#TheGreatBuild: Pivoting

Welcome to #TheGreatBuild, a series dedicated to starting an ecommerce business from scratch. In this series, the founder of A Better Lemonade Stand, Richard Lazazzera, shares the lessons he learns and the strategies he tries as he builds his own ecommerce business from the ground up. This series has been created with the intention of showing other new entrepreneurs what it takes to start an ecommerce business so it will hopefully inspire them to start their own online business, too.

To read all the blog posts included in this series, navigate using the Table of Contents down below.

 

It’s been an interesting last few weeks. I know from your perspective, things have been moving like molasses with #TheGreatBuild project and, to a certain extent, it has. Over the last few weeks, I have been doing a lot of thinking about #TheGreatBuild. I’ve actually lost a lot of sleep juggling expectations from myself, my partners, and from you, my audience.

Since I began this project, many things have changed. Behind the scenes, the business model has changed, the exact product has changed, and the target market has changed. The business began to evolve into a much bigger idea, with higher startup costs than originally expected.

It’s well recognized from the team that what we were planning to build would rely heavily on the marketing of the brand and collaborations, something that would take a good amount of time to build up. The project became a long term play that would require much more money before seeing profitability than most ecommerce professionals would recommend or that I could invest.

Although this series is meant to document my personal project, I felt as if I may be leading some people astray by continuing to document this particular project. I personally believe in being very lean when first starting.

Divided

After a few discussions with my partners I have decided to transfer most of the responsibility for the first, original project to my partners and I will stay on as an advisor/marketing strategist.

So Where Does That Leave #TheGreatBuild Project?

Well, #TheGreatBuild will be continuing on in the form of another business. A business that is leaner and more in line with the capabilities, budget, and expectations of my readers.

It was definitely a difficult decision to make but I believe this is the best decision for myself, my partners, and for you.

So What is This New Project and Where Am I At? 

Well, I’m not moving that far from my original idea. This new business will still be in the bold socks business but rather than developing my own line and brand, I will be selectively curating styles from several top brands to start. I have located and met with the distributors of several higher-end men’s sock companies and set up accounts with each of them. In the next few days, I will be placing my orders for each of them. Slowly, I will be adding additional brands as well as other products, to be determined later. I fully intend for socks just to be my entry into the high-end men’s goods/trinkets market.

The startup costs for this new business are significantly less. For creating your own line of socks, the initial startup costs were about $10,000 and 120 units per style MOQ for an initial order. For this new business, the total startup costs will be close to $1,500 with an MOQ of only 6 units per style. Huge difference.

What is My New Company Called? 

That’s a great question. Although arguably, the name isn’t extremely important, it’s important to me. The name for the previous company took us three weeks to come up with. That name and the brand we have developed for it will stay with that business. This leaves me to come up with a new name and to develop a new brand for it. I hope this one comes quicker than the last. Ideally, I’d like to have a post out next week with my new name and brand.

What Are My Next Steps?

As mentioned above, I’d really like to lock down on a name for the business and build out some of the brand and brand assets as quickly as possible.

Your Thoughts?

Business is rarely a straight line. It was extremely difficult to pivot at this point. I had to consider my personal goals and expectations, my partners, and my readers. You didn’t hear from me for a while because I was going back and forth on my choice. Whether right or wrong, I have made my choice and feel confident in it. I’m excited to move forward.