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HoneyBadger's Progress Thread

A detailed account of a Fastlane process...

HoneyBadger

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Hello All!

First my intro: 25, Software Engineer in Florida, USA. I've dabbled with entrepreneurship since I was 15 - first go at it was trying to start a flyer distribution business. Most recent attempt was selling phone cases. Many things in between. None of which I'd considered good businesses but I do consider good learning lessons. I graduated college a few years back with a degree in Business Admin/Marketing. Did sales for a year then followed my passion into a software position where I am working now.

Now that I've been in the career workforce 3 years or so and actually have ample finances (even after saving at a high rate) the concept of 'golden handcuffs' has become clearer. This has ignited my passion to get going again.


One Year Plan:
  • I am going to start a successful an Amazon Reselling/Shopify business.
  • I am going to launch a multiplayer video game.
  • I am going to purchase a house to serve as rental property.

Optional: If I have time between those three things I will dabble with an seo site. I would use a concept someone brought to my attention renting out high ranking pages to businesses.



First Step Progress:

Reselling Business: Ordered 3 samples from Alibaba ($20). Have custom packaging samples being sent to me ($0). Next: Look for more samples, being branding process by coming up with a name that targets my market.
Video Game: Making progress, I have the core of the engine up now. So far I can move my little character on the screen by clicking the mouse and he is animated. Initial map generation up and the first portion of server -> client communication up so I am now displaying current players on the server to the player.
Rental Property: Began very preliminary research into my local market.


I will target bi-weekly updates here.
 
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Last edited:

HoneyBadger

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Updates:
Reselling Business:
  • Researched/ordered 3 more samples from Alibaba ($10).
  • Create Amazon Seller Account (free for now).
  • Came up with name that I believe will appeal to my target market. The industry I am going after has relatively simple logos traditionally and I am somewhat savvy with design so I created the logo (aka selected some good looking fonts). Also created a Shopify banner using the logo + a graphic (free).
  • Ordered more packaging samples (free).
Video Game: Reorganized some code to make future developing quicker. Made the first baby steps (read: lots of coding but little visual impact) of displaying other players as they join the game.
Rental Property: Did more poking around - started discussing the savings it would require with wife. She's on board.
 

HoneyBadger

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Updates:
Reselling Business:
  • Some samples have come in: like the vendor for part of the packing, like the suppliers I found for a part of the end products but won't be buying more from the 2 main product component vendors from Alibaba. The first is just my selection on product - it is too cheap feeling/looking to get the markup I want on it. The second vendor sent me two random similar products and not the sample I ordered.
  • Order some bare minimum supplies needed for testing my samples to ensure they are what they say they are.
  • Hired two artists for a design that will be used on my one custom sample I am going to be ordering (have 2 vendors lined up who say they can make it - waiting on art). First artist tried selling me stolen art - squashed that real quick (thx google image search). Second one is dragging their feet -> will be firing if they don't come through today. Going to try another freelance site to find better artists.
Video Game:
  • Lots of progress - Realtime see other players move + names. Beginning user inteface and implemented guest sign on. Big restructuring on code to make moving forward quicker. Researched scalable hosting options from Amazon AWS and Microsoft Azure and got idea of what I would need to price things at to make a profit based on hosting costs per player.
Rental Property: No significant progress - I will stop updating on this until I have the funds saved (should be six+ more months depending on if I come across a really good deal or not)

and introducing TWO new ventures:

Blog:
Noticed one of the programming frameworks I use doesn't have a framework specific blog. Bought a domain name and using free blogger blog (customized the them though) and giving it a go. If this gains traction I already have multiple ways it can be monetized thought up.

Surprise Niche: I was messing around with something in google relating to my reselling business I am starting and stumbled upon a current fad then later on in the day I noticed freelancers can make the bulk of this fad product for CHEAP and manufacturing is also CHEAP and google ads have VERY low bids with monthly search hovering around 20k a month searches and the broader still relevant niche key word hovering around 180k a month searches. Found a wholesaler who could supply while I get manufacturing up and going (with no minimums) and set up a shopify offering people to preorder a 'kit' of the products with a free ebook I will write if there are orders and threw up some google ads. Cost $13 for domain (14 day free shopify trial) + $25 in ads (using a spend $25 get $75 free adwords coupon). I priced it so if it sells I'll make a couple bucks even if I have to buy retail at first - when I go whole sale I should make a decent chunk and when I go manufacturing the sky is the limit. I will wait to see if the market is interested.


Oh and I forgot to mention I was inspired by a thread I saw on here advertising a 'self journal'. I decided now with all this stuff going on I need to be more organized. I jotted down my goals, actions to achieve those goals and a daily outline of how a day has to go to get all those actions done. Ended up with me going to bed on time and starting my days two hours earlier with a cold shower to wake up. 3 days into that so far and it feels great watching the sun rise while eating cereal preparing myself mentally for the day ahead.
 
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Last edited:

HoneyBadger

Bronze Contributor
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Jul 14, 2016
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Florida
Updates:
Reselling Business:
  • Should be receiving pictures of my first custom product in the next 1-2 days.
  • Received the bulk of my non-custom samples and will be going through the quality review process.
  • Started trying to flip some high margin items on eBay.
Video Game:
  • I have been waking up earlier to punch out an extra hour - 1.5 hours into coding the game in the morning. I dropped a continuing education programming I was going to start in October (does not align with my goals) so my study time preparing for that on the weekend has been replaced with coding the game. Main things I have done since last update: basic health points system, basic exp/leveling system, gui elements for status bars (hp/exp) that is reusable, basic attack/defend system.

Blog:

  • I have been posting as time allows and am up to 9 posts (how-to's/tutorials) so far. Not spending time marketing this as I am hoping for this be organic/passive.

Surprise Niche:
  • Quick litmus test failed - onto the next. May revisit later on when I can produce the product myself (which would allow me to price it much cheaper). The ship may sail by that time do to it following fad-like search volume history (declining rapidly now). I did learn that my female-oriented product had better results and much cheaper on Pintrest ads than Google ads - seems obvious but seeing the stats/engagement makes it more concrete.
 

splok

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Video Game:

Why not push out a super-simple, single player version of your game first? Aside from being more complicated, launching a multiplayer game without a pre-existing audience is rough since multiplayer is sort of a worthless feature if you have no one to play against. It's like the problem with launching a new forum from scratch.

If you've never launched a game before, you'll learn a ton just by getting to that point and pushing the go button. You'll launch in a fraction of the time. You won't have to worry about a server. You'll also learn what players do and don't like about your game (and what they will and won't pay for). It's basically releasing a polished prototype and then immediately starting on the "sequel", which would be your prototype plus some features. You start to build an audience more quickly this way too, which will help the future launches.
 

HoneyBadger

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Florida
Hey Splok -

Thanks for the questions. The game is going to be largely based on competition (see agar.io and slither.io for ideas of what I mean) so a single player version may feel - flat? There are also hundreds/thousands of single player versions of what I am doing but very few active (still being update/has a player base) multiplayer versions. I know this can seem daunting because of what you said about starting without players but part of it will be coding an ai that will simulate being fellow "players" so that the servers appear and for all intents and purposes will be, active.

My plan is to start building an email list/marketing later this year and leverage that base of players to launch a kickstarter for some freelanced (better) art.
 
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HoneyBadger

Bronze Contributor
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
201%
Jul 14, 2016
150
301
34
Florida
Updates:
Game: Have the basic random moving around engine down for the monsters. Starting to feel like a video game.
Amazon: My custom product sample is finally being shipped to me after a month and a half of hiring (and firing multiple) a designer, coming up with a brand name and going over revisions and quality control (over pictures) from the 1 out of 3 manufacturers that kept up with me and my standards. The product looks great in the pictures so I am hoping the quality is nice in person too.
 

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