Starting Again
Discussion
Ok - Left Velstar when the money came through in September 2020, as the due diligence took 6 months I had done a handover by this time. By accident, I had started Tik Tokking (#dsliverpool) as a laugh but had about 12000 subscribers, once I had left Velstar I had nothing to do so I thought about monetising my followers, I was clueless but had some good help on here and set up a private FB group that cost £1 a month or £12 a year (not sure where the benefit in that was).
I raised about £3500 which paid for a website and content from people cleverer than myself, I had to increase to £5 a month / £50 a year in November 2020, and its at that now.
Membership is up and down like any subscription model at 550 ish but a new website, smarter content, and more interactive zoom guides will hopefully push it to 1000 members by March 2022. All marketing is via TikTok apart from a very small Insta account, once we spread to YouTube it will grow.
I supplemented the club by offering 20, 30 and 60-minute Zoom calls 1-2-1 to help out with new starters or any problem within retail / eCommerce. I found my network of contacts is a good source of helping people and often I just tell people how to approach an agency. This is highly lucrative as in the land of the blind the one-eyed man with a cataract is king.
I am about to launch a clothing brand as well, I will own 51% with the rest owned by the creatives, its marketing is pretty unique, I am diarising it on TikTok
I raised about £3500 which paid for a website and content from people cleverer than myself, I had to increase to £5 a month / £50 a year in November 2020, and its at that now.
Membership is up and down like any subscription model at 550 ish but a new website, smarter content, and more interactive zoom guides will hopefully push it to 1000 members by March 2022. All marketing is via TikTok apart from a very small Insta account, once we spread to YouTube it will grow.
I supplemented the club by offering 20, 30 and 60-minute Zoom calls 1-2-1 to help out with new starters or any problem within retail / eCommerce. I found my network of contacts is a good source of helping people and often I just tell people how to approach an agency. This is highly lucrative as in the land of the blind the one-eyed man with a cataract is king.
I am about to launch a clothing brand as well, I will own 51% with the rest owned by the creatives, its marketing is pretty unique, I am diarising it on TikTok
DSLiverpool said:
Ok - Left Velstar when the money came through in September 2020, as the due diligence took 6 months I had done a handover by this time. By accident, I had started Tik Tokking (#dsliverpool) as a laugh but had about 12000 subscribers, once I had left Velstar I had nothing to do so I thought about monetising my followers, I was clueless but had some good help on here and set up a private FB group that cost £1 a month or £12 a year (not sure where the benefit in that was).
I raised about £3500 which paid for a website and content from people cleverer than myself, I had to increase to £5 a month / £50 a year in November 2020, and its at that now.
Membership is up and down like any subscription model at 550 ish but a new website, smarter content, and more interactive zoom guides will hopefully push it to 1000 members by March 2022. All marketing is via TikTok apart from a very small Insta account, once we spread to YouTube it will grow.
I supplemented the club by offering 20, 30 and 60-minute Zoom calls 1-2-1 to help out with new starters or any problem within retail / eCommerce. I found my network of contacts is a good source of helping people and often I just tell people how to approach an agency. This is highly lucrative as in the land of the blind the one-eyed man with a cataract is king.
I am about to launch a clothing brand as well, I will own 51% with the rest owned by the creatives, its marketing is pretty unique, I am diarising it on TikTok
But the more important question is, how much better is your Bentayga than your old FX50? Much in it? I raised about £3500 which paid for a website and content from people cleverer than myself, I had to increase to £5 a month / £50 a year in November 2020, and its at that now.
Membership is up and down like any subscription model at 550 ish but a new website, smarter content, and more interactive zoom guides will hopefully push it to 1000 members by March 2022. All marketing is via TikTok apart from a very small Insta account, once we spread to YouTube it will grow.
I supplemented the club by offering 20, 30 and 60-minute Zoom calls 1-2-1 to help out with new starters or any problem within retail / eCommerce. I found my network of contacts is a good source of helping people and often I just tell people how to approach an agency. This is highly lucrative as in the land of the blind the one-eyed man with a cataract is king.
I am about to launch a clothing brand as well, I will own 51% with the rest owned by the creatives, its marketing is pretty unique, I am diarising it on TikTok
DSLiverpool said:
Ok - Left Velstar when the money came through in September 2020, as the due diligence took 6 months I had done a handover by this time. By accident, I had started Tik Tokking (#dsliverpool) as a laugh but had about 12000 subscribers, once I had left Velstar I had nothing to do so I thought about monetising my followers, I was clueless but had some good help on here and set up a private FB group that cost £1 a month or £12 a year (not sure where the benefit in that was).
I raised about £3500 which paid for a website and content from people cleverer than myself, I had to increase to £5 a month / £50 a year in November 2020, and its at that now.
Membership is up and down like any subscription model at 550 ish but a new website, smarter content, and more interactive zoom guides will hopefully push it to 1000 members by March 2022. All marketing is via TikTok apart from a very small Insta account, once we spread to YouTube it will grow.
I supplemented the club by offering 20, 30 and 60-minute Zoom calls 1-2-1 to help out with new starters or any problem within retail / eCommerce. I found my network of contacts is a good source of helping people and often I just tell people how to approach an agency. This is highly lucrative as in the land of the blind the one-eyed man with a cataract is king.
I am about to launch a clothing brand as well, I will own 51% with the rest owned by the creatives, its marketing is pretty unique, I am diarising it on TikTok
A nice update - one question though, which I hope doesn't seem snarky, but what is your main goal now?I raised about £3500 which paid for a website and content from people cleverer than myself, I had to increase to £5 a month / £50 a year in November 2020, and its at that now.
Membership is up and down like any subscription model at 550 ish but a new website, smarter content, and more interactive zoom guides will hopefully push it to 1000 members by March 2022. All marketing is via TikTok apart from a very small Insta account, once we spread to YouTube it will grow.
I supplemented the club by offering 20, 30 and 60-minute Zoom calls 1-2-1 to help out with new starters or any problem within retail / eCommerce. I found my network of contacts is a good source of helping people and often I just tell people how to approach an agency. This is highly lucrative as in the land of the blind the one-eyed man with a cataract is king.
I am about to launch a clothing brand as well, I will own 51% with the rest owned by the creatives, its marketing is pretty unique, I am diarising it on TikTok
From my memory of the thread, you originally had a decent ecom business specialising in telephony, but you decided that the margins were likely to be under increasing pressure (which made sense), so you decided to do something completely new and start Velstar, where the opportunity to add value was higher (which again made sense).
And from your summary, it sounds like Velstar is doing well and has great potential to do even better, particularly as you focused on Shopify pretty early on (which again, makes sense).
But then you decided to sell your stake in the company, I think because you concluded life is short, who knows how much longer we have, there is more to life than money etc etc.
But then you seem to be starting again to build a new business, which surely just puts you back on the same path to get to the same point that caused you to sell Velstar? Surely on that basis, at least from a financial point of view, it would have made more sense to continue growing Velstar?
RM said:
DSLiverpool said:
A fool never learns - Three60 Marketing launches next month (!)
Velstar again or a new direction?This is small, intimate and restricted in growth - it’s basically a hybrid between consulting and a doing, born of demand from club members.
A flashback to the start of Velstar 2016
Edited by DSLiverpool on Saturday 22 April 04:43
Hoofy said:
Nice going. All via TikTok?I do have to sell my soul to the god of social media though and create another version of myself.
When challenged to make a viral TT I did a ranting video about the McD app being useless even though I was wrong - worked perfectly, made me look a knob so I did a follow up explanation.
Quick update (I know)
I’ve accidentally got
My club - 887 members @ £5 a month
My consultancy - 4 clients
My e-commerce - £50k a year but ready to scale
Now another bloody agency well 46% of one.
The agency has clients wait listed, no website no marketing - I’ve 2 brilliant partners and we’re lucky to have the staff and associates we have.
All from tiktok - I know I can do a certain type of post and get the enquiries I’m after.
If I wasn’t 60 and f
ked it’d be amazing but I am so …..
I’ve accidentally got
My club - 887 members @ £5 a month
My consultancy - 4 clients
My e-commerce - £50k a year but ready to scale
Now another bloody agency well 46% of one.
The agency has clients wait listed, no website no marketing - I’ve 2 brilliant partners and we’re lucky to have the staff and associates we have.
All from tiktok - I know I can do a certain type of post and get the enquiries I’m after.
If I wasn’t 60 and f
ked it’d be amazing but I am so …..RM said:
What’s the e-commerce and how does it link to TikTok?
My ecomm doesn’t do enough on TT to keep me in KFC but it could do. Shopify has a basic link to TT shop but TT are beta testing a really comprehensive shop from Shopify popularity. Throw in Despatch Cloud and you’re fully automated across all platforms inc Miraki (B&Q)
Huge demand for TT live presenters right now, it’s a crap job but csn pay well.
MrSparks said:
DSLiverpool said:
Throw in Despatch Cloud and you’re fully automated across all platforms inc Miraki (B&Q)
How does Despatch Cloud compare against Linnworks?Price wise it’s less but it’s the support I value, they make me look good ;-)
DSLiverpool said:
It’s uk based and you can speak to people that know what they are doing. They just leant an expert for 2 days who went to Scotland and totally reorganised a clients warehouse scan, pick system and layout. Can’t see Linn doing that.
Price wise it’s less but it’s the support I value, they make me look good ;-)
Thanks, I’ll give it a demo. Renewal up again with Linnworks in April and my guess is another hefty price rise. We get on well with the software but it is a bit buggy at times. Price wise it’s less but it’s the support I value, they make me look good ;-)
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