Quote: (02-27-2018 05:16 PM)RustyShackleford Wrote:
Started up a shopify store this week and always looking to connect with other entrepreneurs.
(1) If launching a Shopify store makes you an entrepreneur, then the bar for being an entrepreneur is even lower than I thought. I'd adjust my opinion if you are selling a product-line that involves innovation on some level, but I'm guessing you're actually just selling t-shirts through a POD service.
(2) Until you demonstrate that you have the knowledge, skills and ability to turn the Shopify strategy into a full income, a Shopify store isn't a business. It's a hustle. Having a hustle isn't being an entrepreneur, it's called having a hustle. A kid who saves up for college by mowing neighbours lawns from time to time isn't an entrepreneur.
(3) A legitimate business (rather than a hustle) is an entity that combines at least two of a number of potential assets or services. Of these, having a platform (which a Shopify store would quality as) and having a brand (which certainly does not exist on day one) are key.
If you're serious about this, brand is key, because in a world where everyone and their nephew have a Shopify hustle, differentiating yourself from the 10 million Shopify stores selling POD t-shirts is
ESSENTIAL.
To be a business, rather than unreliable source of occasional income, your customers will have to see your identity as unique and worth returning to. Ideally, they will have enough faith in your ability to delivery products that they will like that your shop is worth bookmarking and returning to regularly. You don't want to be the place that just happened to have a t-shirt someone liked once, but lacked a cohesive identity (also called branding) that convinced them that you wouldn't consistently make products available that have the same unique appeal as the one they bought.
(4) "Looking to connect with other entrepreneurs" means "please contact me because I'm afraid that I don't know what I'm doing, don't see a clear path to success and will feel better if I'm in contact with a group of people who will reassure me. Ideally, you're more experienced than me and can hold my hand and walk me through the whole process."
(5) Shopify is attractive to many people because it gives the impression that it makes the process of creating a business easier. This is true. It eliminates the challenge of creating a ecommerce website from scratch. That's about it. Building a business (or even having a successful hustle) requires plenty of effort, money and time.
The key activities that keep you and your money business should be (x) developing a winning brand, (y) creating great products, and (z) engaging in successful marketing/advertising (in that order).
This is true for any business, not just a Shopify business. Fail at these fundamentals, and you're not going to make much money.
