Making $5K a month by August 2015

[Mr.B]

Progress today:
-My husband adjusted prices to offer free shipping.
-I batch post-processed 20 product images.
Our store should be looking slightly better once the images are uploaded.

You can do better than this. This is pseudo progress. How long does it take to adjust prices? Surely that's not more than an hours work?

Is a 'slightly better' looking store going to make any real difference? Since you are so short on time you need to focus on the stuff that really matters.

I feel confident that we will "live another day" and just keep going despite the crap-tons of debt and the lack of income for several months. You may ask yourself how we are living? Acummulating additional debt every day. This has set us back more than enough times, but we try not to let it get to us.

Hopefully we will both be updating as we progress... If we make one more sale, I feel like that would boost our energy levels sky-high. Fuel for entrepreneurs, right?

This concerns me. You're building a business on a foundation of sand...

Don't let your next sale determine your energy levels. Your drive has to come from somewhere else. Why are you doing this? What really matters?

You've got 10k tied up in inventory that isn't moving. How much interest have you paid to the credit card company while this inventory gets dusty? Have you considered listing some of it on Amazon or eBay to get some cash flowing? Your debt is an emergency. This isn't the time to be worrying about optimizing your prices and product images, this is the time to light a big fire under your a$$ and get some real progress happening...

If your husband is hitting snooze every morning, move the alarm clock to the other side of the room so he has to get out of bed to turn it off. Why are you up until 1am? If any of that time involves watching television or pointless internet surfing, I suspect you may be doing it wrong? Have you tried going to bed earlier? You may find that you get more done between 4am and 4.30am than you do between 9pm and 1am.

I know you have a young baby, I get that it's hard, but there are two of you there... Surely one of you can get to bed earlier so that you can crush it in the early morning? You don't need more 'controls', you need more motivation, you need more guts and you need less excuses.

All the best.

 

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[Dinho7]

First of all, I would like to 1) yet again send a big thanks to everybody that kicked our asses back in the winter, and 2) apologize for not posting an update before now. After the last update in March we got suspended on our main channel, leading to hospitalization for me due to high amounts of stress. I know it doesn't make sense, but I have been a bit paranoid and superstitious about it, not wanting to risk anything in order to keep providing for my family.

Long story short(?)...

I took about a week off after a night in the hospital. I got a complicated migraine attack that seemed like a stroke, so it was kind of scary actually. I have never called 911 (on my own behalf) before. I took a week completely off after being sent home the following day, watching Netflix and sleeping in until late while racking up debt like a true slowlaner. It was a great investment in my health and our business. Within the end of March, we were back on Amazon and sales started coming in. I soon realized that we could not just pay our bills and some of the debt, but that could be debt free very soon. My initial goal of 10 sales a day quickly rose to 30, then to 40 and 50.

The only thing that was holding us back in April and May was cash flow. We were maxed out on all our credit cards and had to wait for bi-weekly payments from Amazon and Stripe. The worst thing was that we made a deal with a Groupon-like site in another country and sold way more than expected. You get paid a month later there, so it was a huge issue for us. I had been trying to get into that site with some deals for a long time, and they kept ignoring us while our Amazon venture was dormant. THEN exactly when we needed cash to grow our Amazon business, this deal's site accepted us and required us to offer "huge" quantities to their customers.

Crazy to go from almost no sales, to having TOO many sales in such short period of time...

In May and June we managed to reduce our credit card debt and re-invested everything we could in more inventory. We had occacional days of 70+ sales, and raked in around $10k per month before taxes.

In July I started to get burned out, and with the help of a mastermind group I attend, I hired the mother of one of my best friends to do purchases and prepping for me. Not only do I get more time to focus on the business, I also get to spend more time with my family, and my stress levels have reduced dramatically.

Now we are selling around 60+ per day, with a pre-tax profit of around $13-15k a month. We are (credit card) debt free after being $35k in the red just 5 months ago. The next goal is to set aside an emergency fund of $5k and at least three months worth of savings. I never want to go back to how it was in March with no sales, tons of debt and immense stress.

Lessons learned:

• There is always time to run a business, no matter how "busy" you are. It's all about what you are willing to sacrifice in the process. (Thanks Fastlaners!)
• While being in a bad financial spot fires you up because you HAVE TO make it work, I would still recommend having some savings before you start your own venture. Many businesses take a long time to show profit, if they do it at all. For us, it took around 4-5 months from launch or 8 months since I started working on the project. We were lucky not to dry completely up before it turned around.
• Don't be too dependent on one income source. We went from selling 8-9 items a day, to basically a few sales a week, and back up to 30/day again. All because we were at mercy of a marketplace that can do whatever they want to their sellers. If you have eggs in more baskets, you have more control and less risk.
• Good habits are a must to run a successful business. My productivity is a direct result of how I start my mornings and how many bad habits I avoid during the day. I have not heard of many successful entrepreneurs that wake up at noon, eat pizza and never pick up a book.

 

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[BradJ]

-got web developer... We've been struggling with that.

I can't believe you're hiring a web developer with so few sales.

Does your site look like childish garbage? Ditch it and go to shopify and one of their free themes until you get 100k in sales.

Go to ebay. Ebays listings are chronological. You will get a lot of people viewing your listing as the expiration rolls around. No SEO needed. No PPC needed. Google listing tactics to figure out the best timing.

When you get some sales going buy some PPC traffic to your site and measure success. If your campaign is successful run with it. If not come up with a theory of why and test what you can change yourself for free. Change your targeting. Change your copy. Change your keywords.

Test test test. Don't hire some designer/developer unless you have a strong theory about why their work is going to make you more money.

Paying someone to make changes without having data + a theory of WHY a change will make you more money will only lead to empty pockets.

99% of all designers and developers I have met don't give a rip about your success as a business.

 

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[jockinbox]

 

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[Dinho7]

Time for a little update again. Things are going well for us, despite a rough month in September. We have learned a lot of lessons and keep learning every day, every week.

August was crazy. We had 2,100 sales and around $15k in net profit.
September was very bad. Sales dropped more than 50 % and we sold only right above 1,000 items.

I attribute this to a lot of reasons:
1) More competition on the items we are selling.
2) I simply took my foot off the pedal. I sent my employee to do shopping and lost my vision to see how we could grow the business. It was almost like I did not want more sales in August because I was overloaded with work and barely could keep up with the orders.
3) Change of season. We are selling mostly summer products.
4) I went on vacation for 2 weeks to see my family in Europe for the first time in 13 months

We have been working very hard in October to get sales back up. We have 1,263 sales so far this month and will end up right below 1,500.
We are transitioning and taking in more winter/all-year products, and we have 1700 items (not different SKUs) in our inventory, worth upwards of $25k.

Black Friday and Christmas is coming up. We were not in business for this season last year, so it is going to be very interesting to see how high the volume will be.

We are basically debt free and are clear about what we want going forward. This is our plan:

1) Keep going 100 % with this business until next summer. When we get back up to 2,000 sales a month, we will have around $8k savings after business expenses, taxes and personal spending is subtracted.

2) $8k x 9 months = $72k. We will spend $50k for a big down payment for a mortgage (we do not qualify for a regular loan since we had losses in 2014 and minimal income in 2013). The rest ($22k) will be used for emergency fund and working capital for new projects.

3) I am working on a business blog that I hope can lead to consulting and income from ads and affiliate marketing. I know it will take a long time to get to the point where I can monetize it, and I am prepared to pump out value for a long time. That's why I am starting it now while we still have good income from our main business.

4) Move to Barcelona, Spain - a city we both fell in love with on a short visit in 2013. At this point, we will have rental income from our first property (with no mortgage), while the tenant in the other property will be paying off the mortgage and expenses for us. We will have approximately $5k in net profit from the business with just some guidance and administrative work from the other side of the Atlantic. By then, I plan to have build a good reputation of helping struggling entrepreneurs and people who consider making the entrepreneirual leap through my own brand, and will start monetizing and turn it into our main income stream as a long-term play.

5) My wife wants to get into private labeling & FBA. I think its a great opportunity and there is a lot of money to be made with appropriate research and the right execution.

Feel free to punch holes in our plan. We are still in the planning phase and we do not know exactly what we are going to do, but it is good to have some dreams and an extra motivating factor to wake up for in the morning.

Also, if you are considering starting out with Amazon/eBay etc., please ask and I will do my best to address your questions.

 

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[FLYmk]

if I may lend some advice...SCREW the bloated ecommerce platform. Seriously, unless you have high volume and hundreds of skus, bloated ecommerce solutions are really unnecessary. I've used 7-8 platforms between myself and clients, and in almost every case, the most important thing to remember is you have to focus on user experience and marketing, period.

Remember when Yahoo Stores were the FIRST online ecommerce store that you could use to sell your products "easily" (for its time)? There were VERY few bells and whistles, and yet millions of dollars in sales. The same goes with ebay - 10 years ago there was very little functionality, and yet so many of us were Powersellers (I was one) by just focusing on selling quality products.

You mentioned considering Shopify. If Prestashop is causing you to spend more than a few hours a week to control product, information, and process a few orders...you're overspending time. The solutions you use should improve the efficiency of your process, not take away away more time.

 

[Birdie]

Any progress?

Hi xhcsurge,

It's been a while since we last updated (almost a month!). We've both been working 13 hours days or longer on the business.

First, let me back up to March: it was hell. We barely made any sales and mounting debt. It landed Dinho in the ER. The major pressure to make a living with the debt that we had taken on was too much. In the end, Dinho's health is doing better by cutting back the stress but mainly because we are past the stage of zero sales.

By the end of March, things started looking up and all the problems that we went through changed our mindset. I began taking a look into our life, tightening up our budget, cutting wants and becoming more minimalist. It was hard giving up our possessions, but as we were going through the process of cutting out the non-essentials (tablet, furniture, etc), we started feeling free. Not only did we sell stuff but also gave away a ton and threw away even more. I started feeling less overwhelmed about our finances because I knew that less stuff meant a more simpler life, where I can prioritize my family and the business because there is not much room for else.

Fast forward to now, we are making over $5K in sales (not profit, sales!, keep in mind). We are struggling with cashflow problems now because we have too many sales and run through inventory too fast. It's a problem that we are happy to have.

Basically, where we stand with the numbers is:
$27K in debt (inventory, website, other business expenses, $8k of living expenses for the months we had no sales)
So, since March we have managed to repay $3K on our debt and pay ourselves. However, we are constantly running up the credit cards to get inventory.

Obviously, this would go a lot faster if we were not paying ourselves first, but it's a decision we have made. According to our calculations, we will be able to repay most of the debt without paying interest, since most of it is 0%apr until August or January 2016.

Keep in mind that we are now selling through 5 different channels outside United States.

I wish I could go back to the beginning where we had $11k to put towards inventory. Dinho says that we would have never made it if we didn't make all those mistakes first, and I agree completely. Our plan has been liquidating slowly the inventory that we do have so that we can free up cash to put towards our best selling products.

It's been a hard and lonely road and it is far from over. I feel like we need to make a ton more mistakes to get on the road to success, and it might take a while to get there, but I am fully prepared to make the sacrifice and believe in this. It's especially hard to believe when you are nearly bankrupt and you feel the uncertainty, but I believe this road will lead us to ultimate (financial) peace and freedom later on.

 

[Dinho7]

Update:

Right after my last post in November, the Black Friday & Christmas rush started. I thought I was prepared by increasing inventory by 30 % during the month of October, but I was very, very wrong.

Sales were insane for four weeks between November 26 and December 21.

Month - Items sold - Revenue - Estimated pre-tax profit

November - 2337 - $94,500 - $14,500
December - 3207 - $132,900 - $21,000
January - 1240 - $51,200 - $6,300

Big drop in sales in January. I attribute this to a variety of factors:

• A lot of key products out of stock in the stores, which means that we were unable to offer it as well
• We were completely burned out after the Christmas rush. I ended up in the hospital last year due to stress, so I have taken the foot off the pedal so far this year. I feel it is time to step up the game again.
• Higher prices in stores = Our items offered at a higher price = Less sales
• Lack of organization in this growth period

On track for about 1,300 items sold for this month, which is a little disappointing.

We have identified a lot of new products to offer, so I am confident we can get back up to 2,000 sales in March.

Other news:

• We have hired our (previously) part-time employee on a full-time basis. Looking to onboard a college student for internship as well.
• I have hired a mentor for weekly coaching. So far working out really well - a few tips I received can reduce inventory costs by 10-15 %.
• Excited to be able to attend my first Fastlane Summit conference next week!

The goal for 2016 is to build a buffer of at least $50,000, outsource all aspects of the business after ensuring it generates $10k/mo in net profit (for us), and then move to Barcelona, Spain.

 

[Bila]

I hope you dont get a burnout working that much.

The poker part I wont even comment because its just SO stupid in your financial state.

I agree with @theag , one of you should get a day job to pay the bills.
when i started my business i worked full time ( single mother of a little one as well ) then start at 3:30 pm to work on my business, at 5:30 go pick up little one, have quality time with him, 8:00 pm work again until 11:00.
I did that for a year....crazy but doable.

 

[jockinbox]

hate to chime in so late but, hey better than never

so I got a few tips but before I get into all these tips I want to talk about something from the book, this may turn into a longish post but w/e 300th post might as well make it count

page 23
Wealth eludes most people because they are preoccupied with events while disregarding
process. Without process, there is no event. Take a moment and reread
that. Process makes millionaires, and the events you see and hear are the results of
that process. For our chef, the cooking is the process, while the meal is the event.

think about that for a second

the money is made in the process, the event is just a manifestation

if you are someone of principle, someone that goes above and beyond for everything they do, money is just going to be attracted to you
if you are someone who cuts corners, who looks for shortcuts, who tries to cheat the system, money will elude you

one person enjoys the process
the other seeks the event

I just read a thread today asking about what your 9-5 was and someone said something like

"I go to work and do just enough to not get fired. I don't even bother asking for a raise because I don't deserve it. I haven't gotten used to waking up at 5 am in x number of years"

Do you think that person is going to be successful?

ha please

you know why?

Because when the time comes for them to do their own business, they have that nasty habit built up

Why go the extra mile when no ones looking?

they slack in their own business, they wait for the day to go by, and they will fail

so what does this have to do with you?

you mentioned that you would rather play poker than take a job

now I understand there is mathematics and a way to win more often than not but does that sound like someone who's willing to put in sweat into this project?

or someone who cuts corners?

the quick fix?
the easy way out?

you know what happens to those people in business? they get killed

because when the time comes for them to provide that value to their customers, greed kicks in and they sell the customer short

Get a job to pay the bills (if you cant legally work, you and your wife switch roles. she works, you take care of the kid), sleep 2 hours less, dont go to university (both of you, because why should you?? Its useless if you want to be entrepreneur. read some books instead.), let your wife take care of your kid and work on the business every free minute of the day. You can spend time with your family when the business makes enough money so you can quit a job. We are talking about maybe 1 year max of living like this, then you should be able to quit your job if your business doesnt suck.

That's a process
2 hours a day

I'd bet on that guy 100 times before I bet on someone who wants to play it on black and risk it

think about that

-----------------------------------------------------------------
so anyways onto the tips

1) setup analytics and tracking (you probably already have this done) then run ads to landing pages and sales pages, check conversions, see if it works out

once you have something ROI positive than dump all your money into that, rinse and repeat = profit

2) free marketing, if you dont want to get a job spend 8 hours a day doing free marketing. it sounds like you guys are eating shit no offense, or maybe you don't know how to market
but here's the idea. Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest. All free. Forums, free. Go to where your customers hang out, hang out there, be an ambassador for your company

lets say you are in the makeup niche

get on instagram
go to popular IG pages for makeup companies (MAC, etc)
follow their followers
like their pics/comment
be active
build relationships

make multiple accounts

have conversations with yourself
"hey what product do you guys use for X?"
"I use xx and I liked it"
"yeah I used xx too and liked it"

get creative

get on craigslist, sell your stuff there

help people

write articles, get them published in related blogs/wikis

there is no shortage of money in the world and when you are low on money you just need to make it up in time

3) cross sell business

I'm doing something similar to this where I offer web/graphic design and marketing but its not my core business, it just gives me referrals to work off of

it sounds like you were planning on doing something similar so its def something to look into

---------------------------------------

anyways good luck to you guys, I saw you were in Miami so shoot me a PM to get together sometime

cheers,

Jock

 

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[Jam Wheel]

Sorry, maybe I missed this somewhere, but are both of you working full time on this project and no one is going to work? You are funding it through credit card debt alone?

Also, is it worth translating every product you have to hit an international market when you don't yet have a good idea of what is selling in your home market and what customers want. Why chase a new market when you haven't mastered your current one? That time could be spent better in getting your process nailed down and your most profitable products dialed in, as well as some increased sales efforts and marketing.

It sounds like you are ebaying your personal items to some degree of success, so why the reluctance to sell on ebay for your business (yes, I understand the fee issue, but some income at this stage while you build a brand is better than negative income in carrying inventory)? Or what about selling on ebay for products that are maybe loss leaders, and then directing buyers to your own website for other purchases related to that product?

I am sure someone else on here will chip in on the "half passionate" statement. You really gotta believe in what you are doing; it makes getting up early and pushing through the dips a lot easier.

 

[xhcsurge]

I don't know much about ecommerce either, but I read your story with high interest. Here's some of the stuff you said you've been working on:

Progress today:
-My husband adjusted prices to offer free shipping.
-I batch post-processed 20 product images.
Him:
-Small fixes to the site
-Research on new products (profit margins, is it worth it or not)
-Got more inventory (replenishing the things we sold).
Me:
-daydreaming about new project, I have written copy on the offer for the new service.
-got web developer... We've been struggling with that.
-learned how to update products (finally!) so now I can start translating to another language.
Him:
-added products (without using capital)
-did research for new products
-shipped an order
-updated finances
Me:
-worked on a banner to advertise.
-worked on analyzing other products- I got 5 new products, while he added 9.

Now, as I told you, I'm no expert on how to run a business like yours, but this really strikes me:

Where and when are you SELLING? You seem to just sit and tob, waiting for a wild sale to appear??!!!

Nothing is more important than getting people to your website and closing sales. It is the simple highest priority ON EVERY DAY that you run your business.

You URGENTLY need more customers and more sales, so here's what I would be doing from 8AM till 18PM EVERY DAY:

• Make hundreds of phone calls to people you know and don't know; tell them about your site and have them visit and buy it now, here, today!
• Go out in the streets and drop 4000 paper flyers per week in peoples mailboxes saying "WE HAVE A COOL NEW WEBSHOP, CHECK IT OUT". Printing flyers is cheap and more efficient than stupid banner ads that are simply hidden by everyones adblock.
• Ring random doorbells (100 per day) selling your products face to face --> Why not?? I dont know your products but I can imagine some of them are attractive if they are demonstrated
• Call everyone you know that has a facebook or twitter account, and DIRECTLY ASK THEM to post 1 tweet or fb-post about your site here and now. Just ASK THEM and they'll do it! "Hey all, a friend of mine has a crazy webshop. Visit it PLEAAAAAAAAASE". Everyone is bored on FB 24/7 and they read status updates of their so called friends!!
• Make a special effort to call friends who have >1000 followers on twitter. Give them a shareable coupon for example?

I know this means making LOCAL use of your ONLINE webshop, but sales are sales, whereever they come from.

All of this is ACTIVELY PERSUEING CONCRETE SALES, instead of simply PASSIVELY waiting for them. Jeff Bezos can passively wait. You guys CAN'T.

I would suggest splitting up. Have your husband do the SELLING, the hustling, the hunting -- 10 hours a day.
You (the wife) can be support and handle shipping etc, and make more calls in every spare minute that you have

 

[theag]

Sleep 7-8 hours.
A day job to pay the bills would mean 8 hours of work.
Commute, getting ready etc. would maybe take an hour.
Cook, clean and regular house chores could add up to an hour.
I will also study part-time in the upcoming semester where I have to go to school twice a week.
My wife will be a full-time student, which means I need to take care of the baby for several hours per day.
This would leave me with approximately 4 hours a day to be with my family, AND run the business.

Well, sounds pretty easy to me.

Get a job to pay the bills (if you cant legally work, you and your wife switch roles. she works, you take care of the kid), sleep 2 hours less, dont go to university (both of you, because why should you?? Its useless if you want to be entrepreneur. read some books instead.), let your wife take care of your kid and work on the business every free minute of the day. You can spend time with your family when the business makes enough money so you can quit a job. We are talking about maybe 1 year max of living like this, then you should be able to quit your job if your business doesnt suck.

If you cant make that sacrifice you wont be successful.

Everything else is just excuses.

So, how bad do you want it?

 

[theag]

I will work on the business from about 8 to 12

I hope you dont get a burnout working that much.

The poker part I wont even comment because its just SO stupid in your financial state.

 

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[Birdie]

Update:

Big win of the day: We got approved to sell on a restricted category on Amazon, yay What's best is it didn't take us months. We read several people took around 6 months. The process is not easy and they are VERY picky. However, now we have a great audience and it is an amazing opportunity I've previously sold on Amazon, but never on their restricted categories before.

Me:
-Working on getting us into Amazon.
-Listing more stuff on ebay at 4am. Couldn't sleep.

Dinho:
-Deposited bankroll and tested the poker "waters".
-Promoting our site on alternative places.


I want to work on translating the site so badly, but I think it's best I get some rest. I don't work very well on sleep deprivation, and Dinho has to run errands starting at 6:30am, so I need to be available for the baby in some hours.

 

[Birdie]

Update:

We just got an office! We're both so excited to finally have a space to work

We analyzed the expense, which is not over 8-10% of our profit and/or revenue margin. It has 250 sq ft and two desks. We are happy because it provides space for us to work on shipments, packages, photography, and administrative work. It is our goal to have it freestanding so that our employees can take over the business while we are not here (we want to move to Spain).

A great advantage of this office is that it is 5 minutes away driving, so my time spent paying a nanny to take care of our toddler is well-spent.

In other news, since we last posted here, we both graduated with Bachelor's in Business. We are not students anymore! Looking back at it, I think that we need our time in school to mature into being business owners, however it stings that we spent upwards of $100K to study between both of us and we still have some student loans to pay. We will not be paying those loans in full even though we can, because we think its wiser to invest that money instead.

Dinho had a great time in the Fastlane Conference, and came back all fired up

Even though I couldn't attend the conference, I am looking forward to opportunities that I might have in the future to do so. One of the reasons I didn't go was that I made a huge mistake to "work with family". There is a lot of wisdom on NOT working with family. I tried to hire my dad and stepmom and we burned $4K that we'll never get back. I'm just trying not to have negative feelings about it and let it go. Lesson learned not to a) pay salaries in advance and b) do business with family that doesn't have the right mindset for business.

I've wanted to get more experience in real estate, so we are saving up to buy another property. Meanwhile, we currently live in a one-bedroom that I'm rehabbing so that it becomes a rental property when we move out. I spent $7K redoing the 10x10 kitchen with all new plywood cabinets and quartz countertop with undermount sinks, including changing two bathroom cabinets with the same materials. We've also replaced all the appliances (fridge, stove, dishwasher, built-in microwave).

Overall, I'm really happy with the quality of the materials and the labor cost, which could have ended up at $30K if done with big box stores. It might have been too "nice" for a rental, but I learned a lot about materials and processed used. I still have tons of work to do with tiling the floors and paint, but I'm excited to learn about all this major home renovation projects and I feel that going into real estate could be good for us too.

Thank you for all your advice and kind words- they really helped us to get to where we are today.

 

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[WorldImperator]

My first question is, why are you living so expensive lifestyle?
3k USD/ month for three person seems like you are spending your money with a light hand.

Didnyou considered reducing your expenssive first?

 

[Mr.B]

I completely get it Birdie, I like my kids Christmases to be special as well, but your baby won't remember his first Christmas... nor his second or even third. That's okay though. Many of these special things we do for our kids are more for us than they are the kids! I don't think there is a problem with taking a couple of days out for Christmas, especially as a new family and as it is important to you. It all comes down to priorities. I haven't worked over Christmas this year and am not planning on getting back to my business for another day or two yet.

I did suggest listing our inventory on eBay to the husband, but he said it would be better to focus our efforts on our own website instead, where there is no 10% fee plus PayPal fee and we have higher profit margin and less competition.

I don't know your business or your profit margins, but if you are only making minimal sales at the moment and have a lot of inventory gathering dust, it may be beneficial to move some via ebay or amazon even if it means taking less profit.

I think you are "spot on" regarding going to sleep earlier and us finding a way to allow our partner to work in peace. I have been trying to go to sleep by midnight every day so I can wake up at 7 and start working at 8 before the baby wakes up around noon. The days I wake up early I get a lot done. The days I sleep in due to going to bed too late, the productivity level is embarrassing.

Just make it happen @Dinho7 - now that you know how the late nights bleed over into the next day, you know how important it is. I get it, late at night, it's calm and quite and tomorrow seems so far away, but if you commit to getting to bed a bit earlier each night, and getting up a bit earlier each day, you can increase your productivity without actually finding any more time to work. Work smarter.

The debt is relatively benign for now. It has 0 % APR until next fall, so we have not incurred any interest yet. But it is no reason to slack. We know that the debt eventually has to be paid back, and paying 22 % interest is not something that is appealing.

Glad it's interest free for now. How long have you got until that times up? Mark it on the calendar and stick the calendar above your desk. You want to be in a position where you can pay that back before you get stuck with a whole lot of interest. You don't want some credit card company sucking the life out of your business.

Hats off to you both. I love that you are creating a business together, that will support your family and help you create the life you desire. All the best.

 

[Mr.B]

Instead of spending countless of hours to translate the page and products, marketing and educating a whole new and untested market etc., she could instead take care of the baby only from noon to 4 PM so I can get a full day's work for a change (baby wakes up at 12 anyway). And instead of being worried and negative, start thinking about how we can fix the problems and make this work. It is counter-productive to keep me awake for hours in the night dwelling about our problems, when the only thing we need right now is at least one of us to wake up early to work hard and smart on the project.

@Dinho7, don't get caught up in the whole 'if only she did this then I could be successful' way of thinking. That's just bullshit.

Go and give your wife a hug and tell her how much you love her, then sit down together and figure out what your next step is...

 

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[Birdie]

We both woke up early today and worked (yay us, even on a Sunday).

I have listed several things on eBay and am working on Amazon/other sites.

We've talked about making our bills. We have enough to cover January, our problems start on February. I was worried yesterday night because the bills are due and it always stresses me out to juggle them.

We are working on a plan. We will make sales projections so we have a very clear path of what to do to get there. We'll post that later to be accountable.

It might be wise to take on a day job again, as several people have suggested. I am still unsure how it would work out to have dinho7 go back to the poker and work this business too. I'll try to chip in and I think taking some pressure off our personal bills *might* help.

With regards to expanding to another market.. I've seen the demand for the product I will be offering, but it's not bulletproof. I think I'm just going to dive head first and just try this... I'll obviously give priority to eBay/Amazon and try to move inventory ASAP.

Thanks for all your comments. Trust me, this is not a dead project. We'll keep you updated.

 

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[theag]

Getting a day job would KILL this project

Thats bullshit.

 

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[Mr.B]

Thanks for the update, I've been wondering how you were getting on.

Out profit is: $181.62

$6 a day since you started posting here? Shit.

Is this taking into account all expenses? Including taxes?

The service will help us with our research and development because we will know what consumers really want.

Wasn't this research done before you spent $10k+ on inventory?

What is this 'service'? How will it help you grow your business? Will it lead to more sales? Or just a bunch of data that will encourage you to change direction only to discover that what people say on surveys and what people do with their credit card are two different things?

I'm worried about you guys. Based on what you've shared here, I don't think this is going to end well. I really hope I'm wrong about this.

Your 4 months of living expenses... Is that in cash or available credit?

Do you have a clearly defined point at which you'll liquidate the stock you have and do something else?

If not, I think you should spend some time discussing this.

 

[theag]

What do you guys think about this additional channel at this stage?

I think groupon is a great marketing channel. I plan on getting my products on there as soon as I have my backend offers dialed in.

 

[CrocodileX]

make multiple accounts

have conversations with yourself
"hey what product do you guys use for X?"
"I use xx and I liked it"
"yeah I used xx too and liked it"

I was sold until I read that making sockpuppets to create sales was part of someone's actual advice. The amount of time spent on making multiple accounts THAT LOOK CREDIBLE (fake accounts on social networks are glaringly easy to spot because they don't have any photo history nor legit interaction) and using them to talk to yourself in hopes people will read it and just follow like lemmings and make purchases is spinning wheels in place at it's finest. It will backfire and ruin your rep, you will be labeled a SPAMMER and a SHILL.

Not even Sidewalk... that is GUTTER.

Remove the sockpuppetry and I think it was pretty decent advice.

 

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[Dinho7]

Sales are increasing and is making us feel much better about our venture.

The last days we have had 6-5-6-7 sales respectively. It is going in the right direction and we are gaining experience as of what sells, and what does not sell that well.

With 7 sales we have more than $50 a day or around $1300 per month, which is half of our budget. If we can double that number and add in some higher priced items with a bigger cut, we will very soon be able to live from this and start paying down our CC debt.

However, most sales (60-70 %) are on Amazon, and I feel like we are doing business in "someone else's backyard". We do not have control over fee increases, policy changes, or customer interaction. And for all we know people can start getting the same inventory as us and kill our slim margins.

For now, Amazon is great for cash flow and the learning experience. It does not take a long time to get inventory or fulfill the orders. This leaves plenty of times to improve our own webshops and our own brand.

Total sales: $3,038.06
Total profit: $754.38

Items sold....Revenue....Net profit
Dec 12.........397.32.......41.73
Jan 25.........734.49.......205.38
Feb 62........1906.25......442.62

Thanks for all feedback and replies so far.

 

[Dinho7]

Frustrating times!

• Amazon account still under review. We have had 82 orders in short time and only one review (positive), and therefore sparked a velocity limit flag. I have read it might take up to 45 days for some sellers to get activated again. Amazon told me to be patient and wait for buyers to leave feedback to my account. I have asked for feedback from around 50 users, but still no new comments.
  
  You would assume that they would leave a negative review or ask for a refund in case they did not receive their items, but this is not good enough for Amazon (yet) even though 99 % of orders were sent with tracking and show as "delivered". For now, we just have to wait patiently.
  
  
• The deals site that were good to us in February has been very slow to answer our requests for new deal. The woman in charge of organizing the deals has not had time to review our samples even after two weeks, and is now going on vacation for another week. So it will take around 14 days to get started again. Hopefully we can get multiple deals going then.
  
  
• I cashed out money from the poker account in the end of Februray to switch to a site with a better deal. Normally cashouts take only 24 hours, but since the amount was higher this time, they needed to go through a round of verification (passport, proof of address etc.). I am still waiting for the funds, and have lost 5 days of potential revenue this month. I really hope it will be in my account tomorrow so that I can work on my side job in the weekend.
  
  
• Received a shocking $700 claim from Enterprise. I rented a car from them via Ford while my car was being repaired. In the end the car was never repaired, and somebody scratched up the rear right side while I was parked. I have never had an at-fault accident in my life and gambled on no insurance for two days. Big mistake.

Instead of feeling defeated of all these problems that are out of our control, I know we need to keep our heads high and work even harder (and smarter), especially on our other distribution channels like @miked_d said. So many worse things could have happened, and these hurdles are just small roadblocks in a long journey.

I need to take self-criticism for not working hard enough lately. I am struggling with my sleeping pattern and my productivity drops every time I do not wake up early due to added stress, more distractions etc.

Honestly, I do not think that I can succeed without fixing my own habits. It is extremely frustrating to "know" all about good habits, miracle mornings, focus techniques and time management, without being able to put it into action.

I will try to check in here on a daily basis after waking up (goal is 7 AM). Having @theag bashing me for not being cut for entrepreneurship with his Putin avatar should be motivation enough

 

[Dinho7]

What's the road ahead? Hard to say. I feel like what we are doing - retail arbitrage - is not something sustainable. We depend too much on channels we do not have any control over, and we also depend on our distribution channels that often are hard on resellers. Right now it is a GREAT way to pay down our debt and start saving and investing some money. I work around 35-40 hours a week from home with my employee helping me (used to be 70+), and I am able to take time off when needed to be with my family. BUT... I know that this venture might be short-lived. I just want to extract as much money as I can so that I can be in good financial shape of building something more sustainable and of more value to the world.

I am considering creating a blog with my experiences as an entrepreneur in my native country, and help people fulfill their own dreams and start businesses. I have learned a TON from being five years in the US when it comes to business. Sadly, a lot of European cultures do not have the same view upon business and entrepreneurship.

This is something I can do on the side while running our current business, because I know it will take months and a lot of hard work to pump out consistent value before there will be any money coming in from ads, coaching, courses or whatever it might be.

 

[Dinho7]

Hey Chazmania, I appreciate the interest!

This is purely retail arbitrage, which is why I am not fanatically excited about this venture even though things are going very well. Low barrier to entry, little control, etc. Basically going completely most of MJ's commandments (CENTS). BUT, the money is very good and it allows us to learn, grow and save aside some cash to reach our short-term goals.

I got myself a small office space for a very good price ($275), and I have been working intensely on the administrative part to get sales back up to 2000/mo. I have a part-time employee that is assisting me in purchasing and bagging. After a slow start to November, we have now sold 1,100 items, with half of them coming the last week. Not sure if it is the Christmas season starting, or if it is because I have been working 70+ hour weeks to increase sales. Perhaps a combination of both.

I still struggle to sleep well at night. We get "massive" 15-25k payments every two weeks, but after personal bills are paid, everything goes right back into inventory to keep growing. A buffer would certainly help and I could get that by taking the foot off the pedal for 2 weeks or so. But that would come at the expense of hampered growth, and is not very smart now as Christmas is approaching.

 

[Dinho7]

I am starting this thread to become more accountable with the hours I put into my business and to reach my goal.

My goal is a very conservative estimate of how much my business could make in revenue each month.

Background:
We are two students with a small baby.
My husband is a serial entrepreneur (he's had two business ventures that were slightly profitable).
I am a graphic designer/business student.

We are $20K in debt. Our monthly budget is $3K in personal expenses for a family of 3.

We are hoping to be able to repay all loans and have a stable income by August 2015. The additional income after paying ourselves would go to real estate investing or future ventures. We have a couple other ideas that could really work.

The positives:

We have several assets.
$10K in inventory and adding
$5k invested on a website
$5K of equipment and supplies (computers, good camera, studio set-up)

The asset we are most lacking in is time.

We've luckily had our first sale, and 4 more ever since.

During the next few months, we should be advertising and promoting.

The best part about this thread is that it keeps us in line so we don't slack-off.

Progress today:
-My husband adjusted prices to offer free shipping.
-I batch post-processed 20 product images.
Our store should be looking slightly better once the images are uploaded.

I feel confident that we will "live another day" and just keep going despite the crap-tons of debt and the lack of income for several months. You may ask yourself how we are living? Acummulating additional debt every day. This has set us back more than enough times, but we try not to let it get to us.

Hopefully we will both be updating as we progress... If we make one more sale, I feel like that would boost our energy levels sky-high. Fuel for entrepreneurs, right?

Please let us know if you have any tips from working parents or about time management and stop procrastinating. My husband is trying the miracle morning but has been consistently hitting the snooze button until 9am. However, I wish I could follow on his footsteps and get on a better routine too. We go to bed late at 1am, which might be the reason why we wake up exhausted too... Any tips from parents with small babies on their first year?

We are certainly making it up as we go.

Thanks for visiting

 

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[Dinho7]

My first question is, why are you living so expensive lifestyle?
3k USD/ month for three person seems like you are spending your money with a light hand.

Didnyou considered reducing your expenssive first?

Hello WorldImperator,

Is it really expensive? Compared to my friends and people I have talked to in the same situation, $3k/mo for a couple with a baby doesn't seem much. Maybe I am wrong?

Here is a break-down of our expenses:
Condo maintenance fee + insurance/repairs $300
Car payment - $250
Car insurance - $150
Gas - $150
Cable & internet - $80
2 x Cellphone plans - $90
Electricity - $120
Groceries - $600
Baby supplies - $200
Health insurance/expenses - $100

All this equates to around $2k. Factor in things like clothing, entertainment, car repairs, contact lenses, appliances for the house, an odd restaurant visit ++ and you reach $3k in no time.

I feel like we are already living a modest life. Most of these expenses cannot be eliminated, or hardly reduced (could cut down on groceries a bit, I guess).

Please let me know what you think. Interesting to get different opinions on this.