Advice needed on setting up first business

SimpleSam06

Millionaire wrote:

I just think if it had been a slower steady growth, and success did not come as fast, we would have handled it better, in all ways.

Yup, thats the nail on the head right there. Growth kills far more businesses than slow or low sales. If you expand too fast you end up taking risks, and gambling on where to expand into. If you get even one of those guesses wrong, you could end up losing it all.

A damn good website for advice on starting a business is here http://www.startingabusinessinireland.com/, I wouldn't go pestering your friend's father for advice however, its a bit impolite. If you want sales experience (and you really do need it) get a job as a sales rep for one of those door to door insurance companies like combined insurance. Its hard and nasty work, but if you survive that, you'll know how to sell ice to eskimoes.

It might seem unneccesary, since you are going about it entirely online, but you need to factor in corporate accounts as well, and government agencies. You'll need to make a lot of personal appearances to sell to lucrative clients like that. Long term support contracts are pure gold as well.

The one online retailer I know of gets his equipment from the UK, where there is a bulk importer who gets his stuff directly from the far east. This wholesaler supplies a lot of similar operations to the one you are thinking about setting up, I'm sure a bit of googling will set you straight there. Besides that, you can take delivery charges and all that from places like komplett.ie. Nothing beats a working example.

Oh yes marketing is vital and should be about 50% of your budget at least. Don't set up the website yourself, get a professional designer and developer on the job, unless you happen to be both of the above.

antoinolachtnai

I disagree with almost all of that.

The day of the door-to-door sale is gone. Things are a lot more sophisticated than that now. Don't expect to sell much if you do try this out.

I would ask your friend's father for an hour of his time to see if you get on. Don't waste his time though.

If you are interested in corporate/government accounts, you should concentrate on just that. It's a specialized area, different from retail.

Long term support contracts may be pure gold, but they are hard to price and can cripple a small company without the right planning, funding and personnel (and who has those?)

Online retail for small sellers of consumer electronics works through drop-shipping from the UK. It's not really classical wholesale.

The whole business of online retail is marketing and customer service. You would need to be spending pretty much 90 percent of your budget on marketing and website related costs.

One of the online retailers in Ireland went bankrupt recently and was revived.

SimpleSam06

antoinolachtnai wrote:

I disagree with almost all of that.

Sounds like you haven't really got a clue what you are talking about then, so.

antoinolachtnai wrote:

The day of the door-to-door sale is gone. Things are a lot more sophisticated than that now. Don't expect to sell much if you do try this out.

CIC is one of the largest insurance companies in the world, bigger by far than Hibernian or any of them, and they employ a great many people in Ireland. And thats just insurance. Door to door and b2b sales are well and truly interlinked, even if door to door sales are much harder. Just because your sole exposure to sales has been ads on the telly doesn't mean there isn't a bigger world out there, baby.

antoinolachtnai wrote:

I would ask your friend's father for an hour of his time to see if you get on. Don't waste his time though.

I've had people come up and ask me for advice on setting up a similar business to my own. The thoughts running through my head were, so you want me to help you set up in competition? Think about that for a second...

antoinolachtnai wrote:

If you are interested in corporate/government accounts, you should concentrate on just that. It's a specialized area, different from retail.

Yeah and microsoft didn't get a deal with IBM from day 1 out the door. Thats part of a business development plan. First get a good grounding in regular sales online, then progress upwards.

antoinolachtnai wrote:

Long term support contracts may be pure gold, but they are hard to price and can cripple a small company without the right planning, funding and personnel (and who has those?)

See above. Business plan, remember?

antoinolachtnai wrote:

Online retail for small sellers of consumer electronics works through drop-shipping from the UK. It's not really classical wholesale.

This has so little bearing I'm just going to move on.

antoinolachtnai wrote:

The whole business of online retail is marketing and customer service. You would need to be spending pretty much 90 percent of your budget on marketing and website related costs.

You will note I said at least. I was contemplating saying at most 99%, but I don't know what his budget is, now do I? Do you?

antoinolachtnai wrote:

One of the online retailers in Ireland went bankrupt recently and was revived.

What exactly does that have to do with anything?

Now I realise its Sunday afternoon so you probably have a pounding hangover, but next time someone widdles in your weetabix, do some exercise or something.

TempestSabre

From what you see around there are still businesses making the traditional methods work for them, just as there are other businesses who found the new methods work better, and failed companies in both camps.

L31mr0d

Ok i've ordered a few books to ground some of my ideas on business, and i'm doing my research. The other good thing about engineering is that it seems to function a lot the same as getting a business plan together. You start with a few ideas on what you want to do, then modularize each idea into a set of constraints for them to be successfull, then work out a timeline for these modules so that as one completes itself another can start.

I'm going to spend the next month just doing as much reading as possible. Thanks SimpleSam06 for the website link. Will check it out, oh and I sorta agree with you about approaching my friends father, I can't get my head around how I could go about it without being too intrusive, and if I didn't tell him I was planning to open up a business like his and asked him in a purely curious manner he would be insulted down the line when he finds out I have a business in competition with his.

I'll keep him as a last resort if I can't find the information elsewhere.

If there are any more opinions I'd love to hear them, this thread has already been a great help.

Millionaire

well if your going online, and maybe you cover this already, but your going to have to become an expert in web marketing, as in key words, and of course email marketing, with opt in email list.

I got a book, sorry cannot remember name and book is not beside me, who is an world expert on Google Adwords.

Also email markeing if you google the Internet Marketing Centre derek Gehl, got some great products.

I got one online business, that ebook I am selling, and it is totally automated..I do rarely have to do anything on it, once i set it up, and its making a nice little bit of money each month.

In 2007 I am setting up another, to see another E Book I am writing, with some up sell.

And also another e business, selling products online which I can source in the fat east cheap and sell. there is alot of competition in this sector, but I reckon by partnering on it, with an internet marketing expert, he will beat the competition on web marketing.