- Joined
- Jan 19, 2016
- Messages
- 208
Hi everyone, right now I'm in a very big dilemma, I have been researching and working on an innovative product for quite some time now.
Work done on the product:
-Sourced materials/packaging/manufacturing machines, those highly depend on the quantity and if I take it as a long term investment I have pretty big margins.
-Analyzed the market, found out there's are about 1500 distributors in the area in which I'm interested and I have only 1 serious competitor for the kind of business I want to devolop and he's in the game since 2004, he sells a similar product to mine but with lower quality(it was actually very good in the first years of his business), he's working with 107 distributors.
I asked a bunch of distributors what they think of my idea/product and business, they said they lack something like this in the industry, actually very sub par products are sold for higher prices than what I calculated to be retail price, it's just a new market in my country so people don't really know what they should pay (in the USA it's hard to get 1/3rd the money that is being charged here, mainly due to the lack of local producers).
-Got to know all the paper work needed, calculated how much employees would cost me, taxes and so on.
-Bought Domain Name and Hosting and finishing up the E-Commerce, came up with a really good "brand name" and "product name".
-Found some shops for brick and mortar sales and so on(it actually helps out with the paperwork a lot in my country).
-Found a facility for the production process.
-Researched the perfect target for the product and made a very basic marketing plan.
After all this, I was fed up with keeping it all inside of me and shared my idea with one of my best friends(I took really little action up until now), he's like "amazing idea, let's do this togheter!", while I was initially worried I thought why not(we could split the financing).
In 2 weeks time I set out about 50 appointments( he came with me in about 10 of those) with Banks/Governement Organs/Shops to rent/People in the industry/Distributors and so on.
By myself I got the biggest distributor in the city wanting to launch my product (that would mean basically covering a good 20% of the initial cost) even if I'm giving him a VERY good price I still make a good profit.
Banks are all willing to finance, and considering we are young we get some help from the country and so on(not too worried about this, waiting too long to get country money).
Right now I'm sitting back thinking about two things:
1) My "partner" has come to a minority of appointments (due to health reason for some thought..), he has only made a 5 page powerpoint presentation for a section of our business plan. Yeah and 10 € for a software bought online, that's all.
2) I took more action in the last 2 weeks than in the last whole year, I needed some balls but I did it mainly because I couldn't back up in front of my "partner", I've spent a crazy amount of time on the project and I barely slept the last few days while spending a good amount of money.
I just read the thread "How I lost 1 million dollars" and we have appointments set to create the company legally in the upcoming weeks.
With certifications, trademarks and maybe a patent we are ready to go in 2 months.
After taking an hour thinking about it the only positive thing about the dude is that he has some very good connections with a man who got a 1,5 million exit in the industry 2 years ago(best friend of his dad) who could be our mentor(who will MAYBE would invest in US).
If I give him orders he does them but is always like "I'm not your employee" without saying it and he has literally no knowlegde and thinks that I'm "smart" because I followed a business course in high school, am I really giving up 50% on my hard work to this guy?
It's not too late to go alone, what should I do considering it's my first "real" business?(I know it's a looked down question on this forum)
Thanks for the Attention, Have a nice Day!
Work done on the product:
-Sourced materials/packaging/manufacturing machines, those highly depend on the quantity and if I take it as a long term investment I have pretty big margins.
-Analyzed the market, found out there's are about 1500 distributors in the area in which I'm interested and I have only 1 serious competitor for the kind of business I want to devolop and he's in the game since 2004, he sells a similar product to mine but with lower quality(it was actually very good in the first years of his business), he's working with 107 distributors.
I asked a bunch of distributors what they think of my idea/product and business, they said they lack something like this in the industry, actually very sub par products are sold for higher prices than what I calculated to be retail price, it's just a new market in my country so people don't really know what they should pay (in the USA it's hard to get 1/3rd the money that is being charged here, mainly due to the lack of local producers).
-Got to know all the paper work needed, calculated how much employees would cost me, taxes and so on.
-Bought Domain Name and Hosting and finishing up the E-Commerce, came up with a really good "brand name" and "product name".
-Found some shops for brick and mortar sales and so on(it actually helps out with the paperwork a lot in my country).
-Found a facility for the production process.
-Researched the perfect target for the product and made a very basic marketing plan.
After all this, I was fed up with keeping it all inside of me and shared my idea with one of my best friends(I took really little action up until now), he's like "amazing idea, let's do this togheter!", while I was initially worried I thought why not(we could split the financing).
In 2 weeks time I set out about 50 appointments( he came with me in about 10 of those) with Banks/Governement Organs/Shops to rent/People in the industry/Distributors and so on.
By myself I got the biggest distributor in the city wanting to launch my product (that would mean basically covering a good 20% of the initial cost) even if I'm giving him a VERY good price I still make a good profit.
Banks are all willing to finance, and considering we are young we get some help from the country and so on(not too worried about this, waiting too long to get country money).
Right now I'm sitting back thinking about two things:
1) My "partner" has come to a minority of appointments (due to health reason for some thought..), he has only made a 5 page powerpoint presentation for a section of our business plan. Yeah and 10 € for a software bought online, that's all.
2) I took more action in the last 2 weeks than in the last whole year, I needed some balls but I did it mainly because I couldn't back up in front of my "partner", I've spent a crazy amount of time on the project and I barely slept the last few days while spending a good amount of money.
I just read the thread "How I lost 1 million dollars" and we have appointments set to create the company legally in the upcoming weeks.
With certifications, trademarks and maybe a patent we are ready to go in 2 months.
After taking an hour thinking about it the only positive thing about the dude is that he has some very good connections with a man who got a 1,5 million exit in the industry 2 years ago(best friend of his dad) who could be our mentor(who will MAYBE would invest in US).
If I give him orders he does them but is always like "I'm not your employee" without saying it and he has literally no knowlegde and thinks that I'm "smart" because I followed a business course in high school, am I really giving up 50% on my hard work to this guy?
It's not too late to go alone, what should I do considering it's my first "real" business?(I know it's a looked down question on this forum)
Thanks for the Attention, Have a nice Day!
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