Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

How`s it going?
My name`s Chris and I`m 21, live in Massachusetts, and I`ve always hated the idea of working for other people. 

I started my first business when I was probably 6 or 7, it was a small breakfast restaurant located in my kitchen, my customers were my parents, little brother, and grandmother. I don`t remember making much (if any) money and it was only around for a few days if I remember correctly, but that`s where I began.

Fast forward to 2007, I had quit my job moving boxes around at Sears, worked for a few weeks at a car wash, got tired of all the sketchy stuff that went on there and quit to start my own auto detailing business.
The passion was there, the market was there, I had enough money to get the business going and survive for a little while until I started making money, but I had no clue how to actually make it happen from the business standpoint.
I detailed a few cars in exchange for a promise to tell other people about me and hand out business cards, and did a few more jobs for friends for very little $$$, again, hoping that the word of mouth business that would result from these jobs would make it worth while. The only "referals" I got were people I was friends with, and those were the ones I did for VERY discounted prices, hoping I would get more business from people THEY knew.
Got a few calls from my ad on SuperPages, but because I had started working at my current job  by then and I still was clueless as to how to actually run a business, nothing ever resulted from those calls.  Not long after, I decided to call it quits and take my website and online advertisements down.

A promotion, a few semesters at community college, a couple of books, and a lot of thoughts and ideas later, and here I am.
I feel confident that now, I am in a much better position to start and run a successful business.  I have a better understanding of what`s actually involved in running a business, my current job has taught me a lot of people skills, sales skills, accounting, managing other people (I`m 21 and have managed employees twice my age, talk about being nervous at the beginning, now I love it, haha) as well as giving me a whole different view of how big businesses are run. (I work for a major auto parts retailer)

I`ve got a few ideas for online based businesses, and I`m working to get one up and running within the next month, the other two are still in the early planning stages.

I found this site through Google, and hope to learn a lot from you all, and hopefully I can some day be of assistance to others who, like me, dream of the freedom and excitement of starting a business from nothing and having it grow into something successful!

Way to go Chris! Like you, Im done working forother people. Eswpecially in this economy and with the shortage of reliable income, working for yourself is a great way to go.Best of luck getting yourself up and running.

                                                                                             TheJoeZone

Hi Chris :-) Welcome to the confusing world of entrepreneurs.

Reading your above story was interesting. It got me thinking about a classic direction many people take when starting a business. It`s the question of when to charge money and when to offer "promotional" work.

It reminds me of a major argument I had, back when I was in the music business. I was the leader of a band and a friend of mine was a pro guitarist who`d been around for quite awhile. He didn`t want to run a band, but wanted to play what I was playing.

As we were starting, I suggested that we might do a few talent nights, sort of like open mic, where we`d go in and play 1 night in a club for the promotion. He totally and adamantly nixed the idea. We had, as they say, a "frank exchange of views." Quite loudly, it turned out.

His argument was that NO business is a business if it hands out the product for free. My argument was that a business couldn`t become a business unless it ALSO had a market.

Eventually, he convinced me with massive proofs, background, examples, and demonstrations called up from my own history.

What you could have done with your detailing operation would have been to charge your expected rate for the detailing, but also offered additional services or options as a "promotion."

For example, you would charge $1-million to clean and wax the car, do the windows and vacuum the interior. But for the promotional startup offer, you could have offered the interior vacuum for free, or perhaps cut 50% from the wax job. Things like that.

When you offer the entire product line for free, nobody takes you seriously. As you found out.

The bottom line is that if you`re convinced that you have a real product for a real market, then don`t give it away for free. The proof of ANY business and idea is whether or not it works! And in a business, "works" means that it generates revenues. If it doesn`t then there`s something wrong either with the idea itself, or the implementation.

Thanks for the replies!
Craig, looking back, that`s exactly what I should have done. Unfortunately, I didn`t, but you live and you learn I guess.

Right now I`m really depressed. My friend and I had an awesome plan for a tee shirt brand  (a very specific "counter-culture" sort of theme that there is CERTAINLY a market for, and a lack of competition (Only a small handful of similar companies, and they`re out on the west coast and aren`t exactly the same as our idea).
We`ve been working on the website, putting our business plan together, I literally just finished applying for our tax ID, and went to check out our website.

First of all, when we first decided on our brand name, we went to "www.(brandname).com" and it was parked, but nothing there. We ended up buying "www.(brand-name).com", figuring that we could try and get the original domain a little bit later on in the process. And after doing a google search, we found NOTHING about anyone else using the name for ANYTHING. We were so excited and determined. 

Anyhow, I typed in our URL, but forgot the "-" between the two words, and it took me to exactly what our website was going to be (different layout than what we planned, but essentially the exact same product and theme).
I feel like someone must have traveled back in time from the future and copied our business before we even thought about it.  The site must have been down when we bought our domain, and google doesn`t bring the site up when you search for it even.  Their "NEWS" page shows posts from way back in 2008.

As much as this sucks, I`m not discouraged yet! Our idea can adopt a new name, and our product line was going to include some higher quality products aimed at a VERY small and VERY specific segment of our market, so I`m thinking maybe we should just concentrate on that, only with a different name.

A fairly big setback since we had already had a whole bunch of stuff in progress (designs, the website, etc.) but I`m sure we`ll figure out something to do. I`ve already got a few ideas bouncing around in my head.

I also think its time for me to start working on one of my other website ideas. It will be a website that will appeal to a much broader audience and has a lot more potential to turn into something big.

Ah, my first entrepreneural setback/surprise since the detailing days! As frustrating as this is, I almost feel like this will just make me even MORE creative and willing to take a chance, and more determined to succeed!

Chris,

First of all, take a step back and breath for a minute. :-) As one of my favorite mantras points out, "what`s really going on here?" What, exactly, is a business after all? It`s a product being exchanged, right?

What you`ve written above seems to say that you`re depressed because of a problem with a domain name or a site that seems to be exactly like yours? That`s a minor detail. You can always come up with a domain name, at least until we run out of them. :-)

The key is to have a product and a market of customers. Think about companies like Toyota, Carnation, McDonalds. You recognize them instantly, right? And yet nothing at all about their names tells you about cars, milk, or hamburgers.

Same with your tee-shirts. So what if you have a domain that spells something other than whatever you chose. So what if the other company sells "exactly" the same shirts, theme, colors? What matters there is whether or not they have a copyright or patent of some kind, or a trademark.

Competition is all about two companies offering the same product in different ways. Don`t get all caught up in the details at this point. Instead, focus on actually producing a real product. Get real customers. Have a real store, online or brick-and-mortar.

It`s way too easy to get sidetracked by a detail that doesn`t go the way you planned. Stay focused on the main objective---selling product. Y`know?

Hello Chris welcome to the forum!!!!!

Thanks for the welcome, Irene! :-)

Craig, yeah I was kinda bummed out and thought about scrapping the idea completely, but we brainstormed for a bit and came up with a new name and slightly different product design.
The problem with our first name and designs was that it was literally, the exact same name and the exact same type of designs, and since the name was pretty much the entire point of the shirts and the various designs (Color combinations, details, etc.) were the only differences between our different shirt ideas, if we stuck with our original plan, you wouldn`t be able to tell the difference between the two companies at all.

New name, slightly different concept, our own URL that NOBODY ELSE IS USING any variation of, and we`re looking forward to being up and running in the next week or two!
Websites well on its way to completion (decided to K.I.S.S. for now and worry about making it look real fancy later on), we`ve found a supplier with a good reputation and great prices, so now its just a matter of getting the shirts made and making the website 100% functional, and we should be good to go!

I`ll be sure to post a thread once we`re up and running for you guys to check the biz out!