Let's clarify...we started a business but to date have no sales. This is not what we intended or wanted.
Let's back up and start from the beginning.
I joined this group a few years ago after having read TMF (which I have subsequently read twice more) and enjoy reading the posts and replies in this forum. I appreciate people’s willingness to discuss and offer helpful recommendations. Other than my initial introduction I haven't posted up until now because I did not have a business, wasn’t taking action to start a business, and I really didn't feel like I had the experience to offer advice. I gave a copy of TMF to my oldest son with the hope that he'll benefit from it while he's still young (he's a junior in college). I have two more copies that I will give to my other two kids when I feel they’re ready for it, which will be soon.
I grew up in an environment that valued the slow lane safety of employment through a large company or the government over entrepreneurship. I ultimately felt a calling to the military, which I acted on and subsequently served over twenty years in the military. It was very rewarding and fulfilling for me and if asked I would say that I would do the exact same thing again even if I had read TMF before making the decision to serve in the military. Many military retirees capitalize on their experience by working for companies that do business with the military, or where they can leverage their leadership or technical skills. I decided to do something different by buying into a franchise because I thought it was equivalent of owning my own company while having some level of safety by buying into an established business with an established process (had not yet read TMF at this point). TMF discusses one of the mechanisms for wealth to be the creator of franchises. I was on the other side of that deal and it turned out to be a mistake because I held all the risk with limited upside potential and, as I later found out, there was little in my power to enforce the franchise agreement without substantial legal expense. So, I got out of that and, because I have a family to support, went back to what most other military veteran do; I leveraged my education and experience to get a job with a fairly large company. I work in a field that has high educational and experience barriers to entry. As a result my family and I have a comfortable life. But there's still something missing and even at 54 years old I still want to be free (to the degree that I can be) to live my life the way I want and not continue to be beholden to a large company. I also want to be an example to my children and instill the concepts of TMF through actual experience.
My kids are avid rock climbers. The sport evolved from being a niche sport and is becoming more mainstream. My kids have participated on a team and in organized competitive events at the local, regional, and divisional levels. My oldest son was good enough to make it to several national competitions. We have spent a lot of time over the past 11-years at rock climbing gyms, at climbing competitions, doing outdoor recreational climbing. My opinion is that the sport is in a growth phase, which will accelerate after the next summer Olympics.
We developed a business idea that we felt would bring benefit to rock climbers based on our understanding of the sport and the people who participate in the sport.
The initial concept was to design, manufacture and sell a product to help climbers build strength. We believe our product adds value based on customer comments for existing products and people we have talked to. We have subsequently expanded on our original idea by developing additional products, all conceptualized, designed, and manufactured by my kids and me.
This idea was conceived about 18-months ago. What have we have done in the past 18-months?
We started by sketching out a design by hand and then using Tinkercad to clean it up. We then used Fivrr to find someone to put it into SolidWorks (we eventually abandoned Fivrr and moved over to Upwork to continue this SolidWorks activity).
Once we had a design in SolidWorks we needed a prototype. We had trouble finding a company that would build a full scale prototype for a cost within our budget so we used 3-D printing to create full sized plastic pieces so that we could do fit ups with the other pieces that we built ourselves.
We went through a couple of iterations of improvements and eventually took the plunge to have three prototypes produced using actual production material. There is one component of this product that had to be bought from China (too expensive to buy similar components made in the U.S.) so after reading Walter Hays’ book on importing we ordered three samples of the component from a company on Alibaba. That worked out a lot smoother than I was expecting.
We put it all together and tested the three prototypes and made some final design changes.
We were (and still are) concerned about market appetite. While we think our idea is the greatest thing ever the truth is that there are only a couple of competitor products on the market. We actually saw indications of past products that are no longer being sold. We don’t really know how big our market potential is, but the lack of existing cut throat competition kind of indicates that either this is an undeveloped market, or maybe there isn’t as much potential as we think.
This uncertainty drove a decision to do a small production run of our components, including another small purchase from our Alibaba vendor.
We filed to create an LLC. Obtained liability insurance. We bought a couple of website names, one for the company and one for the online retail store. That may seem complicated and an unnecessary cost, but we think it gives us latitude for more future opportunities to do it this way.
We did take the time and committed money to pursuing a provisional patent on the product design. I had studied many patents and was familiar with the terminology, phrases, etc, so I wrote the necessary documents myself. We hired a patent illustrator on Upwork to create the illustrations we needed. I then hired an attorney (again via Upwork) to edit and file the provisional patent. I know that some people have the opinion that this is a waste of time and money because patent litigation to protect the patent is expensive, but this allowed us the time to continue thinking it over while continuing to develop the business.
We again used Upwork to find a graphic artist to develop a simple, but nice, company logo. We used the design to make stickers (printed by StickerMule) which we attach to the products. We took our own product photos, edited with Pixlr for the website.
We worked on and created a nice company story that ties to the product line.
We researched and decided to use Shopify to host our online store. We linked our retail store domain name to Shopify rather than use a domain name created within Shopify. The decision to use Shopify was driven by the following factors; the platform is not Amazon, it is well established, comprehensive, and simple to use. The website went live on October 1.
At this point we don’t have any intention of using Amazon. We have been using Google Ads (all directed to the online retail store) to make people aware of our product and drive traffic. We set the budget low because this is a shoe string operation at this point, but it has been efficient because we get about 25-40 visits per day and recently received a note from Shopify telling us that our website is in the top 25% for website traffic compared to other sites started at the same time as ours. I assume that’s true. We have not yet explored other sources of advertising like FaceBook, Instagram, etc
Despite the traffic we have what I believe to be significantly below average conversions and sales so we trying to figure out why that is. It could be that there really is no market for our product. It could be pricing. Our products are generally in the $150-$250 range (although anyone who participates in rock climbing knows it’s not exactly the cheapest sport in which to participate). It could be the product design. It could be website design. It could be a lack of previous buyer feedback. I’ll post a follow up once we figure that out.
In the mean time I hope forum participants found this post interesting and informative.
Let's back up and start from the beginning.
I joined this group a few years ago after having read TMF (which I have subsequently read twice more) and enjoy reading the posts and replies in this forum. I appreciate people’s willingness to discuss and offer helpful recommendations. Other than my initial introduction I haven't posted up until now because I did not have a business, wasn’t taking action to start a business, and I really didn't feel like I had the experience to offer advice. I gave a copy of TMF to my oldest son with the hope that he'll benefit from it while he's still young (he's a junior in college). I have two more copies that I will give to my other two kids when I feel they’re ready for it, which will be soon.
I grew up in an environment that valued the slow lane safety of employment through a large company or the government over entrepreneurship. I ultimately felt a calling to the military, which I acted on and subsequently served over twenty years in the military. It was very rewarding and fulfilling for me and if asked I would say that I would do the exact same thing again even if I had read TMF before making the decision to serve in the military. Many military retirees capitalize on their experience by working for companies that do business with the military, or where they can leverage their leadership or technical skills. I decided to do something different by buying into a franchise because I thought it was equivalent of owning my own company while having some level of safety by buying into an established business with an established process (had not yet read TMF at this point). TMF discusses one of the mechanisms for wealth to be the creator of franchises. I was on the other side of that deal and it turned out to be a mistake because I held all the risk with limited upside potential and, as I later found out, there was little in my power to enforce the franchise agreement without substantial legal expense. So, I got out of that and, because I have a family to support, went back to what most other military veteran do; I leveraged my education and experience to get a job with a fairly large company. I work in a field that has high educational and experience barriers to entry. As a result my family and I have a comfortable life. But there's still something missing and even at 54 years old I still want to be free (to the degree that I can be) to live my life the way I want and not continue to be beholden to a large company. I also want to be an example to my children and instill the concepts of TMF through actual experience.
My kids are avid rock climbers. The sport evolved from being a niche sport and is becoming more mainstream. My kids have participated on a team and in organized competitive events at the local, regional, and divisional levels. My oldest son was good enough to make it to several national competitions. We have spent a lot of time over the past 11-years at rock climbing gyms, at climbing competitions, doing outdoor recreational climbing. My opinion is that the sport is in a growth phase, which will accelerate after the next summer Olympics.
We developed a business idea that we felt would bring benefit to rock climbers based on our understanding of the sport and the people who participate in the sport.
The initial concept was to design, manufacture and sell a product to help climbers build strength. We believe our product adds value based on customer comments for existing products and people we have talked to. We have subsequently expanded on our original idea by developing additional products, all conceptualized, designed, and manufactured by my kids and me.
This idea was conceived about 18-months ago. What have we have done in the past 18-months?
We started by sketching out a design by hand and then using Tinkercad to clean it up. We then used Fivrr to find someone to put it into SolidWorks (we eventually abandoned Fivrr and moved over to Upwork to continue this SolidWorks activity).
Once we had a design in SolidWorks we needed a prototype. We had trouble finding a company that would build a full scale prototype for a cost within our budget so we used 3-D printing to create full sized plastic pieces so that we could do fit ups with the other pieces that we built ourselves.
We went through a couple of iterations of improvements and eventually took the plunge to have three prototypes produced using actual production material. There is one component of this product that had to be bought from China (too expensive to buy similar components made in the U.S.) so after reading Walter Hays’ book on importing we ordered three samples of the component from a company on Alibaba. That worked out a lot smoother than I was expecting.
We put it all together and tested the three prototypes and made some final design changes.
We were (and still are) concerned about market appetite. While we think our idea is the greatest thing ever the truth is that there are only a couple of competitor products on the market. We actually saw indications of past products that are no longer being sold. We don’t really know how big our market potential is, but the lack of existing cut throat competition kind of indicates that either this is an undeveloped market, or maybe there isn’t as much potential as we think.
This uncertainty drove a decision to do a small production run of our components, including another small purchase from our Alibaba vendor.
We filed to create an LLC. Obtained liability insurance. We bought a couple of website names, one for the company and one for the online retail store. That may seem complicated and an unnecessary cost, but we think it gives us latitude for more future opportunities to do it this way.
We did take the time and committed money to pursuing a provisional patent on the product design. I had studied many patents and was familiar with the terminology, phrases, etc, so I wrote the necessary documents myself. We hired a patent illustrator on Upwork to create the illustrations we needed. I then hired an attorney (again via Upwork) to edit and file the provisional patent. I know that some people have the opinion that this is a waste of time and money because patent litigation to protect the patent is expensive, but this allowed us the time to continue thinking it over while continuing to develop the business.
We again used Upwork to find a graphic artist to develop a simple, but nice, company logo. We used the design to make stickers (printed by StickerMule) which we attach to the products. We took our own product photos, edited with Pixlr for the website.
We worked on and created a nice company story that ties to the product line.
We researched and decided to use Shopify to host our online store. We linked our retail store domain name to Shopify rather than use a domain name created within Shopify. The decision to use Shopify was driven by the following factors; the platform is not Amazon, it is well established, comprehensive, and simple to use. The website went live on October 1.
At this point we don’t have any intention of using Amazon. We have been using Google Ads (all directed to the online retail store) to make people aware of our product and drive traffic. We set the budget low because this is a shoe string operation at this point, but it has been efficient because we get about 25-40 visits per day and recently received a note from Shopify telling us that our website is in the top 25% for website traffic compared to other sites started at the same time as ours. I assume that’s true. We have not yet explored other sources of advertising like FaceBook, Instagram, etc
Despite the traffic we have what I believe to be significantly below average conversions and sales so we trying to figure out why that is. It could be that there really is no market for our product. It could be pricing. Our products are generally in the $150-$250 range (although anyone who participates in rock climbing knows it’s not exactly the cheapest sport in which to participate). It could be the product design. It could be website design. It could be a lack of previous buyer feedback. I’ll post a follow up once we figure that out.
In the mean time I hope forum participants found this post interesting and informative.
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, no market research?
