Final Post

This has been a great class for me to take, I have really loved learning about how to build a business and how to build a website in my free time.  I have found that the business that I built is worth in excess of 3,000 dollars to build, which to me is absolutely ridiculous. I am really happy that I could possibly start to build websites for people in the area. I’ve decided that I am going to build a websites advertising how I can build websites, I have already  built a new website for a Non-Profit organization that I have worked for I have never thought that I would be able to do web design I feel so much more confident now that I have gone through this class. I think that you should always reach for the stars. I think that developing our relationship with those around us using the internet can be an important part of our progression as entrepreneurs. Look for needs that you have around you I was talking to my boss today and helped him realize a new business proposition. I think that creating a company that handled staffing here in Rexburg would be quite successful for anyone to do. If you are constantly able to develop ideas with others around you will be able to come up with better and better ideas. Find a sounding board and use it as much as you possibly can. Find a niche market that you enjoy and start taking advantage of it. 

Week 12

I am closing up my 100 dollar challenge now slowly and coming to a close, I finished my last sale, so we have been able to sell 8 beanies all together which has a total revenue of 160 dollars, I have been really happy with the outcome of this project so far.  I really liked discussing Steve Jobs as well he has been one of my favorite examples of what the business world can develop a person into. I grew up working in the silicon valley so it has very much been a local hero for me. There have been great people that I know that used to do similar work as him, I have friends who they used to raid old parts from Atari and other local video game companies trash cans because they would do quality control near our houses, we would get 3-4 “broken” units and then test them out ourselves, use one as parts, and then develop a working few consoles. We made good money by repairing this “trash” and selling them as used units. Enough to keep ourselves busy throughout the rest of the week at least, until we ran out of money and had to go dumpster driving again.

Week 11

I don't feel as confident about this week as I have with others, part of it is that I am moving back to California in only two weeks and I know that I am wrapping up life here in Rexburg to move to the great home of California, I feel like I learned about from talking to Darin this week about social media and how you can grow your business on Facebook I learned a lot from him even though I do not agree with his website or what he is doing he has found a niche market and he is attacking the market very well, with 12,000 Facebook likes and 11,000 people talking about it those are very impressive numbers. I also learned a lot about cross promotion in talking to him and researching it. I haven’t made as much progress on the 100 dollar challenge either, I feel that I have been building the company well, but the sales just haven’t been coming in as I want, I am only 1 sale away from getting to the goal of 100 dollars I know that I will get it in the next week but I just am not as happy with how my keywords have been going, I am not frustrated to the point of quitting I just have gotten to the point where I am recognizing that this business is so niche that I need to expand into a bigger market, it is just a little too small, new products will come and I will be able to expand more.

Week 10

This week I learned a lot about franchising I spent my free time learning and looking at different franchising opportunities, I think that it was really an eye opening experience for me to learn about different companies that could be opened as a franchise. I think it is interesting that you can open up different companies that are essentially just giving yourself a job, the real trick is to develop companies that will eventually run themselves in a franchise. Looking at some franchise opportunities they only give you the chance of running one franchise. I also remember going out to dinner once where the couple at the next table from me was actually there because the owner of the fast food company had taken him out for being the top preforming manager of his franchises that year. I thought it was sort of interesting as they were not the type of people to attend a finer restaurant but it was obviously an important night for them. I think if I really was in the same situation I would just cover the bill for the couple and let them go alone, it was sort of an awkward mixing of two people who were of obviously different social classes. I have been enjoying the 100 dollar challenge, and my adwords are not going as well as I had hoped this last week, I was unable to sell anything but I am more than half way there so I am still excited!

Week 9

I have had a slower week than expected this week, after having three orders last week I have been unable to sell anything with either of our venues, I am going to push a Facebook Ad campaign this week to see if I can develop a few new ideas or anything else from my customers. It is tough selling to friends though because I do not see that as being a viable long term business plan. I think by developing an ad campaign through a few new avenues it may develop a few more sales, I have been enjoying watching my Google Ad words and I have not paid anything in yet to be honest. I think that the most effective way to go forward is to focus on the products that I have seen which are successful and which are going to be needed in the coming months. Baseball season is coming up soon and it may be helpful to develop a few new products in this line and moving into the LA market with Dodger gear. I think I may want to try a different few products on Etsy and see their demand, like stuffed animals and the like. I just want to slowly find some successful products and then focus on them.

Week 8

This was a great week for me, I was able to make my first two sales! I had a hit through our Etsy site and then another sale trough our physical website! That is about 30 dollars in profit so far I am so excited to be launching my adwords this week and getting everything really going! I think that the first person found us because we were the only Golden State warrior’s beanie sellers on Etsy. It is great that we are developing our new products, we have also sent off a sample coffee mug coozie to my sister in California, it was labeled with her sorority’s Greek letters, her sorority sisters are loving it and planning on placing orders with us for them! Our both of our first orders went out to California, one to southern California and one to northern California. This is great because this shows that we are hitting our target market! I have been really excited by selling our products online, this means that our business model is working, and we are making a profit. The old adage is that now all we need is money and we will be able to sell more, by doing ad words this will allow us to sell more product to our customers and get our name out there!

Week 7

I really enjoyed this week I did a lot of personal study on adwords and how to use them I have learned that I could start consulting in this industry and make massive amounts of money in doing so. I really think that I may be better off starting a adword blog about adwords when I graduate school, understanding the system is something that people will pay massive money for so that they can make money off of their ideas. I have always been a person who has sold to the person who is taking advantage of the new frontier is the real person who profits, if you look at the store owners in the 1840’s in California who made money from all the miners coming in and looking for gold, they were assured profits, whereas the miners were not I think going forward I may use these learning’s to my advantage. I think the 100 dollar challenge is going well, the website is done and I am starting to send out products to my sister to advertise for us, I have come up with a crocheted product that is for coffee cups, and have made one that features my sisters sorority. I am hoping that girls will find it cute enough to purchase for 10-20 dollars a piece, many of them go to starbucks daily, I hope this could be a great breakthrough product!

Week 6

I really learned a lot this week about ad words I have been playing with my campaign and feel really comfortable with it at this point. I have been building Adwords for SistersCrocheting. I really still don’t have an idea what I am doing with the bidding process, I think that I can get over that with a few more you tube videos and I think for the beginning I am just going to let Google decide the bidding process. One thing that I noticed is that when there are no Adwords being advertised on Google in smaller search criteria Google’s search almost looks funny, I think in certain situations they need to lower prices so that people will advertise with that specific search criteria, I think also going forward it may be helpful for them to give advertisers ideas “people searched for this after your advertisement, because they keep track of those things. This may be the way that the search engines go in the future.

I really enjoyed the reading on why Zappos pays employees to leave because it really gives them a competitive advantage against other companies not only in their local market. But it also gives them a huge advantage online, it ensures that they are hiring people that want to be there, I come from California and it is easy to see many people who try to get in with Google, but really they are there for the benefits rather than benefiting the company, they normally don’t last long but at that point they have already paid them so much money in training that it would have been worth it to pay them to leave with the 2,000-3,000 loss rather than 8,000+ in training costs.

Week 5

This was a really tough job for me I didn’t realize how much work it would take to get my website running. I had a lot of fun learning all the different things about my website, I still have to create pictures for the site and develop the pictures to get them so that they look more professional than the placeholders, my wife is currently working on creating the product that we can take pictures of and I can start selling these online with the SEO that we will be doing next week. I have never really created a website with Drupal before and have always fallen back on word press and had to make websites that were really designed just specially for me. I was thinking about how this website development will create a great company to go forward with in the future. I think it will be a lot of fun to get this thing really off the ground and going.

Week 4

This has been a bit of a discouraging week I have started developing the website, and my host after I went with them decided to drop their one click install for Drupal, but that is fine I will learn from this and learn to better install the software myself I plan on spending this weekend working on developing the software on the website to understand how it works exactly. I really wanted to get into this sort of thing because developing my own website is the sort of thing that I want to do in the future and I want to try my best to be successful on my own without having to rely on one host in general. I hate being tied down because most of the best deals are on a rotating basis and having something as important as that can be extremely tough.

Week 3

This week I have been learning a lot about how to find a good host, I have been doing research. Previously I have made some websites with Geocities, Homestead and the like, extremely dumbed down website creators, I have also used Microsoft word in order to do some site building as well with some limited success  One of the things that I really hated about the site builder using word was that I had to upload everything from scratch every time when I was using Godaddy, I had no idea what I was really doing at that point sadly.  I wanted to go with dream host and use Drupal for my website development to sell beanies and scarves that my wife makes along with other products I think things are moving forward quite well to be honest, I have found a good supplier for my yarn and I have found some other women who would be interested in making other beanies if demand outstrips supply. I really want to learn Drupal so I can start many more E-Commerce sites I have so many ideas that I can develop and learn to sell different products.

Week 2

Things are going really well with my life and what I want to do with my wife, I have also started making business cards to give out as we sell our product.  She has been excited about the idea and We have started building up a little supply for any rushes that we may get, I think that we will build stock over the summer and try to sell them at a Flea Market when we move back to California hopefully in the next few months!  I really enjoyed learning about how to move companies from one location to another and that it can be really easy, I thought about the success of it before but never how it could effect me really or how I could capitalize from it.

Week 1

My wife recently started making her own beanies that look like a helmet, I think that I could start selling them on Facebook or on a website and directing people to them through different social media. I think that this business could be quite successful last year I helped her develop some sales for some small animals that she made from crocheting. I think that it would be really helpful as I already work in the shipping industry I just need to learn how to better manage the business and develop all the different facets of the distribution process. I really have enjoyed doing this in the past and I think it would be successful. In the past I have learned that it really kills you to have too much inventory and to sell through it all after the product no longer becomes popular, we may be able to advertise that you can buy it custom fit or custom made for yourself.  In doing so I may be able to charge more than what would be expected for that sort of product. I have also thought about doing a baking company, I love cooking and I like doing baked goods, it could be very tough to make something “good enough” to sell, I feel that mostly I would have to specialize in a great recipe or something along those lines.