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It’s been a little while since the last update, sorry about that! This last week and a half has been great, the project is in a great position to make a huge leap in the next week or two… Firstly, my customer for the first table I sold reached out to me again, saying that she was very happy with the piece and that she’d like to pass around my contact information and order a matching bench to go with her table. Fantastic! Not only am I getting some great word-of-mouth advertising, but my first customer was so happy that she’s ordering more! I think that’s a great sign for the quality of the product and design, so there’s definitely some more potential there. In addition, I’ve been making progress on my second table order, and ANOTHER person reached out via a friend to place an order for a third table! That brings my total orders that I need to build to two tables and a bench, a total revenue potential of $1,125.00…. For those following at home, that is more than the progress of the whole project at this point! I have already purchased the additional materials needed (just under $150 total), and put in about 8 hours of work this past weekend. I have made great progress on both tables, and I plan on completing both of them and the bench over the long Labor Day (how appropriate!) weekend. This is awesome!
Also, I’ve been thinking about additional ways to advertise and get sales if I want to continue building tables and other rustic-type furniture designs. I’ve started playing around building a website and maybe a brand name to sell them under (I’m realizing that marketing probably isn’t my creative strong-suit, but it’s fun to dabble!). I’m still figuring out the details of collecting and fulfilling orders of these large, difficult-to-ship items, but I think the idea shows promise and I’m learning how to setup an ecommerce site, which is a great skill to add to my toolbox. Here’s a sneak peak at the main idea I’ve been working on:  So again, this week didn’t see huge gains on the actual profit side, but with the new orders and progress on the current order, I think we’re poised to make a big leap in the next week or two. We’re really starting to feel some traction here, and I’m excited to see where it goes! Thanks again for stopping by, if you are just now joining the 100KProject and want to catch up, check out the bottom of our Progress Breakdown page for a month-by-month summary of the ventures I’ve tried and the successes/failures I’ve had. Be sure to sign up for our email newsletter to stay up-to-date on all project progress, too!
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This summer has gone fast… between work, family activities, the 100K Project, and our twins growing and learning at something close to the speed of light, it really feels like I just looked up and SURPRISE, we are in the last half of August. Where did the time go? What have I accomplished?! Am I completely ready for Fantasy Football?!! The things that keep an aspiring entrepreneur up at night… Upon reflection, I think we’ve actually made some pretty great progress on the project. From the onset, the main purpose of this effort was to learn and explore in a meaningful way… to gain some experience and learn some skills that will help my entrepreneurial journey, and maybe find a business idea I can follow long-term. Part of that is gaining new experiences; critical things that I believe accomplishing on a small scale will help shape my business mindset, see new opportunities I couldn’t before, and develop an organic and intuitive understanding of how things can work (or the inherent difficulties associated with them). I really think investing the time and work in growing things slowly, in a “from-the-ground-up” kind of way, is more about learning than flipping a buck, and I can already tell a difference in my thinking. Some key experiences I’ve had so far:
All of these have had an effect on my thinking… Mostly, they’ve shown me that starting, and being purposeful about making progress, actually works. I can that I’m thinking differently, and “better”, about business efforts already, and I think that I will be able to accelerate our progress throughout the project. This brings us to the most recent new experience, a pretty meaningful one. Yesterday, I was able to sell a table. It wasn’t a brilliant, novel idea; it was a design adapted from countless Pintrest and HGTV images. It wasn’t on the back of a brilliant marketing campaign; I just posted up a picture on Facebook. It wasn’t an easy, passive flip; it took something like 9-10 hours of work to build and finish. But, with some significant style guidance from Pam, I sold something that I designed, planned, advertised, built, and delivered. I made something, and someone liked it enough to buy it! That feels great, not to mention it was a nice boost for the project (sale price was $450!). Not only that, but I have another table order to fill, my first customer wants to order some matching benches for her table, and there’s a few other soft leads on social media. I think I can finish my existing order and try to advertise a bit more and get another customer or two and see if I can get this to take off a bit!  It’s been a great couple months, and I can really feel the tangible different in my thinking. This thing is going to work… it is working. And I’m really excited to continue moving forward, gaining experiences, and creating value. Thanks for reading along, and don’t forget to like us on Facebook and sign up for our email list (below) to stay up-to-date on the Project progress! |
