yesterday and saw 50+ notifications and was like "HOLY COW WHAT DID I DO?!" Much appreciated!

The Chinese guy was the one who was trying to control my prices. Why? I have no clue! You would think he would make more money if I sold more... Maybe his other customers (my competitors) were complaining? His loss. Fixed that by getting new custom designs made that I own all the rights to and by getting a USA manufacturer.

Honestly though looking back, that was one of the best things that ever happened in my business. I had been trying (unsuccessfully) to design my own custom products for months prior. However, it wasn't until the Chinese guy tried to cut me off that I figured out a way to get those designs made.

 

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[Striver]

The Chinese guy was the one who was trying to control my prices. Why? I have no clue! You would think he would make more money if I sold more... Maybe his other customers (my competitors) were complaining? His loss.

Yeah, I just don't understand it! lol

I mean, who were THEY, to him... why in the hell was he letting them persuade his decisions. Just a weird situation... lol

 

[amp0193]

Video converts really well. Since I dont know the first thing about making videos, I just got YouTubers to make them and then just put them up on my website.

This. is. brilliant.

 

[Kid]

Hi @PTP .
Great thread. Any updates?

 

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[DAL]

Hi PTP

Thank-you for posting this thread, really enjoyed it. A true sense of what its like to get something off the ground. Congratulations on your achievements to date. I hope things have been continuing to snow ball for you!

DAL

 

[GuestUser4aMPs1]

Incredible thread @PTP.
Thank you for sharing your knowledge.

Any Updates?

 

[Overlander]

Hi @PTP

Any updates? Thank you so much for sharing your experiences in this thread, it's been a source of great inspiration and knowledge. Cheers

 

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[iceyblitz]

So earlier I mentioned that I was starting a new business. I had decided on a product just to get moving and to get me out of the analysis paralysis stage.

After talking with a ton of suppliers, I was getting ready for samples of the new product to be sent over. However, I honestly wasn't too thrilled about the idea of starting a business around something I had minimal interest in. In my eyes there wasn't much of a value add between my products and those of competitors and it would be hard to differentiate.

This led me to keep searching for a new business and eventually to stop sourcing the other product all together. I then began to narrow down the categories I wanted to start a business in. From there I looked at the different products within a specific category. This part took me a while as I kept jumping back and forth between 2-3 different product types.

The thing holding me back was that this niche is seen as particularly competitive and there was someone already doing really really well with a similar idea. However, there were a few areas that I saw room for serious improvement but I had to make sure it wasn't just wishful thinking on my part. I created a thread telling people about my idea and if they saw the same issues with the products as I did.

Turns out a bunch of people are unhappy with the options on the market and they gave me some really good insight on improvements they want. In order to get a general idea of all the changes, I created a short survey.

So far the survey has been live for less than 24 hours and I've almost maxed out my 100 free responses. This is literally from a single post with no incentives at all.

There appears to be a huge pain point in this marketplace that needs solving and I'm excited to help these people by creating a solution for them!

More updates coming soon...

EDIT: Another funny thing is that people are thanking me for creating this product.

hey bro, thank you for this post man im learning so much ..

my question is did you just figure out where your target audience hangs out and ask them there for the pain points? did you used like fb groups or something?