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To pursue something with (potentially) more scale, or to continue project with a proven cx base?

Anything related to matters of the mind

mercenariez

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The business I am currently working on probably does not have the largest market, since it is very, very niche, but I have built a solid customer base. It just isn't currently making "fastlane" kind of money, and I'm not sure that even at its max potential (assuming all things go right/best case scenario, as DeMarco says) it would be able to.

I tried venturing into something with a potentially larger customer base (via a Kickstarter), but found myself falling into Event Idealism and disregarding Process.

I thought the Kickstarter would be a shortcut as the potential market base was larger, but it pretty much felt like I had to start at rock bottom again growing up a new customer base.

Suffice to say it didn't turn out well, barely getting to 10% goal funding. I could have gotten it to 100% via a lot of hard work, but I became unsure if I was now "spouse cheating", so I let the idea go as it would need a lot of product development and marketing to hit where I even am now with my current business, and felt it would distract me from improving my current business which still has a lot of room for improvement.

What do you do in a situation where your current business is doing well, but may not be able to reach the Fastlane at its peak? Do you keep trying to improve your current business via "Monogamy" and "Commitment", or do you attempt to venture (spouse cheating?) into new markets with higher speed limits?

This seemed to me to be a sort of unreconciled point in "TMF " vs "Unscripted ": the former seems to suggest going for opportunities with higher top speeds, whereas the latter emphasizes just starting somewhere (stop "opportunity jumping" and just commit to improving something for a long period of time) and slowly build your profits from $100/mo, to $1,000, to $10,000, etc. until you eventually hit the big numbers.

I would assume the latter method is what DeMarco would defend now, as it is a newer more developed book, but I'm not sure.

Thoughts?
 
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Kid

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Isn't getting committed at something without big upside a recipe for slowlane?
 

NMdad

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Some questions to consider:
  • Does your current business pay for itself & your living expenses?
  • How much could you realistically grow your current business--10%, 30%, 50%, 500%?
  • What % of your time does your current business take?
  • Have you considered additional ways to monetize your customers & market (e.g., upsells, cross-sells, additional products/services they might need, etc.)? There are almost always more ways to generate revenue from your market.
  • What's the size of your market?
  • How else could you reach your market (so you can capture more of it)?
Without a little more detail, it's hard to give more specific advice.
 

mercenariez

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Some questions to consider:
  • Does your current business pay for itself & your living expenses?
  • How much could you realistically grow your current business--10%, 30%, 50%, 500%?
  • What % of your time does your current business take?
  • Have you considered additional ways to monetize your customers & market (e.g., upsells, cross-sells, additional products/services they might need, etc.)? There are almost always more ways to generate revenue from your market.
  • What's the size of your market?
  • How else could you reach your market (so you can capture more of it)?
Without a little more detail, it's hard to give more specific advice.

1) Pay for itself: as in cover all of its own expenses, and profit, yes. It is young though so it’s not completely passive.

Living expenses: barely. Covers food basically. Have to live with my parents because rent is really high here. I can get a job and move out but the income would just dissipate as rent payments.

2) Realistically...maybe 2x-3x.

3) Although my business isn’t 100% passive, it doesn’t require 40 hours a week. I’d say I do roughly 10-20 of quality productive work per week.

4) I have not. This is a great point, thank you. I will start brainstorming ideas on this.

5) Right now I’ve got a customer base of ~100-200. Theoretically it could hit 1000+ but it’s really hard to say as I don’t think my main product is good enough yet to go to the greater public yet, nor is it really a thing the greater public appreciates, I think. Most of my current work has been improving the product, because I believe that if you’ve got something of tremendous value, people will come more easily. I’ve tried selling the current product as is to the more general market and they are completely more negative and closed minded than my niche customers.

6) Right now I’m 100% online but plan to do more in-person sales by renting booths at the relevant events. I have a good sales background and can sell people more easily in person than via online chat. I think I should try and do more in person networking with more relevant businesses to keep generating new leads and to pave new pathways to new customers.

I hope that gives a little more detail. Your questions sparked a lot of ideas, thank you very much NMdad.
 
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