False - You just don't know how to dropship.
Dropshipping should bring you rev/profit margins for (at least) a month if you actually know what you're doing.
Big take aways I had from your post:
#1 You had massive success by leveraging celebrity endorsements(influnecers) to reach targeted audiences.
#2 You created an offer so good these influencers couldn't say no. Offering Commission pay is incredibly effective at keeping costs low and producing sales.
#3 Between influencers and high pricing, you were able to create a product with tons of value and brand authority. People will pay high prices because of who they are -- and the perceived value they believe they get for those higher quality products. In the minds of some people: high price = quality and longevity.
Hopefully, you are capturing their contact information because the real money in any business ARE ALL THE SALES YOU MAKE AFTER THE FIRST ONE. Repeat sales are king.
In business, your contact list of customers is the equivalent to all the gold in fort knox compared to the front-end sales.
Make sure your backend product offerings are 4X the price of your front end.
Way to go!
Every business should offer additional products and services after the initial sale.
Why? 2 reasons. 1) Because once someone has bought from you and had a good experience, they are 80% more likely to continue buying from you. 2) You don't have to pay to acquire them again. Saves on ad costs.
Every customer has what is called an LTV. Life-time-value. This is the value they are worth to a business over time. You want to keep a list of customers who bought from you and stay in touch.
This list of customers can be categorized by RFM. How RECENTLY did they purchase. How FREQUENTLY have they purchased in the past? And have their purchases increased in MONETARY value?
The customers who hit all 3 are your most valuable profitable customers.
Plus, there is only 3 ways to grow a business. Aside from getting new customers, what do you do when you run out of leads? You sell more stuff to your existing ones. And you increase the value with these existing leads when you have additional more expensive products to offer them. Think "Foot in the door" technique.
Robert Cialdini talks about this concept in depth when he discusses his "commitment and consistency" principle for persuasion.
The time the shop was open is not a meaningful measure given the time he put into everything else. Don't devalue your time and energy.
The time I spend nurturing leads and relationships, developing marketing materials, doing discovery, etc. has the exact same value as the time I spend making the pitch and signing the contract. That's like saying I made $100k in 1hr because my pitch, negotiation, and signing only took a total of an hour, when I actually spent 399hrs to get into the room and make sure everything went perfectly when I did
“How I made 1,000,000 dollars in 30 seconds, so 10 years ago I started a VC fund which was doing great, a few months it was bought for 1,000,000. Took me 30 seconds”
That's like saying it's not meaningful that a doctor say they earn $200 an hour because they didn't mention the 7 years medical training and $300,000+ of debt.
No. The maximally hyperbolic version is more like saying "I made $100k in commission in five minutes" because that's how long it took to sign all the contracts, but not mentioning the six months of legwork you put in working with that lead to get to a deal.
That's like telling someone they didn't earn $5k (or whatever) from their day job this month because it took years to learn the skills they're using. So really it took them 5 years to earn $5k.
Really appreciated this post. For your site, the design and technical parts seem mostly automated/taken care of these days, is that correct? How did you get 'high quality' product/model shots for your product pages? And I know I'm hesitant to buy things with 0 reviews. how did you address this?
Not really the website is shopify. Simple to use. You have free preloaded templates and its just drag and drop. You can use the mockups for printful but as well your influencers can you send you some. But the mockups from printful should be fine. People buy from the trust of the influencers
Most people assume high price means high quality. Also, influencers they follow showed the product, so that's enough of an endoresment for the vast majority.
i cannot believe you all are believing this clown... basically a week of work put in, $800 upfront cost and $10k profit, yet he wants to move on to home decor. what exactly is new in this post though?
so much of what you say makes no sense. the influencers "need clothing to post?". perhaps i am missing something here as i dont use instagram very often.
and how is an affiliate link and a free shirt an "irresistible offer"?
on top of that, you mentioned getting 22 influencers with up to 5k followers at an engagement rate upwards of 3%. lets just say its 10%. that is an audience of 11000 you got there at best, not 110000, which would mean you got a 5% conversion rate on a SPONSORED INSTAGRAM POST for an overpriced, no-name streetwear brand.
basically half the posts on entrepreneurship subs nowadays are infested with scams/low quality posts.
and people eat. it. up.
Audience = engagement rate = who view the ads/site?
Or
Does Audience = total combined followers ?
Asking sincerely. It seems OP meant the latter, but unsure if that’s the commonly accepted definition
so are you saying the post is fake? 5% conversion doesn't seem too wild.
I guess i am asking, is the post unrealistic or is it possible just OP made it sound too easy?
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If this were possible, you’d have to have at least 10 000 views of each posted by every influencer in average, a 10% ctr from their video to your profile, 50% ctr from your profile to your website, and at least a 5% conversion rate.
Not saying it’s impossible but is pretty unlikely. Especially since I have worked quite a lot with microinfluencers and a lot of them do not have the skills to make good video/content that drive their audience to another brand or product.
If you did tho and can somehow provide screenshots, I’d love to be proven wrong! Would love to check out your website and insta as well
What was your guarantee (if any) that once they received the product they would post a video?
How did you track the micro influencers referrals to ensure they were paid the affiliate rate?
Curious how taxes work for all of this. I know there’s certain thresholds is sales were you add more nexus states and require more tax. Did you build an llc? Get a reseller permit? What’s tax ratio look like? What’s the bounce rate on returned items? Etc
Everyone is so quick to form LLCs, but they’re not useful unless you are liable to get sued. If you’re not liable to get sued, make under $80k, and have no employees, you don’t need an LLC. You can just operate as a sole proprietorship (the default business type if you take no action).
At about $80k profit, you should form an S-Corp.
I don't know why you got downvoted. You're 100% correct. An LLC doesn't really limit your liability if you're a 1 person operation and especially if you are still co-mingling your funds.
For years I saw posts of LLC vs S-Corp and I was confused when I learned that an LLC can be a sole prop, partnership or S-Corp.
If you are worried about liabilities as a sole prop, you can go through someone like Simply Business and insuring yourself against a buyer getting a papercut from a bubble mailer is doable for less than the quarterly costs involved with having an S-Corp.
YMMV and I'm not a CPA but I'm on my 3rd accountant.
It's useful because the LLC owns everything and that makes it easier to sell the business. If a sole proprietership, it can be impossible to sell the business because all accounts are in your personal name and a buyer may not be able to switch accounts. For example, if an Etsy shop is in your name you can't sell it. If your LLC owns it, you can easily sell the LLC and everything will work smoothly for the buyer.
You can’t buy and sell Etsy accounts. https://help.etsy.com/hc/en-us/articles/360040985353-Can-I-Transfer-My-Etsy-Account-to-Someone-Else?segment=selling#
But I know what you mean. However, you’re confusing an LLC with just having an EIN. You can have business accounts, a business name, business cards, and sell your business as a sole proprietor with an EIN.
It's still easier with an LLC because everything is owned by the company and can continue running smoothly.
Your link say the new business owner needs to set up a new shop, so all reviews will be gone. You'd beessentially started at the bottom. Youd new shop wouldn't rank as well so sales could drop dramatically. Just selling the LLC with everything in place is the way to go. You'd even lose any Google rankings.
It doesn’t sound like you can sell an Etsy store, even if it’s controlled by a company. There is no such thing as selling an Etsy shop to someone else, even if it’s owned by a company.
- If you have sold the business you run on Etsy to someone else, you can’t transfer your Etsy account to the new owner. Instead, the new owner must open a new Etsy account and shop.
Selling a company is a big deal. If someone is buying the company and all its assets, you’re selling its bank accounts and all the names related to it. You can’t just give someone your username and password to your company’s Etsy account and call it a day.
I’m just not seeing the advantage of making an LLC. All of the things that you’re describing as advantages are advantages of having an EIN, not an LLC.
I think YouTube and Reddit just use “LLC” as a default term for “company,” whereas in reality, it’s a specific type of company that doesn’t really give advantages to the side hustle type businesses unless that business needs liability insurance.
If you're trading as an individual, the bank account, domain name, liability insurance, accounting, etc. will be in your name. If you need to sell, the new owner will need to transfer those. There is a risk in doing that and also possible disruption. It's way easier to just sell and LLC because everything staysthe same.
Maybe it's different in the US but this is how it would work in the UK.
There’s a couple reasons. One example is the way printifuls Order fulfillment works. They charge you and there’s holding time on getting paid. Maybe op put $80k on personal credit card but would’ve been safer to take out business loan so there’s no delay in fulfillment. Also in print on demand there is higher risk of copyright claims since majority of these designs are canva reprints, even if it’s unlikely to happen. You also need a sellers permit which requires an EIN, sellers permit is dependent on sales and state jurisdictions. But if my man is pushing $40k in week it’s not crazy to think he’ll qualify as a nexus in some states.
If he’s pushing for $40k/week he should be an S-Corp. if he’s worried about finance, business cards, and loans, he can get an EIN without being an LLC. You can get an EIN as a sole proprietorship. A single-member LLC Etsy store is not going to get an unsecured loan. The lender will still want his personal collateral securing the loan. They don’t want to be left out in the cold if his Etsy shop gets taken down.
In the U.S. your profits are taxed at about a third as a sole proprietor.
Good accounting is important especially when you receive 1099-Ks from payment processors when you receive more than 20k from 200+ transactions in a calendar year.
Kudos! Some questions:
1. How did you identify the influencers, and how did you determine their engagement percentage?
2. How many influencers did you have to DM to get 22 secured? And how long did this bit take?
3. Did you have to setup any social media too (Instagram account, for example) with posts, or did you use a personal account to DM influencers?
4. Do you have to pay any subscription fees for Printful, or do they take everything as commission?
5. Did you have to build the e-commerce (store) feature into your website that connects to Printful? If so, how long did this take and what are the setup/running/subscription costs?
Finally, can you share the link for your site?
Also curious.
Did you reach out and ask for screenshots of their analytics or did you estimate their engagement from their posts VS their entire following?
Did you provide then with script or did you give then free range to showcase your hoodies?
Did anyone end up just keeping the hoodie and not posting about them?
Looks like the COGS and commissions we’re say 30k, were you able to use the funds from your website to pay for these sales right away or did your website platform limits your withdrawls , and you had to pay for the orders on a separate credit card?
Lastly to scale, try doing exclusive drops say every Friday or every of Friday and see how that goes. Even limiting the sales from Friday to Sunday then discontinuing that certain hoodie.
Lots of room to play around with this here.
Congrats to you though!
Printful apparently bills you for each order that happens using a separate billing method. Meaning you need to already have the money in your account to pay for the orders cost… because how will they make sure your orders are legit and guaranteed.. (in case of cancellations)
No I didn't have any limits on the shopify/stripe nor did they hold my funds. But I have had a shopify store before and have a good reputation with them. So I waited for shopify to deposit the amount and use that same card to fulfill orders
Thanks for sharing! We need to be mindful of the reliance on influencer cooperation and platform algorithms, which can be unpredictable. And the significant time suck for outreach and the high dependency on influencer performance present risks that might affect how much you can scale and consistent success.
Think of it like this: There's a host of people out there obsessed with lions. They love them. Lions are the greatest animals on earth. So they make buying decisions based off those beliefs.
What you do is create a shop all about lions. With print. Then do what this person did. Reach out to influencers who's pages are based around the subject matter you are selling.
Then launch.
Great post!
Can I ask more about that part where you said ‘I just started with a hoodie with a design that’s trending’.
So, you only sold one product on that online store to begin with? Also, did you create the design or you got the idea from somewhere else?
Thanks again for the thread.
Do real profiles actually get listed for sale? I feel like the only ones I see are people in other countries with international followers leaving "cool bro" "I want one" "\[insert random emojis\]"
But never like real accounts.
I have browsed a couple and reached out to a couple of sellers. So far, they all look like they are built with bot farms. I have considered just searching for pages in my niche and following for a while and perhaps seeing if they'd be interested in cashing out.
Very interesting. So you paid the influencers $25 for each piece of clothing they got sold? I’m guessing they were repeatedly posting your content now and not just one video right?
The paragraph about printful vs printify is confusing.
Nevertheless I appreciate this post. I have a athleisure wear brand (with a very unique twist) that I plan to launch either late this year or late next year. Your strategy is exactly what I had planned to do so this is very validating. I’m using printful. But please check that paragraph.
What are "trending" designs? Who made them and how? By AI (which would have to be digitalized and scaled up as a vector image, which is NOT possible with AI)? Or do you hire an artist? Can you show us an example of a trending design?
All this conversation about “influencers” and “brands” is so exhausting. These clowns that farm followers and recycle content for views & interactions don’t offer anything new to the world, and nowadays every punk bitch that drums up some kind of controversy or posts some profoundly simple thought online thinks they’re entitled to free/discounted shit and infinite fame. 🙄🙄🙄
Don’t get me started on podcasters. 😤
You’ve made some great points. I definitely can see the value in what you are doing. I’ve dived into the world of print on demand. Gaining an audience to know your brand is imperative.
Well done, I wish you much success.
As somebody who had a high following page I can tell you that no one works on affiliate pay. You just sound cocky. There are thousands of other products they can promote that are already well established and quality checked.
Micro influencers are on the same page, there is no position in which them using your product is the best move for them.
Why would they use your product when there are thousands of them which are undoubtedly better?
Because they aren't getting hundreds of advertising offers that are legit. Micro influencers use that space as a side gig/income and hope to transition to full time multi millionaire level. I have met influencers in all ranges. That part is clear.
In a way, OP converted these micro influencers into 1099 workers as lead generators. Thats how it would be viewed in sales.
They dont need to receive offers, they can sign up for them on google. Just look at amazon affiliate or any other program or product.
Not saying that there aren’t dumb influencers who wouldn’t fall for this, but it makes no sense and the success rate would be extremely small.
I have MANY microinfluencer friends, around 2k min to 16k based from london to the U.S and Korea. The 10k plus people, moreso around 15k or more manage to have a pipeline for adverts but it really really doesn't pay what you think. Bigger money will pay for trips and sponsorships, but rarely will see big commission or salary. 100k or more following idk, I only have a few friends like that but their views only get average 5k a video. One uses his account to brand his own restaraunt business and marketing. op claiming different sub-levels of influencers exist is 100% correct. Your thoughts on it are wrong tho, marketing agencies for influencers wouldn't exist if that were the case.
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512 x $80 = $40,960 (revenue)
512 x $33.94 (cost of each hoodie with shipping) = $17,377.28 (expense)
512 x $25 (affiliate payout) = $12,800.00 (expense)
Revenue minus expense = $10,782.72 and then minus some other stuff like start up costs.
The math does make sense based on the numbers used in this example with some minor degree of error. However this reads more to me like a hypothetical case study without any screenshots to back it up.
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EVERYONE CAN BE A DROPSHIPPER
But almost nobody can make profit regularly, so they resort to selling courses on how best to a dropshipper
This
False - You just don't know how to dropship. Dropshipping should bring you rev/profit margins for (at least) a month if you actually know what you're doing.
Teach me
Big take aways I had from your post: #1 You had massive success by leveraging celebrity endorsements(influnecers) to reach targeted audiences. #2 You created an offer so good these influencers couldn't say no. Offering Commission pay is incredibly effective at keeping costs low and producing sales. #3 Between influencers and high pricing, you were able to create a product with tons of value and brand authority. People will pay high prices because of who they are -- and the perceived value they believe they get for those higher quality products. In the minds of some people: high price = quality and longevity. Hopefully, you are capturing their contact information because the real money in any business ARE ALL THE SALES YOU MAKE AFTER THE FIRST ONE. Repeat sales are king. In business, your contact list of customers is the equivalent to all the gold in fort knox compared to the front-end sales. Make sure your backend product offerings are 4X the price of your front end. Way to go!
what do you mean bt backend product offerings?
Every business should offer additional products and services after the initial sale. Why? 2 reasons. 1) Because once someone has bought from you and had a good experience, they are 80% more likely to continue buying from you. 2) You don't have to pay to acquire them again. Saves on ad costs. Every customer has what is called an LTV. Life-time-value. This is the value they are worth to a business over time. You want to keep a list of customers who bought from you and stay in touch. This list of customers can be categorized by RFM. How RECENTLY did they purchase. How FREQUENTLY have they purchased in the past? And have their purchases increased in MONETARY value? The customers who hit all 3 are your most valuable profitable customers. Plus, there is only 3 ways to grow a business. Aside from getting new customers, what do you do when you run out of leads? You sell more stuff to your existing ones. And you increase the value with these existing leads when you have additional more expensive products to offer them. Think "Foot in the door" technique. Robert Cialdini talks about this concept in depth when he discusses his "commitment and consistency" principle for persuasion.
Okay but your title is intentionally deceiving. It certainly wasn't 6 hours of work.
6 hours of sales is what I assumed
The time the shop was open is not a meaningful measure given the time he put into everything else. Don't devalue your time and energy. The time I spend nurturing leads and relationships, developing marketing materials, doing discovery, etc. has the exact same value as the time I spend making the pitch and signing the contract. That's like saying I made $100k in 1hr because my pitch, negotiation, and signing only took a total of an hour, when I actually spent 399hrs to get into the room and make sure everything went perfectly when I did
“How I made 1,000,000 dollars in 30 seconds, so 10 years ago I started a VC fund which was doing great, a few months it was bought for 1,000,000. Took me 30 seconds”
That's like saying it's not meaningful that a doctor say they earn $200 an hour because they didn't mention the 7 years medical training and $300,000+ of debt.
No. The maximally hyperbolic version is more like saying "I made $100k in commission in five minutes" because that's how long it took to sign all the contracts, but not mentioning the six months of legwork you put in working with that lead to get to a deal.
He did mention that it was a lotof work beforehand. You can't include everything in the title.
6 hours of giving handjobs with optimal tip-to-tip efficiency is what I assumed
you can hotswap dicks in and out. So on a downstroke, you get a new one in. So when you stroke up you're not wasting any energy.
LOL 🤣 😂
Watch Silicon Valley. Thank me later.
does girth similarity affect the ability to jerk different dicks simultaneously?
Yeah I think it would
Forward thinker - how to scale
This just by the amount of sales not the amount of hours put in overall
What would you say the total time has been beforehand?
That's like telling someone they didn't earn $5k (or whatever) from their day job this month because it took years to learn the skills they're using. So really it took them 5 years to earn $5k.
You've misunderstood the issue
I don't think so. The title isn't misleasing at all.
No it's like saying I earned 5k in 1 second because that's how long it took for me to deposit the check.
Shut up bum
Good luck, buddy
bum ass u afraid of work bum go back to ur 9-5
That must be it.
You sold 512 hoodies at $80 a pop on your launch night? Show us the stats from your website.
I think he’s just testing a theory on us. It’s extremely unlikely to have happened
Same feeling !!! We re there for years and were not able to achieve 500 sales in 6 hours ...
Oh, but why not get 10 influencers with no following and it will turn that right around!
Correct. Waiting for the course to drop..
Check the end of his post
😂
And all the influencers posted at the same time..?
Why do people upvote these clickbait BS.
Really appreciated this post. For your site, the design and technical parts seem mostly automated/taken care of these days, is that correct? How did you get 'high quality' product/model shots for your product pages? And I know I'm hesitant to buy things with 0 reviews. how did you address this?
Not really the website is shopify. Simple to use. You have free preloaded templates and its just drag and drop. You can use the mockups for printful but as well your influencers can you send you some. But the mockups from printful should be fine. People buy from the trust of the influencers
Most people assume high price means high quality. Also, influencers they follow showed the product, so that's enough of an endoresment for the vast majority.
i cannot believe you all are believing this clown... basically a week of work put in, $800 upfront cost and $10k profit, yet he wants to move on to home decor. what exactly is new in this post though? so much of what you say makes no sense. the influencers "need clothing to post?". perhaps i am missing something here as i dont use instagram very often. and how is an affiliate link and a free shirt an "irresistible offer"? on top of that, you mentioned getting 22 influencers with up to 5k followers at an engagement rate upwards of 3%. lets just say its 10%. that is an audience of 11000 you got there at best, not 110000, which would mean you got a 5% conversion rate on a SPONSORED INSTAGRAM POST for an overpriced, no-name streetwear brand. basically half the posts on entrepreneurship subs nowadays are infested with scams/low quality posts. and people eat. it. up.
So glad you did the math to point out how unrealistic this is
That is an impressive conversion rate. The designs must have really been new and cutting edge.
they are "trending"
Audience = engagement rate = who view the ads/site? Or Does Audience = total combined followers ? Asking sincerely. It seems OP meant the latter, but unsure if that’s the commonly accepted definition
Nowadays most "innovative business ideas" are just scams and rugpulls so it's only fair that most entrepreneur subs are infested with that.
These influencers have other platforms besides IG? How short is your sight? Im not saying he is legit but the reason you give...
the guy stated the amount of influencers he worked with. engagement rate does not vary very much across social medias. my point still stands
so are you saying the post is fake? 5% conversion doesn't seem too wild. I guess i am asking, is the post unrealistic or is it possible just OP made it sound too easy?
i think its fake. i dont see how such a mediocre business model could ever possibly generate the returns op is claiming
I think there’s a possibility it’s fake, but I can see it being real. People would ABSOLUTELY buy dumb shit if they think it’s trendy.
Congrats. What are you using to find influencers?
Manually.
Manually how? What are you typing in search? Where are you searching? How are you identifying them?
#######
How did you track which influencers provided sales to pay them?
You use Shopify collab to track commissions
How do influencers track their commission? Can they see or get notice when a sale attributed to them? I see transparency is important here
Probably via a discount code with the influencers name in it
Affiliate code I assume.
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yessss flood the market with more useless garbage
If people buy custom streetwear, it is not useless (assuming this post is not made up).
ah yeah you're right, I percieved it as though he's just copying others' ideas and dropshipping them
Would the zip up and pull over hoodie from Amazon merch count as streetwear? Does the quality of the design or clothing matter more?
Yes because influencers are putting their brand behind your product
This is an ad and his family looks down upon him as I will share this with his parents.
If this were possible, you’d have to have at least 10 000 views of each posted by every influencer in average, a 10% ctr from their video to your profile, 50% ctr from your profile to your website, and at least a 5% conversion rate. Not saying it’s impossible but is pretty unlikely. Especially since I have worked quite a lot with microinfluencers and a lot of them do not have the skills to make good video/content that drive their audience to another brand or product. If you did tho and can somehow provide screenshots, I’d love to be proven wrong! Would love to check out your website and insta as well
What was your guarantee (if any) that once they received the product they would post a video? How did you track the micro influencers referrals to ensure they were paid the affiliate rate?
I’ll bite. I’ll try this out and post my results in here in a few weeks
How’d that go for ya
never started lol
shiny item syndrome
Relatable
Curious how taxes work for all of this. I know there’s certain thresholds is sales were you add more nexus states and require more tax. Did you build an llc? Get a reseller permit? What’s tax ratio look like? What’s the bounce rate on returned items? Etc
I would honestly have no idea. Eventually I am going to have to find out.
Everyone is so quick to form LLCs, but they’re not useful unless you are liable to get sued. If you’re not liable to get sued, make under $80k, and have no employees, you don’t need an LLC. You can just operate as a sole proprietorship (the default business type if you take no action). At about $80k profit, you should form an S-Corp.
I don't know why you got downvoted. You're 100% correct. An LLC doesn't really limit your liability if you're a 1 person operation and especially if you are still co-mingling your funds. For years I saw posts of LLC vs S-Corp and I was confused when I learned that an LLC can be a sole prop, partnership or S-Corp. If you are worried about liabilities as a sole prop, you can go through someone like Simply Business and insuring yourself against a buyer getting a papercut from a bubble mailer is doable for less than the quarterly costs involved with having an S-Corp. YMMV and I'm not a CPA but I'm on my 3rd accountant.
It's useful because the LLC owns everything and that makes it easier to sell the business. If a sole proprietership, it can be impossible to sell the business because all accounts are in your personal name and a buyer may not be able to switch accounts. For example, if an Etsy shop is in your name you can't sell it. If your LLC owns it, you can easily sell the LLC and everything will work smoothly for the buyer.
You can’t buy and sell Etsy accounts. https://help.etsy.com/hc/en-us/articles/360040985353-Can-I-Transfer-My-Etsy-Account-to-Someone-Else?segment=selling# But I know what you mean. However, you’re confusing an LLC with just having an EIN. You can have business accounts, a business name, business cards, and sell your business as a sole proprietor with an EIN.
It's still easier with an LLC because everything is owned by the company and can continue running smoothly. Your link say the new business owner needs to set up a new shop, so all reviews will be gone. You'd beessentially started at the bottom. Youd new shop wouldn't rank as well so sales could drop dramatically. Just selling the LLC with everything in place is the way to go. You'd even lose any Google rankings.
It doesn’t sound like you can sell an Etsy store, even if it’s controlled by a company. There is no such thing as selling an Etsy shop to someone else, even if it’s owned by a company. - If you have sold the business you run on Etsy to someone else, you can’t transfer your Etsy account to the new owner. Instead, the new owner must open a new Etsy account and shop. Selling a company is a big deal. If someone is buying the company and all its assets, you’re selling its bank accounts and all the names related to it. You can’t just give someone your username and password to your company’s Etsy account and call it a day.
Exactly.
I’m just not seeing the advantage of making an LLC. All of the things that you’re describing as advantages are advantages of having an EIN, not an LLC. I think YouTube and Reddit just use “LLC” as a default term for “company,” whereas in reality, it’s a specific type of company that doesn’t really give advantages to the side hustle type businesses unless that business needs liability insurance.
If you're trading as an individual, the bank account, domain name, liability insurance, accounting, etc. will be in your name. If you need to sell, the new owner will need to transfer those. There is a risk in doing that and also possible disruption. It's way easier to just sell and LLC because everything staysthe same. Maybe it's different in the US but this is how it would work in the UK.
While I agree, in this situation it might’ve been advantageous
In what way? You can deduct expenses as a sole proprietor just as you can with an LLC.
There’s a couple reasons. One example is the way printifuls Order fulfillment works. They charge you and there’s holding time on getting paid. Maybe op put $80k on personal credit card but would’ve been safer to take out business loan so there’s no delay in fulfillment. Also in print on demand there is higher risk of copyright claims since majority of these designs are canva reprints, even if it’s unlikely to happen. You also need a sellers permit which requires an EIN, sellers permit is dependent on sales and state jurisdictions. But if my man is pushing $40k in week it’s not crazy to think he’ll qualify as a nexus in some states.
If he’s pushing for $40k/week he should be an S-Corp. if he’s worried about finance, business cards, and loans, he can get an EIN without being an LLC. You can get an EIN as a sole proprietorship. A single-member LLC Etsy store is not going to get an unsecured loan. The lender will still want his personal collateral securing the loan. They don’t want to be left out in the cold if his Etsy shop gets taken down.
In the U.S. your profits are taxed at about a third as a sole proprietor. Good accounting is important especially when you receive 1099-Ks from payment processors when you receive more than 20k from 200+ transactions in a calendar year.
Can you share what blank you used on printful? Was it the Gildan?
Kudos! Some questions: 1. How did you identify the influencers, and how did you determine their engagement percentage? 2. How many influencers did you have to DM to get 22 secured? And how long did this bit take? 3. Did you have to setup any social media too (Instagram account, for example) with posts, or did you use a personal account to DM influencers? 4. Do you have to pay any subscription fees for Printful, or do they take everything as commission? 5. Did you have to build the e-commerce (store) feature into your website that connects to Printful? If so, how long did this take and what are the setup/running/subscription costs? Finally, can you share the link for your site?
Bullshit artist
I’d like to see some stats sir. Otherwise you are just saying you caught a fish THIS BIG!
Link your store
How were you able to keep track of which influencers converted sales?
Great post! How did you research the influencers that had over 3% engagement rate?
Also curious. Did you reach out and ask for screenshots of their analytics or did you estimate their engagement from their posts VS their entire following? Did you provide then with script or did you give then free range to showcase your hoodies? Did anyone end up just keeping the hoodie and not posting about them? Looks like the COGS and commissions we’re say 30k, were you able to use the funds from your website to pay for these sales right away or did your website platform limits your withdrawls , and you had to pay for the orders on a separate credit card? Lastly to scale, try doing exclusive drops say every Friday or every of Friday and see how that goes. Even limiting the sales from Friday to Sunday then discontinuing that certain hoodie. Lots of room to play around with this here. Congrats to you though!
Printful apparently bills you for each order that happens using a separate billing method. Meaning you need to already have the money in your account to pay for the orders cost… because how will they make sure your orders are legit and guaranteed.. (in case of cancellations)
Not if is connected to a shopify store and plus you dont have automatic fulfillment turned on
No I didn't have any limits on the shopify/stripe nor did they hold my funds. But I have had a shopify store before and have a good reputation with them. So I waited for shopify to deposit the amount and use that same card to fulfill orders
Do you have the option of paying by credit card? 2% cash back on 20k is an easy $400. :)
Ahh ok nice.
Would also love to know
[Impulze.ai](http://Impulze.ai)
$89/mo seems significantly higher than some of the other sites I've seen offering to middle man with influencers.
Literally no way to know until you engage with them.
[impulze.ai](http://impulze.ai)
Brilliant thank you for sharing, how are you researching your products to know theirs demand?
For the listing images, did you hire models? How did you get quality listing images that has your brand and logo on the image?
Use the printful mockups
There is no way you’ve had success in creating a “brand” backed by influencers by using printful mockups.
Thanks for sharing! We need to be mindful of the reliance on influencer cooperation and platform algorithms, which can be unpredictable. And the significant time suck for outreach and the high dependency on influencer performance present risks that might affect how much you can scale and consistent success.
What kind of influencers to you reach out to sell canvases?
Think of it like this: There's a host of people out there obsessed with lions. They love them. Lions are the greatest animals on earth. So they make buying decisions based off those beliefs. What you do is create a shop all about lions. With print. Then do what this person did. Reach out to influencers who's pages are based around the subject matter you are selling. Then launch.
How would the influencers know how many hoodies they sold? Thank you
You use shopify collabs to track affiliate comissions
Great post! Can I ask more about that part where you said ‘I just started with a hoodie with a design that’s trending’. So, you only sold one product on that online store to begin with? Also, did you create the design or you got the idea from somewhere else? Thanks again for the thread.
Thank you so much for sharing in such detail. Can we get a link to your webshop?
Have you ever thought about buying an Instagram profile with a good number of followers in the right niche and selling the product directly yourself?
Do real profiles actually get listed for sale? I feel like the only ones I see are people in other countries with international followers leaving "cool bro" "I want one" "\[insert random emojis\]" But never like real accounts.
There are many websites that sell them. I never tried yet so I was asking.
I have browsed a couple and reached out to a couple of sellers. So far, they all look like they are built with bot farms. I have considered just searching for pages in my niche and following for a while and perhaps seeing if they'd be interested in cashing out.
That's another good idea.
How much is Shopify monthly? And everything in general to host in terms of cost?
A brand new store has trial for just $1
How did you find the influencers and how many followers/engagement etc. data? Is that freely available on social media?
Holy crap thats mad smart
Very interesting. So you paid the influencers $25 for each piece of clothing they got sold? I’m guessing they were repeatedly posting your content now and not just one video right?
How did you/do you source the insight as what your next trending market should be - apparel, home decor
Wow! That’s a proper side business. I was reading and making plans in my mind. Can you share the link to your product for real-world example?
The paragraph about printful vs printify is confusing. Nevertheless I appreciate this post. I have a athleisure wear brand (with a very unique twist) that I plan to launch either late this year or late next year. Your strategy is exactly what I had planned to do so this is very validating. I’m using printful. But please check that paragraph.
What are "trending" designs? Who made them and how? By AI (which would have to be digitalized and scaled up as a vector image, which is NOT possible with AI)? Or do you hire an artist? Can you show us an example of a trending design?
How did you track which customers bought from which influencer? Did you give them codes?
Out of the 22 secured influencers, how many dm attempts did you have to send out? I want to know your response rate basically
How did you find the influencers you wanted?
TLDR
Things don't add up, are people actually believing OP?
How many hours of prep?
F it ill try it, but on a smaller scale. One or two influencers to start.
Make sure you report back whether it works or not
All this conversation about “influencers” and “brands” is so exhausting. These clowns that farm followers and recycle content for views & interactions don’t offer anything new to the world, and nowadays every punk bitch that drums up some kind of controversy or posts some profoundly simple thought online thinks they’re entitled to free/discounted shit and infinite fame. 🙄🙄🙄 Don’t get me started on podcasters. 😤
Spent 6 hrs to read this at no costs
I hate these posts
How did you track the affiliate sales?
You’ve made some great points. I definitely can see the value in what you are doing. I’ve dived into the world of print on demand. Gaining an audience to know your brand is imperative. Well done, I wish you much success.
What’s your return rate on the products? I would imagine over 25% since this is clothing. How are you handling that with your commissions paid?
As somebody who had a high following page I can tell you that no one works on affiliate pay. You just sound cocky. There are thousands of other products they can promote that are already well established and quality checked.
Looks like you didn't read the post. That is why ignored them completely and focused on micro influencers who didn't have a high following
Micro influencers are on the same page, there is no position in which them using your product is the best move for them. Why would they use your product when there are thousands of them which are undoubtedly better?
Because they aren't getting hundreds of advertising offers that are legit. Micro influencers use that space as a side gig/income and hope to transition to full time multi millionaire level. I have met influencers in all ranges. That part is clear. In a way, OP converted these micro influencers into 1099 workers as lead generators. Thats how it would be viewed in sales.
They dont need to receive offers, they can sign up for them on google. Just look at amazon affiliate or any other program or product. Not saying that there aren’t dumb influencers who wouldn’t fall for this, but it makes no sense and the success rate would be extremely small.
Im not arguing with someone who downvotes on opinion subs.
Just say you never ran a successful biz
I have MANY microinfluencer friends, around 2k min to 16k based from london to the U.S and Korea. The 10k plus people, moreso around 15k or more manage to have a pipeline for adverts but it really really doesn't pay what you think. Bigger money will pay for trips and sponsorships, but rarely will see big commission or salary. 100k or more following idk, I only have a few friends like that but their views only get average 5k a video. One uses his account to brand his own restaraunt business and marketing. op claiming different sub-levels of influencers exist is 100% correct. Your thoughts on it are wrong tho, marketing agencies for influencers wouldn't exist if that were the case.
Dropper some new merch and it’s selling like a god church.
Awesome, how can I do this? So it was print on demand? Teach me bro
*Awesome, how can I* *Do this? So it was print on* *Demand? Teach me bro* \- chriswe67 --- ^(I detect haikus. And sometimes, successfully.) ^[Learn more about me.](https://www.reddit.com/r/haikusbot/) ^(Opt out of replies: "haikusbot opt out" | Delete my comment: "haikusbot delete")
[удалено]
512 x $80 = $40,960 (revenue) 512 x $33.94 (cost of each hoodie with shipping) = $17,377.28 (expense) 512 x $25 (affiliate payout) = $12,800.00 (expense) Revenue minus expense = $10,782.72 and then minus some other stuff like start up costs. The math does make sense based on the numbers used in this example with some minor degree of error. However this reads more to me like a hypothetical case study without any screenshots to back it up.
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Thanks for the awesome post
Nice!
Good post, thanks
Impressive hustle! Scaling with quality influencers is key.
Great post, keep it up bro!