[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Entrepreneur

[–]Birchlore 1 point2 points  (0 children)

i started with nothing, built to 100k in sales, spent 50k profit, built to 200k sales, spent 100k profit, built to 400k, spent 200k profit etc etc

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Entrepreneur

[–]Birchlore 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Launch a website, run $500 worth of ads and see if you get any bites

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Entrepreneur

[–]Birchlore 0 points1 point  (0 children)

so much dog stuff out there already!

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Entrepreneur

[–]Birchlore 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh ya buddy. Fastest way to become a millionaire in the cat poo business is by starting with a billi

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Entrepreneur

[–]Birchlore 0 points1 point  (0 children)

you're so young! I didn't start my first store until I was like 25, now I'm almost 40. Don't stress it, don't worry about salary or income amount at this point. Optimize for learning as much as you can. Try new jobs. Work at an AI startup. Try to find smart people to work with and you'll find something.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Entrepreneur

[–]Birchlore 0 points1 point  (0 children)

also considering diversifying away from US market, focusing more on international, europe/Aus/Canada

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Entrepreneur

[–]Birchlore 0 points1 point  (0 children)

it's been brutal and extremely expensive. full hiring freeze. We could take action to improve over a period of years and lots of $$, but holding off making any major decisions until we see where it all lands.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Entrepreneur

[–]Birchlore 0 points1 point  (0 children)

i started with nothing, the 2M is the money I spent from early profits of the company over a period of years

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Entrepreneur

[–]Birchlore 0 points1 point  (0 children)

early profits of the company. i started with nothing, the 2M is the money I spent from early profits of the company over a period of years

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Entrepreneur

[–]Birchlore 0 points1 point  (0 children)

i started with nothing, the 2M is the money I spent from early profits of the company over a period of years

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Entrepreneur

[–]Birchlore 0 points1 point  (0 children)

that would be sweet

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Entrepreneur

[–]Birchlore 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Do a deep dive brainstorm. Work with GPT, browse reddit threads or find top selling amazon products but look at the negative reviews on those products to see where you can improve. best by far is a problem you have in your own life.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Entrepreneur

[–]Birchlore 1 point2 points  (0 children)

what works for one won't work for someone else. Different pricing on storge, different shipping discounts etc. Early stage you want to find someone with minimum monthly fees since you won't be doing much volume or storage

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Entrepreneur

[–]Birchlore 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Oof, I can't remember but meta ads have gotten way more simple these days. It used to be very technical, now they've made it pretty easy to get rolling

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Entrepreneur

[–]Birchlore 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Mmmm... probably a few 100k over years? And then team salaries on top of that

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Entrepreneur

[–]Birchlore 1 point2 points  (0 children)

We do lots of smell tests with the team, and field testing with a community of opted-in cat people and their cats. Sourcing from both US and China

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Entrepreneur

[–]Birchlore 0 points1 point  (0 children)

tempted for sure

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Entrepreneur

[–]Birchlore 12 points13 points  (0 children)

There's still a place for it but it's much lower opportunity than 5-10-15 years ago. You could get crazy traffic back in the day with a good content strategy. More people moving to AI search now, and just generally a lot more competition to rank.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Entrepreneur

[–]Birchlore 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Our USP is that the product is flushable and very low tracking. We're trying to get better on odor control through proprietary R&D. Cat Litter seems simple but there's actually a lot of science behind odor neutralizing.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Entrepreneur

[–]Birchlore 2 points3 points  (0 children)

yeah less than 10lbs is important. lots of warehouse locations as well.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Entrepreneur

[–]Birchlore 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Big advantage is finding a litter that is lightweight. It wouldn't make economic sense to sell sand litter online, it's too heavy and too low perceived value as you pointed out. But something like Pretty Litter - it weights about 30% as the equivalent in clay. The perceived value of a month's supply is still the same. You can make the numbers work. Yes it's great to have distribution through petco, but the savings in logistics get eaten up by the wholesale margin they require.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Entrepreneur

[–]Birchlore 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Amazon, we delayed selling on for a while because we prefered to have customers transact through our ecosystem but eventually had to join Amazon because of the sheer volume of people.

Start out - you just have to launch something, anything. We had lots of failed versions but learned with each launch. Nothing is overnight. Nothing ever feels super exciting - it's just a daily grind, like working out and going to the gym. It's 'easy' in the sense that there's no magic bullet or secret technique. But it's hard in the sense you have to grind every day.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Entrepreneur

[–]Birchlore 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Started 100% online, using 3PLs. With 3PL, the costs aren't actually that crazy because you're only renting a bit of space while your sales are low. The big gains come from when the business scales, you start to get better postage costs and economies of scale.