The simpler you can be the better. You don’t have to start out with all the
bells and whistles. Thinking I needed a
factory or a café to start my chai business was one of the beliefs that held me
back for years.
In the end I just need a table, a stove,
some pots!
You don’t have to start where you are going
to finish. By that I mean you don’t have to be perfect and polished, have all
the right gear, the location, the huge list of clients etc etc.
That’s why I wacked up iquitmyjob.com.au in Blogger (for free!) and on facebook (for $5 logo design) to show you don’t need
all the bells and whistles.
Just test things out first and get a feel
for what people want and what direction you want to move in, before you spend
up big.
Apparently there is even a fancy pants name
for this approach – it’s called minimum viable product.
One of our iquitmyjob readers Paul Smart
(who told me about MVP) is totally walking the talk.
He said no thanks to the typical six years
and 1 million bucks it takes to start up a winery and instead got his wine
business up and running for $1500! Thanks for coming!!!
Read on below to find out how
he did it. It’s definitely an out of the box strategy that just might work for
you too!
Happy Friday (yes I know it’s not Wednesday
when I was supposed to write, better late than never yeah?!?)
Big Love
Anthea (aka the just do it - even if it's late - girl) xxx
Here is Paul's awesome strategy for you to enjoy....
I blame Todd Sampson - by Paul Smart
My name is Paul Smart
(@VineyardPaul) I have been a professional wino for almost 15 years. I have always wanted to work for myself but
to do that in the wine industry is very challenging. The going rate to buy a vineyard is about
$1,000,000, but you could buy a rural house, plant some vines and wait 6 years
for booze, and then a few more to make some money. These options did not appeal to me; I did not
want to be beholden to the bank, I wanted more for less.
I started listen to
podcasts while pruning in the vineyard (do you know how boring pruning can be)
and one podcast took my fancy. It was
full of fantastic, wonderful, great ideas from inspiring small business
people. It is the www.smallbusinessbigmarketing.com.au podcast by Timbo Reid, who is a fountain of knowledge and
he has a back catalogue of over 150 episodes.
While devouring most of these episodes I discovered two ideas that I
thought were novel and not used in the wine industry. The first was Lean Startup Strategy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lean_Startup) and the other was crowdfunding (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crowdfunding).
Great, awesome, I had
the idea and started doing what everyone else does, spreadsheets (go on, put
your hand up). I found myself spending
hours and hours perfecting the perfect spreadsheet business plan, a perfect way
to not make anything happen.
And that was when I
heard Todd Sampson (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Todd_Sampson) speak at the Australian Wine Industry Tech Conference in
July. I love his work and am a big fan
and was looking forward to some marketing gold.
But he surprised me when he spoke not about marketing but about two
unrelated things, fear and action. Did
you know that he climbs the world’s highest peaks in his spare time? Sounds like he is a brave man, well he says
he is not:
“I am not braver than anyone else,
but I can be brave for 5 minutes longer”
Todd
Sampson
Boom. People talk about the light bulb moment, I
think I had one. From then on everything
is 5 minutes longer. Fear can be
overcome by action, a mountain climber near death can always take one more step. I signed up to a Masters in Wine
Business. I started training for my
first marathon. I sleep less. I use a standup table. I consume podcasts at 110% speed. I am a Getting Things Done (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Getting_Things_Done) blackbelt ninja using www.thesecretweapon.org/. But more
importantly, I decided to start my business right then.
I had to start small
as I had no money, so we pulled apart a wine business and said no to
everything. No vineyard, we would be
like French wine negociants and source bulk wine or grapes and put it under our
own label. No website, no business
cards, no fancy label design, no t-shirts (yet), the bare basics, $1,500 to
start up, and most of that for the Liquor License. And we worked out that we needed to sell 20
cases to break even, and it had to be all or none, perfect for crowd
funding. We created a campaign on www.pozzible.com to get our 20 pledges. We found our label image from www.fiverr.com, for a fiver, and created a free Facebook page. Just add a liquor license and a name and you
have an online wine company. The day we
got our license we launched. In the
first 48 hours we had pledges for over half of the wine. We have been totally overwhelmed. This has been a 4 month project and to see
that it might just work is an awesome feeling.
What’s next? To be profitable, that is number one. We want to be profitable from day one so we
never have to go to the bank. We have
some awesome good cats on our Facebook page and we are going to talk to them
about what they want next. We will find
some more wine for them (they are thirsty cats) and setup a shop front online,
maybe completely inside Facebook. There
is not much of a plan, we are lean, we can try, fail, learn, pivot and change
direction.
Now I want you to do 3
things for me:
1.
Listen to Timbo Reid
on the www.smallbusinessbigmarketing.com.au podcast, start with episodes #157, #153, #136 then #147
2.
Write a list of all the
steps needed to start your business.
a.
Prioritise
them, and super charge them with a little GTD
b.
Think
Lean, ask if it is truly needed, or is there a hack around it. Use the Handbag
Rule
3.
Write
the Todd Sampson quote on your wall
a.
“I
am not braver than anyone else, but I can be brave for 5 minutes longer”
b.
Action
cures fear
Thank you Anthea for
letting me share. Keep up the good work
Cheers
Vineyard Paul
PS If you start your business NOW please
let me know.
This is a fantastic post - thanks guys! I'll be checking out all those links and podcasts..
ReplyDeleteThanks Bec. I thought Paul's story was a great one. Hope you found some juicy stuff in the links x
DeleteGreat post, Paul. I love your enthusiasm and thanks for the mention. May you have many happy days in the land of small business :0)
ReplyDeleteHey Tim! Sounds like you had a huge impact on Paul and now thanks to you and Paul's clever work we can all drink the benefits :-) Anthea
ReplyDelete