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Hungry Hungarian brothers :)

Attila77

New Contributor
User Power
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115%
Dec 8, 2018
13
15
Hi Dear Entrepreneur Friends,

Thanks much for having me in these fantastic forum!

A little introduction of myself. I am Attila, from Hungary. I have been doing my fastlane business since 2014-2015.
It's about selling food supplements online. I am doing this with my twinbrotherm only in our small country... And anyway it's been doing great.

Let me help you a bit, what has worked for us in the business. These are a few aspects which really helped to get here where we are now. I won't say this is the only way to succeed. But these ones really worked for us.

So here they are:

1. Having a strong purpose
Why did we decide to start something? Why should we sacrifice all our afternoons and evenings for months and years? Why should we start something besides our normal job that pays well? Why should we risk to be ridicioluls if our business won't work?
To risk all of these you have to be a strong purpose. This way you won't quit on the first obstacle.

My purpose was: I wanted freedom. I did not want to work for anybody else. I wanted to show the world I can do it. I accepted to work hard for my business for a few years. But after these years I can have more freedom to enjoy.

2. Having a partner
I am lucky as I have a twin brother. Basically we build our business from zero to the current 800K profit / year.
Pretty sure I couldn't get so far by myself only. However I know this can be really hard one to find someone with same goals, same dedication, and same vision. I am just saying this makes things easier. If I felt down a bit, he could help in and vice versa. It's also very helpful to share my thoughts, ideas and doubts during the process.

3. Using proper filters
In 2012-2013 we had many business ideas. What should we do, how to pick the best one(s) to start with?

I used some of these filters for selecting the best:
- Is there a huge need for this?
We have used Google Adwords keyword planner, Market Samurai and other SW tools for analyzing keywords in the different business niches. We looked for keywords of certain problems, pain points and purchasing intent

- Evergreen topics
We were looking for solutions for certain problems which considered to be "evergreen". It's a good one actually, so you can plan for the long term. It also helps establishing a long-term brand of your product.

- Relatively "small" sized physical products or electronic/sw products
These won't require too much storage space, logistics, handling, etc.

- Operating the business must not require "high skills" in order to be outsourced it easily
So we could find 1-2 colleagues who can actually operate it, while I could work on building and developing the business.
Regarding our colleagues the most important aspects were the following: honesty, integrity, flexibility, indenpendence and willing to work. We did not care too much their professional background, they could study everything if they have the right mentality.

We had some more filters, if you are interested I can share those too...

4. Listening carefully to customers.

How can we do better? What is missing? Talking to real customers in person. Listening to them. Let them talk for an hour if they wish to! I know there's tons of other things to do. But we did not save time on this. Never. You should do it too. You'll get so much valuable information. And then you can build all of these into your business.

5. Being exceptionally exhaustive
Willing to work, no matter about the circumstances... This one was definitely worked for us. And I mean not just working on the fancy things... We just simply put more effort into boring and repetitive tasks which needed to be done. For example: analyzing the needs, keywords, competition, market, etc. Always asked from ourselves: how can we do better than this?
With this method we simply outpaced the competition and became market leaders in our certain niche. Not immediately of course, but within 3-4 years.


I have a few more basic principles, but I just realized how much text I wrote...
Anyway, I hope you can use some of these.

Good luck to all of you!

PS: are there any more hungry Hungarians here? :)
 
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NMdad

Gold Contributor
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Aug 6, 2017
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Well done!

To generate that much profit/year, it sounds like you've done some solid customer discovery & executed on all the qualitative detail your customers told you.
 

Johny Ero

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Mar 31, 2019
3
4
Hay guys! Greetings from Croatia! I see that same thing put me in this forum alongside with you. Nice accomplish, 800k in one year man! Good luck neighbors, wish you best!
 
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Attila77

New Contributor
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
115%
Dec 8, 2018
13
15
Welcome to the forum, and thanks for sharing your process. 800K profit / year is pretty incredible for such a short period of time.
Thanks much for your kind words man!

I also realized it's hard to stay on the top, as everyone wants to pass us.
This keeps us fighting even stronger.
 

Attila77

New Contributor
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
115%
Dec 8, 2018
13
15
Hay guys! Greetings from Croatia! I see that same thing put me in this forum alongside with you. Nice accomplish, 800k in one year man! Good luck neighbors, wish you best!
Thanks man it's nice to have a Croatian guy here with us too!

Let me tell you, Croatia is amazing country!
 

Siddhartha

Pleasure Operator
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Mar 30, 2019
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800k is completely fantastic; Is the company mostly automated process wise, or does it still involve a lot of day-to-day effort from you and your brother? I can imagine customer service and supply chain management would eat most of your time.
 
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Attila77

New Contributor
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
115%
Dec 8, 2018
13
15
800k is completely fantastic; Is the company mostly automated process wise, or does it still involve a lot of day-to-day effort from you and your brother? I can imagine customer service and supply chain management would eat most of your time.
Thanks much!

Let me tell you how it works in our case:
There are 3 ways of income:
- new customers
- returning customers
- existing vendors

First 2 are automated.
We get new customers through quality blog posts. They find us through Google.

Then we heavily rely on our existing customers. Reaching out them is automated through email marketing series. We have introduced a loyalty program 2 years ago.

We have segmented our customer base to 7 different segments and sending different email series according this. It’s an automated end of day procedure to update customers with their segments. These are: subscribers, 1st time buyers, 2nd time buyers, silver-, gold-, diamond level customers, inactive customers.

This way selling doesn’t require that much effort by now.
 

Attila77

New Contributor
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
115%
Dec 8, 2018
13
15
Well done!

To generate that much profit/year, it sounds like you've done some solid customer discovery & executed on all the qualitative detail your customers told you.
Thanks NMdad, I really appreciate your kind words.

It's an ongoing process. It's very important for us to stay humble, and listen to our customers. It doesn't matter how much the profit is. We have to remain the same honest, humble and open guys.
 

triodine

Contributor
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Read Unscripted!
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
119%
Mar 26, 2019
21
25
Hi Dear Entrepreneur Friends,

Thanks much for having me in these fantastic forum!

A little introduction of myself. I am Attila, from Hungary. I have been doing my fastlane business since 2014-2015.
It's about selling food supplements online. I am doing this with my twinbrotherm only in our small country... And anyway it's been doing great.

Let me help you a bit, what has worked for us in the business. These are a few aspects which really helped to get here where we are now. I won't say this is the only way to succeed. But these ones really worked for us.

So here they are:

1. Having a strong purpose
Why did we decide to start something? Why should we sacrifice all our afternoons and evenings for months and years? Why should we start something besides our normal job that pays well? Why should we risk to be ridicioluls if our business won't work?
To risk all of these you have to be a strong purpose. This way you won't quit on the first obstacle.

My purpose was: I wanted freedom. I did not want to work for anybody else. I wanted to show the world I can do it. I accepted to work hard for my business for a few years. But after these years I can have more freedom to enjoy.

2. Having a partner
I am lucky as I have a twin brother. Basically we build our business from zero to the current 800K profit / year.
Pretty sure I couldn't get so far by myself only. However I know this can be really hard one to find someone with same goals, same dedication, and same vision. I am just saying this makes things easier. If I felt down a bit, he could help in and vice versa. It's also very helpful to share my thoughts, ideas and doubts during the process.

3. Using proper filters
In 2012-2013 we had many business ideas. What should we do, how to pick the best one(s) to start with?

I used some of these filters for selecting the best:
- Is there a huge need for this?
We have used Google Adwords keyword planner, Market Samurai and other SW tools for analyzing keywords in the different business niches. We looked for keywords of certain problems, pain points and purchasing intent

- Evergreen topics
We were looking for solutions for certain problems which considered to be "evergreen". It's a good one actually, so you can plan for the long term. It also helps establishing a long-term brand of your product.

- Relatively "small" sized physical products or electronic/sw products
These won't require too much storage space, logistics, handling, etc.

- Operating the business must not require "high skills" in order to be outsourced it easily
So we could find 1-2 colleagues who can actually operate it, while I could work on building and developing the business.
Regarding our colleagues the most important aspects were the following: honesty, integrity, flexibility, indenpendence and willing to work. We did not care too much their professional background, they could study everything if they have the right mentality.

We had some more filters, if you are interested I can share those too...

4. Listening carefully to customers.

How can we do better? What is missing? Talking to real customers in person. Listening to them. Let them talk for an hour if they wish to! I know there's tons of other things to do. But we did not save time on this. Never. You should do it too. You'll get so much valuable information. And then you can build all of these into your business.

5. Being exceptionally exhaustive
Willing to work, no matter about the circumstances... This one was definitely worked for us. And I mean not just working on the fancy things... We just simply put more effort into boring and repetitive tasks which needed to be done. For example: analyzing the needs, keywords, competition, market, etc. Always asked from ourselves: how can we do better than this?
With this method we simply outpaced the competition and became market leaders in our certain niche. Not immediately of course, but within 3-4 years.


I have a few more basic principles, but I just realized how much text I wrote...
Anyway, I hope you can use some of these.

Good luck to all of you!

PS: are there any more hungry Hungarians here? :)
Welcome to the forum!

Would you mind sharing the other filters you used in your decision-making process? I would love to compare them with the steps I am currently going through myself.
 
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Attila77

New Contributor
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
115%
Dec 8, 2018
13
15
Welcome to the forum!

Would you mind sharing the other filters you used in your decision-making process? I would love to compare them with the steps I am currently going through myself.

Sure, these were my other filters:

- Product aspects
No matter what the product is or what solution brings to the people, it definitely must work. It has to fulfill what we promise. Or even should work better, I like it more.
It's important if we want returning customers. (see my next point too).

The product shouldn't be an everyday product. Something that can be bought everywhere. It also has to be "web-fit". Not all products good for selling on the internet. And we wanted to sell online, so we could scale the business.

Although a service-based business can be profitable, we have decided not to go for something like that. (I mean like consulting, coaching, etc.) Even if you hire people to do the service for you, you have to manage those people. If you want to grow your business, you need to work more, or you need more people to work for you. Then you have to manage them, and eventually you will work more.... We did not want that.

Branding. First we started with reselling other products. Later (after 1-1,5 year), when we had some basic market knowledge in this field, that was the time we started our brand. But it was important to have the possibility of having our brand line in our mind from the beginning. If you establish your own brand later on, then you will have the chance to have vendors, resellers, channel partners later on...

- Returning customers possibility
Very important one. We did not want a product which is a "one shot for one person". It's much better with "20 shots for one person". Much easier to sell the same thing to the same person once again, than convince everyday new prospect to buy...

- Core business aspects inside
The most important aspects which your business relies on should be kept in-house.
We decided to write the BEST possible blog posts around our niche. This was the No 1. way to get new customers in the beginning. So I wanted to keep this inside.


I will never say you have to have ALL of these to start a business. If you look ideas through these filters, you will easily say: Oh I am missing this filter.... So I have to look for another idea... And another... And you will end up doing nothing.

The most important aspect is the NEED.
You have to provide something that people want. And do a little better then others.

I hope I did help a little...
 

Ben Milan

New Contributor
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
150%
Feb 19, 2019
4
6
France
Welcome to the forum and congrats from France! Do you plan to extend your business to others countries in Europe?
 

triodine

Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
119%
Mar 26, 2019
21
25
Sure, these were my other filters:

- Product aspects
No matter what the product is or what solution brings to the people, it definitely must work. It has to fulfill what we promise. Or even should work better, I like it more.
It's important if we want returning customers. (see my next point too).

The product shouldn't be an everyday product. Something that can be bought everywhere. It also has to be "web-fit". Not all products good for selling on the internet. And we wanted to sell online, so we could scale the business.

Although a service-based business can be profitable, we have decided not to go for something like that. (I mean like consulting, coaching, etc.) Even if you hire people to do the service for you, you have to manage those people. If you want to grow your business, you need to work more, or you need more people to work for you. Then you have to manage them, and eventually you will work more.... We did not want that.

Branding. First we started with reselling other products. Later (after 1-1,5 year), when we had some basic market knowledge in this field, that was the time we started our brand. But it was important to have the possibility of having our brand line in our mind from the beginning. If you establish your own brand later on, then you will have the chance to have vendors, resellers, channel partners later on...

- Returning customers possibility
Very important one. We did not want a product which is a "one shot for one person". It's much better with "20 shots for one person". Much easier to sell the same thing to the same person once again, than convince everyday new prospect to buy...

- Core business aspects inside
The most important aspects which your business relies on should be kept in-house.
We decided to write the BEST possible blog posts around our niche. This was the No 1. way to get new customers in the beginning. So I wanted to keep this inside.


I will never say you have to have ALL of these to start a business. If you look ideas through these filters, you will easily say: Oh I am missing this filter.... So I have to look for another idea... And another... And you will end up doing nothing.

The most important aspect is the NEED.
You have to provide something that people want. And do a little better then others.

I hope I did help a little...
Wow! This is all fantastic information thank you again for sharing!

I completely understand keeping some things in house. Completely understandable. I was only asking because I am currently in the process of laying out the foundations for my first business venture and I'm just trying to absorb all the knowledge/insights I as I'm setting this up.
 
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Attila77

New Contributor
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
115%
Dec 8, 2018
13
15
Welcome to the forum and congrats from France! Do you plan to extend your business to others countries in Europe?

Thank you Ben!

We haven't done it yet. But this is definitely a great way to grow.

We could do it with a reliable and enthusiastic partner in the certain country who knows the language, regulations, able to interact with customers on local language, does the marketing, invoices, delivery, etc.
 

Attila77

New Contributor
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
115%
Dec 8, 2018
13
15
Wow! This is all fantastic information thank you again for sharing!

I completely understand keeping some things in house. Completely understandable. I was only asking because I am currently in the process of laying out the foundations for my first business venture and I'm just trying to absorb all the knowledge/insights I as I'm setting this up.
You're welcome.

I am happy I could helped
 

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