Shoe String Startup

[Marty]

Hello All!
A year ago I started a journey to the fast lane. I decided to use real estate as my vehicle. I am not anywhere near a millionaire right now, but I have done well enough to free up my time completely. The problem with real estate (this is just for me, based on my real estate strategy) is that the more real estate I picked up, he less money I seemed to have and the more head aches I get (in the form of tenants). So, I decided to keep the houses I have for passive income (it's sadly not much) and create an ecommerce business.
This forum has given so much to me, I thought I'd chronicle my efforts. People do this a lot (or at least start out) on this forum, but I have learned from so many of them, it seemed the right way to give back. I will be as transparent as I can be (given the forum rules) and will absolutely love any advice I can get from you more experienced fast lane-ers.
So, here is a chronicle of where I am today. Again, I will try to be as specific as possible without breaking the rules about advertising.
About a month ago, my daughter asked me if she would be allowed to get a certain product. I told her I'd look into it. What I found was that that product was illegal to use in the US and really was not something that could be sent to market very well anyway. But I did notice that there seemed to be a huge demand for a product like this.
I tend to be someone who over-researches. Rather than finding out an answer, I often need to find out the reason for that answer. And sometimes, for no reason at all, I have to find a way to circumvent a "no". I have no idea why that is, but we are who we are.
Anyway, during my research I came across a product very similar to the one she asked for, except everything the other product failed to deliver on, it did. Plus it's completely legal! I then noticed that those who were selling this product (few and far between), did nothing to separate themselves and were selling it as an afterthought to some other, un-scalable service. It was baffling to me.
I did some research and decided to make a go at it.
First I found a wholesaler. I bought a very small amount of the product to use and experiment with. After I was satisfied with how it worked, I started working on a plan. This product is so new to the market that it can still be generic branded by a company (think Kleenex, Q-tip, Coke, etc.). Those brands that are also the generic name for a product consistently hold market share. So I chose a name that I believe would brand well, based on these rules:

1. It couldn't be a word or phrase. It had to be a unique name.
2. It needed to convey a benefit of the product.
3. It could be no more than two syllables. It's rare that a brand generic is more than two syllables.

I created social media sites, concentrating most on instagram, facebook and tumblr. Instagram and Tumblr because the product requires photos, Facebook because I'm most familiar with it.
I created a $25 page like ad for Facebook and had 110 likes in two days. I'm not great with social media, so this will be an area I will have to work hard at and learn to do.
Next I started talking to wholesalers.
I needed the product and a host of ancillary products. I had to convince all of them to lower their Minimum Order Quantity. I should mention now, I don't have much money to spend. Anything I get from my homes goes straight into supporting the family. So $20k for a startup is far beyond what I could ever dream of doing. Actually, $1,000 is beyond me right now. I'm not making an excuse, because I don't need one. Just trying to give some context.
What I ended up spending was $145 from my bank account now and $250 on paypal's Bill Me Later. When I received the product I started working on a website. I am not a programmer, so I used Shoppify. I gave away 10 units of my product to friends who I now will take pictures and write reviews. I worked on and opened my shop two days ago.
I am currently running an adwords campaign for $25 a day.
I haven't sold squat yet, but I've only had a total of 41 visitors.
I will keep updating as I go along. Feel free to ask me anything. Any advice I receive I would truly appreciate. I have never created or run an online store, so I'm all ears. I'm working on trying to figure out how to get backlinks (right after I figure out what a backlink is).

 

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[Determined2012]

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