Starting Again
Discussion
Quick update, generally it's going well, this isn't a sit back and have no hassle type of business but its FAR less aggro and stress than dealing with ebay or Amazon. Daily we have a myriad of small issues and client comms can vary a lot but its quite enjoyable and we are still one of the only agencies I compare us to with no debt, how some can owe hundreds of thousands is beyond me.
Dev has more work than we know what to do with (possibly too cheap), a new really good marketing director is building up the retainers and a great PM is looking after it all.
We are starting a new business to sell on Amazon using seller fulfilled prime, remote warehouse, "buy it as we ship" stockholding and our own system and carriers, this is virtually cutting edge Amazon sales and logistics and relies heavily on bespoke software created by one of the new partners in the business.
We started marketing Velstar using SoPro and a small PR agency (who hasn't started yet), SoPro was a disaster for 4 weeks then they realigned the campaign and whilst we still net a few dolphins (other agencies / dedicated Magento users) we mainly get Tuna and have covered 4 months trial with one lead with 3 more decent leads in the pipeline. We have 1 month to run and we may have to stop unless we can find more dev capacity.
As a treat, we are buying ourselves a static caravan in North Wales as we both have young families (yes amazingly I have 2 kids under 10!) and I think this would be a nice thing to spend untaxed income on (as it will be for the benefit of all staff).
Dev has more work than we know what to do with (possibly too cheap), a new really good marketing director is building up the retainers and a great PM is looking after it all.
We are starting a new business to sell on Amazon using seller fulfilled prime, remote warehouse, "buy it as we ship" stockholding and our own system and carriers, this is virtually cutting edge Amazon sales and logistics and relies heavily on bespoke software created by one of the new partners in the business.
We started marketing Velstar using SoPro and a small PR agency (who hasn't started yet), SoPro was a disaster for 4 weeks then they realigned the campaign and whilst we still net a few dolphins (other agencies / dedicated Magento users) we mainly get Tuna and have covered 4 months trial with one lead with 3 more decent leads in the pipeline. We have 1 month to run and we may have to stop unless we can find more dev capacity.
As a treat, we are buying ourselves a static caravan in North Wales as we both have young families (yes amazingly I have 2 kids under 10!) and I think this would be a nice thing to spend untaxed income on (as it will be for the benefit of all staff).
jammy-git said:
Since dealing with Amazon and eBay is a major hassle have you considered just focusing on the agency stuff and not the side ventures?
"Buy it as we ship" very much sounds like dropshipping.
What dev work are you handling? All Shopify stuff?
New Amazon venture is handled by the two new guys, they can deal with it, we are creating a site to get the second orders after first ones from Amazon."Buy it as we ship" very much sounds like dropshipping.
What dev work are you handling? All Shopify stuff?
The "dropshipping" is slightly different, its our bench, our carrier, our printer / scanner we pay them a pick fee - to use seller fulfilled prime you need more control than dropshipping allows.
Concentrating on the agency - it doesn't need me, I am now contracts, invoicing, paying bills and HR plus I will answer the phone a bit. When I pop off getting someone else yo do this won't be hard.
All dev is Shopify, there is enough demand not to need or look at anything else.
Quick update.
So 3 years in, we still haven’t needed investment but it’s very tempting as every time we get ahead we employ more / better people.
We’re getting about £30k p/a each which isn’t enough for either of us but I can see more by end of Q1 2020 when we hope to t/o £900k.
Again being Shopify is the game changer as they give us leads but you have to convert them it’s not a gravy train.
We’ve made some errors, some over optimistic thinking and had some brilliant luck.
Worst thing is underestimating data on certain jobs, we now price as a team which is better.
Developers are hard to find, we lost one to the coop (!) and his replacement to a Magento agency after 6 weeks but have recruited 2 for December starts.
One client wanted us in their office for going live week which was unusual but we charged our day rate and they went live no issue (maybe a snag or two it’s only just gone live) Boyy.com if anyone’s interested and we were in Bangkok for a week!
This case study will be the foundation of our marketing in 2020, we’re pushing for Magento replatforming work next year.
A few notes.
• SoPro cost £5k, damages Dans reputation a bit as the emails were sent under his name, delivered quite a few leads, we converted 1 and we won’t be doing it again.
• Ecommerce partnership is about 75% done, it’s been at the bottom of the todo list.
• All but one member of staff has been replaced within the past 12 months exc Dan and myself.
• We’re getting better at interviewing
• Average site cost is now much higher, we either have sub £5k theme set ups or £25k plus bespoke with complex data.
• New marketing director is such an asset
• We have a client delivery director now overseeing client satisfaction. This is key but we couldn’t afford it before.
That’s all I can think for now, I’m still enjoying it.
So 3 years in, we still haven’t needed investment but it’s very tempting as every time we get ahead we employ more / better people.
We’re getting about £30k p/a each which isn’t enough for either of us but I can see more by end of Q1 2020 when we hope to t/o £900k.
Again being Shopify is the game changer as they give us leads but you have to convert them it’s not a gravy train.
We’ve made some errors, some over optimistic thinking and had some brilliant luck.
Worst thing is underestimating data on certain jobs, we now price as a team which is better.
Developers are hard to find, we lost one to the coop (!) and his replacement to a Magento agency after 6 weeks but have recruited 2 for December starts.
One client wanted us in their office for going live week which was unusual but we charged our day rate and they went live no issue (maybe a snag or two it’s only just gone live) Boyy.com if anyone’s interested and we were in Bangkok for a week!
This case study will be the foundation of our marketing in 2020, we’re pushing for Magento replatforming work next year.
A few notes.
• SoPro cost £5k, damages Dans reputation a bit as the emails were sent under his name, delivered quite a few leads, we converted 1 and we won’t be doing it again.
• Ecommerce partnership is about 75% done, it’s been at the bottom of the todo list.
• All but one member of staff has been replaced within the past 12 months exc Dan and myself.
• We’re getting better at interviewing
• Average site cost is now much higher, we either have sub £5k theme set ups or £25k plus bespoke with complex data.
• New marketing director is such an asset
• We have a client delivery director now overseeing client satisfaction. This is key but we couldn’t afford it before.
That’s all I can think for now, I’m still enjoying it.
Edited by DSLiverpool on Sunday 17th November 17:49
You will have a feed from your supplier, it won’t be exactly as eBay wants it but anyone handy with spreadsheets should be able to knock it into shape.
More info here https://developer.ebay.com/Devzone/merchant-produc...
Going forward look at linnworks or channel advisor etc to control stock over multiple selling channels.
I’ll email you
More info here https://developer.ebay.com/Devzone/merchant-produc...
Going forward look at linnworks or channel advisor etc to control stock over multiple selling channels.
I’ll email you
While I am here may as well do a quick update.
We have started working with an ex Shopify Plus team member who left to start his own e-commerce and has some spare time, target is one enterprise level build a month, this could be a game change as its on top of the work that "finds" us anyway.
We have an issue with back end dev but are hopeful a new project manager will be able to source that talent.
To be honest I am flapping a bit as we are picking up speed on the dev side far faster than ever anticipated, the advantage is we can turn work down but the flip is the management of the projects needs more PM`s of greater skill (= ££)
Marketing is serenely just picking up clients, the team and Director we have now are better than I ever had, and for SEO Paul is very very good but there is only one of him hence we are hiring.
We have just sent in our first 6 figure web proposal for a huge household name, we don't really expect to get it but we really did spend ages on that proposal, the feedback from it will be invaluable. With Shopify its a much cheaper build than Magento so it's rare to hit such high numbers but this includes a bespoke app to manage 2500+ sales agents commision hence the high cost.
If anything slows this project it will be cash flow, total bugger but we will have in place a triple-level support system from own funds to emergency fund to overdraft - I have calculated it will be very poor management if we need the latter (!)
We have started working with an ex Shopify Plus team member who left to start his own e-commerce and has some spare time, target is one enterprise level build a month, this could be a game change as its on top of the work that "finds" us anyway.
We have an issue with back end dev but are hopeful a new project manager will be able to source that talent.
To be honest I am flapping a bit as we are picking up speed on the dev side far faster than ever anticipated, the advantage is we can turn work down but the flip is the management of the projects needs more PM`s of greater skill (= ££)
Marketing is serenely just picking up clients, the team and Director we have now are better than I ever had, and for SEO Paul is very very good but there is only one of him hence we are hiring.
We have just sent in our first 6 figure web proposal for a huge household name, we don't really expect to get it but we really did spend ages on that proposal, the feedback from it will be invaluable. With Shopify its a much cheaper build than Magento so it's rare to hit such high numbers but this includes a bespoke app to manage 2500+ sales agents commision hence the high cost.
If anything slows this project it will be cash flow, total bugger but we will have in place a triple-level support system from own funds to emergency fund to overdraft - I have calculated it will be very poor management if we need the latter (!)
Hey Luke, we don’t offer it as a service but we do recommend writers who have a specialist field. No writer that’s affordable can cover pillows to organic baby food etc. Send me your info.
In the last update I said we had put our first 6 fig proposal into a huge family brand - well we only bloody won it!! I’m under NDA until completion so can’t say but I will when I can. We got to the final 2, both pitches on same day and we were informed it was unanimous 10 minutes after the other company pitched (!) we really put a detailed proposal in and did lots of process homework so no questions would catch us.
Game changer.
In the last update I said we had put our first 6 fig proposal into a huge family brand - well we only bloody won it!! I’m under NDA until completion so can’t say but I will when I can. We got to the final 2, both pitches on same day and we were informed it was unanimous 10 minutes after the other company pitched (!) we really put a detailed proposal in and did lots of process homework so no questions would catch us.
Game changer.
Edited by DSLiverpool on Saturday 1st February 14:15
So 6 weeks into working from home, Seems to be ok helped by 2 new project managers who were badly needed. We have a quiz every Friday to keep a bit of team bonding going - many cheat!
Empty offices - We’ve negotiated 4 months for the price of 2 with our landlord (Barclays got involved as they have an Eagle Lab on site). Saved us £7k over the period.
£10k grant came in, went out on PAYE but it’s very much appreciated.
On customers and the big client project site, they paused briefly upon lockdown which was a blow but didn’t influence £ as we hit milestone 1 and milestone 2 was 60 days away. However it only paused for 10 days when they took off online (cosmetics) and restarted the project!!
Marketing has held up, fashion has paused but we have protein and vitamin clients doing well and our PJ client flat out!
On dev in April Shopify introduced us to a jewellery company which we won for a Shopify Plus build and from an enquiry via our website we pitched for a huge site for a well known car baby seat maker, we won it by offering a staged more sympathetic payment schedule, they also spoke to 2 clients one mid build and one post build that we’re supportive.
Who knows how this will pan out but as a old, fat, diabetic sack of crap I doubt I’ll see the office again for a while.
Empty offices - We’ve negotiated 4 months for the price of 2 with our landlord (Barclays got involved as they have an Eagle Lab on site). Saved us £7k over the period.
£10k grant came in, went out on PAYE but it’s very much appreciated.
On customers and the big client project site, they paused briefly upon lockdown which was a blow but didn’t influence £ as we hit milestone 1 and milestone 2 was 60 days away. However it only paused for 10 days when they took off online (cosmetics) and restarted the project!!
Marketing has held up, fashion has paused but we have protein and vitamin clients doing well and our PJ client flat out!
On dev in April Shopify introduced us to a jewellery company which we won for a Shopify Plus build and from an enquiry via our website we pitched for a huge site for a well known car baby seat maker, we won it by offering a staged more sympathetic payment schedule, they also spoke to 2 clients one mid build and one post build that we’re supportive.
Who knows how this will pan out but as a old, fat, diabetic sack of crap I doubt I’ll see the office again for a while.
Edited by DSLiverpool on Wednesday 29th April 21:00
If anyone is still reading this self indulgent twaddle this thread will soon have a big update a lot has happened during lock down.
It’s not bad news, I actually feel guilty / embarrassed that Corona has boosted the sector we operate in and we’re doing well.
However I’m 56 with 10 year old twins and riding a rocket ship to the moon wasn’t the plan.
It’s not bad news, I actually feel guilty / embarrassed that Corona has boosted the sector we operate in and we’re doing well.
However I’m 56 with 10 year old twins and riding a rocket ship to the moon wasn’t the plan.
illmonkey said:
You've cancelled Sky and now realise you can retire?
Dont get me started on SKY but I have a far far far worse case of being rinsed that I cannot share as I will be laughed at for a long time. Thankyouforcalling - What do I do? - admin, company finances and talk to people about selling online, what does the company do?, we are luckily affiliated to Shopify and we do Shopify websites and marketing.
So - Not long to go, all will be revealed.
singlecoil said:
DSLiverpool said:
Dont get me started on SKY but I have a far far far worse case of being rinsed that I cannot share as I will be laughed at for a long time.
Don't undervalue laughter in these difficult times, even if it's at your expense 
. I'm up for some.
pharmvrs said:
I’m still following too Dave - Don’t feel guilty about business booming during COVID. Ours has grown significantly too - I’m telling myself it’s because of the ground work completed in the last 18-24 months now coming to bear fruit.
Great to hear Keith, it’s totally about the prep and solid foundations you out in place. We’re seeing huge demand in proteins and vitamins, if you want to see the sites I’m working with pm me. 
We announced today we’ve signed a binding letter of intent (loi) with a investor who is buying all my shares and a portion of my partners. I’ll be totally out of Velstar by 15/8.
For the last 6 months we have had many interested parties but none i thought would make Velstar huge. The investor is USA based and we will open in America shortly, the potential is tangible in a way I couldn’t finance or manage to be honest.
I can’t say much more about the buyer etc but I’ll start another “starting again” post as I have a rough plan of what I want to do.
For the last 6 months we have had many interested parties but none i thought would make Velstar huge. The investor is USA based and we will open in America shortly, the potential is tangible in a way I couldn’t finance or manage to be honest.
I can’t say much more about the buyer etc but I’ll start another “starting again” post as I have a rough plan of what I want to do.
Edited by DSLiverpool on Friday 3rd July 18:08
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