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If your energy drink is just another branding play you'll need BIG dollars to get it on store shelves. But if it's really a new and GREAT product you'll be able to sell it everywhere. Those sales will be your facts and figures on the product. Those would be 1000 times better than any estimates you would project starting with other numbers.
If you stand in front of investors and say "I have some projections based on industry numbers." They'll probably just think "Meh..." But if you stand in front of them and say "I've already sold $1M in product." They most likely will think "How can I get in on this?"
But if it's really a new and GREAT product you'll be able to sell it everywhere.
Yes, it is different. Caffeine could be added, but it isn't the main ingredient. And this stuff works like crazy. Whenever I would sleep late, the next day I would take my little drink and I would be like tweaked out for 8 hours. Not energetic but it sure as hell prevented me from being sleepy
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Those sales will be your facts and figures on the product. Those would be 1000 times better than any estimates you would project starting with other numbers.
If you stand in front of investors and say "I have some projections based on industry numbers." They'll probably just think "Meh..." But if you stand in front of them and say "I've already sold $1M in product." They most likely will think "How can I get in on this?"
What? But that's what I'm trying to do in the first place. Start selling it. If I'm already selling it then I've already "succeeded", at least as per my original post, where I want to know how to start a business selling this stuff.
Are you saying maybe there are ways to start small, and get a few units here and there manufactured slowly and sold, and then get more investment later by showing my sales?
What? But that's what I'm trying to do in the first place. Start selling it. If I'm already selling it then I've already "succeeded", at least as per my original post, where I want to know how to start a business selling this stuff.
Are you saying maybe there are ways to start small, and get a few units here and there manufactured slowly and sold, and then get more investment later by showing my sales?
A business is a vehicle not the end goal. What I'm saying is that you should focus on selling your product. All the other things you asked about are "used" for various purposes. For example you can invent and implement a product without having a business at all. BUT... You can deduct the various expenses for inventing and implementing that product against revenues by having a business.
Most people who start a business foolishly think they need a business entity and accountants and big computer systems and shiny brochures and a new car and new suits and many other things that don't produce sales. In for-profit business sales are key!
Any bootstrapper can tell you selling is job #1. Let sales drive all purchases and activities. If you have a small amount of sales and can track them on paper do that. If you run out, or sales not delivered show you'll run out soon, of bottles for you product *then* buy more. Too many businesses fail because people get all gung ho about everything they think they need while forgetting that you must have sales to make a profit!
So, if I understand your posts so far, the questions you should have are:
1. How many bottles of my product will I need to start visiting stores that I think will want to sell my product?
2. How can I get that quantity of my product produced for the lowest cost?
3. While my product is being produced but before it has been delivered to me. How many sales visits can I schedule with the stores I think would want to carry my product?
You need to do research on what the regulations are for manufacturing and selling a food item. And you may need additional research/testing on the safety of your drink. I would probably work with an existing manufacturer who has experience in new drink products who understands this and has the resources to do this - won't be cheap.
And I'd probably gear my business plan, (after selling enough to get feedback, loyal customers, repeat store sales) towards the ultimate goal of licensing the product out to a big drink company who would have the deep pockets to brand, market, distribute and get shelf space.
You might want to read about Bethenny Frankel & her Skinny Girl drinks. See how one person outside the industry took a new drink to market and then sold to the big guys. Not sure if she ever got her big payday though.
"8) Have a plan and stick to the plan. You need to pursue it with laser-beam focus. The minute you say, "Why, I can have a second revenue stream if I go and do this other thing...." you're dead."
Agree with everything but that. My second revenue scheme and then my third revenue scheme were the ones that made things work for me. I could tell that I was starting to get shut out on the first idea and it was time to let that fade out.
Our paths diverge less than you think. I totally get being nimble as the market changes. The problem comes in the early stages where the entrepreneur hasn't fully established his or her core business, yet wants to go careening off onto tangents. And it's very common.
I have a client like that. He called me in to consult for him. I managed to take him from the brink of failure to growth in about six months. So what does the guy do? Goes out and starts another business without telling me, thereby sucking up all his time and attention. Now his time is divided between two businesses and he almost back to where he was when he hired me.
I managed to take him from the brink of failure to growth in about six months. So what does the guy do? Goes out and starts another business...
That's called a serial entrepreneur and that's just what we do. We just start businesses. When the business is ready to exist on it's own we move on! I have no corporate cubicle skills... I have no desire to punch a clock... The idea of job security doesn't make any sense to me... I have no interest in a structured work life where I put in for vacation... My attention span is short... My creativity is overwhelming...
If you put me in an employee situation I can't get anything done!
That's called a serial entrepreneur and that's just what we do. We just start businesses. When the business is ready to exist on it's own we move on! I have no corporate cubicle skills... I have no desire to punch a clock... The idea of job security doesn't make any sense to me... I have no interest in a structured work life where I put in for vacation... My attention span is short... My creativity is overwhelming...
If you put me in an employee situation I can't get anything done!
I get it, but unless you have transitioned out of one, you can't move on to the other. It just means my client is doing thirty things half-assed rather than ten things well.
One of my first ventures failed. I mean crash and burn failed. Dropped 30k to start and burned it like a trophy wife making toast. But I learned really quick what not to do. It did cost me.
Best thing is to build your business on paper using real world money ( by that I mean actually researching true cost) not I think it will cost this much money. Write out every little thing that you will need from a phone to the insurance to the rent.( any overhead) how do you plan on capturing clients. How do you plan on retainingthose clients servicing them AND attract more clients. All the while keeping them all happy. What are your marketing strategies in first advertising your business then expanding and growing it. Are you gonna need employees from the start? What's your phish a land mental capacity to deal with jerk off clients.
Don't fool yourself into thinking you can do it all. You can't.
Your probably better off setting up an LLC instead of a corporation. COrporation can be one man, you once a year generally pay a lawyer to writeup minutes for a meeting and all that jazz. HOnestly until your making money you should probably just go LLC, it's cheaper and easier, I'm actually in the process of changing my LLC to a corporation because after 3 years I'm finally making good money and can pay myself a different way and get a lower tax rate by being a corporation as opposed to an LLC.
As for crowdfunding don' plan on that being your funding as the people getting 40k to make potatoe salad arent the norm.
I started with my business plan and talked to a CPA, then I became a LLC. Plumbing business btw.
I'm also taking business classes in the fall to learn as much as I can, mostly because I've already made a HUGE mistake, HUGE. I didn't have the startup money I should have and business has been good but I didn't get much of a presence in the phone book, really none at all and pleading ignorance on that is no different than pleading stupidity. Ugh!
Business cards and all the free advertising you can get from the Internet cause there is a lot that's free, get it all.
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