The challenging problems business owners go through.
In today's episode of the Dislexic Entrepreneur, I'm going
to share three different problems I'm running into at the
moment as I build the added nutrition brand.
We haven't even launched. And I wanted to share some of
the highs and some of the lows as we go through this because,
you know, whether you're thinking of starting a business,
whether you're an entrepreneur and you're looking to get
better, it's really important to understand that many people are
going through similar stuff and how to deal with it.
So let's dive into this episode. OK, so I'm really enjoying this
case study. If you want to follow the Added
Nutrition brand, you can go to addednutrition.com.
You can sign up and get a $10 credit when we launch.
I appreciate everybody who signs up at this point.
We've got a good number of people in our database already,
but we can always have more guys.
I always appreciate it. So if you are listening to the
podcast and you want to give me some support, just popping your
name and details in there makes a massive impact.
So addednutrition.com, I'll put it in the show notes.
But what I want to share today is some of the challenges of
building a supplement brand. And when I first started this, I
kind of, there was a part of me when I first did this that
thought it's actually not that hard to create a supplement
brand now with Chechi BT and that helping you design your
product and do some of the more technical stuff, it's pretty
easy. How wrong was I?
There was so much work and effort and energy and it's such
an ADHD dyslexic thing to do is to picture an outcome that seems
so simple and then wonder why it takes you 3 times as long to get
there. Deep down I knew this was
probably going to happen, but you know, there's always a part
of you that just thinks maybe this time will be different.
It's usually the thing that catches you out.
So you know, one thing I've always learned in business is
things take you 3 times longer than you imagine.
I thought it would take six months.
It'll probably take 18 months before we're starting to sell
through a good amount of our stock, which is hilarious.
Literally took three times as long.
This is my kind of gut feeling. So I've learned a lot during
this period, if I'm honest. Things that I didn't even know I
needed to learn. But I keep coming up against
some challenges, so I thought I'd share.
You know, and there are these three different tiers of
challenge. And again, when I say
challenges, some of these are just decisions.
And I think this is the problem with being a business owner in
this day and age is with the benefit of AI, you can get a lot
of help from around the place. There's so much help, there's so
much information, it can just get overwhelming.
Like I'm someone who absorbs information quickly and can
learn quite quickly. I'm quite lucky that way.
But then you just, if you're going too quickly, you've just
got all this decision fatigue. Everyone's asking you questions.
You've got to make these decisions that if you go down
the wrong path could slow you down or break the machine and it
gets tough, I'm not going to lie.
And then you come up against roadblocks that just keep
kicking you in the nuts is probably the way I would frame
it. It really feels like that.
I'll give you an example. We're trying to get a word mark,
a trademark for Amazon. This is something you should do
when you set up your brand so no one can steal it once you start
to go well. And we're trying to go through
the US Patent Office. I think it's got a longer name
than that, but it's basically the office where you registered
trademarks and and that type of thing.
And my God, America, you're some of the government web platforms
are horrendous. This is such a terrible
platform. It is so hard to verify your
identity, to go through the steps.
It is driving me nuts. And for someone who doesn't have
a lot of patience, it's not teaching me patience because
it's just teaching me frustration.
It is that bad. And it's getting me to a point
where like we've been messing around with this for like a
week. It either won't text message us
or it'll just decide not to work in certain places or I'm just
it's killing me. It's like killing me inside.
Like it's seriously is, you know, this kind of basic admin
stuff just murders the ADHD brain because it's so boring and
and it's so laborious. Is that the word like that?
That alone is just it seems so simple, but it's so painful.
Minute it's done, I'm going to be stoked.
So that's one like little thing that hits you as a business
owner, the things you just got to do that you really can't be
bothered doing, but you've got to push through.
So I've got it in my diary first thing tomorrow when I've got the
most energy, I'm just going to nail it.
But it's, oh, I hope I can if, if everything works.
But it's just an example of of some of the, the peep pees.
But I know I've got to get through it.
You know, you can't, it can't all be butterflies and rainbows,
right? The second piece that's come up
because of that, it's got me thinking and I listen to a lot
of podcasts. It's got me thinking, should I
be selling through Amazon as our main channel or should I be
going direct to market through our Shopify website?
We've built and I keep talking to different people and
different people have different beliefs.
Some say Amazon is great, others say it is way too.
It's so busy at the moment. Like it's a great place to be
eventually, but it may not be the best place to start.
You might be better going direct to market.
Build an audience through Facebook and other places.
Use those ads to get in front of the right people, but but stay
away from Amazon at least for the first six months because
you've only got so much bandwidth to do one thing well.
And I found a really cool 3 PL. These are the people that will
take our product, package it up and ship it out across America.
That looks pretty good that I'm considering.
And when I do the numbers, it kind of makes sense to do it
that way. It actually works at about the
same price. The big difference with Amazon,
Amazon's a bit easier for people who are already customers to
buy, but you lose a bit of margin because of that.
When you're doing it direct to market.
The benefit is you get to keep everyone's data, you get to keep
their e-mail addresses, you get to know your audience, you get
to ask them questions and, and do more there.
And I, I really do think we're going to build a more of a
consumer brand where we want to know our customers.
We don't just want to be a commodity where Amazon a lot of
the time does feel very commoditized, especially in our
market. So like, I'm really sitting on
this fence now going, OK, do we, we've only got 1000 models to
sell in our first run. Do we actually go to a three PL.
and do it direct through Shopify, which is I'm kind of
starting to lean that way or do we go through Amazon?
And this is quite a shift at this point.
Let me let me tell you that. So it's crazy, if I'm honest,
like it's yeah. And the problem is if Amazon
decides to get a bit cheeky and, and, you know, frustrating, they
can really slow you down as well.
Whereas if we go to direct market, we have a lot more
control. So I am, yeah, toys are up in
the air. I'm likely going to go direct to
market. But again, this is a huge
decision that you have to make as a business owner.
And if it's the wrong decision, I won't know till later on.
So that's really tough. It is really, really tough.
You know, we're having some great success on Facebook with
some of our kind of posts, our kind of ADHD based posts.
We've had three posts reach 60,000 views, another get to
672,000 and starting to build our followers.
We've got up to about 1200 now following us on Facebook.
Oddly, Facebook's algorithms really interesting at the
moment. It's changed a lot.
So they are, they've really changed what they promote, which
is pretty cool. So that helps us a little bit.
Plus we know a little bit about meta ads, so we could go down
that path. Like this is the challenges of
business, right? As a business owner, you're
making all these high level decisions while you're trying to
do everything else, especially when you're a small business.
Like I'm lucky that I run this through my web design agency as
well. So I'm able to subcontract some
of my web design team if they're quiet and a really good price
point to help out. So I got one of them helping
with our social media, some others helping with our website
and another one helping us get listed on Amazon or wherever we
go. But again, all decisions lead
back to me because, you know, there's a lot of money, like
we've thrown a chunk of cash into this to make it run and
it's learning as we go. So like it's, it's been, it's,
it's been a massive decision as well.
We also now have to decide when do we launch and what do we do
for that launch advertising wise, You know, some people say
launch quietly and just make sure everyone's happy.
Get some more testimonials. And then others are saying just
go all in, you know, really push, try and become a
bestseller and go nuts. It's so we're all over the
place. And then there's also this ADHD
dyslexic part of me who just wants to play and create new
products like, which is really some of my skill set.
So I'm kind of in the zone, you know, I've got to make these big
decisions. Do I bring someone on to help us
with advertising? You know, do I try and find
maybe someone who's dyslexic and ADHD who wants to become a, a
shareholder who wants to own that part of our business and
maybe they're an influence of themselves, or maybe it's they
want to do something different in their career and give them an
opportunity. I've definitely learned over the
years, working with good people can be super helpful, especially
if you find the right people with the right passion, you can
do some pretty cool stuff. Who knows, there may even be a
listener out there who gets in touch.
But it's, it's, you know, I guess what I wanted to share on
this podcast as I go forward with this case study is wherever
you are in business, there are challenges.
Your problems just get better over time and you get better at
breathing through the hard ones and going, you know, asking
yourself some deep questions. And there was something I
learned from Jeff Bezos of Amazon.
Not a huge fan of his, if I'm honest, But one thing he does
talk about a lot is, you know, I'll probably, I'll probably
stuff the naming of these up. But type A and type B decisions
type, I think type A decisions are decisions where you can go
backwards and you're not likely to lose.
So like say on our website, we change it all to pink rather
than yellow. Say we'd make that decision and
we decide it's a bad idea. We can go back and change the
color of the website. It's not the world end.
But if I decide that we're going to sell direct to market and we
ship 950 or 1000 bottles, whatever the number is to the
fulfillment center, get them all set up, it's a lot harder for me
to move that to Amazon. There is a big, you know,
challenge there, right? If we change those platforms,
it's a big shift. And so that's kind of a Type B.
There's like there's a door you're going through.
You can't go back through the door the other way without cost,
quite a substantial cost. And So what I try and do is on
type A decisions, I'm really quick, I'm really nimble and
agile. Type B decisions, I try and
think about them a little bit longer, even if it slows down
the flow. And I know that's hard for me.
Like I think I've talked about it.
I've also, I'm also considering starting a bookcase door
business at the moment, which is pretty cool where we make doors
like like Murphy doors. But in New Zealand where I'm
based, it's a small margin, but a small business, small margin
business. But it's something I'm really
passionate about. I really like the idea of it.
We've even had a prototype done in my office.
I'll try and put some photos up if people are interested.
But again, like playing with these, like these decisions that
I'm trying to make for all of these different things at the
same time, you know, I've got to mix, I've got to take some time
with it. And like with the book a store
thing, it's been a real slow burn business.
I've been kind of on and off of it for a year and a half as
well. Not completely committing to it,
but committing enough to test it out and see if there's an
interest. And it's, it's interesting
because I'm not too, I'm not really pushing myself in that
business. Things are kind of coming to me
as they should. So like, you know, if you've got
an ADHD brain, you can end up doing a lot of things at once,
which can be tiring, but it can also be the way we're built.
And over time, you know, I, I think when you're starting out,
what I would say is, is pick one, like what I'd say like hell
I do. It is, I have one pay the bills
business. That's my web design, my AI
software business. We build a lot of cool stuff.
I love it. It's been around nearly 10 years
and it's consistent and I've learned a lot about business
through it. And it pays my bills.
I then have my, I want to sell it one day for a lot of money
and I want to help a lot of people kind of mission business,
which is added nutrition. Like I think 1 I can make that a
large product business. I also think I can help a lot of
people that are like me that have similar problems.
I can build a brand that does that job really well.
And then I've got this kind of wonder doors thing, which is
kind of like my brain messing around with doing something
else. Like it kind of needs something
to play with. So I've got no financial goals
in it per SE. I'm happy to do it with other
people. I kind of just want to see if it
can it can work out, but I'm not going to put pressure on myself.
Every time I put pressure on myself, I get my family to say,
don't mess around with this. Don't, don't slow down.
Put it to the side of you're too busy.
Focus on the other two things big.
But I have to have enough things, enough, enough ions in
the fire to keep me interested or everything falls apart and
then I get bored. It's actually worse.
Does that kind of make sense? I'm not sure if you can connect
with that. You can connect with my kind of
vibe there. And I think it's understanding
how your brain works like this. The key is that you, you know,
don't beat yourself up. The old days, I used to beat
myself up about this and go, oh, if only I could focus on one
thing, I would be rich. Yeah.
But that's just not who I am. Like, I'm.
I'm just not that person. And, you know, there are things
I can do to help myself in that respect.
And I do from time to time. But I just don't beat myself up
anymore. I am the me that is sitting
right here chatting to you guys on the podcast.
So I'm going to keep sharing my stories.
If you've got any questions about the business growth, any
thoughts, again, the districtscontrepreneur.com pop
along, reach out. I appreciate everyone's comments
and I'll be back next week. Thank you for listening to
today's podcast on the truth about dyslexia.
If you're looking for a group of awesome humans to help you with
ADHD, dyslexia, and the neurodavergent brain, maybe the
Right Brain Resetters is for you.
You can find us at Right Brain resetters.com and for just $7.00
a month you can join our amazing group where you'll get Q&A's.
You're going to get little mini courses and heaps of stuff.
It's way more value than you will invest in joining, so make
sure you head to rightbrainresetters com and
we'll put the link in the show notes.