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What’s a clever/profitable business idea you had, but let it go to try something else?
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I’ll start: I had a bicycle flipping business for a couple years. I would buy $50-300 used steel and aluminum road bikes on Craigslist from suburbs outside of my city, then tune them up and sell for 2-10x what I paid for them. The demand for high-quality vintage bikes in the city was much greater than the supply. So, I basically imported it from the suburbs.
I always took amazing pictures, wrote a great ad, put new handlebar tape on and ran new cables. I basically treated each craigslist email like a sales pitch and was really good about following up with people. The bikes sold to city people so fast. It was awesome. I flipped probably 100+ bikes a year. I made around $25-30k in profit after a couple years that I paid no tax on. I bet I could have blown that out and made a decent amount of money for a 21 year old. Not scalable, but was a fun hustle. Then I got a “real job” in tech for a while and made way more money.
I chose now to share this old hustle because of the bicycle boom happening in the United States. Yes, I absolutely still think this is a viable way to make some cash for anybody that wants to put the work in!
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Damn amazing margin
Copycat Entrepreneurship
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My girlfriend said it best; just because Walmart exists doesn't mean Target can't, too.
Everyone wants to be the next Steve Jobs or Bill Gates and create a unique app, device, or service that transforms the world. I do, too. However, I sat back and reflected on this notion earlier today: what happened to simply starting a small business based on an existing company or idea (and improving upon it)?
This rhetorical question is being asked because after months of reading posts on r/entrepreneur and r/startups, both subreddits are incredibly focused on the creation of outworldly concepts and ideas that don't exist today. This drive is very admirable (I'm jealous!) but isn't that doubling up on the challenge (by creating/running a business while simultaneously trying to being an inventor)?
Then, I recently stumbled on the term "copycat entrepreneurship" after seeing this Forbes article: http://www.forbes.com/sites/actiontrumpseverything/2013/06/11/the-extremely-successful-entrepreneurial-copycat-a-case-study/
I, myself, have been facing challenges with conjuring up a completely unique and brand-new idea that the world hasn't seen before. Instead of shooting for the stars in a different galaxy, I'm simply going to shoot for the stars in our own sky. I invite those in a similar situation to do the same.
As inspiration, here are some companies that basically put a different "spin" on a commonly accepted idea or model.
- Amazon started off as "just another bookstore" but revolutionized the concept by leveraging the online medium.
- Tom's Shoes started off as "just another shoe retailer" but added the philanthropic spin by donating shoes to Africa.
- Mattel's founders began toying around (pun intended :P) with their ideas by taking old picture frames and recycling them into doll furniture.
Thoughts or comments are welcome!
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Another good one is Morphsuits. We've all heard of them, right? What about RootSuits? Probably not so much... well, RootSuits (according to their Shark Tank apperance) were the first guys to start producing skin-tight body suits. But Morph Suits is the brand we have all come to know.
I used to be pretty fixated on the idea of originality, and having a "unique selling proposition", but when I saw some friends of mine start an online pharmacy selling Nootropics in what is obviously a very crowded space, and do VERY well, it opened my eyes a bit.
These days I recognise the fact that a saturated market just means there's probably a large customer base. And if someone else has done something and been successful, it's just proof that the model works. If you can do it better, and acquire customers better, and crush them... do it.
How does a developer become an entrepreneur?
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I was reading an interesting post over on Founder Dating (http://founderdating.com/how-a-developer-becomes-an-entrepreneur/) by a developer who is now an entrepreneur. If you are a developer with a college degree then you have spent a lot of time diving deep into systems, algorithms and data structures with less or no time spent on customer and business facing skills needed to run an actual business.
So my question is, if you are a developer and an entrepreneur, which came first? And how did you get from one to another?
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Build something you know people will want. Give it to them in exchange for money.
Entrepreneurship is not so much a skill as a set of design patterns. Specific choices make and approaches you take depend as much on context as experience or knowledge. Learning the landscape only comes with experience, and you can get that in many ways.
I was a developer first. Multiple CS/Math degrees, big iron, large scale distributed analytics in the days before Hadoop, the whole nine yards. I became an entrepreneur by joining progressively smaller companies in increasingly senior roles and being exposed to more of the business as a result. Eventually I drifted into managing a P&L, which is essentially a company. In my next business I was the technical co-founder, and after a few runs had a good exit.
I'm not sure "entrepreneur" is a thing in the same way "engineer" is. Entrepreneurship is more about attitude and approach than it is about analysis or aptitude. You learn by doing and get comfortable with experience.
Note that I differentiate between "entrepreneur" and "businessperson"; the latter does have a significant body of experience and knowledge required to do well in most contexts.
Does anyone have any advice/ideas on finding startup ideas?
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A little background on why I'm asking this question:
Over the past couple of years, I've immersed myself in the startup culture. I've read books and watched videos on growth, product market fit, product design, ect. I even created my own app with a cofounder that we both realized had no viability after initial testing. I've done all of this because I want to make as big of a positive difference in this world as I can and I know starting a startup is the fastest and most wide reaching way to do this based on the all of the amazing things I've seen in this community and others.
That being said, after the crushing feeling of putting my entire life for a year into my first attempt at a startup, I'm finding it hard to think of ideas and even realize the problems that could be solved in other's live (and even my own) through the efforts of a start up.
Though I know this is no easy task, any advice or ideas on coming up with start up ideas in the effort to make as many people's lives better in any way is greatly appreciated.
Also thanks for taking time away from your hustle to read this and keep up your hard work!
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I have found that for me,trying to come up with ideas gets me nowhere except a graveyard of ideas. However, I have designed things that get traction by focusing on people and trying to be helpful. Once they see that I am genuinely out to assist, they let me in and that’s when the insights really start flowing for me.
Best Entrepreneurial Podcasts?
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I'm interested in everyone's favourite business/entrepreneurial podcasts if you listen to any. The only one i listen to is Secret Entourage at the moment and it's quite good.
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3d printed phone case business idea [X-post from r/Entrepreneur]
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Hi,
So I would like to discuss the idea of building a business based on this kind of products. For those who haven't seen before, please have a look at here, here and here to get an idea. These are just examples, there are many amazing designs.
Nowadays there are all sorts of phone cases (as they're a must for most people), in different materials, with images on them, different colors, prints etc. But I do feel like there is a big gap in the market that can be filled with different shapes as well. Almost none of the mainstream products have such "bold" shapes made with gaps on the product. To be honest, I don't understand why these products are not still huge in the market, at least they aren't where I live.
Aesthetically they're way more superior to the regular phone cases imo. Depending on the material, they can be just as protective and these two parameters are what we are looking for, when buying a case. Perhaps also some functionality, which can also be implemented easily.
Now, there are a few similar to what I have in mind businesses that I could find:
- https://www.freshfiber.com/ there aren't much customizing options given. Nice and slick designs. Price range €20-40 depending on the product complexity. Not sure if they're using mass production though. Since you can customize your own case with some text on it (for an additional €10), my guess is they're printing out each product. Which makes it more costly. Also there are only Iphone cases.
- http://www.3dphonecase.com/ lets you highly customize your case within the options you're given. Prices are about €35-40. Definitely it must be printed (tailored for you sort of business) just for you, each product. Which costs money and effort. They offer cases for different sorts phones.
- https://zetoff.com/phone also lets you customize your case quite a lot, including uploading images I think then will be converted into shapes. You can also download your customized case for free and print yourself (with zetoff logo on the side). Rather better prices, but still every product seems to be printed one by one for the customer.
- This looks like someone that used to print and sell some nice designs (on demand). From the comments they received I understand that there was some demand. There must be others like this one on online shops I think, please let me know if so. I would like to discover more
Also there are bigger 3d printing businesses (such as Shapeways, materialise) that also lets a designer upload a 3d design onto their database and sell, while the company does the actual printing with the material the customer chooses. But the options are limited to the models uploader has created. This option can be also expensive since both the designer and the producer is earning money from one product. This not what these companies only do btw, also correct me if this is not how it works please.
So, my approach or what I think might work is: Producing a few designs for a broader public, rather than tailored products. And since we are having them produced in higher numbers using molds (instead of printing single products), the production cost will be lower with low mistake chances.
On how this business practically might work; we get prototypes using a 3d printer, do a little finishing if needed, send them to a manufacturer for molding, receive the amount of products we've ordered, sell them (either on online shops, or your suggestions?).
Depending how we want to begin, we don't even have to invest in a 3d printer for starting as we may just use a printing service since we're not ordering high volume of prototypes, plus I'm a complete beginner with the printers, so there may be some time lost there.
At this point I do not know what is the best way for marketing or actually selling the products. Online shops, online marketing I suppose, would be good. Would love to hear suggestions. Is it wiser to start covering just a few phone models or - with a bigger investment - prepare a mold for each of the most common models in order to get it going?
Also, in order to actually being able to sell the products (to have more interest in them) I considered producing "regional/local" products. Such as a phone case with a country's flag on it, or some regional icon (such as Eiffel tower if sold in France), or a football team's logo and so on. Of course, in this case the sales will be made locally.
Sorry for the long text, but it's actually a good beginning point if I decide to write a business plan on it. I really want to hear feedback, suggestions and discuss how this can be done. Also, if it does not make sense at all and if that is why it still does not exist, I would love to hear why.
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I’ve worked in the phone repairs business for 2 years, during which I replaced hundreds of screens. The main problem was the lack of adequate protection, which comes from the lack of a case/screen protector or a bad case design and material choice. So many people went for the plastic, personalized cases that perhaps looked good but had absolutely no protection value. This boils down to some basic material properties: When a phone is dropped, in most cases it will fall face down or on a corner. When it’s face down, having a lip to the case generally solves the problem, as the stopping momentum is distrubuted over a larger surface. On the other hand if it falls on a corner, the area is much smaller, and thus there is a much higher pressure exerted on the case. Among the most important mechanical properties of materials is the yield strength. Brittle materials (which generally include ABS or PLA, plastics used for 3D printing) will crack immediately after this yield stress is exceeded, whereas more elastic materials will be able to absorb the shock without breaking. This is why most of the good cases are made of silicone, rubber or elastic plastic materials. Also most of the good cases are bulky and quite ugly and there’s generally a compromise you need to make between a beautiful case and a good case. Check Rhinoshield, they are making really good cases.
Are there any solo entrepreneurs here that are software engineers? Have you built a SaaS? Can you share your experience?
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I'm slowly building a set of software tools that I want to turn into recurring monthly revenue. It's essentially a search server that allows users to discover, classify, analyze, and curate content from different data sources. Content can be anything from webpages to twitter feeds. I get a lot of "Dude, that's really cool but I don't know how I would use it." types of comments when people see it.
One of the cooler features I'm working is the ability to connect people with questions to an expert that is most likely to have an accurate answer. Imagine you run an ecommerce shop with thousands of products sourced from hundreds of vendors. Each vendor has their own return and warranty policies. Chances are there's someone within your organization that not only understands the details of each vendor's policies but knows who to contact to cut through the red tape. Let's say a customer has a question about a warranty and does a keyword search on your site. Your company's expert shows up as a search result along with a link to start a live chat. As a customer, being able to find an answer on your site is nice but having instant access to an expert that knows my product, the vendor, and the best way to get my product fixed is amazing.
While this is all wonderful in theory, it takes a long time to get this right. That's why I'm posting here. While constructive criticism on my search server idea is appreciated, I'm more interested in getting advice from entrepreneurial software engineers that have build successful SaaS applications on their own.
Between my freelancing and full time job, I don't have a lot of free time to work on my own projects. I've been formulating a plan to release a small set of features (basically a hosted site search - nothing like what I mentioned above) that would hopefully generate enough recurring revenue so I can focus on my ideas full time. I don't think there's a lot of opportunity in the hosted site search space. I think a great product, excellent customer service, a reasonable price, and a persistent hustle might be just enough.
It feels like I'm being naive about the amount of effort it takes to get something like this rolling. I'm not talking about the engineering side of it, it's more the marketing, lead gen, sales, and support that worry me. Is it even realistic for one person to consider building a SaaS?
Ultimately the goal is to build a business that has recurring monthly revenue (from multiple streams) as well as freelance software development opportunities. That's an extraordinary amount of work for one person to manage let alone finish.
Any advice on how to find, evaluate, and partner with small software consultancies is also appreciated. I'm hoping that partnering with regional consulting services might help offset things like generating sales leads and account management and leave me free to focus on engineering and implementation.
Anyways, thanks for reading my post and I'm hoping the collective experience of r/entrepreneur might be able to point me in the right direction.
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Hey! Software developer / SaaS founder here (magemail dot co if you're curious). Bootstrapped it on the side while working full time over a period of about a year and a half.
Yes I'd say you're likely underestimating the marketing/sales effort. Mainly because I experienced it first-hand and probably 99% of developer founders do.
There are some great resources to help with this. You might want to checkout the 7 day startup book.
Also there are several communities of solo software founders out there. You can find some over at http://discuss.bootstrapped.fm/ and there are a number of podcasts you might want to check out - "startups for the rest of us" being one of them.
Idea is to get something out the door quickly and start trying to sell it. You want to find a pain point that people are willing to pay for and make sure you've found that and you've found the people that are willing to pay before you put a ton of engineering time into it.
So the thing you're working on could work. I haven't thought too much yet about the business value in that particular problem you're solving - but you're gonna want to take that and start getting on the phone with potential customers.
Get them to give you a credit card in exchange for the product being ready X months from now. Once you're able to get real customer credit cards, you're half the way there.
6 Reasons I started an AI business
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Hi all!
I've created a new online business, which is a kind of AI A/B testing service for websites. It works like this - let's say you have a landing page, and to this landing page you forward your Google Ads traffic. Every landing page has some main message, which should catch the user with enough value that they stay. My service lets you define as many of these messages as you want, and let them all run on your landing page, over time the best ones will be winning. You get statistics, but more importantly, the money spent on this was not wasted, and the best possible content was shown to users all along.
My website is at SnippetAI.com
This idea can be extended much further than just landing pages. For example, let's say you have 5 products, and which one to show first to maximize sales? What size images to use? What size buttons? Which article to show on your home page? Etc.
Reasons why I did it:
1) I already have several other websites, and I needed a way to quickly and effectively test different content in many places. Actually I always thought this is how people do it, until I realized they do not! People have to make different landing pages, and track everything by themselves...
2) AI is a hot topic in the last 3 years, so I might as well take advantage of the moment.
3) Increasingly, I read that companies have problems increasing their top lines, and this is a way to do this.
4) Even if no one uses the service (no idea why, maybe they already do this in some other way), I will still find it useful for myself.
5) I wanted to know what the AI would find, and here's one that I would never guess to implement. In one website, I have 4 different videos to show visitors. 2 of them are currently winning - but, one is winning for Canadian visitors, and the other one for UK visitors. AI is smarter than me here.
6) I am a web developer by profession. All my customers go with defining one version of content and then having this developed. Then as time goes on, they will maybe do text changes. To me. this always seemed strange and unscientific. How do they know that what they like will also be liked by customers???
I just wanted to share this, and maybe you get inspired to also build something with AI. I think AI is really an untapped area, which can solve a lot of problems, and what we have seen in the last few years is only the beginning.
Cheers!
-Val
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AI is the new 3D Printing blockchain