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I often find people discussing about 2 popular questions on this forum!
Though I firmly believe that none of the products can survive the market without providing value / solving a problem of the user, these two questions are poor starting points, in my humble opinion, if one wants to start a business/enterprise!
Why?
If I start with the thought process -> “What problem do I solve?” … it throws me on a journey to “find” problems … and then it initiates an infinite loop:
To figure out a problem in a given industry, that matters, you Must have experience in that industry to begin with!
To solve the given problem, you need the specific skills required to develop that solution into a product and then sell it at the most suitable price point.
In addition to this, you would also need to have the understanding to process the fact that some people would have tried to solve the problem in the past and you will need the research capability to figure out where did they go wrong?
If I follow that mindset, it's too draining, especially if I think from a raw, first-time entrepreneur POV.
So?
What am I here for? To cuss this mindset? F*ck NO!
The purpose of this thread is to put forward a different mindset, in the hope, it would help someone, with a hunger for fast money!
Mindset:
“What can I sell?”
“Sales” as a starting point, usually weeds away the wannabe entrepreneurs!
If you went smoothly through the first filter, then you have a catalog of literally infinite products that humans buy every day.
But, wait, before you make a sale, you need a product!
Now you scan all the potential hot-selling cakes with these 3 filters:
Then you will stop looking for problems to solve (because others have solved these for you and that’s why they have sales) and start looking for the gap in the competition with exceptional margins to exploit!
I think it's getting a bit complicated, and an example, a true incident, would help you understand a bit better, whatever assumptions I claim!
In the year 2008, I was laid off for 6 months from my job - Thank you Americans for the Lehman Crisis! And I was looking for something I could sell as the job market had evaporated in the flash of flashes. I was also searching for a mobile stand, the cheapest one, that would do the job for a 3rd world freshly graduated engineer and I found a wooden one, simplest and “my problem solving”, listed at $2.99 ← lowest available price on eBay.mycountry and also on freshly launched Amazon.mycountry!
It was a simple rectangular piece of wood, with just a slot cut out, polished, laser engraved, and coated with matte varnish!
F*ck! I can make one for free!
Holy F*ck! I can make 100s for less than a dollar!
I did smell money like a hungry shark can smell blood!
I didn’t sleep that night. I watched woodworking videos on YouTube till it was dawn!
The next morning, I got a big piece of lumber for free from my neighbor. Bought a wood chopper and a wood planner - both used pieces of equipment for less than $50!
My garage spewed wood dust for a whole weekend and made 200 good-looking pieces that worked like a charm!
Convinced a local photographer to click 4 good-looking pics for free and I was listed on eBay!
Zero sales for a week!
I packed some 100 pieces in a cardboard box and drove around the city, approaching every cell phone outlet that would be willing to buy my product at $1.5 each.
Sales on 1st day = 10 pieces!
And sales grew from there.
in less than 2 months I had hired a jobless carpenter and he made some 10000 pieces from all the scrapwood that I could acquire from local door manufacturers!
The cost was 20 cents a piece. I re-listed on eBay with a strategy to be on the top 3 of “lowest price filter search results.
In the next year, I sold over 200,000 pieces till competition kicked in, and smarter people started competing with my product with molded plastic ones!
Then, I exited, with enough capital to set up my dream manufacturing unit!
I still have not found the most crucial problem that I could solve to provide value to people and therefore never built a business around it, but I have always thought about:
I have always focused on: Doing what I can, with what I have and always been building upon that.
So, this is the mindset that I started from. I hope someone might find it useful and probably find absolution like I did during the darkest days!
Cheers!
Feel free to hate me! All hatred is welcome!
- “What problem do I solve?”
- “What value can I provide?”
Though I firmly believe that none of the products can survive the market without providing value / solving a problem of the user, these two questions are poor starting points, in my humble opinion, if one wants to start a business/enterprise!
Why?
If I start with the thought process -> “What problem do I solve?” … it throws me on a journey to “find” problems … and then it initiates an infinite loop:
To figure out a problem in a given industry, that matters, you Must have experience in that industry to begin with!
To solve the given problem, you need the specific skills required to develop that solution into a product and then sell it at the most suitable price point.
In addition to this, you would also need to have the understanding to process the fact that some people would have tried to solve the problem in the past and you will need the research capability to figure out where did they go wrong?
If I follow that mindset, it's too draining, especially if I think from a raw, first-time entrepreneur POV.
So?
What am I here for? To cuss this mindset? F*ck NO!
The purpose of this thread is to put forward a different mindset, in the hope, it would help someone, with a hunger for fast money!
Mindset:
“What can I sell?”
“Sales” as a starting point, usually weeds away the wannabe entrepreneurs!
If you went smoothly through the first filter, then you have a catalog of literally infinite products that humans buy every day.
But, wait, before you make a sale, you need a product!
Now you scan all the potential hot-selling cakes with these 3 filters:
- What I can sell?
- What I can make/ Procure?
- Which product justifies 1 & 2 and leaves me at least 100% profit margin if I make/ Procure?
Then you will stop looking for problems to solve (because others have solved these for you and that’s why they have sales) and start looking for the gap in the competition with exceptional margins to exploit!
I think it's getting a bit complicated, and an example, a true incident, would help you understand a bit better, whatever assumptions I claim!
In the year 2008, I was laid off for 6 months from my job - Thank you Americans for the Lehman Crisis! And I was looking for something I could sell as the job market had evaporated in the flash of flashes. I was also searching for a mobile stand, the cheapest one, that would do the job for a 3rd world freshly graduated engineer and I found a wooden one, simplest and “my problem solving”, listed at $2.99 ← lowest available price on eBay.mycountry and also on freshly launched Amazon.mycountry!
It was a simple rectangular piece of wood, with just a slot cut out, polished, laser engraved, and coated with matte varnish!
F*ck! I can make one for free!
Holy F*ck! I can make 100s for less than a dollar!
I did smell money like a hungry shark can smell blood!
I didn’t sleep that night. I watched woodworking videos on YouTube till it was dawn!
The next morning, I got a big piece of lumber for free from my neighbor. Bought a wood chopper and a wood planner - both used pieces of equipment for less than $50!
My garage spewed wood dust for a whole weekend and made 200 good-looking pieces that worked like a charm!
Convinced a local photographer to click 4 good-looking pics for free and I was listed on eBay!
Zero sales for a week!
I packed some 100 pieces in a cardboard box and drove around the city, approaching every cell phone outlet that would be willing to buy my product at $1.5 each.
Sales on 1st day = 10 pieces!
And sales grew from there.
in less than 2 months I had hired a jobless carpenter and he made some 10000 pieces from all the scrapwood that I could acquire from local door manufacturers!
The cost was 20 cents a piece. I re-listed on eBay with a strategy to be on the top 3 of “lowest price filter search results.
In the next year, I sold over 200,000 pieces till competition kicked in, and smarter people started competing with my product with molded plastic ones!
Then, I exited, with enough capital to set up my dream manufacturing unit!
I still have not found the most crucial problem that I could solve to provide value to people and therefore never built a business around it, but I have always thought about:
- What Can I sell?
- Can I make it/procure it with enough margin gap?
I have always focused on: Doing what I can, with what I have and always been building upon that.
So, this is the mindset that I started from. I hope someone might find it useful and probably find absolution like I did during the darkest days!
Cheers!
Feel free to hate me! All hatred is welcome!
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