Who really thinks its hard having there own business? In general conversations people say all the time must be nice to have, or I wish I had my own, or if i had my own..... But the truth is its tough. Mentally, financially, physically, emotionally. trying to take on the challenges each day start to weight down on you. So whats something you should consider beyond just getting started. Well small things add up quick, like who's going to host your site? How much do they charge? What exactly is included? How often do they charge? How much extra do they charge for things not included? How often is that charged? How much do they charge for a processing fee (collecting money)? What other companies do I want to allow to collect money(square, PayPal, venom etc)? Who much do they charge? All of this and havnt made it outside of the website yet, its not impossible just things that seriously need to be considered and factored in. Now for the product are you making said product or selling branded product. In my case I'm sell branded product. So, what needs to be considered? Well where is the product coming from? Wholesale distributor? Ok, who? How much is there initial purchase? Do they require a minimum, monthly or yearly purchase amount? Are they charging a fare amount? How much do they charge to ship to you? What if a supplier doesn't respond? What if supplier says no? Can same product be purchased overseas? Is it cheap? How much is that shipping cost? How much do I have to purchase before shipping cost doesn't drive up product cost to much? Can I balance multiple distributor? How uch time am I going to spend comparing cost of distributors product? Does the distributor reward loyalty (is it best to just lock in with that 1)? Can 1 distributor fulfill all my needs? These have been the majority of questions thus far I have been challenge with when acquiring product and post product. The next is storing are you going to work from/out of your home or store front? In my case home for now to keep overhead cost down. How and where are you going to store these products? Is the product easily accessible? Will kids or pets disturb it (damage, spills, etc)? This part until you have alot of inventory is the easy part, but once it starts stacking up it stacks quickly. Now for shipping. Who are you going to ship with? Where are you getting shipping boxes and supplies? Who is paying for shipping? You or the customer? With places like Amazon, Walmart, Target, Sams and so on free shipping is becoming expected and makes it hard to sell especially with prices on the rise, people don't want to see 12.10, 15.60, 17.90 added to there total at the end. So do you have enough markup on the product for adsorption of most or all the shipping cost plus supplies? What size boxes should you keep on hand, enough to send 1,2,3,4 product out at a time? How much more is shipping if you split the order to multiple boxes vs 1? This has been a majority of my starting questions or struggles and I have been dealing with them one by one. But the longer it takes to solve the longer it is before you can get started and in my case if your trying to solve these problems while you are already started this is money or possibly customers lost. Now you would think ok I get these things done im in the clear, consistent product, posting, storing, handling, shipping. Well how about advertising? Your friends and family can only take you so far, based on there enthusiasm in your product will dictate that and if your like me you don't have a following on social media with thousands of viewers interested in you product. Now forms, groups, reddit and so on will definitely help and the more active you are and consistent, the more traffic you can drum up. But, do you have the time? When are you going to do it? Which sites will be your best choices? While working on the list above will you have time to do it? Do you work, go to school, have other obligations? All this plays effect yeah the first month you go with 2/4 hours of sleep, getting in the obligations and this new business, but then the wear sets in and health starts diminishing and you realize this is not a realistic pace to keep. So you turn to advertising through paid prom. Facebook, Google, YouTube, etc. But, how much do they charge? How often do they charge? What do you get with each slide in price forward or back? At this time (i think) its roughly 10$ a day +/- 2$ at the cheapest point on Facebook or Google. That's 300$ per month roughly. So as you can see all of these things add up now with a solid business plan, all things listed above figured out in advance. You could seek out a business loan or investor. But then is really your small business? Currently I'm trying to push start on my own dollar and yes it adds to the stress, but I can learn as I go without have a large monthly note from a loan or investors breathing down my neck. So why would anyone want to do this? Well truthfully its not for everyone, not everyone is cut out for business ownership, but for me its fun. I enjoy the struggle of learning, trying to solve the problem and find the dollar or best course of action to move forward. So when I hear people say must be nice, if I owned, or any other of the dozen comments I laugh because I know they have no idea what it takes even to take a serious attempt at starting a business. > well if you made it this far thanks for sticking with my rant and I hope you found something useful in this.
Thank you and Re
member let's get building!!!!!!