- In this video, I'll share the steps
you absolutely have to do
to start an e-commerce business
and make your first sale.
This is a blueprint I wish I had
before starting my online store,
because if I did have it,
it would've made everything so much easier.
This plan will take you from a product idea
to an e-commerce business in 30 days.
And if you follow these steps,
I guarantee you'll have a successful launch
and have a company that will pay you dividends for years.
If you want to be your own boss,
gain financial freedom,
and take charge of your future,
you're gonna wanna stick around to the end,
because that's where everything comes together.
(cash register ringing)
If you want even more videos
that will show you how to grow your business
and make money online,
be sure to subscribe and turn on notifications.
But let's get started.
Now, I'm gonna make a few assumptions here.
One, you're currently already working full time,
which means you have no more than an hour or two
to spend each day for this month-long journey.
Two, I'm gonna also assume
that you have a general idea of what you want to sell,
whether it's driven by a passion, a community,
or a subculture that you are part of,
or a hobby that you want to monetize.
And three, I'm gonna assume
that you don't have tens of thousands of dollars
worth of risk capital to invest,
so you're after a managed approach with limited risk.
This first-month plan
is going to be broken down into four milestones.
Your idea blueprint, brand construction,
product and customer development, and store launch.
So, let's buckle up and get straight into it,
beginning with the idea blueprint.
By the end of this first stage,
you'll have a clear bird's-eye view
of what the general architecture
of your business will look like.
What are your financial targets?
Who are your customers?
Who are your suppliers?
What is your cost of doing business?
To draw cohesion to this entire video,
I'm gonna pick a random example,
say, I don't know, maybe you're a B-girl or a B-boy,
really tied into the breakdancing scene,
and want to sell things that really speak to others
who are passionate about the dance
and of that element of hip-hop culture.
On day one, your job is to identify
your first financial goal,
your initial target monthly income,
keyword being initial.
You see, it's too easy and lazy
to say a million dollars an hour.
You need to set an initial prize
in the form of a target monthly income to keep your eyes on.
One way to set this is to identify
your personal cost of living and saying,
"I want my side hustle to be able to cover
"my bare survival needs,"
as an initial target monthly income.
The point is that there's a clear, quantitative target
to be focused on so you can measure
your business's success as you build it.
On day two,
you're going to focus on some initial product ideas.
With our example of the B-boy or B-girl,
they know the most important things to people who breakdance
are shoes, music, style, originality.
But from a day-to-day dance and practice perspective,
they always need a change of clothes,
a towel for all that sweat,
water, wrist and elbow bands for spinning,
and a bag to carry it all in.
Day three, it's time to start seeing
what it'll take financially and time-wise
to get these products on hand.
I recommend just running a search on alibaba.com
to start getting a good gauge on what's possible.
Here's just an example,
but we can see from this quick search for a wristband
that a minimum order quantity of 100
is required for a wristband with a custom logo.
And after reaching out,
discover that an embroidered logo for 100 units
will cost them $2 US each including shipping,
which will take two weeks from an approved design file
to wristbands in hand.
Days four to six is reaching out to suppliers
for all the types of products you're interested in,
both locally and abroad,
to really get a strong idea of how much manufacturing
will cost for everything.
Our breakdancing friend learns that while wristbands
and dance practice towels are super affordable
to make offshore and have shipped,
items like water bottles and backpacks
are a lot more expensive,
and realize that they can leverage
something called print on demand for those products.
And even though their profit margins
are way less with print on demand,
they never need to carry inventory.
And hey, as their business grows and more money comes in,
then they can start ordering in bulk
once their sales are validated.
And if you're thinking of starting a clothing brand
and don't have the money to sink into a ton of inventory,
be sure to check out this video I'll link right up there
that shares everything you need to know
about print on demand.
But in a nutshell, print on demand works like this.
You sign up for an account and upload your designs
to the print on demand supplier's dashboard.
The dashboard lets you create mockups of your design
as they'd appear directly on things
like T-shirts or water bottles.
Then you integrate your print on demand dashboard
with your online store
so that when one of your store's visitors
orders one of your products,
your website notifies the print on demand supplier.
Then they print your design onto a blank product
your customer ordered,
they pack and ship it to your customer for you,
and the remaining profits go into your bank account.
But going back on track,
as they start piecing together their initial product lineup
and understanding costs,
day seven is all about identifying
where their customers hang out both online and offline.
As a breakdancer themselves,
they of course have their local practice spots,
events, and battles that they attend.
But this video is all about creating an e-commerce business,
so exploring and jotting down
where their target customers live online is vital,
as these websites, Facebook pages,
YouTube channels, and subreddits will form the foundation
of where they'll know to target
to drive traffic to their online store.
Day seven is all about compiling links
to all the places B-boys and B-girls
from around the world hang out online.
With stage one of the idea blueprint complete,
it's now time to move on to phase two, brand construction.
What's the value you'll bring your target customer?
What's the story of your business
that's going to anchor interest and build a following?
What sets your business apart
and what's the look and feel of your business?
Day eight is all about writing.
Writing your brand story will help you
with being able to communicate consistently
with your audience in the future,
but also inform the text that'll go onto your website,
and just as importantly,
help you identify and choose
your business's name and even brand design,
including the logo and colors.
If you're stuck, imagine you're writing
the About Us page of your website,
just to get the ball rolling.
Day nine is all about the value proposition.
In other words, you are answering the question,
what value will I provide to my target customers?
There's gonna likely be some overlap
between what you wrote on day eight,
but make it clear in no uncertain terms
who your business serves
and what value you'll deliver to those people.
Our breakdancing friend may start off with something like,
"Quality gear for breakers, by breakers,
"to stay looking and feeling fresh
"before, during, and after hitting the dance floor."
They continue by conveying that the value proposition
is primarily in the fact that the brand
truly understands the detailed nuances
of the needs of B-boys and B-girls,
whether it's from the quotes on the shirts
eliciting a sense of exclusivity in the community
or knowing that typical baseball caps
have a button on the top
which hurts like all hell when doing headspins,
so the hats that they make and sell
are smooth and pain-free.
Days 10 to 13 is all about piecing together
the brand elements.
I'm talking the name, the first iteration of the logo,
the typography, and colors.
I'm budgeting three days here with the assumption
that you are not a graphic designer
and will need to find help,
whether it's reaching out to friends
or finding someone on sites like Fiverr or Upwork.
Our breakdancing friend decided on the name Fresh 'n Flex,
and the package the graphic designer they found
on Fiverr looks like this.
And now with a name, a logo, typography, and brand colors,
their business is really starting to take shape.
It costed them $300 total.
Days 14 to 16 is time to get some of the foundational
administrative stuff out of the way,
like registering your business
and setting up a business bank account.
Now, I am not a lawyer nor an accountant,
so I can't tell you if you should incorporate,
set up an LLC, or go sole proprietor.
But I will say this.
If I had limited resources
and I was planning on just selling things
like wristbands, T-shirts, and water bottles,
I would personally start off as just a sole proprietor,
and if the business successfully grows,
incorporate later on.
But that's just me.
With the brand story complete,
branding elements in hand,
and a business bank account,
It's time to move onto phase three,
which is product and customer development.
Day 17 to 19 starts
and products development for our breakdancing friend
begins with taking their logo and creating a few products
with their print on demand supplier.
They write a few very short quotes and blurbs
and hired the same graphic designer
to pair the blurbs with their logo and brand's fonts
onto files that can be uploaded
to their print on demand supplier's system.
Getting eight of their blurbs
onto both T-shirts and water bottle design templates
costed them $200.
They also order a few samples
of their print on demand products from their POD supplier
so they can use them for their own photos and video clips,
which cost them another $200 for 15 items total,
a combination of 12 T-shirts and three water bottles
of different colors and breakdance-related quotes.
At the same time, they decide to order
100 of the wristbands with their logo on it
from the supplier on Alibaba,
which cost them another $200.
The wait begins for the manufacturer
to create the embroidered wristbands
and ship them across the world,
so in the meantime,
our friend moves onto the customer development side.
And by the way, this is also the time
to start piecing together their website
and the perfect time to sign up for a 100% free,
no-strings-attached trial to Shopify.
Shopify is an e-commerce platform
that has tons of powerful tools
to help you build your online store,
find customers, drive sales, and manage your day-to-day.
I'll leave a link for your 14-day free trial
in the description below.
No credit card is required,
so you can test out all the features
before you decide whether it's right for you or not.
But since designing your website takes a few days,
especially because this business is, it's your baby,
and you want the images, text, and feel to be just right,
I highly recommend first writing most of the content
before signing up for your free trial
so you're not wasting valuable free trial days
on composing content
when you could have just done it beforehand
and simply copy-paste them in.
But again, regardless,
you can claim your free trial right now
by clicking the description below
or right up here on this info card.
Going right back on track to days 20 to 25.
This is a time to do customer development,
the act of talking to your future target customers
and sharing your product
and welcoming criticisms and feedback.
Our breakdancing buddy has spent 300 on branding,
200 on product mockups,
200 on pre-ordered inventory on wristbands,
and 200 on samples for T-shirts and water bottles.
That's $900 total, which is quite a bit for them,
but also is really quite bare bones
in the context of starting a business.
So, now they have to validate their decisions so far
and the 900 they've spent.
They go to different dance practice spots every day
and just engage in conversation.
They wear one of their sample shirts
and strike up conversations with everyone
at every single one of these dance practices.
They ask for feedback on the blurbs and quotes,
and most importantly,
let everyone know that their store is launching soon
and ask for everyone's email address
so that they can email them a launch week 25% discount code.
Critically, they listen with no ego to criticism,
and from that criticism,
even come up with better quotes and blurbs for their shirts.
After all, they're using print on demand for starters,
so there's zero risk of carrying inventory.
They can even change the quotes pre-launch at any time.
I mean, it's print on demand,
so they can have literally
1000 different quote T-shirt designs,
and it won't cost them a penny until someone makes an order.
During these same few days,
they continue to finish off
all of the writing, design, and pages of their website
and make sure all of the website backend things are set up,
things like shipping rates based on weight and order value,
and also make sure their bank account
is properly connected to their Shopify store.
On days 26 and 27,
they start structuring their launch day marketing efforts.
It starts with creating a launch day email
that they'll send to everyone
whose email address that they collected
at the breakdance practice sessions they went to
and did customer development with.
They take photos with the samples they have
to include in the email,
and also go into their Shopify backend
and create that launch week 25% discount code
they'll be sending to everyone on the email list.
They set the discount code to expire in just one week
and remember to include a sentence in that email
to drum up a sense of emergency, like,
"This discount code is only available for one week."
To sweeten the deal they realize,
hey, I'm gonna be getting those wristbands in soon.
And honestly, they're so cheap at just $2 each,
so I'll list them on the website for $10 each.
But also, in the email to everyone
I met at the practice sessions,
I'm gonna sweeten the deal and offer them
a free wristband with their first order.
Day 28 is all about due diligence,
reviewing every last word of the website
to make sure there are no typos,
reviewing every single product page to ensure all shirts
have all color and size variants listed,
making sure that their Shopify store is indeed
communicating seamlessly
with their print on demand supplier,
and hey, even making an order for themselves
to make sure that their bank account
is all connected properly.
Day 29, they take a few clips of them dancing
with their sample shirts on,
a few extra product photos,
and a few selfie clips of them
sharing the launch of their store
and getting them ready for their personal
Instagram and Facebook Stories, posts, and Reels.
So, the first thing tomorrow when they launch their store,
they already have content ready to go
to share with their own personal network.
And finally, day 30, launch day.
Website goes live,
email to everyone they met at the practice sessions
with both the 25% coupon code
and free wristband offer that expires in a week goes out,
social media posts release,
and they officially have an e-commerce business,
as one of the absolute greatest feeling ever gets realized,
when one of those people they met and engaged with
gives their store their very first real sale.
If you didn't take any notes
and you want a checklist you can easily refer back to,
I recommend you check out this article
on how to start a business on shopify.com
using the link down in the description below.
Remember, everything we explored in this video
has been done by nearly 1 million regular folks
just like you and me
who are now proud business owners using Shopify.
Don't forget to bookmark your free trial link
so when you're ready,
you can take advantage of the 14 free days on Shopify
to build your online store.
And hey, if you got value from this video,
be sure to hit that like button and subscribe
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But as usual, thanks so much for hanging out with me,
and I'll catch you in the next one.