Hey guys!
I would love to start sharing my journey through all the obstacles here. Im 23 old uni student (business and management at MUNI) from Czech rep. (middle Europe) who has always been really enthusiastic about his own ventures.
Long story short - me and my good friend with the same mindset (called Vit) started our first business when we were 19 in the first year of uni. It was a platform to connect younger students 15-18 yo (who have hard times finding a summer job etc. here) with households who wanted to get some things around the house and garden done. Long story short, as you are already excepting - it did not end with a big success in the area of money but it was a big step for us. We made about 50k CZK (usd 2.500) altogether and we found out that we are not able to scale this thing and our enormous load of work we made on it is not worth it. So after about one year, we stoped with this service.
Then there was a "dark" phase thinking about business but not finding any (in my eyes) valuable ideas. After some time, in my city started to operate Lime and other e-scooter sharing platforms. So we took this idea from different side - "What about lending e-scooters for longer periods of time? Like weeks and months?" it would be something like operating lease. We saw a lot of positive factors in it - for example: people would behave better to e-scooters if they have it for a long period of time. To shorten it - overall we were successful - there really was a demand for this kind of services. We were doing it about 10 months and made about USD 5.000 (im not mentioning money everywhere because of being obsessed with it but for you to get better inside view). We realized that its unsustainable business - we had 10 e-scooters in the peak and amortization took its part. We were repairing our scooters on our own and it was harder and harder because of not big manufacturing quality (we were using Xiaomi Mi Scooter 2). We realized that we were able to made like max USD 1.800 per month together in profit but it would be like full time job (way less than in my profession I had been studying for) so it was not the way to the freedom. No scaling, hard liberating from time, no entry barriers for others etc). After this venture (we ended it in the end of 2020) - again "dark" phase - no business, no ideas.
Then thanks to my other friend from uni (Martin) - I learnt about dropshipping and e-commerce. We brainstormed hard to find products (haha) to sell. Then we discovered beauty niche and our thoughts were like "mhhm, those crazy girls and mamas are able to pay crazy amounts for anything what can help them" (yeah, money-chasing in its purest form). No focus on value and making people happy and satisfied, only MONEY. We were like crazy, now I have to smile.
Soo we had been running one shopify store with branded product from beauty niche with supplier from Alibaba (img in attachment). We wanted to create "premium feeling" brand, we also created our own affiliate program etc. but it was a big disappointment. We have been knowing NOTHING abour our product, even if it really works. We were just CHASING MONEY. We sold only one for a really discounted price (orginally it was for USD 140-150; discounted for 30-40 which were manufacturing costs). Another trouble was that we focused on US market because people have bigger purchasing power there (like I said, Im from Czech republic, middle Europe) and we werent even able to communicate the product in ads etc. because of not having like C2 English and not knowing the different mentality of people there. We spent like usd 1k on it and during the process me and my old friend Vit realized that Martin is not ideal business partner - he had been having almost no time for business, he wasnt enthusiastic and able to do anything to succeed like us with Vit. So we decided to continue in some next venture without him again. During this, we learnt that we cant sell anything without knowing how it works (and if (!)). But we fell in love with shopify and e-comm generally so we knew that we will use this platform for something in the future again.
Then I read Millionaire Fastlane and learnt about value and focusing only on customers. I had been thinking about it even before reading that book (thank you MJ!) but then it all makes sense and I have vivid vision. One day came Vit and told me that he was thinking and found really cool product which we can sell - its for mothers to record growing of their baby - product connected to emotions. When he told me about it I was really excited. It sounds amazing so we immediately got in the work.
Now we are running it on our local Czech market and it seems it can be a life-changing banger for us! We've had about 30 orders from paying customers in like 15 days and we are after breakeven. We know our product, we have our own brand, we are enormously focused on our customers and we love having them happy and satisfied. Its like different universe in comparison with our past ventures. Its really just a beginning and Im gonna share in next post more detailed info about it soon. Wanna post in this thread all our progress and (as Will Smith said) represent a possibility. Possibility to change the game and discover freedom.
You can find our "beauty product" in the attachment, we also made a photoshooting with our friends haha.
Thanks for reading!
I would love to start sharing my journey through all the obstacles here. Im 23 old uni student (business and management at MUNI) from Czech rep. (middle Europe) who has always been really enthusiastic about his own ventures.
Long story short - me and my good friend with the same mindset (called Vit) started our first business when we were 19 in the first year of uni. It was a platform to connect younger students 15-18 yo (who have hard times finding a summer job etc. here) with households who wanted to get some things around the house and garden done. Long story short, as you are already excepting - it did not end with a big success in the area of money but it was a big step for us. We made about 50k CZK (usd 2.500) altogether and we found out that we are not able to scale this thing and our enormous load of work we made on it is not worth it. So after about one year, we stoped with this service.
Then there was a "dark" phase thinking about business but not finding any (in my eyes) valuable ideas. After some time, in my city started to operate Lime and other e-scooter sharing platforms. So we took this idea from different side - "What about lending e-scooters for longer periods of time? Like weeks and months?" it would be something like operating lease. We saw a lot of positive factors in it - for example: people would behave better to e-scooters if they have it for a long period of time. To shorten it - overall we were successful - there really was a demand for this kind of services. We were doing it about 10 months and made about USD 5.000 (im not mentioning money everywhere because of being obsessed with it but for you to get better inside view). We realized that its unsustainable business - we had 10 e-scooters in the peak and amortization took its part. We were repairing our scooters on our own and it was harder and harder because of not big manufacturing quality (we were using Xiaomi Mi Scooter 2). We realized that we were able to made like max USD 1.800 per month together in profit but it would be like full time job (way less than in my profession I had been studying for) so it was not the way to the freedom. No scaling, hard liberating from time, no entry barriers for others etc). After this venture (we ended it in the end of 2020) - again "dark" phase - no business, no ideas.
Then thanks to my other friend from uni (Martin) - I learnt about dropshipping and e-commerce. We brainstormed hard to find products (haha) to sell. Then we discovered beauty niche and our thoughts were like "mhhm, those crazy girls and mamas are able to pay crazy amounts for anything what can help them" (yeah, money-chasing in its purest form). No focus on value and making people happy and satisfied, only MONEY. We were like crazy, now I have to smile.
Soo we had been running one shopify store with branded product from beauty niche with supplier from Alibaba (img in attachment). We wanted to create "premium feeling" brand, we also created our own affiliate program etc. but it was a big disappointment. We have been knowing NOTHING abour our product, even if it really works. We were just CHASING MONEY. We sold only one for a really discounted price (orginally it was for USD 140-150; discounted for 30-40 which were manufacturing costs). Another trouble was that we focused on US market because people have bigger purchasing power there (like I said, Im from Czech republic, middle Europe) and we werent even able to communicate the product in ads etc. because of not having like C2 English and not knowing the different mentality of people there. We spent like usd 1k on it and during the process me and my old friend Vit realized that Martin is not ideal business partner - he had been having almost no time for business, he wasnt enthusiastic and able to do anything to succeed like us with Vit. So we decided to continue in some next venture without him again. During this, we learnt that we cant sell anything without knowing how it works (and if (!)). But we fell in love with shopify and e-comm generally so we knew that we will use this platform for something in the future again.
Then I read Millionaire Fastlane and learnt about value and focusing only on customers. I had been thinking about it even before reading that book (thank you MJ!) but then it all makes sense and I have vivid vision. One day came Vit and told me that he was thinking and found really cool product which we can sell - its for mothers to record growing of their baby - product connected to emotions. When he told me about it I was really excited. It sounds amazing so we immediately got in the work.
Now we are running it on our local Czech market and it seems it can be a life-changing banger for us! We've had about 30 orders from paying customers in like 15 days and we are after breakeven. We know our product, we have our own brand, we are enormously focused on our customers and we love having them happy and satisfied. Its like different universe in comparison with our past ventures. Its really just a beginning and Im gonna share in next post more detailed info about it soon. Wanna post in this thread all our progress and (as Will Smith said) represent a possibility. Possibility to change the game and discover freedom.
You can find our "beauty product" in the attachment, we also made a photoshooting with our friends haha.
Thanks for reading!
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