Hi everyone!
After joining and reading a few threads, I got inspired to do a few things for my business. That made me a little late in making my intro post. Guess that’s a good thing.
My name is Vanessa. Former network engineer most recently. Spent 20+ years in IT total.
I first read TMF a few years ago. It found me after a period of reading the typical Slowlane books and being frustrated at the ideas being offered. Frankly, they weren’t designed to generate the large sums of money I wanted. Everything MJ wrote had me nodding my head in agreement.
I took what I learned and built my first business - skin tone undershirts for men of color. Let me tell you, you will never truly understand what you don’t know until you get deep in the mud. The level of market research I did was horribly insufficient. While I believe a need existed on some level, I don’t think there was enough to overcome the inertia of changing existing behavior (my current item is fine). I realized that I was in the realm of category creation, and I didn’t have the social media bandwidth to commit to that long term process.
After acknowledging my errors (paired with zero sales in the past 12 months), I shut down the store. I’m now working on a new idea. It started as a smart home design/install company, but it didn’t feel quite right. I have a specific niche to serve (50+ homeowners who want to maintain independence as they age). However, finding those needles in my area was challenging. Also, it would be a bear to scale (iterating to different locations). I started rereading TMF during this process, and it reinforced the CENTS framework. Now I’m working though ways to package the plans and parts lists, and offer that as a guided DIY system. I’m still being very deliberate about validation before getting in too deep, but I’m very inspired by the potential.
There is zero ask here. I’m just happy to be around committed entrepreneurs and learn from those who have walked the path successfully. I’m open to share more details if anyone asks.
After joining and reading a few threads, I got inspired to do a few things for my business. That made me a little late in making my intro post. Guess that’s a good thing.
My name is Vanessa. Former network engineer most recently. Spent 20+ years in IT total.
I first read TMF a few years ago. It found me after a period of reading the typical Slowlane books and being frustrated at the ideas being offered. Frankly, they weren’t designed to generate the large sums of money I wanted. Everything MJ wrote had me nodding my head in agreement.
I took what I learned and built my first business - skin tone undershirts for men of color. Let me tell you, you will never truly understand what you don’t know until you get deep in the mud. The level of market research I did was horribly insufficient. While I believe a need existed on some level, I don’t think there was enough to overcome the inertia of changing existing behavior (my current item is fine). I realized that I was in the realm of category creation, and I didn’t have the social media bandwidth to commit to that long term process.
After acknowledging my errors (paired with zero sales in the past 12 months), I shut down the store. I’m now working on a new idea. It started as a smart home design/install company, but it didn’t feel quite right. I have a specific niche to serve (50+ homeowners who want to maintain independence as they age). However, finding those needles in my area was challenging. Also, it would be a bear to scale (iterating to different locations). I started rereading TMF during this process, and it reinforced the CENTS framework. Now I’m working though ways to package the plans and parts lists, and offer that as a guided DIY system. I’m still being very deliberate about validation before getting in too deep, but I’m very inspired by the potential.
There is zero ask here. I’m just happy to be around committed entrepreneurs and learn from those who have walked the path successfully. I’m open to share more details if anyone asks.
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