Friends, if you are still studying, just keep on studying until you get the degree. A degree for me is just like a license and does not mean you have to work forever with your degree. I was a graduate in Geology and I have worked in the oil and gas sector for many years as a geologist and other positions but I end up doing a laundry business. How far deviated from my previous occupation where people are flocking to work as an offshore personnel as their dream job. I find that doing business is much more fun than working but bare in mind, the challenges are still there and keep on coming.

This post has been edited by am_eniey: Jan 25 2010, 08:17 PM

Good point!

thanks so much for all the guidelines...well the reason why i am aiming to run my own biz now is due to financial prob. well i believe even with no capital we can also start a biz but the major problem is with 0 experience i am quite uncertain if i can manage it well..as everyone knows that a good biz will only be determine after the 5th year..

btw am_eniey i am quite keen to know how u run ur laundry biz.

thanks

MikeLim,

The bold part is a reason for you NOT to start a business. You must be joking to say you want to start a business because of financial problem. A person with financial problem (i.e. negative cashflow) should stay away from business. As you said, you have 0 experience, so you NEED to have the cash to BUY your experience.

i wan to ask what if
i got plenty of business idea, but how to know it's work o not?

running a biz is not simple, u might end up into more financial problem...i think its best to get a proper base skill-sets trained in yourself and meantime, save up on some capital...i personally have not drawn salary for the past 2 yrs and its tough trying to maintain it...the amount of stress u need to go through and at times, nobody support or understand u, all they do is discourage u...

talk to ppl about it...and dont worry about ppl stealing ur idea...if u have thought about it, i'm sure there are loads more other ppl also thought about it before...its all about execution...

would like share something to this thread. am a regular joe dreaming of hitting it big but dunno where to start. so when some friends approach me for some IT business venture, i started by being their agent (no capital involve) and was doing pretty well. then we wanted to expand and offer me to join as partner. i accepted but alas, the trend died down. my investment practically become zero.
for every success story, i'm sure there's easily 10 failure story. we know the amazing success story because everybody loves to hear it. but who have heard of the ah beng who lost thousands in investment and the ah lians who lost millions trying their business venture. not trying to spirit down the dreamers but let's face the fact that there's risk aplenty out there. survivor of the fittest.
having said that, i'm still stuck with a bunch of computer goods. willing to let go and crazily cheap prices. please visit www.boynq.com
cheers!
keep on dreaming and may your dream comes true!

speaking of ideas, there's aplenty in my head. some of it i could swear it's damn good but implementation is a big problem. it involves pitching the idea to big automotive corporates. i got no clue how to do that. and since the idea have a chance of success, i don't dare sharing with anybody else. even if pitching to the big guns, i swear i need legal protection so that they don't infringe my copyright. but sigh! an idea is only an idea. if the idea never sees the lights of day, no matter how good the idea is, it's only a thought, nothing more. sigh! dilemma.

This post has been edited by kochin: Jan 27 2010, 03:40 PM

I start my latest venture with 0 capital, but with 110% experience. You need experience in whatever you are doing.
Experience is money.
Money is not experience.

Share it here if you want to know whether it is viable or not. If that is what you want to do.

If you do not have the necessary experience/capital to start the venture, I suggest you share with somebody who you trust and believe can realize your dream. Even your idea is damn good, and without implementation from the right people/time it is WORTHLESS.

It is dangerous to trust someone, but trusting nobody is more dangerous.

There is always a risk there. That why it is call business.

yokatasan,

Ideas and execution are 2 different aspects in business. Your ideas may be very feasible, but your management may not. Your business will still fail in that case. I have met many who have very modest ideas, but their execution and management are good. They still made it in the end.

So, whether or not your business would work depends on you. If you are doubting, then your idea is not fit to be executed.

Hi Everyone,

I am new here and I am glad to have join this forum as its quite difficult for me to find people with the same interest as me, which is in small business...

and I learned a lot here about small businesses...

Well, like most of us here, I am in sales line attached with MNC.. I always wanted to get into business since my college days..and I am very much determined because I actually set aside rm500 everymonth into my business set-up purpose and its been a whole year now...not much to begin with but remember what R.Kiyosaki once said, PAY yourself first before others...

I am 28 this year and I dont come from well to do family, as the eldest, I have a lot of commitments on my shoulder...so rm500 is the best I can do for myself atleast...

Actually I would like to seek advice from you all here, I am doing a very small perfume selling business online(only originals and tester) since middle of last year, business has been very slow as only friends are buying to support me...

How can I reach to bigger crowd which my target would be college students and mainly young working adults...?

this is my partner's blog... http://jperfume.blogspot.com/

pls feel free to comment and all replies are very much appreciated..thanks

Hello, I think I have an idea for you.

Looking at your current situation, I am guessing that you are always updating your blog with new perfumes and expecting people to buy from you. Then of course you would sell to your group of friends as well.

I am pretty sure that you are now currently earning more by selling to your friend. And you have the idea that your blog should be generating more sales than yourself.

I paid a visit to your website. Sorry to say this but I quit straight away, why?

1. I have no intention of buying perfumes now.
2. I don't like entering websites that only tells me what perfumes to buy their prices.
3. I don't like the design.

Sounds cruel but that is the truth.

Now I will tell you what is wrong with your website.

First, it has a blogspot.com at the back, which basically translates (to strangers like myself) you do not have a company and is not trustworthy.
Secondly, the traffic to your website is very little. With so little visitors, it is not surprising that business is not good.
Thirdly, website simplicity and neatness is extremely important for sales, and your blog does not have either of those.

Now how you can improve your sales? You should generate traffic to your website.

How do you do that? Write articles. It is a matter of give and take here. I believe no business can be set up if you do not give first.

Right now if you take a look at your website, what you're actually displaying to your visitors is "Look, tell me what you want and I will sell it to you". Would you buy if anybody tell you that exact same sentence? I wouldn't.

So what you are supposed to do now, is tell your customers why they should pick your perfumes, tell them how good that perfume is, tell them what would happen if they use that perfume, tell them your experience when using that perfume.

Bah I think I should just throw you all the ideas I have and have you figure out what to do
1. Write articles so that your articles generate sales
2. Register a real domain name and a real website (not bloggers)
3. Market your brand, don't just sell without branding.

Just my 2 cents.

Hi SeeD,

first of all, thank you for your feedback...from your feedback, I do find there are a lot more that I can do; first is to have some write up articles in regards to the perfumes I am selling so they can relate it with themselves better...yeah I did miss out this point..

In referring to the dotcom domain instead of blogspot, should I go for .com or .com.my?

Finally, if we have done all these...how am I going to improve the traffic to my intended crowd? thru google ads or website ad?

@AnakJohor
.com.my of course if you're targeting Malaysian customer, I think you should get .com.my. However, I would suggest you to get both .com.my and .com, 20 USD per year is not expensive at all in case you want to expand worldwide.

There are actually a lot of ways to improve traffic.

What I usually do for my website (not a sales website) is that I publish articles, then share them in Facebook, Twitter Diggs. That's the lazy way , there are a lot of ways out there you can use, like creating a facebook group or something.

Also make sure Google is pinged (notified) so that your articles appear in Google Search Engine.

You should read up targeting keywords so that you know what keywords to include in your website. It's the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) thing which I am not that good at.

As for advertising, I am not the right person to talk to.

By the way, I am just a university student with some knowledge about the internet. You should not take my advice too seriously. Mainly because these things take a lot of time to prepare and takes more time to generate sales. I myself think that this is the hardest way to generate sales leads. Maybe some pros here can advice you better.

I am just telling you all these because you're selling perfumes online

This post has been edited by SeeD: Jan 28 2010, 12:21 AM

u probably need to change the interface...and u might want to try B2B rather than B2C...try wholesale and set up channels...

thanks so much for the advice again. i guess i seriously need to put myself together and focus into something smaller 1st.

Words of the day. We need some failed examples too

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Added on January 28, 2010, 10:25 pmNow I only realized to make a plan works out of paper is ....................................


This post has been edited by pokeat: Jan 28 2010, 10:25 PM

you said it. and i experience it. i was a good example of failing in my 1st biz venture. pretty much like our thread starter. IT products.
having said so, i got tonnes of boynq stuff to dispose. they are actually pretty decent stuff. pricey too. but built quality is kinda good. compatible with ipods too. seriously, am having a huge sale. rather it's clearing off all my stocks including selling at a loss. no joke!
but what to do? if i buy at rm100 per piece, would i rather keep it or dispose it? whatever ringgit i get back it's less ringgit lost!

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This post has been edited by marsalee: Nov 13 2010, 09:30 PM

advice from me, if you people wants to start a business that requires a 100k capital, you should have 200k in hand just to be safe.

ya, you're right! Sometime i think my idea is goin to work, alot reasons support my idea.
However, when come to execution, this is the most difficult part.