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***Official Entrepreneurship Guys Thread*** (1 Viewer)

T

Tiger Fan

Footballguy
So I’ve wanted to start this thread for awhile now…. I’ve always been an entrepreneur at heart, and I know there are many others on FBG who are the same, so I figured this might be as good a place as any to share war stories and learn something along the way (a la the real estate thread).

My wife and I started our own business in January. This has easily been the most challenging (but fun) thing I’ve encountered. I’ve got a day job, so everything I’m putting into the business is in my own free time.

I figure the best way to go about this is for everyone to share a few lines about their business. Feel free to use mine as an example, or just write whatever comes to mind.

What: Create & Sell specialty New Orleans based Home Décor & Gifts

Where: Online and B&M stores (not our stores)

How Long: Been working on this since January 2008 & had our first sale in May

Other FBG related resources I’ve found:

Colin Dowling’ blog on startups - found very valuable
Bringing a product to market
Financing
Self Employed FBGsTo get some discussion started, here are a few things that I’ve learned along the way…some of these are probably obvious….yet important enough to repeat…..I welcome your challenges.

Things I’ve learned along the way

• If you’re not passionate about the product/service, it’s probably not a good idea to take it to market

• Soak in as much knowledge about any of your competitors as possible.

• Find a forum online that pertains to what you’re doing and get involved in the discussions

• Track down as many people familiar with the industry/product/service as possible

• Pricing. Pricing. Pricing. I’m in an industry (art/home décor) that I had extremely little knowledge about, so it was extremely hard for me to price something that I wouldn’t likely pay that money for…..but after doing my homework, I became a lot more comfortable with it. It’s a lot more difficult to increase your price than it is to decrease

• If you can, track how many hours you spend working on your business. Even though you likely aren’t paying yourself a salary, you need to know the amount of work you are performing to help price out your product/service

• Do a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis on your business, no matter how big or small. This can help you determine where you can concentrate your time.

• Don’t skimp on quality

• Track all your expenses diligently…this will come in handy for taxes, as well as reducing costs down the line

Hope this thing works

 
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:football:

I started my own company this past July. I'll share stories when I've got some free time tomorrow.

 
Thanks for the link to my blog. I'm just now getting back in to it.

Mine...

Started a website for independent distributors of board-level components to find each other. The model was a replication of some other sites that have been around and do very well. Never got off the ground due to a dysfunctional partnership (outlined in the blog in a variety of semi-veiled posts).

Now I've moved on to a distributor of board-level components with my wife and I working the office and two very-well connected partners helping rustle up customers. The sales cycle is LONG (usually about 6 months at the earliest from prospect to sale). We usually buy products for 5% of the retail value and sell them to other "brokers" at 50% of value OR buy from other brokers at 50% and sell to end-users at 80%. Very competitive business and I'm learning that without our other 2 outside partners, we'd be cooked. I'm down to my last $20 (literally) and while our business has a growing balance sheet, there is still no money for me/wife to get paid. I got fired from my day-job in June and have been doing this full-time since then. Seeing it now, there is no way we'd ever have gotten going without me here, I'm glad to have gotten fired. It has made things very tough financially since unemployment is a joke.

That said, we have three "irons in the fire" wherein 2 companies have committed a million $$$ spend annually to us and a third company ($300 million market cap) is working us in to their supply chain. In the next 3 weeks, I'll either be living in a tent or I'll have enough money to pay off all the debt I've accumulated in trying to start a business for the last 5 years.

My blog usually posts things in the form of "Lessons" that I've learned and there are many. The one I've learned right now seems to be the most important, but I can't write about it till I know the result:

"You have to be willing to risk it all to have it all. But if you believe in yourself and your structure, there isnt really all that much risk at all"

 
Abraham said:
Thanks for the link to my blog. I'm just now getting back in to it.

Mine...

Started a website for independent distributors of board-level components to find each other. The model was a replication of some other sites that have been around and do very well. Never got off the ground due to a dysfunctional partnership (outlined in the blog in a variety of semi-veiled posts).

Now I've moved on to a distributor of board-level components with my wife and I working the office and two very-well connected partners helping rustle up customers. The sales cycle is LONG (usually about 6 months at the earliest from prospect to sale). We usually buy products for 5% of the retail value and sell them to other "brokers" at 50% of value OR buy from other brokers at 50% and sell to end-users at 80%. Very competitive business and I'm learning that without our other 2 outside partners, we'd be cooked. I'm down to my last $20 (literally) and while our business has a growing balance sheet, there is still no money for me/wife to get paid. I got fired from my day-job in June and have been doing this full-time since then. Seeing it now, there is no way we'd ever have gotten going without me here, I'm glad to have gotten fired. It has made things very tough financially since unemployment is a joke.

That said, we have three "irons in the fire" wherein 2 companies have committed a million $$$ spend annually to us and a third company ($300 million market cap) is working us in to their supply chain. In the next 3 weeks, I'll either be living in a tent or I'll have enough money to pay off all the debt I've accumulated in trying to start a business for the last 5 years.

My blog usually posts things in the form of "Lessons" that I've learned and there are many. The one I've learned right now seems to be the most important, but I can't write about it till I know the result:

"You have to be willing to risk it all to have it all. But if you believe in yourself and your structure, there isnt really all that much risk at all"
Click to expand...
Wow...that's quite a story. Best of luck to you :thumbup: My day job is Supply Chain for a major corporation (I'm in a buyer role), so I know just how long and competitive everything can take. Great quote at the end

 
I don't have a ton of time right now, but wanted to jump in here quickly and come back later.

I started my business seven years ago with my buddy. We started as a software consulting company, built that up to about 45 guys and sold it off about 2.5 years ago. At the two year mark we began getting into the Small Business Innovative Research grants (DOD SBIR) and we won a couple of those. We have since won 12 grants and have built the company back up to about 30 guys. We are now building and selling products into the military, DHS, and the mining industry.

It's been crazy, hectic, fun, exciting, and stressful, and I wouldn't change a thing. Because of my business I've been able to pay off over 100K in student loan debt, pay off my house, put some money away, and actually live a life where money isn't my main concern every day. It's also given me a sense of contribution to society that I didn't have in other jobs. I absolutely love hiring people, giving bonuses and raises, and giving people great projects on which to work.

I know a lot of folks here are just getting going or are thinking about starting a business. Feel free to fire away with questions and I'll do my best to answer.

My business website is in my sig for those interested.

 
Great thread idea TF. I'll try to add if I have anything that might help. I'm passionate about the subject as I can't imagine working any other way than for yourself. There are big downsides for sure. But way more upside in my opinion.

J

 
Here's a current issue that I'm having that hopefully someone here with any retail experience can provide some guidance:

Currently I'm working with around 70 unique product lines that I need to track. I'm good with spreadsheets, but managing multiple spreadsheets is getting cumbersome, so I'm looking for a piece of software that is a one stop shop to do all of the following (or as many as possible).

Create Invoices
Track what I have in stock
Track costs per item I create
Create Labels
Create Product Catalogs
Create Various Reports – Trends, etc
Manage Customer Records
Web Interface and/or Backup – ideal (not a necessity)
Track Suppliers & Pricing
Track sales by Customer and by Piece to see your best customers and your best-selling piecesI'm pretty sure that Quickbooks can do a decent amount of this, but not sure if it can do all. But is there an affordable over the counter product out there that I'm not thinking about?

 
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QB is your best bet. It can be cumbersome, but it's powerful software. Wont do everything, but it will get close.

 
TigerFan, you could try Access. It's pretty simplistic, but if you've worked with Excel, have a copy of Office, and don't want to spend money/time learning new software, Access could work for a small operation. We still use Access for some stuff where I work, actually.

I do think QB would be the better option though, but if you're running a smaller operation, I think Access could work.

 
Steve Tasker for Prez said:
TigerFan, you could try Access. It's pretty simplistic, but if you've worked with Excel, have a copy of Office, and don't want to spend money/time learning new software, Access could work for a small operation. We still use Access for some stuff where I work, actually.

I do think QB would be the better option though, but if you're running a smaller operation, I think Access could work.
Click to expand...
Can you elaborate some more. Are there databases already set up to do this in access, or would I have to do manually create everything? Obviously I understand there will be data entry in whatever software I go with, but I would like the infrastructure to be set up already.Also...It looks like the software I just stumbled upon is a super access driver database: http://www.jewelrydesignermanager.com/craftmanager.asp

 
:lmao: Great thread idea!

What: Tourism Website Evaluation and Benchmarking

Where: our website is Tourvey.com

Who: My customers are city, state, provincial and attraction tourism marketers, looking at hotels and restaurants for 2010

How Long: Started January 1, 2008 with 3 customers; now have approximately 25; Hope for 40 by July. 1, 2009

I was doing similar projects with my day job (Professor), but was maxed out on salary, and wanted some additional freedom to conduct the research (i.e., no Internal Review Board, not confined to university servers, etc.). I have a great partner who does the IT side of the business (i.e., creates real-time reporting of our surveys via a web portal, etc.), while I manage the creation of survey questions, types of reports, and customer relations. All's great through our initial year. We had a monopoly on what we do, but now have a few small competitors. We'll be unveiling a new system on 1/1/09, which should put them a year behind again!

 
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Started my own custom cartography firm back in June 2000 (mapformation - www.mapformation.com). Started a second spin-off venture (GraphicsOptimization - www.graphicsoptimization.com) in the Summer of 2007. Honestly, I don't think I've worked under 60 hours in any given week since maybe 1990. I'm a certified workaholic...but I just love, Love, LOVE being an entrepreneur! For folks who like "insurance" and 40-hour work weeks though, self-employment is likely not for you. I love it though...every day being a new adventure and never quite knowing what is going to happen or who you're going to end up talking to.

That's the biggest lesson I've learned along the way though: if you aren't willing to go all-in with your heart, mind and soul, chances are good that you will fail. You also need to have THICK skin to deal with the rejection that comes from people who simply will not be interested in your services. I think I am doing GREAT if five cold-calls out of 100 get to the point of asking us to formally bid some jobs. That means 95 people will tell me to get lost or "thanks but no thanks." Not everyone can handle getting ignored or politely rebuffed 95% of the time...if you know what I mean. Eight years in now, I get more cold-call inquiries from interested parties than I send out! It took YEARS to get there though...along with a lot of LONG days and sleepless nights.

Great thread!

 
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Tiger Fan said:
Steve Tasker for Prez said:
TigerFan, you could try Access. It's pretty simplistic, but if you've worked with Excel, have a copy of Office, and don't want to spend money/time learning new software, Access could work for a small operation. We still use Access for some stuff where I work, actually.

I do think QB would be the better option though, but if you're running a smaller operation, I think Access could work.
Click to expand...
Can you elaborate some more. Are there databases already set up to do this in access, or would I have to do manually create everything? Obviously I understand there will be data entry in whatever software I go with, but I would like the infrastructure to be set up already.Also...It looks like the software I just stumbled upon is a super access driver database: http://www.jewelrydesignermanager.com/craftmanager.asp
Click to expand...
Well, the infrastructure wouldn't really be set-up in Access. It's really easy to make the data entry lists, and the reports are fairly straight-forward, but must all be done by hand.We use it for time sheets where I work right now. Reports and other documents are handled in a different way though.

If you're looking for something with the infrastructure already set up, Access probably isn't the way to go. I've never used QB, so I can't really speak about that though.

 
pigskinliquors said:
:thumbup: Great thread idea!

What: Tourism Website Evaluation and Benchmarking

Where: our website is Tourvey.com

Who: My customers are city, state, provincial and attraction tourism marketers, looking at hotels and restaurants for 2010

How Long: Started January 1, 2008 with 3 customers; now have approximately 25; Hope for 40 by July. 1, 2009

I was doing similar projects with my day job (Professor), but was maxed out on salary, and wanted some additional freedom to conduct the research (i.e., no Internal Review Board, not confined to university servers, etc.). I have a great partner who does the IT side of the business (i.e., creates real-time reporting of our surveys via a web portal, etc.), while I manage the creation of survey questions, types of reports, and customer relations. All's great through our initial year. We had a monopoly on what we do, but now have a few small competitors. We'll be unveiling a new system on 1/1/09, which should put them a year behind again!
Click to expand...
Very interesting :thumbup:
 
Steve Tasker for Prez said:
Tiger Fan said:
Steve Tasker for Prez said:
TigerFan, you could try Access. It's pretty simplistic, but if you've worked with Excel, have a copy of Office, and don't want to spend money/time learning new software, Access could work for a small operation. We still use Access for some stuff where I work, actually.

I do think QB would be the better option though, but if you're running a smaller operation, I think Access could work.
Click to expand...
Can you elaborate some more. Are there databases already set up to do this in access, or would I have to do manually create everything? Obviously I understand there will be data entry in whatever software I go with, but I would like the infrastructure to be set up already.Also...It looks like the software I just stumbled upon is a super access driver database: http://www.jewelrydesignermanager.com/craftmanager.asp
Click to expand...
Well, the infrastructure wouldn't really be set-up in Access. It's really easy to make the data entry lists, and the reports are fairly straight-forward, but must all be done by hand.We use it for time sheets where I work right now. Reports and other documents are handled in a different way though.

If you're looking for something with the infrastructure already set up, Access probably isn't the way to go. I've never used QB, so I can't really speak about that though.
Click to expand...
Thx
 
bosoxs45 said:
I'm thinking starting my own printing business... :blackdot:
Click to expand...
Very tough time for that business. Rising costs and cutthroat competition is weeding out the industry pretty hard. You're looking at high cost of entry... high costs to stay on the "Cutting edge"... and as a whole your industry is shrinking substantially as folks trend toward a paperless society. Our company spent $75k a year on printing when I came aboard 6 years ago. We're down to less than $10k and I have a goal to have that under $2k within 2 years.
 
Tiger Fan said:
Here's a current issue that I'm having that hopefully someone here with any retail experience can provide some guidance:

Currently I'm working with around 70 unique product lines that I need to track. I'm good with spreadsheets, but managing multiple spreadsheets is getting cumbersome, so I'm looking for a piece of software that is a one stop shop to do all of the following (or as many as possible).

Create Invoices
Track what I have in stock
Track costs per item I create
Create Labels
Create Product Catalogs
Create Various Reports – Trends, etc
Manage Customer Records
Web Interface and/or Backup – ideal (not a necessity)
Track Suppliers & Pricing
Track sales by Customer and by Piece to see your best customers and your best-selling piecesI'm pretty sure that Quickbooks can do a decent amount of this, but not sure if it can do all. But is there an affordable over the counter product out there that I'm not thinking about?
Click to expand...
There should be a version of QB which will do what you need.For anyone looking into buying QuickBooks - don't use Point of Sale, it's QB POS for a reason.

Currently I'm doing freeleance accounting & IT work - whether it's helping companies with accounting package problems & troubleshooting, doing actualy accounting work, or even installing modules & systems. I also do custom Excel & Acces work, although that's minimal. I also can do taxes, but try to avoid it.

I am not looking to have this grow into anything where people are under me - just me is fine.

 
Joe Bryant said:
Great thread idea TF. I'll try to add if I have anything that might help. I'm passionate about the subject as I can't imagine working any other way than for yourself. There are big downsides for sure. But way more upside in my opinion.J
Click to expand...
I wouldn't mind hearing the story of how FBGs got off the ground.Oh, and Joe, are you a member of the Fantasy Sports Trade Association? Blastats is trying to determine if its worthwhile to join or not. TIA.
 
[icon] said:
bosoxs45 said:
I'm thinking starting my own printing business... :rolleyes:
Click to expand...
Very tough time for that business. Rising costs and cutthroat competition is weeding out the industry pretty hard. You're looking at high cost of entry... high costs to stay on the "Cutting edge"... and as a whole your industry is shrinking substantially as folks trend toward a paperless society. Our company spent $75k a year on printing when I came aboard 6 years ago. We're down to less than $10k and I have a goal to have that under $2k within 2 years.
Click to expand...
depends on what kind of printing you are looking to get into.with a kinkos on seemingly every corner, the local mom and pop print shops are getting squeezed.Commercial printing has very high entry costs, especially depending on what type of printing/presses you want to get into. Also a lot of high volume print is getting outsourced overseas.However, this is a great time to get into digital printing, imo. Graphic arts packages can make just about anything possible and people are willing to pay someone to create stuff all the time. In years past printing things like calendars, planners, brochures, etc... was very expensive and took a long time to get done so a lot of smaller business shied away from these ventures. Nowadays, you can open a small shop and cater to these type projects, along with anything else that comes your way. You can lease a high quality digital printer for a reasonable cost, if you know anything about graphics, artwork is all profit. Sales is competitive for sure, but a lot of bigger printers are getting cut down by their high overhead. There is quite a bit of room for profit in printing if you know what you are doing.
 
[icon] said:
bosoxs45 said:
I'm thinking starting my own printing business... :blackdot:
Click to expand...
Very tough time for that business. Rising costs and cutthroat competition is weeding out the industry pretty hard. You're looking at high cost of entry... high costs to stay on the "Cutting edge"... and as a whole your industry is shrinking substantially as folks trend toward a paperless society. Our company spent $75k a year on printing when I came aboard 6 years ago. We're down to less than $10k and I have a goal to have that under $2k within 2 years.
Click to expand...
I'd echo this. I am super sensitive to never ever discourage someone from pursuing a dream. One of the driving things for me years ago was my former boss telling me I would not last 6 months trying to get Bryant Boats off the ground. Tomorrow, Bryant Boats is very thankfully celebrating it's 18th birthday. But with that said, I would be hard pressed to come up with a tougher business to make go today than a printing business. (Maybe launching a magazine which is closely tied there to printing). It's just a dying industry as people both are cutting back on printing and more importantly, learning the affordable technology that allows them to do themselves what they used to pay for.Just my .02J
 
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In.

Self employed (full time) since 2001. I'm a writer / copywriter / professional writer... whatever you want to call it. www.clear-writing.com.

Started with nothing (was fired from my last job), made a little website, and people who need me find me (I advertise on Adwords). Along the way, I wrote two books (one last year about working at home for yourself, and one coming out soon about writing copy for and marketing your website). But books pay squat (you'd be stunned at how little "non-Steven King / non-John Grisham" authors make on books) - the real business is the website.

Gotta love the internet - it makes a business like mine very feasible (where it really wasn't fifteen years ago). I literally have clients all over the world - it's almost astonishing. Me, in my little basement office, doing business with firms all over the US, England, China, etc etc... I continually marvel at that fact. (I'll bet Joe feels similar in regards to FBG's.)

Have two pieces of advice for budding entrepreneurs:

First piece of advice is nothing matters except sales. You can have all the passion, all the creativity, all the desire, and even the best business plan EVER, and it all means nothing until you make sales. In fact, I usually suggest one starts by making sales - if you want to be, say, an IT consultant, well, go out some Saturdays and do it. Don't write a business plan first - instead, go make some $$ doing what it is you want to do. If you want to sell a product, get on EBay and/or the local flea market and make some sales. Then you can write your business plan (which is actually an unecessary step, imho, unless you are looking for financing - I know very very few bootstrap entrepreneurs who did a formal business plan. I'll get around to mine someday...)

Second piece of advice is once you make a sale or three and you think you have something here, do not to skimp when it comes to advertising / marketing. Take some risk and jump in. As soon as I got my first client from my garbage website, I whipped out the credit card and paid a pro to make me a much nicer website (I could make a shoddy one myself, but not a real nice one), and also paid for a good chunk of advertising. It was risky, but it paid off big time - really got me going (had I waited until "the business could pay for it", I likely never would have succeeded.)

I cannot count the number of businesses I know of that failed because they relied on homemade flyers, garbage "free site builder" websites, won't pull out the credit card / savings and just take that plunge, etc etc. Entrepreneurs have to have some moxie - you dip your toe in, and if it feels ok, you jump. You don't keep dipping your toe in.

Love entrepreneur talk - Good luck everyone!

 
St. Louis Bob said:
bosoxs45 said:
I'm thinking starting my own printing business... :lmao:
Click to expand...
I think you would have a better chance making it as a blacksmith. Seriously.
Click to expand...
OVernightprints.com has a strong drop-ship/reseller program. If you think you can get customers, they can do all the actual printing for you on most items (except playing cards, which is something I was going to do a couple years ago) saving you enormous expenses.
 
jwb said:
In.

Self employed (full time) since 2001. I'm a writer / copywriter / professional writer... whatever you want to call it. www.clear-writing.com.

Started with nothing (was fired from my last job), made a little website, and people who need me find me (I advertise on Adwords). Along the way, I wrote two books (one last year about working at home for yourself, and one coming out soon about writing copy for and marketing your website). But books pay squat (you'd be stunned at how little "non-Steven King / non-John Grisham" authors make on books) - the real business is the website.

Gotta love the internet - it makes a business like mine very feasible (where it really wasn't fifteen years ago). I literally have clients all over the world - it's almost astonishing. Me, in my little basement office, doing business with firms all over the US, England, China, etc etc... I continually marvel at that fact. (I'll bet Joe feels similar in regards to FBG's.)

Have two pieces of advice for budding entrepreneurs:

First piece of advice is nothing matters except sales. You can have all the passion, all the creativity, all the desire, and even the best business plan EVER, and it all means nothing until you make sales. In fact, I usually suggest one starts by making sales - if you want to be, say, an IT consultant, well, go out some Saturdays and do it. Don't write a business plan first - instead, go make some $$ doing what it is you want to do. If you want to sell a product, get on EBay and/or the local flea market and make some sales. Then you can write your business plan (which is actually an unecessary step, imho, unless you are looking for financing - I know very very few bootstrap entrepreneurs who did a formal business plan. I'll get around to mine someday...)

Second piece of advice is once you make a sale or three and you think you have something here, do not to skimp when it comes to advertising / marketing. Take some risk and jump in. As soon as I got my first client from my garbage website, I whipped out the credit card and paid a pro to make me a much nicer website (I could make a shoddy one myself, but not a real nice one), and also paid for a good chunk of advertising. It was risky, but it paid off big time - really got me going (had I waited until "the business could pay for it", I likely never would have succeeded.)

I cannot count the number of businesses I know of that failed because they relied on homemade flyers, garbage "free site builder" websites, won't pull out the credit card / savings and just take that plunge, etc etc. Entrepreneurs have to have some moxie - you dip your toe in, and if it feels ok, you jump. You don't keep dipping your toe in.

Love entrepreneur talk - Good luck everyone!
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:excited: Very cool. Just stopped by your site, and I might be needing a service like this when it's all said and done
 
I've been considering starting my own consulting/design/engineering business as a side project for a while. I don't have enough of a customer base and the start-up costs can be daunting (software is pricey), but I figure I'd black-dot this thread now.

The thing is that people are often offshoring some of this work to places that don't have to pay for software licenses and engineers/designers will work for 10% of my salary.

 
Joe Bryant said:
[icon] said:
bosoxs45 said:
I'm thinking starting my own printing business... :thumbdown:
Click to expand...
Very tough time for that business. Rising costs and cutthroat competition is weeding out the industry pretty hard. You're looking at high cost of entry... high costs to stay on the "Cutting edge"... and as a whole your industry is shrinking substantially as folks trend toward a paperless society. Our company spent $75k a year on printing when I came aboard 6 years ago. We're down to less than $10k and I have a goal to have that under $2k within 2 years.
Click to expand...
I'd echo this. I am super sensitive to never ever discourage someone from pursuing a dream. One of the driving things for me years ago was my former boss telling me I would not last 6 months trying to get Bryant Boats off the ground. Tomorrow, Bryant Boats is very thankfully celebrating it's 18th birthday. But with that said, I would be hard pressed to come up with a tougher business to make go today than a printing business. (Maybe launching a magazine which is closely tied there to printing). It's just a dying industry as people both are cutting back on printing and more importantly, learning the affordable technology that allows them to do themselves what they used to pay for.Just my .02J
Click to expand...
Thanks. I am design web / graphic I have been doing this for over five years(in my mid 20s just to get an idea).I have a certific from graphic communications from my high school days.A friend and I both have some decent art skills. And we are both very familiar with Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop. We were discussing starting a business creating posters, custom art to go on automobiles, and custom license plates ect.
 
Steve Tasker for Prez said:
Nigel Incubator-Jones said:
Enjoy the ending of your businesses if Obama gets elected.
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Can we keep the political filth out of this thread? Thanks.
Click to expand...
Hmm, start a business without regard to taxes which will most certainly increase. What could go wrong?! :coffee:
 
The Z Machine said:
I've been considering starting my own consulting/design/engineering business as a side project for a while. I don't have enough of a customer base and the start-up costs can be daunting (software is pricey), but I figure I'd black-dot this thread now.The thing is that people are often offshoring some of this work to places that don't have to pay for software licenses and engineers/designers will work for 10% of my salary.
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I started a company a while ago to this same thing - same industry and skill set as you, Z. But, with the wife and kids dependent on myn income and my lack of experience, I'm not willing to jump all in. My business model was to support other guys who are doing this full time w/ overflow work - allow them to bite off more than they can chew, and eventually go all in.It hasn't gone great. I have managed a few clients, but nothing lasting. Last year I cleared about $6k doing this working from home, this year I'm on track for about $3k. i haven't pushed it aggressively - it's a tough thing to come home from work and do more work, with a stay at home wife and a baby demanding attention. I end up staying up pat midnight sometimes working, which makes daytime work suffer because I end up being late for work and tired. Plus, I recently moved to a new area, and basically I have to start all over developing a local professional network. Once I have a few more products shipping and patents under my belt and more professional contacts, I may give it another go. The major problem I've faced with this is that people doing this for a living are reluctant to give stuff up. It's very much feast or famine in this business. There are lean times and overwhelming times. When things are overwhelming, people would rather do 80+ hours themselves as needed so they can afford the lean times.One thing though when you are doing service related stuff - your income is limited by how much you put in and what you charge. The only way to make big $$, IMO, is to find a way to allow income to grow that isn't purely tied to how many hours you put in - hire people and make $$ of hours they work, develop a product you can sell, etc. I've got some ideas floundering for products, but haven't gotten around to doing anything about it.As far as offshoring - I wouldn't worry about that. People looking to work with guys like us don't want to deal with communication w/ Asia, the trust that the job will be done right, and face-to-face contact. Clients like to meet face to face to make sure designs are communicated properly. Of course, if you have a full time B&M job, that makes things tough too.
 
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jwb said:
In.

Self employed (full time) since 2001. I'm a writer / copywriter / professional writer... whatever you want to call it. www.clear-writing.com.

Started with nothing (was fired from my last job), made a little website, and people who need me find me (I advertise on Adwords). Along the way, I wrote two books (one last year about working at home for yourself, and one coming out soon about writing copy for and marketing your website). But books pay squat (you'd be stunned at how little "non-Steven King / non-John Grisham" authors make on books) - the real business is the website.

Gotta love the internet - it makes a business like mine very feasible (where it really wasn't fifteen years ago). I literally have clients all over the world - it's almost astonishing. Me, in my little basement office, doing business with firms all over the US, England, China, etc etc... I continually marvel at that fact. (I'll bet Joe feels similar in regards to FBG's.)

Have two pieces of advice for budding entrepreneurs:

First piece of advice is nothing matters except sales. You can have all the passion, all the creativity, all the desire, and even the best business plan EVER, and it all means nothing until you make sales. In fact, I usually suggest one starts by making sales - if you want to be, say, an IT consultant, well, go out some Saturdays and do it. Don't write a business plan first - instead, go make some $$ doing what it is you want to do. If you want to sell a product, get on EBay and/or the local flea market and make some sales. Then you can write your business plan (which is actually an unecessary step, imho, unless you are looking for financing - I know very very few bootstrap entrepreneurs who did a formal business plan. I'll get around to mine someday...)

Second piece of advice is once you make a sale or three and you think you have something here, do not to skimp when it comes to advertising / marketing. Take some risk and jump in. As soon as I got my first client from my garbage website, I whipped out the credit card and paid a pro to make me a much nicer website (I could make a shoddy one myself, but not a real nice one), and also paid for a good chunk of advertising. It was risky, but it paid off big time - really got me going (had I waited until "the business could pay for it", I likely never would have succeeded.)

I cannot count the number of businesses I know of that failed because they relied on homemade flyers, garbage "free site builder" websites, won't pull out the credit card / savings and just take that plunge, etc etc. Entrepreneurs have to have some moxie - you dip your toe in, and if it feels ok, you jump. You don't keep dipping your toe in.

Love entrepreneur talk - Good luck everyone!
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Good stuff. Looking at getting the book. Sounds like a good read. I would love to get into CAD design from home.
 
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