Things aren’t quite going to be in logical order for you, my dear readers. Normally (I think) you don’t make the website first when you start a business. Maybe you do for an eCommerce site, but how would I know? The site is what I’m working on now so the site is what I’ll talk about. However, to catch you up, this is kind of the ‘plan’ I’m following to get things rolling.
Feasibility study
This involved a few steps. I wasn’t dreaming up this idea and working on it all while I had a job. I left my job and then had to figure out what I wanted to do. I had no products lined up on paper, no Etsy site selling out of my garage. Nothing. I had to design some products, determine a sell price, figure out my costs and all that. More on this later as it’s pretty important. If you want a jumpstart, check out the book I’m using over at Amazon. I’m not making any money by recommending this book to you.
No fluff yet still easy to follow.
Legal stuff
I really haven’t done any of this. It’s kind of a cart and the horse scenario for me. I didn’t know if it would work, so I didn’t want to file for a business license. It’s also very confusing to determine what legal structure you want, what licenses you need, who you pay what – all while staying out of jail or joining the mafia. Definitely more to come on this.
Bricks and mortar
For what I’m doing, I need a workshop. I’ll be using quite a few large tools and hopefully be hosting some community classes for aspiring DIY folks to help bring in revenue while I get going. This will involve lease terminology, realtors and some technical stuff for the probable build out.
What a mess.
Web stuff
I have pseudo helped to start an online based small manufacturing store before. We did what we thought were all the right things by spending time and money on all of the online gadgets you can get. We found that we were very limited in the scope of our sales possibilities and that people won’t shop like how you’ve got your store setup from a click-and-drag website builder. We also learned real quick that social media is in fact, king. You hear it all the time, but until you start to try and sell something without a web presence and followers beforehand, you’ll have a slow start. Enter the present. I blog, learn, do, fail while you are tricked into reading and following along and share with your friends who will all eventually buy some furniture. Everyone wins.
Dollars and cents
Eventually I have to make money and I’ll be sharing with how I plan to do it, what’s working and what isn’t. I’m really fascinated by the concept of open and free knowledge. I think we’ll eventually be alien-level smart as a human race if we wouldn’t hoard our knowledge. A fellow on the YouTube describes it as “paying it forward”. As an autodidact taught from books and the web, I love this philosophy. Check out John Saunders’ great channel here.
Here’s an example of the fantastic video content and quality John is putting out:
Products
Eventually I’ll get into the builds and how I make the products I intend to sell. This will cover everything from concept to CAD to tests and final packaging. You’ve got to wear many hats as a small business owner and this will cover the stuff that is probably the reason you left your day job to start this crazy-town life.
For now, join me as I ramble on about building a website on the cheap in this confusing world of CSS style sheets, hosting servers, email clients and other nonsense.