The Shrewdest Start-up Move You Can Make in YEARS
My failures with starting-up a business have prepared me for my next ventures.
The number one mistake that people make when they start a business is that they are not prepared to fail.
I wasn’t.
My parents are in the academia, and they instill to us kids that mistakes are bad. If you make a mistake, you are punished in some way (low test scores).
I understand that. You don’t want to produce a surgeon prone to mistake, or else, life will be the cost of mistakes. Same with producing airline pilots, or engineers.
I went to school and went for higher learning. I thought it was enough to make me happy working for a company. But I realized I wanted to call my shots. Like everybody else, owning a business is the way to go.
I started few businesses.
I was a solopreneur (an entrepreneur working solo).
Stocks, Forex, Options, I tried those. My next few attempts was selling on eBay, and I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t make much money, but it prepared me for the next venture.
Amazon Private Labeling (PL) was the next venture I went too. In Amazon PL, you source your product from China (at least, that’s what I did) and sold it though Amazon.
You create your own listing, the advertisement, and drive traffic to your listing.
To be honest, I made some money during the holidays but breaking even or losing money when it came to the lean months.
In hindsight, my first few mistakes was that I didn’t research the market well. Remember the saying, “the riches are on the niches”? I wasn’t prepared for this.
I was selling a hammock at that time, a parachute hammock. These hammocks are so light and thin it can be folded. At first, I thought it was the right niche, but later on I found it was a very competitive market.
Currently, I am selling information products, but let me tell you now, before I chose the product I made, I did my due diligence and researched the market in depth.
It took me weeks swimming for data at the Red Ocean to make a Blue Ocean offer. If you’re not familiar with Red Ocean and Blue Ocean terms, it’s basically the type of niches you are going too. A competitive niche or market is a Red Ocean. An example of competitive market is the weight loss niche. People are fighting for markets to sell Diets and exercises such as Paleo Diet, Keto Diet, Low-Carb diet, etc.
Blue Ocean is the niche were a new market is made. Blue Ocean is not red, because it’s away from the red bloody water because of competition.
After researching my niche, I went to a Red Ocean Niche, which is a golf related product, and moving my niche to a Blue Ocean. This strategy is what I learned from Russel Brunson.
I am launching my product in a week, and the market will tell me if I did the right thing.
Only the market votes if your offering is for real.
So one of the shrewdest move you can make in starting a business, is to research the niche you are diving into. Is it a Red Ocean or a Blue Ocean, or can you make a Blue Ocean from a Red Ocean?
Research, research, research, it will save you time and money in the back end. That’s what I learned from my previous ventures.
