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First Sale! (5 weeks from idea conception!)

Ryan Wolf

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YES! Here's the timeline:
  • 5 weeks ago, I had an idea.
  • 4.5 weeks ago, I was studying the market.
  • 4 weeks ago, the business name was registered.
  • 3 weeks ago, packaging and stickers had been ordered.
  • 2 weeks ago, the domain was purchased and work began on the website.
  • 1.5 weeks ago, the website was functioning and the products were on their way.
  • Last week, photos were taken of each product.
  • Four days ago, the website was 95% ready for launch.
  • Two days ago, the website's payment portal was still pending approval.
  • Today, it was approved and I ran multiple test orders while fixing minor typos and bugs.
  • Three hours ago, I launched the business with no prior marketing.
  • 10 minutes ago, a sale was made to a person with no relation to me.
  • Right now? I'm STOKED!

And I hate to be secretive, but the only information I'll share is that it's a subscription-based business.

:fistbump:
 
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UndertheBar

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YES! Here's the timeline:
  • 5 weeks ago, I had an idea.
  • 4.5 weeks ago, I was studying the market.
  • 4 weeks ago, the business name was registered.
  • 3 weeks ago, packaging and stickers had been ordered.
  • 2 weeks ago, the domain was purchased and work began on the website.
  • 1.5 weeks ago, the website was functioning and the products were on their way.
  • Last week, photos were taken of each product.
  • Four days ago, the website was 95% ready for launch.
  • Two days ago, the website's payment portal was still pending approval.
  • Today, it was approved and I ran multiple test orders while fixing minor typos and bugs.
  • Three hours ago, I launched the business with no prior marketing.
  • 10 minutes ago, a sale was made to a person with no relation to me.
  • Right now? I'm STOKED!

And I hate to be secretive, but the only information I'll share is that it's a subscription-based business.

:fistbump:

That's extremely motivating. In just 5 weeks time you have your business up and running. Good job!
 

MJ DeMarco

I followed the science; all I found was money.
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Congratulations, stories like these always make me smile.

I'm making this NOTABLE because I get stoked when I see light bulbs go on results evolve through process.

Thank you for highlighting your process/timeline to first sale. I find that priceless. (I modified your title if you don't mind.)
 
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Scot

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Great job! You've got one! That's an achievement in of itself. Keep it going!
 

Ryan Wolf

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Congratulations, stories like these always make me smile.

I'm making this NOTABLE because I get stoked when I see light bulbs go on results evolve through process.

Thank you for highlighting your process/timeline to first sale. I find that priceless. (I modified your title if you don't mind.)
Thank you!

Although it's not detailed, I hope someone can at least understand that ideas can be executed in a fairly small amount of time, even when you have no time. It would've been quicker if I wasn't busy managing my coffee shop, hiring for my summer business, rounding up investors for a real estate deal, looking at other real estate deals, and cold-calling one new person each day to expand my network. I'm not bragging, I just want people to realize that I too have a lot of excuses to not act on an idea.

If I'm being honest, this would not have happened had I not read your book.

The title is awesome now!
 

samuraijack

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Awesome job. Even if you never got the first sale this fast, the process was all worth it.

I wish I was like this 2 years ago. Literally the best thing ever for anyone to do is to get things up and running as fast as possible and learn!
 
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Ryan Wolf

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Not that it really matters, but I will share some news about this first sale, now that all of the issues have been resolved!

Turns out that my "first" online sale was a fraud. I can't believe that I didn't realize it until a few days ago. Now I know what to look for, but this was a lucky discovery.

I noticed that the shipping address was in France. I looked more into the customer and order, just out of curiosity. Their billing address which was supposedly in Tennessee turned out to be a fake address. The name that was used wasn't suspicious, well, that is until I was suspicious. I realized that their last "name" was part of my company's name, spelled backward. I just thought it was a foreign name at first... Ha. Then I found their email address... my company's name spelled exactly backward. Sooo I cancelled it and refunded it as quickly as I was able. Once it was cancelled and refunded, I discovered that they attempted to use 6 different credit card numbers before getting one that worked.

I've had more sales since then and they're all legit! Good thing that I was equally stoked when the second order came through! Just one more story added to my life and one more thing to check off my business bucket list!
 

Ryan Wolf

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How did you get a site up in only half a week?
I didn't code it. It was, more or less, a drag and drop designer. Essentially what I was doing was arranging the site how I wanted it, connecting the payment gateway and writing all of the copy. Still a lot of work but nothing compared to coding from scratch.
 

JAJT

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How did you get a site up in only half a week?

There are some pretty amazing turn-key solutions out there. Cratejoy, shopify, wix, woocommerce, bigcommerce, etc... (I haven't used all these, just heard of them).

If they don't have what you want you can usually find a premium theme designed for one of them that is close enough to at least be worth getting started on.

Honestly, it feels like website design has gone from being the major excuse not to start to being one of the least obtrusive things to setup. Hell, even if you wanted to go "from scratch" you could just do a 99design competition for the layout and then hire it out to a web dev guy who slice it up and make it real. it would be more expensive and take longer but we aren't talking months here.
 
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Ryan Wolf

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website design has gone from being the major excuse not to start to being one of the least obtrusive things to setup.
So true! Websites are the least of my concerns regardless that I'm not very good at writing code.
 

pds

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@Ryan Wolf Congratulations! It's an amazing feeling...reading this helped remind me of my first sale. Keep the momentum going!

Without revealing the product / niche, is the subscription-based business your own product, a bundling of other people's products, or neither?
 
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Ryan Wolf

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@Ryan Wolf Congratulations! It's an amazing feeling...reading this helped remind me of my first sale. Keep the momentum going!

Without revealing the product / niche, is the subscription-based business your own product, a bundling of other people's products, or neither?
Thanks! It's an amazing feeling, getting that first sale!

All of the contents are produced by others. I just had the idea to bundle them together and make a subscription service out of it.
 

coder_for_life22

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Congrats man! I'm sure it was well earned. Seems like you put in the work and did your homework.

I love to see stories like these as well :)

Happy to see this
 

Ivan2BAlive

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Congrats on your sales @Ryan Wolf . I'm pretty sure as time goes by, you'll find even more ways to perfect your websites and sales.
 

Zedd9165

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Congratulations, stories like these always make me smile.

I'm making this NOTABLE because I get stoked when I see light bulbs go on results evolve through process.

Thank you for highlighting your process/timeline to first sale. I find that priceless. (I modified your title if you don't mind.)

That's exactly how I feel when people say their business is a hit. Happy for you.
 

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