July 1, 2015 at 10:41A little idea: before launching the first startup, is it possible to practice at least on a simple online store?
Let's pretend that our eyes are burning rather make your startup a billion. There are millions of ideas on how to permanently change the world and lead Forbes ratings. Two small things are just not enough: experience and money, even for minimal project development. Weeks, months and years go by. These stupid investors do not understand ideas. These ideas are too innovative. No one gives money and no longer becomes a useful experience.
Over time, it becomes clear that these two small things mean something. Especially any adequate experience in creating your project, attracting customers and counting metrics.
Get a job and work at work? Pfff ... As an option, go to some business incubator, where everyone will tell and show.
And here we have another simple idea. Let's set a goal: to create a profitable online store in 3 months?
The simplest business model is buy-sell. You can provide services, but they will need to be provided and then support customers. In the online store you can order delivery to special services and train only 2-3 hours a day, without being particularly distracted from the main startup tasks.
Our main goal is to get real experience in launching and at least minimal promotion of your project.
We, as a startup, it is desirable to be a techie or a marketer, or a salesman. This is usually recommended.
If we are a techie , then creating a store will take us several hours, if we don’t be capricious and choose the perfect solution for a month (we won’t find this anyway). But we need, as we already know from dozens of books, articles and seminars - a minimum working product for testing ideas. To quickly and without much cost. Right?
Further it will be possible to train in launching various advertising and attracting customers.
If we are a marketer or salesperson, then we will learn how to build your site using various services and designers, in our case, a store. If you have to order the services of freelancers, we will get invaluable experience in working with developers. In the future, create a landing page for lazy startups, etc. It will be extremely simple.
Of course, in a couple of months the results will be extremely modest, relative to our plans for rating in Forbes. But real experience from the area supplementing us will be useful in finding partners (more precisely, these ... cofounders). The main thing is not to star in, of course.
When choosing a niche, it may turn out that the option “we sell clothes” will be a failure. What clothes, for whom and where will we sell? Is it a hypermarket throughout Russia and the CIS or the whole world? Or is it a monobrand expensive clothing boutique in Moscow? Or is it a second-hand in Rostov-on-Don? Similarly, for example, a clock. Is it Patek Philippe or are they 100% identical copies of 600 rubles?
Most likely, it turns out that there will be completely different sales scenarios if we study in more detail what and to whom we sell. Website wordstat.yandex.ru will help determine if someone needs it.
Since the project is educational, we will choose a niche that is already popular and relatively massive. We will not try to explain something new to customers or to look for customers for six months for an expensive product. So it’s easy to learn how to count metrics and test your ideas for growth and development.
You can make a lot of metrics for yourself, but most often you pay attention to the following three.
The price of customer acquisition . We take the amount of money spent on advertising for a certain period, divide it by the number of new customers. We get the price of one client. It is desirable that the period be adequate - from one month. The number of clients from ten at least. It is advisable to check if the budget is doubled and the number of new customers doubles. If so, then everything seems to be calculated correctly as part of our training project. The main thing is not to get into a situation where the cost of the client seems extremely low, but such customers are only 2-3 per month with a check of 1000 rubles.
The percentage of refusers. How many people stopped buying from you. Not all store niches are certainly suitable or impossible to evaluate in a few months. But, for example, for pet products or cosmetics - it can be considered.
Average revenue per client . For each client, calculate how much on average they paid you. If one client bought once for 1000 rubles, then the average income is 1000 rubles. If he bought 3 times for 1000, 1500, 1000 rubles, then the average income is 3500 rubles. So we will understand how much you can spend on attracting one client and when the whole thing pays off, on average.
These may be hypotheses about the niche itself . Most likely, it turns out that no matter how cool the store would turn out, no matter what revolutionary product we sold, customers would not overwhelm him with orders instantly.
These can be hypotheses about attracting customers when a context or a super virus in a top public did not give a result. It becomes clear that you have to puff.
These may be hypotheses about increased sales . The idea of making a newsletter with an incredible sale of 30% may not bring as many customers as you want.
So, one after another, inadequacies in our hypotheses will be polished and each subsequent one will be much more accurate.
Your online store is the same business project and experience as any other. Therefore, there are several scenarios.
If we are lucky and we will try, then we will start earning something. It will be possible to continue to bootstrap further , providing yourself with 2-3 average salaries and invest it already in your startup. If anything, we’ll find an assistant.
We don’t have an IPO, so let's sell ourselves . If the store is profitable and stable, sell it on telderi.ru. Get your well-deserved pre-seed, so to speak. Perhaps much faster and easier than presenting your ideas. Then it will turn out to be more critical to consider your ideas, is it worth investing your money in them?
Just complete a training project. Unlike services or production, nothing will happen to customers. They bought from us, they will start buying elsewhere.
You can understand what to do in one evening by reading a rather popular blog in the niche of stores. Here you can create a store in one day and make a working site out of it using internal checklists.
According to the experience of our clients, the level of 2-3 average salaries can be obtained in 1-3 months. Depends on the niche and speed of work. We will be glad if you liked the idea. Then create your own online store, share the results.
Of course, there is no direct connection between a successful store and a future startup. But real hands-on experience and training will definitely be helpful. Perhaps even more useful than any seminars or trainings.
We have now gone along this path and are making our own shop withblackjack and courtesansdifferent modules and great features.
And let your startup start and fire soon! :)
Over time, it becomes clear that these two small things mean something. Especially any adequate experience in creating your project, attracting customers and counting metrics.
What to do?
Get a job and work at work? Pfff ... As an option, go to some business incubator, where everyone will tell and show.
And here we have another simple idea. Let's set a goal: to create a profitable online store in 3 months?
Why exactly an online store?
The simplest business model is buy-sell. You can provide services, but they will need to be provided and then support customers. In the online store you can order delivery to special services and train only 2-3 hours a day, without being particularly distracted from the main startup tasks.
Pretty interesting thing can happen
Our main goal is to get real experience in launching and at least minimal promotion of your project.
So, we will complement our missing competencies
We, as a startup, it is desirable to be a techie or a marketer, or a salesman. This is usually recommended.
If we are a techie , then creating a store will take us several hours, if we don’t be capricious and choose the perfect solution for a month (we won’t find this anyway). But we need, as we already know from dozens of books, articles and seminars - a minimum working product for testing ideas. To quickly and without much cost. Right?
Further it will be possible to train in launching various advertising and attracting customers.
If we are a marketer or salesperson, then we will learn how to build your site using various services and designers, in our case, a store. If you have to order the services of freelancers, we will get invaluable experience in working with developers. In the future, create a landing page for lazy startups, etc. It will be extremely simple.
Of course, in a couple of months the results will be extremely modest, relative to our plans for rating in Forbes. But real experience from the area supplementing us will be useful in finding partners (more precisely, these ... cofounders). The main thing is not to star in, of course.
Learn how to identify the target audience.
When choosing a niche, it may turn out that the option “we sell clothes” will be a failure. What clothes, for whom and where will we sell? Is it a hypermarket throughout Russia and the CIS or the whole world? Or is it a monobrand expensive clothing boutique in Moscow? Or is it a second-hand in Rostov-on-Don? Similarly, for example, a clock. Is it Patek Philippe or are they 100% identical copies of 600 rubles?
Most likely, it turns out that there will be completely different sales scenarios if we study in more detail what and to whom we sell. Website wordstat.yandex.ru will help determine if someone needs it.
Since the project is educational, we will choose a niche that is already popular and relatively massive. We will not try to explain something new to customers or to look for customers for six months for an expensive product. So it’s easy to learn how to count metrics and test your ideas for growth and development.
Learn to count metrics and indicators
You can make a lot of metrics for yourself, but most often you pay attention to the following three.
The price of customer acquisition . We take the amount of money spent on advertising for a certain period, divide it by the number of new customers. We get the price of one client. It is desirable that the period be adequate - from one month. The number of clients from ten at least. It is advisable to check if the budget is doubled and the number of new customers doubles. If so, then everything seems to be calculated correctly as part of our training project. The main thing is not to get into a situation where the cost of the client seems extremely low, but such customers are only 2-3 per month with a check of 1000 rubles.
The percentage of refusers. How many people stopped buying from you. Not all store niches are certainly suitable or impossible to evaluate in a few months. But, for example, for pet products or cosmetics - it can be considered.
Average revenue per client . For each client, calculate how much on average they paid you. If one client bought once for 1000 rubles, then the average income is 1000 rubles. If he bought 3 times for 1000, 1500, 1000 rubles, then the average income is 3500 rubles. So we will understand how much you can spend on attracting one client and when the whole thing pays off, on average.
Learn to test hypotheses
These may be hypotheses about the niche itself . Most likely, it turns out that no matter how cool the store would turn out, no matter what revolutionary product we sold, customers would not overwhelm him with orders instantly.
These can be hypotheses about attracting customers when a context or a super virus in a top public did not give a result. It becomes clear that you have to puff.
These may be hypotheses about increased sales . The idea of making a newsletter with an incredible sale of 30% may not bring as many customers as you want.
So, one after another, inadequacies in our hypotheses will be polished and each subsequent one will be much more accurate.
How will it all end?
Your online store is the same business project and experience as any other. Therefore, there are several scenarios.
If we are lucky and we will try, then we will start earning something. It will be possible to continue to bootstrap further , providing yourself with 2-3 average salaries and invest it already in your startup. If anything, we’ll find an assistant.
We don’t have an IPO, so let's sell ourselves . If the store is profitable and stable, sell it on telderi.ru. Get your well-deserved pre-seed, so to speak. Perhaps much faster and easier than presenting your ideas. Then it will turn out to be more critical to consider your ideas, is it worth investing your money in them?
Just complete a training project. Unlike services or production, nothing will happen to customers. They bought from us, they will start buying elsewhere.
As a result, we got real experience
You can understand what to do in one evening by reading a rather popular blog in the niche of stores. Here you can create a store in one day and make a working site out of it using internal checklists.
According to the experience of our clients, the level of 2-3 average salaries can be obtained in 1-3 months. Depends on the niche and speed of work. We will be glad if you liked the idea. Then create your own online store, share the results.
Of course, there is no direct connection between a successful store and a future startup. But real hands-on experience and training will definitely be helpful. Perhaps even more useful than any seminars or trainings.
We have now gone along this path and are making our own shop with
And let your startup start and fire soon! :)
