First time entrepreneur, here it goes!

[HoneyBadger]

Hey Scot,

Sorry to hear they went back on the negotiated deal. You may know but I am a software developer by profession. If you want to strike up a conversation to see if it is something that I can help with I'd love to talk. I am not really actively looking for sidework but maybe we can work something out.

 

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[Scot]

Hey Scot,

Sorry to hear they went back on the negotiated deal. You may know but I am a software developer by profession. If you want to strike up a conversation to see if it is something that I can help with I'd love to talk. I am not really actively looking for sidework but maybe we can work something out.

Thanks, PM sent.

 

[Scot]

So, it looks like we are going to fire our developer. We had renegotiated with them, offered up more money (which we don't necessarily have). They originally were going along with it, said they'd take a look at the contract and get back to us shortly.

Well, a week later they finally responded. The developer sent me a 4 page word doc, which a glossary, explaining how he didn't like our new terms. Instead of being a simple process, he turned it into a three step process, that involved trial runs and documentation at each step. The biggest flaw was not allowing us to go live with our MVP. They would allow us to test the MVP, but not to the market (which makes absolutely no sense).

At this point it's not even about the money anymore. If they'd simply have said, "ok, this is our final offer and we'll begin work immediately. Give us $xx.xx up front and $xx.xx on delivery" Probably would have considered it. However, just by their track record of taking 1 week to respond to any question or change in negotiation has already killed 1 month of our time. Lastly, we wouldn't launch until spring of next year, which would kill us. We have a big trade show in February we need to make.

So, long story short, we are currently exploring our options with other developers.

My advice to those of you who do programming and are thinking of starting a business out of Dev work. Your developement work is no different than starting any other business. Ready, fire, aim applies to you as well. Find a client, get the sale, make the client happy so you can get more clients. Our failed partnership happened because the developer, brand new to being a business with zero part clients, already had a team of 4 people (1 legal and 1 business guy, only 2 actually program) and is trying to run every last detail about business. What he forgot to do during all the bureaucracy was to actually get the sale.

So, moving onward, finding a developer who wants to work and hopefully we can still launch by December.

In the meantime we are beefing up our social media presence and working on s couple ideas to build a strong email list to help with our launch.

 

[Johnny Le]

I wish you the best of luck!!!!

 

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[Scot]

This is a lame update, but it got me excited, so I wanted to share it.

As part of our big launch we are setting up, we are going to do giveaways and advertise them through FB and IG. We will then direct people to a landing page required to register to win. This way we can collect an email list for launch.

I contacted a few major manufacturers of tools the professionals in my target business use to see if they'd be willing to help with at cost tools to help us advertise. 1 of them responded and I have a call set up with their marketing team tomorrow!


We are also talking about doing a small Indiegogo campaign. Small steps.

 

[HoneyBadger]

This is a lame update, but it got me excited, so I wanted to share it.

As part of our big launch we are setting up, we are going to do giveaways and advertise them through FB and IG. We will then direct people to a landing page required to register to win. This way we can collect an email list for launch.

I contacted a few major manufacturers of tools the professionals in my target business use to see if they'd be willing to help with at cost tools to help us advertise. 1 of them responded and I have a call set up with their marketing team tomorrow!


We are also talking about doing a small Indiegogo campaign. Small steps.

Wow man - that is not a lame update at all! Good luck.

 

[458]

No offense but i could have had a website like ratemyprofessor .com made in less than a week.. You are much better off launching with a small concept with the main feature to confirm people are even going to use what your offering. Months and months to launch is a waste of time unless your the next jet.com
http://www.ratemyprofessor.com
Goodluck

 

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[Scot]

No offense but i could have had a website like ratemyprofessor .com made in less than a week.. You are much better off launching with a small concept with the main feature to confirm people are even going to use what your offering. Months and months to launch is a waste of time unless your the next jet.com
Goodluck

I agree with you. We originally were just going to be a directory website, but shifted into a business suite for these small businesses. It will offer a lot of value on the back end to the small businesses while on the front end being a directory and search engine for this particular sector.

We originally were going to cobble our own directory together and launch that as an MVP but we pivoted early into the business sweet.

Our major hold back has just been finding a competent developer, that isn't a random guy off Upwork. That's really been the main sink of our time. Our new developer should be starting shortly and has quoted us a relatively fast launch time.

We screwed up by trying to get too complicated with our developement, so we learned that mistake, thankfully with no money lost.

 

[Scot]

Ok, it's been a big since my last update, so here it is.

We signed our contract with our developer yesterday! Down payment has been made and all systems are go. We're scheduling a call to go in depth into the framework of the site.

So this marks the moment where everything goes into full production mode.

Update on the manufacturer that contacted us. I got a call back from their director of sales last week. He was very supportive of our launch and is DONATING 4 top of the line tools to help us launch! These tools normally cost around $80 each, so these will definitely help boost our ads as lead magnets!

We also have decided to start a second piece for our marketing campaign. Thanks to @Andy Black (question about how to target both sides of the market) and @Hvazquez07, weve decided to produce a video/commercial. I have an INSIDERS thread on this that will go into detail. But before someone says we are spreading our focus, I'll calm your fears.

The video won't cost us a dime. My good friend will shoot and edit the video for free, we have a local business volunteering their shop (as long as we give them credit), we have a bunch of Marine buddies volunteering as actors and help. The only expense will be beer and pizza. The goal of this video is to take advantage of FB's and IG's stupid cheap PPC rates and to plant the seeds to go viral. We hope this will be a good low cost way to acquire users to our site. Since our users don't actually pay us, the ROI on most advertising methods is a huge loss.


In addition to the video, I'm getting the material for our Indiegogo campaign together. I am also prepping the ad groups for our giveaway lead magnet posts.

My parter is getting our landing pages prepped, our funnel ready, and AWeber integrated.

We are pushing for a mid December launch still. Fingers crossed we can do it.


Time to get the ball ROLLING.

 

[Scot]

Small update since the last one. Still pre-launch, but here's what we've done since the last update.

Leads
As seen in some of my other threads, we were able to do two giveaways to use as lead magnets. This turned $150 of FB ads into 445 emails for our list. This list is going to be very valuable once we start pushing our launch very soon. It will also serve as a great look alike audience.

Video
I have a progress thread for the video on the inside, but I'll share some of the progress here. The video shoot was a huge success! I couldn't have wished for a better day of shooting. In about 5 hours, we got enough footage to create a 90 second video. Our actors were all volunteers, we paid them with pizza and beer. The only cost was for our videographer, which we paid by buying him the boom microphone and monopod he needed to shoot the video with anyway. The win here was I paid for half of it with Amazon gift cards I got from work and he'll use this same equipment on future videos for us.

The video is edited and finished, minus our logo and some credits to drop in. The video will not go live until we launch our website. It will be aimed at target users that will use our site for free to find the professionals our site is a directory for. I really think this video has viral DNA. We have some hilarious scenes that were unscripted that make it very shareable. Cannot wait to see the reaction on the web.

Website
Our developer is about halfway through the project. He has done an incredible job thus far. The work he is doing for our website is beyond what I imagined. He is from Fastlane Forum, but will wait to share his name until the project is done and give him a full review on here.

He has been able to add features to the website that we did not previously and vision. We have also been able to collaborate with him to improve previous ideas that we had. This website will be state of the art ones that have done. Any feature or concept that heat of not understand, he has gone above and beyond in discovering how to make it work.

It's looking like the website will not be finished until the end of December. Which works because we are hoping to launch mid January. A December launch would have been covered up by Christmas and would probably have been a disaster. Which leads me to the next phase of our marketing.

Indiegogo campaign
One idea that my partner had was to create in Indiegogo campaign. At first I was a bit skeptical as I felt that our website wasn't really applicable to Indy gogo. But after further examination, I believe that this will be a great platform to serve as a sort of landing page to aggregate all of our marketing efforts for our launch.

We have about three different platforms we are planning to use for our launch marketing, and the Indiegogo campaign will serve as a way to bring them all together. This will allow the professionals to preregister for our service and receive reduced subscription rate in exchange for signing up for either three, six, or 12 month subscription up front.

Currently a copywriter from Fastlane Forum, whose name I will withhold until the project is finished, is working on our Indy gogo campaign. She has done an incredible job creating the campaign. We are just waiting for our script which we will use to create our explainer video which will also go on the campaign. The hope is to have our campaign live by Monday of next week. At that point we will push a lot of ad traffic to our email list that we created using our giveaways.



So that is what I have right now. We will have a 30 day campaign that should culminate with the launch of our website, hopefully in the middle of January.

 

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[Scot]

In case anyone didn't see my thread about figuring Facebook advertising, here it is.

https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/community/threads/best-way-to-target-on-facebook-ads.70865/

Some good trial and error stuff in there.

 

[Scot]

I debated whether to post this on my INSIDERS thread or on this one, but I decided this would be a good teaching moment. After all, we learn from our failures right?

I am putting this idea into medicated coma.

There are several reasons why I've come to this decision.

Firstly, my business partner was hurting the business rather than helping it. When we started the "business" together, I partnered with him because we were friends and we said we would go into business together. There really isn't more of a reason than that. He had had experience in small business before, so I thought his experience would help. Little did I know, that all of what he contributed, I could have learned here on the forum in about 30 minutes. Beyond setting up our PO Box and EIN, he contributed nothing to the business.

Always vet your business partners. I did not know this until about 6 months in, but my partner had over $15,000 in collections. He also started going through a divorce shortly after going into business together. How was I supposed to expect him to pay his half of the proposed $10,000 for the website? Answer. He didn't. To date, I've contributed $4,500 to the business and he has contributed $0.00. Excuses were made as to why he didn't make it to the bank to deposit the promised $200 per week. This isn't meant to be a venting post, but a cautionary tale. Do you need a partner? Do you REALLY need a partner? Probably not.

The business wasn't scalable. Well, it could have been down the road, but we niched ourselves out of spite. If you hadn't figured it out, our business was aimed at barbershops. Our competitors had a broad target, anyone who used appointments as part of their profession. We wanted to focus on just barbers and barber's customers. Also, we did next to nothing in the way of market research. We made excuses and pretended we did, but it should have been an obvious answer when our 2,000 plus FB group and 600+ email list had almost zero interaction or response rate. Barbers are extremely resistant to tech and in order to get the business to take hold, it would have required us to go door to door in major cities in the Southeast to sign up each individual shops. While this may work for some businesses, it wouldn't work for mine. Mostly because I know it would have been me and only me going door to door. Also, this website was meant to be something that would be mostly run online and through marketing, not a full time sales intensive process. I know I'll get some flak for this, but in the end, I do not think the work would have been worth the payoff.

Technology was our biggest road block. We really didn't know enough about the available tech to make this work. My partner kept saying he would "get on xyz problem". He didn't own a working computer. So, instead we had to outsource everything. We did, but after 6 months realized our original idea would not work without going straight to iOS and Android applications. We didn't even anticipate the cost of these apps. Quotes were between $30,000-$50,000. This was a huge violate of Control because I would have very little control over the functionality and day to day operations of the technology component.

I really do regret having to walk away from this, because the video we made definitely would have stood up with the Dollar Shave Club and Dollar Beard Club videos. But, a funny video isn't what a business is built on in this case.

I've learned a lot about what to do and what not to do.

I know now that I am capable of running my own business.

I know now that I need to understand my industry for this to work.

I've actually decided to learn to code now. I know, there's the great debate of to code or not to code. But at the end of the day, yes I could outsource my ideas, but I won't understand how it works. I want to be the master of my destiny, not a passenger.

Edit: P.s.
Huge thanks to @Andy Black @ZCP @HoneyBadger @Aimee @G-Man and @MidwestLandlord for the suggestions, support, work, and feedback. This was a great learning experience.

 

[G-Man]

I partnered with him because we were friends and we said we would go into business together.

 

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[OldFaithful]

Thanks for sharing your story on the outside, it should be a great learning opportunity for everyone. Best wishes in your next endeavor.

 

[Scot]

Thanks for sharing your story on the outside, it should be a great learning opportunity for everyone. Best wishes in your next endeavor.

Hope some people can learn from this. The biggest take away, you don't need a partner.

 

[KSR]

I don't mean to bring up an old thread but holy moly. I was getting excited FOR YOU and was seriously devastated with the ending post, but the thread has made me appreciate the process, you can't deny it's a great thing regardless of the outcome.

I'm glad you learned a lot from this venture and I feel I've learned quite a bit reading this.
I'm curious though - are you currently working on something at the moment?

 

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[Scot]

I don't mean to bring up an old thread but holy moly. I was getting excited FOR YOU and was seriously devastated with the ending post, but the thread has made me appreciate the process, you can't deny it's a great thing regardless of the outcome.

I'm glad you learned a lot from this venture and I feel I've learned quite a bit reading this.
I'm curious though - are you currently working on something at the moment?

Haha I'm glad you enjoyed it. I was excited building it, but I didn't start off with the knowledge of need to succeed at this.

I am working on something and just started a progress thread yesterday, but it's ok the inside. Maybe it's motivation to finally get that INSIDERS Sub

 

[KSR]

Haha I'm glad you enjoyed it. I was excited building it, but I didn't start off with the knowledge of need to succeed at this.

I am working on something and just started a progress thread yesterday, but it's ok the inside. Maybe it's motivation to finally get that INSIDERS Sub

What sorts of knowledge did you apply into this new business that you learned from this one?

Oh man!! That's horrible news haha. But I guess I have to, sucky thing is; I'm Australian so I'm adding an extra $30+ on top (may not seem like a lot, but with my current financials ).

There's one thing I want to learn about and that's Market research, is there anywhere you learned how to study the market? Google just doesn't like answering this question for me haha.

 

[Scot]

What sorts of knowledge did you apply into this new business that you learned from this one?

Oh man!! That's horrible news haha. But I guess I have to, sucky thing is; I'm Australian so I'm adding an extra $30+ on top (may not seem like a lot, but with my current financials ).

There's one thing I want to learn about and that's Market research, is there anywhere you learned how to study the market? Google just doesn't like answering this question for me haha.

So for this particular venture, it tied directly into my day job. It was an opportunity I noticed from talking to clients. I am applying the science and clinical experience to a product that normally doesn't take those things into account.

As far as market research, I used Facebook groups for that. The customers of my products rely a lot on "support groups" or "lifestyle groups". I joined the groups and just added to comments. After a while I approached the admin and asked if I could post a survey on what products the community wanted. Because the community has a scarcity of products, they were more than happy to help.

So for me, the market research was knowing where the customers hung out and talking to them.

If you can't find out the market via google, what does you ideal customer look like? Where do they hang out? A bar, a car show, a forum, Facebook groups, trade shows? Find out where they are and talk to them!

I'm lucky with this new venture because my customers conveniently group themselves into Facebook groups. But if they didn't I'd have to go find them and just talk to them. In the words of @Andy Black "Spend your money on diesel and coffee"

Also, as for the INSIDERS Sub, I struggled with the idea of paying for it initially. On the first day I gained enough knowledge it paid for itself.

 

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[KSR]

So for this particular venture, it tied directly into my day job. It was an opportunity I noticed from talking to clients. I am applying the science and clinical experience to a product that normally doesn't take those things into account.

As far as market research, I used Facebook groups for that. The customers of my products rely a lot on "support groups" or "lifestyle groups". I joined the groups and just added to comments. After a while I approached the admin and asked if I could post a survey on what products the community wanted. Because the community has a scarcity of products, they were more than happy to help.

So for me, the market research was knowing where the customers hung out and talking to them.

If you can't find out the market via google, what does you ideal customer look like? Where do they hang out? A bar, a car show, a forum, Facebook groups, trade shows? Find out where they are and talk to them!

I'm lucky with this new venture because my customers conveniently group themselves into Facebook groups. But if they didn't I'd have to go find them and just talk to them. In the words of @Andy Black "Spend your money on diesel and coffee"

Also, as for the INSIDERS Sub, I struggled with the idea of paying for it initially. On the first day I gained enough knowledge it paid for itself.

Wow! Thanks a heap for your reply man. Absolute legend, so much so that I think in a couple of weeks I'll have to buy an INSIDERS sub (hopefully I'll have my funds sorted by then, rough week).

So basically I should find places where my target market hangs out, earn trust and analyze their comments/threads. Eventually you can ask more direct questions but you don't want to seem like you're not there to contribute, only to gain.

How's this new business looking for you?

 

[Scot]

Wow! Thanks a heap for your reply man. Absolute legend, so much so that I think in a couple of weeks I'll have to buy an INSIDERS sub (hopefully I'll have my funds sorted by then, rough week).

So basically I should find places where my target market hangs out, earn trust and analyze their comments/threads. Eventually you can ask more direct questions but you don't want to seem like you're not there to contribute, only to gain.

How's this new business looking for you?

Just talk to them without the appearance you're trying to sell them something. Definitely read that thread I posted by Andy.

Business hasn't gone anywhere yet. I'm wrapping up the research phase. In a couple days I'm going to start tinkering and develop the product. My venture requires licenses and regulations, before I sell it, but I'll wait until I have a product to sell before I do that.

 

[Andy Black]

Thought these might help you @Scot:

• www.thefastlaneforum.com/community/threads/andytalks-with-nicoknowsbest-about-goal-setting-and-moving-from-freelancer-through-agency.74019
  
• www.thefastlaneforum.com/community/threads/andytalks-with-contrarian-about-starting-his-side-hustle-in-local-lead-gen.73796

And I'm a bit worried about you deciding to get into coding. Do you think if you had a free coder then this would have worked?

If I may:

• www.thefastlaneforum.com/community/threads/stop-building-stuff.69842

[/USER]

 

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[Scot]

Thought these might help you @Scot[/USER:
[LIST]
[*][URL='https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/community/threads/andytalks-with-nicoknowsbest-about-goal-setting-and-moving-from-freelancer-through-agency.74019']www.thefastlaneforum.com/community/threads/andytalks-with-nicoknowsbest-about-goal-setting-and-moving-from-freelancer-through-agency.74019[/URL]

[*][URL='https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/community/threads/andytalks-with-contrarian-about-starting-his-side-hustle-in-local-lead-gen.73796']www.thefastlaneforum.com/community/threads/andytalks-with-contrarian-about-starting-his-side-hustle-in-local-lead-gen.73796[/URL]
[/LIST]


And I'm a bit worried about you deciding to get into coding. Do you think if you had a free coder then this would have worked?

If I may:
[LIST]
[*][URL='https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/community/threads/stop-building-stuff.69842']www.thefastlaneforum.com/community/threads/stop-building-stuff.69842[/URL]
[/LIST]

Thanks Andy. Everything in this thread is dead and burried haha

Here's my current progress thread so you know what I'm up to https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/co...cialty-food-products-for-medical-diets.73591/

I've taken a lot of your advice and implemented it this time. I've spent my money on Diesel and Coffee and talked to a lot of my customers and collaborators. I've also put hard rules on building "stuff" which is why my site only has 2 pages. However, can't avoiding "building stuff" when it comes to the actual food or else nothing to sell to customers haha

And I think I posted here about learning how to code. I never got too far with it, just didn't have the time. This new project really capitalizes on the skills and knowledge I already have.

If I had a free coder, could my last project have worked? If I didn't have a partner, it may have worked. But I'd have to have started everything over from scratch and actually start this the right way.

 

[mike24601]

Sorry to see your last project didn't work out. Still, the value you passed on to everyone else by sharing your experience is incalculable. I've always had big dreams about starting various businesses with a close friend of mine. We've gone over several cool ideas, but he is a lazy shit and would put me in the poorhouse within six months, guaranteed, so nowadays I just smile and keep those dreams in the sky, where they belong. Now I know for sure that when I go into business, it will have to be by myself. I'm looking forward to seeing how your next venture pans out!

 

[Roli]

When we started the "business" together, I partnered with him because we were friends and we said we would go into business together.

I made a similar mistake trying to make a documentary with a friend, when I was still in that industry; he ended up ringing me and screaming at me down the phone as if he was Harvey Weinstein, and not a plumber which is what he was/is. I learned then the same valuable lesson you did.

I think Biggie Smalls best summed it up in The 10 Crack Commandments

Rule Number 7, keep your Family and business completely sep-a-rated

Coz money and family don't mix

like 2 dicks and no chick

now you're in serious shit....

 

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[Scot]

Sorry to see your last project didn't work out. Still, the value you passed on to everyone else by sharing your experience is incalculable. I've always had big dreams about starting various businesses with a close friend of mine. We've gone over several cool ideas, but he is a lazy shit and would put me in the poorhouse within six months, guaranteed, so nowadays I just smile and keep those dreams in the sky, where they belong. Now I know for sure that when I go into business, it will have to be by myself. I'm looking forward to seeing how your next venture pans out!

It was the best $5,000 business training I could have asked for!

Check my INSIDERS thread in the post above yours if you want to see where I'm at with my current project.

 

[FinnVenture]

WOW! That was a thrill to follow as I binged your amazing journey in 30-45 mins. Thanks for sharing the journey and for passing the knowledge. I was impressed by how you were able to pump out progress and updates in such a short amount of time. How did you knock out so many tasks consistently within a 1-2 month period?

A weird question but how do you differentiate a partnership compared to bringing on someone onto your team? For example, instead of partnering up with your partner, are you able to stay full owner and have him join your team for some specific purpose?

 

[Scot]

WOW! That was a thrill to follow as I binged your amazing journey in 30-45 mins. Thanks for sharing the journey and for passing the knowledge.

Oh jeez, why did you have to dig up this thread out of all of my threads? Haha. Honestly, this thread should serve more as a cautionary tale and a case study in exactly what NOT to do when first discovering the Fastlane.

How did you knock out so many tasks consistently within a 1-2 month period?

Because honestly, we didn't actually accomplish anything. It doesn't take much effort to put together a crap website on the fly. The only real things we (Mostly I) accomplished were....

• Create horrible website that should have only been a landing page
• Post a bunch of barber memes on facebook
• Draw a white board wireframe of the app
• Annoy a bunch of software developers who should have been paid more
• Make a really cool video

Honestly, the only thing I wish that had succeeded from this business was the video we made, because it was hilarious and fun to make.

A weird question but how do you differentiate a partnership compared to bringing on someone onto your team?

It really depends on the expectations and when they come into the business. Are they a cofounder or an employee?

The way we started this project (I hate calling this a business), was we both agreed to go in 50/50 on time and money. However, as you've read, that never actually happened. My suggestions for this are to have some sort of provisions on equity earnout vs just straight 50/50. Example, "Both founders will start with 10% equity each with 80% belonging to the option pool. Founders will gain x% of equity when meeting certain bench marks by set time deadlines."

Also, founders should be counterparts. If I'm the sales guy, he should be the technical guy, this Woz and Jobs. We were both sales guys...

An employee is some you pay with a set task to accomplish. Sure, they may take initiative to build things, but don't expect that from them. Employees won't inherently have the interest in the business at heart. If you want someone who's going to live, eat, and breath your business and put everything they have into growing it, it rarely will be an employee, but someone with a large stake in ownership.

If you want to see what real execution and building a real business vs this flop, get an INSIDERS Sub and check out the progress thread in my signature.

 

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