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- Jul 16, 2013
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So I've been dilly dallying a lot and very indecisive about making entrepreneurial decisions, because of this indecision I've decided that:
I wanted to make this progress thread to help motivate others but also hold myself accountable.
So here goes.
Action:
I'm going to start a shopify store and see if I can make my first 10 sales utilizing a budget of $500. It won't matter right now if I make a profit. My aim is to see if I can get 10 sales. This budget will be for setting up shop, getting the product and advertising.
Purpose:
Because of me deciding that this doesn't have to be based around passion or a mission, I've chosen to make the purpose behind this to learn how to drive sales to an e-commerce store using instagram and facebook ads. If I can get better at that it will be a great skill either way.
Budget:
$500
Arbitrary Goal:
10 sales of my product.
So if I get 10 sales. $500 will have earned me probably around $50.
Reasoning behind a arbitrary goal:
Everything I’m doing here is simply an experiment and Stage 1. Since I’m new to the market I don’t have all the answers so I cannot expect to make $x amount monthly yet. I don’t know how much it will cost to acquire this customer so I’ve decided that this money is an investment in learning. And if I make 0 sales that’s not great, but if I can at least make 10 sales using my own advertising it’s a win on two levels.
I will not reveal the market and product so I can keep the progress thread as scientific as possible.
I’ve heard that to make a product work you need to split the budget it in three:
I’m not following this to a tee, but I’ve decided that whatever the cost of the product is I definitely want to be able to spend equal amounts on advertising as profit earned. So if I want to earn $10 in profit, I want to find a way to leave $10 in advertising to get one customer right now because I don’t know what it will cost yet to get that customer. When I do then I can fine tune.
Generally I will test selling this product anywhere between $18-$35.
$500 Loose Budget breakdown:
I’m leaving this a little loose because I don't know exactly how much the product will cost. There’s a wide variety and I haven’t narrowed down what I’ll choose.
What I’ve done so far:
Progress to come... (Below is fluid since I don’t have every detail but I will keep adding/adjusting here as much as possible)
---
Miscellaneous:
- I will be a little more playful in fulfilling goals
- not make assumptions that everything has to be some passion or life long mission,
- and simply lower my expectations of perfection.
I wanted to make this progress thread to help motivate others but also hold myself accountable.
So here goes.
Action:
I'm going to start a shopify store and see if I can make my first 10 sales utilizing a budget of $500. It won't matter right now if I make a profit. My aim is to see if I can get 10 sales. This budget will be for setting up shop, getting the product and advertising.
Purpose:
Because of me deciding that this doesn't have to be based around passion or a mission, I've chosen to make the purpose behind this to learn how to drive sales to an e-commerce store using instagram and facebook ads. If I can get better at that it will be a great skill either way.
Budget:
$500
Arbitrary Goal:
10 sales of my product.
So if I get 10 sales. $500 will have earned me probably around $50.
Reasoning behind a arbitrary goal:
Everything I’m doing here is simply an experiment and Stage 1. Since I’m new to the market I don’t have all the answers so I cannot expect to make $x amount monthly yet. I don’t know how much it will cost to acquire this customer so I’ve decided that this money is an investment in learning. And if I make 0 sales that’s not great, but if I can at least make 10 sales using my own advertising it’s a win on two levels.
- the money loss is an investment in learning something that gave me a return that has potential to grow.
- it validates the product/market fit and I can figure things out from there going to a next phase.
I will not reveal the market and product so I can keep the progress thread as scientific as possible.
I’ve heard that to make a product work you need to split the budget it in three:
- ⅓ cost of product
- ⅓ advertising
- ⅓ profit
I’m not following this to a tee, but I’ve decided that whatever the cost of the product is I definitely want to be able to spend equal amounts on advertising as profit earned. So if I want to earn $10 in profit, I want to find a way to leave $10 in advertising to get one customer right now because I don’t know what it will cost yet to get that customer. When I do then I can fine tune.
Generally I will test selling this product anywhere between $18-$35.
$500 Loose Budget breakdown:
- $50 for Shopify and apps
- $100 for product
- $150 instagram advertising
- $200 facebook advertising
I’m leaving this a little loose because I don't know exactly how much the product will cost. There’s a wide variety and I haven’t narrowed down what I’ll choose.
What I’ve done so far:
- ✔ Loosely came up with an idea based on something I thought would be interesting. Started google searching and based on what I’ve seen I’ve refined the idea a bit so it’s more marketable to what people are already buying.
- ✔ Checked some of the related keywords on google trends to ensure some stability.
- ✔ Used free trial on ahrefs.com to explore the competitors and the competitiveness around the keywords in google. Interestingly, ahrefs says there’s low competition but a good amount of searches. Since I’ve decided to try and sell this through paid ads and not depend on organic search, this isn’t super important, but it’s good to know for the next stage if this is successful.
- ✔ Bought domain name. $20.
- ✔ Found the product on Aliexpress.
- ✔ I will test selling at $18-$35 with trying to always leave $10 for profit and $10 in advertising cpa on each sale.
Progress to come... (Below is fluid since I don’t have every detail but I will keep adding/adjusting here as much as possible)
- ✘ Decide on the amount of styles to start with and how many of each to purchase to figure out how much to spend on product.
- ✘ Setup core Shopify Store
- ✘ Install apps
- ✘ Install Analytics, remarketing and FB Pixels.
- ✘ Setup photos and copy on Shopify store
- ✘ Run first campaign.
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Miscellaneous:
- I’ve thought a lot about branding and wanting to avoid the slap on Alibaba product look. I have ideas to implement that can add some more value to the branding. I’m stuck in between these two places. So I’m going to be fluid about this and feel it out as I go. I don’t want to obsess over branding and stunt the growth and momentum. But I also don’t want the slap on Alibaba to be something to count on since it doesn’t add a lot of value. I’ve decided that to keep the momentum I will make the store itself look nice and if I have a nice photo of the product that seems good enough to sell it then I will use it. If not, I will see if I can take some photos with a photographer and brand it a little better.
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