I've been grinding away for about eight months now and just hit 8k in sales in the last 30 days with approximately 80% of that being profit. This puts me at a little over 100k in revenue yearly. Since my main source of education was /r/entrepreneur, I thought I'd share my experience.
So what am I selling? Well, I have taken a somewhat unique tactic in terms of products. I have chosen to solve a somewhat small problem in a niche market. I also chose to create an entirely new product, giving me the opportunity to set the price and avoid any sort of price wars (for now anyway). My motto for this side project is to "fly under the radar." I chose to enter a market that isn't often looked at by potential competitors. Obviously, for that reason, I can't tell you exactly what it is that I'm selling. Sorry! But I will lay out exactly what I did.
First and foremost, my biggest takeaway is that it is was incredibly easy (when compared to traditional 9-5 work making an equivalent salary). Let me explain. Obviously when starting an ecommerce business, there are some signficant hurdles that you have to get past. Personally, this included things like:
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product design
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prototype
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product validation
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finding and working out kinks with a manufacturer
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navigating importing regulations
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web design
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logo design
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product photography
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marketing
(Wow, laying it all out sounds like a lot of work!) However, once I got past those obstacles, it has turned into somewhat passive income. All I do now is take orders, ship them, and collect a paycheck. Obviously, there are things I could be doing, in terms of maintenance and expansion but I have chosen to keep my full time job, and need time to relax. In the future, when I free up some time, I will focus on growth. Another potential problem thats always lingering in the back of my mind, is that I'm involved in a niche market that follows trends. Because of this, my luck could quickly dry up. This is causing me to hold a minimal amount of inventory and be very wary of investing large sums of money.
Financially, starting this side business cost about $650 and a great deal of time learning the ropes. $50 of that went to the prototype. For this particular product, I found someone local that has a 3d printer and printed exactly what I needed. The other $600 of that went exclusively to cost of an initial small order. That $600 slowly turned into $3,000 and it went right back out for another order.
In terms of learning, I taught myself product design using Blender (free), basic web design using Word Press, image editing using Gimp (also free), marketing (thanks reddit), and product photography (thanks again reddit).
Eventually after figuring out what works and what doesnt work in regards to marketing, the sales started coming in and my orders from the manufacturer got bigger and bigger.
As it stands today, I am placing about $7000 orders about twice a month. My future goals include finding ways to decrease the wholesale price, while maintaining quality and price point, and expanding in the same market with other products.
I guess the reason, I am writing all of this is because I want to explain to you that, while the act of starting a side business (or primary business) may seem to be very overwhelming when you're standing at the starting line, I can assure you it is not nearly as difficult as you may thing. The key is to act and to continue to act. Also, for those of you that are in the process of starting, I would love to help walk you through the things I have learned and help you where you may be stuck. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask and I'll do my best to help you out.
Thanks!
Bill
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