I decided to stop my business last week. A business I should never even have started.
Sun Tzu— 'Every battle is won before it's ever fought.'
Sometimes the battle is lost before it is ever fought. I lost my battle well before I started trying to sell security cameras. I lost my battle when I decided to be a ‘me too’ business. I read biophase’s ecommerce thread and thought ‘If he’s doing it, I could do it.’ Started doing my research…saw that security cameras had 40,500 exact monthly searches. ‘If I could get to number 1 I’d be rich!’ Famous last words – check the similarity to: “If I can only get x percent of the xyz market, I’ll be a billionaire!!!”?
So I started the website. You can check it out if it’s still up: southerncircuits.com . Since last year June I’ve been trying to rank in google. I’ve also scrambled back and forth between doing PPC/FB Marketing and forum posting. I have made zero completed sales. One guy bought a product..but it turned out the company had just closed down, so I had to refund the order.
All in all I blew about five thousand USD trying to get this to #1 and or get some sales through FB/Adwords[and having the site made – should have just used a standard template].
When I look at it now, I violated a lot of CENTS.
Need – with the number of camera suppliers in operation, there was no excess demand to be filled. And I didn’t have an original product/service/sales process, so why would I be able to better fulfill someone’s needs than my competitors?
Entry – basically anyone that could contact drop shippers and pay for a bigcommerce store front could be in the market.
Control – I really relied on google too much in the beginning. I had to change the domain name because of a penalty I got, and getting traffic was hell. I also didn’t have control over the product itself – as evidenced by the drop shipper not having any stock because the manufacturer closed down.
I realized last week how futile it was after trying FB ads for a couple weeks. Forum posting for sales is not a viable method of business.
So I decided to stop. To stop and come up with something that satisfies a need in a market. I’ve started making calls to businesses in industries I’m interested in. Asking them about problems they have. [Following MTF’s model].
I still have some cash – thank god I didn’t run it down to zero and go out with the ship. And I might be able to salvage some more by selling the private blog network I created and the site templates to some camera retailers here in Jamaica.
There are a lot of small take-aways for my, but the big takeaway is, follow CENTS as much as possible, and avoid trying to be a ‘me too’ business.
My biggest regret is honestly the 6 months I've wasted. Money I can get back, time..not so much.
There's no time to mope around though - it's time to solve some peoples problems.
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