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Ask HN: How would you take this business to the next level?

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Re: Ask HN: How would you take this business to the next level?

#31

Post by anmolparashar »

arjunvpaul wrote: post #27
anmolparashar wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That makes sense. Could you share with how exactly did you make the money - what were you offering before?

I just approached a few brick and mortar stores and offered to open up a new sales channel (their existing customer acquisition channel was basically having a store front and then staring into space, so was not hard to beat) I offered a "I make money only if you make money" pitch. Sold their wares via Facebook and WhatsApp and then took a huge markup from those sales.

Nicely done. I'd suggest not taking an investor though unless you are really having trouble with scaling.

Re: Ask HN: How would you take this business to the next level?

#32

Post by mandeepj »

arjunvpaul wrote: post #19
mandeepj wrote: post #18

Hi Arjun! There are lot of open source, pay-as-you-go (very cheap) crm products that might fit your need. Have you explored any? Having a tech cofounder gives its own advantages But why you are not Hiring a tech person to quickly build your mvp to simplify your life? It will not cost you much. Once this takes off then you can take the call whether u still need a tech cofounder.

Thanks for the tip. Would you know of any CRM products that would work with WhatsApp?

I just sent you an email. We need to talk a little more. I will explore on WhatsApp integration

Re: Ask HN: How would you take this business to the next level?

#33

Post by arjunvpaul »

majortennis wrote: post #30
arjunvpaul wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the links. Yes, I would happily give away equity to a cofounder who can manage the tech side of things. I can scale this thing up a few 100K dollars a year the way I am doing this now. But it is excel sheets and 3 computers side by side so I can see product info, customer info etc side by side. Its just ugly. lol. I need some elegance in my life now. I have settled the "should I really bring-on a technical…

you could have multiple monitors instead of multiple monitors and machines

Thanks for pointing that out. I actually do have only multiple monitors. (not machines)

Re: Ask HN: How would you take this business to the next level?

#34

Post by cylinder »

arjunvpaul wrote: post #12
doubleplusgood wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My wife has a small business similar to yours, and I ended up building a micro CRM for her, complete with scraping (some of our vendors don't offer an Api), reports, invoicing etc.

My story is similar. My friends wife was selling Indian women clothes and I took a stab at re-jigging her business for the "messaging-first" world. worked like a charm. she is now selling a very non-differentiated product at the rate of 1 every 20 working minutes. :-) so now we have good problems to solve like actually needing a CRM, invoicing etc that I hoping to do via a web app. Once that is done, it could be sold…

you should just blog about whatsapp selling and sell your services; other than selling to Chinese on wechat I have no idea what this even is or how/why it works.

below you said you are running whatsapp sales for b&m shops, but how do customers find you? afaik whatsapp has no discovery features.

Re: Ask HN: How would you take this business to the next level?

#35

Post by arjunvpaul »

cylinder wrote: post #34
arjunvpaul wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My story is similar. My friends wife was selling Indian women clothes and I took a stab at re-jigging her business for the "messaging-first" world. worked like a charm. she is now selling a very non-differentiated product at the rate of 1 every 20 working minutes. :-) so now we have good problems to solve like actually needing a CRM, invoicing etc that I hoping to do via a web app. Once that is done, it could be sold…

you should just blog about whatsapp selling and sell your services; other than selling to Chinese on wechat I have no idea what this even is or how/why it works. below you said you are running whatsapp sales for b&m shops, but how do customers find you? afaik whatsapp has no discovery features.

If are really curious, I would be glad to explain on a call on how a customer finds us, how a sale happens and money is collected.

don't wanna post exactly how that is done publicly (yet)

Re: Ask HN: How would you take this business to the next level?

#36

Post by doubleplusgood »

charlesdm wrote: post #9
doubleplusgood wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My wife has a small business similar to yours, and I ended up building a micro CRM for her, complete with scraping (some of our vendors don't offer an Api), reports, invoicing etc.

Curious: what impact did that have on her sales numbers?

It streamlined the process significantly, lowering the total "handling time" from a couple of hours to ~10-15m in total, which freed up time to tend to custom commissions from clients.

I don't have serious hard numbers before that, as the CRM saw its first commit around sale #6.

Re: Ask HN: How would you take this business to the next level?

#37

Post by swah »

viach wrote: post #7

I'm currently writing CRM for Whatsapp and Messendger. Clients list, calendar, products list, messages history. Is it what you are interested in?

I'm actually very surprised that Whatsapp still has no Store or something akin to that. People are using Whatsapp updates to post pictures of products.

I'd like to write a little CRM myself but they don't even have an API.

Re: Ask HN: How would you take this business to the next level?

#38

Post by vladimirpolo »

I was looking for a technical cofounder in 2016.

1. I created a Google Spreadsheet with a description of my idea and my goal was to inspire readers of this document.

2. Then I made a Facebook post where I shared this document. I received few dozens of likes/shares from my friends.

3. After that, I used Linkedin Premium (it is free for 30 days) to find developers in my region. I asked them if they are considering new job offers. And if they answer was yes, I shared a link to my Facebook post.

They came to my page and see likes and shares (social proof). Then they read the document and if the idea was interesting for them, we scheduled a skype call.

That's how I found the CTO for AcademyOcean.com : )

Re: Ask HN: How would you take this business to the next level?

#39

Post by arjunvpaul »

vladimirpolo wrote: post #38

I was looking for a technical cofounder in 2016. 1. I created a Google Spreadsheet with a description of my idea and my goal was to inspire readers of this document. 2. Then I made a Facebook post where I shared this document. I received few dozens of likes/shares from my friends. 3. After that, I used Linkedin Premium (it is free for 30 days) to find developers in my region. I asked them if they are considering new…

awesome! thats a great idea to use linkedin premium to find folks closer to home.

Re: Ask HN: How would you take this business to the next level?

#40

Post by Amogha_IO »

You might want to find a technical co-founder. If you have a proof of concept and you have validated the business model, it shouldn't be too hard convincing an entrepreneur-minded engineer to join your startup!

Finding a technical co-founder isn't that difficult if you know where to look for. couple resources/networks I have used successfully in the past:

   https://www.meetup.com/
(if meetup.com hasn't caught up where you live, there might be something similar that's popular)

-Meetups geared towards entrepreneurship, software dev, engineering.... are great places to find a technical co-founder. Prepare a simple pitch-deck, meet smart people, share your idea and see if they would be interested in joining the cause. (don't worry about someone stealing your idea... it's all in the execution. You can hold back some key features until you sign an NDA or something.)

-networking in general goes a long way. Start networking with any and all engineers you know (shouldn't be hard to find software engineers in Bangalore!)

   https://angel.co/
-Angel List is a great place to post jobs, especially if you are looking for a co-founder.

Be prepared to give up a considerable amount of equity (30%-50%) if you are looking for a "serious technical co-founder". Make sure to have vesting & a cliff in the contract.

Also consider talking/networking with friends, family, ex-colleagues.

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