Business Insights from a shoelace entrepreneur.

Introduce yourself and provide a brief description about your business venture.

I’m Vin Abrahams from London. I am into e-commerce business dealing mainly with shoelaces. The business is mainly on ebay, although I have registered a domain name – vimaton.com, it is not yet functioning, but hope to get it ready as soon as possible. I get the shoelaces at wholesale prices through Alibaba, brand it with my packaging and great customer service! I hope to add more products such as men’s socks, and few other men’s accessories to the line. So I intend to get a slice of the pie from men’s accessories niche market.

How did you get your idea or concept for the business?

Well, the idea just came up when browsing on the internet , then searched google trends to find out about its trend over the years, did a quick search to find out the search volume for shoelaces, browsed Alibaba to find out at what price I could get it shipped to the UK . When everything seemed good, I just took the plunge and its been good.

In your case how difficult was it to transform the idea into a successful product/service?

Unlike an app or an innovative product, in my case it was the ubiquitous shoelace. So it was simply getting the best quality shoelaces and branding them.

What is unique about your business?

As mentioned earlier, there is nothing unique about my business like an app or a software. It’s shoelace! So, there are plenty of colours available which you may not find in a store. Even, when I tell my mates about selling shoelace online, they sometimes laugh and say, what? shoelaces! So in some form it is unique because when you think of opening an online store, you’re very unlikely to think of selling shoelaces!

How did you make your first sale?

Well, my first sale was very quick actually, I uploaded the products on ebay and I think by next day I started getting sales! It’s not magic but we need to do a research before getting into it to see the search volume!

So the path I took was to do a market research

Targeted customer,
Proper design of the page.
Strong call to action,

Businesses often think that the best way to get their first sale is to offer promotions. However, promotions are not always the best strategy. There are many other ways you can get your first sale for your business.

In order to get the first sale, you’ll need to have a product that is desirable. You should also take advantage of opportunities where you can offer your product to customers directly. Make your marketing and sales process as smooth as possible.

How do you build authority in your market?

Authority is always built on having integrity in everything we do. So for business in general and for my business too, it’s not any different. I always strive to give excellent customer service to all my customers. I am always quick to act on if there is any exchange they need or any other issues. So the word of mouth also spreads and authority is built over a period of time!

What motivates you?

As an entrepreneur I know that we are often driven by different motivations for starting a business, but we always have the same motivation when it comes to achieving success. A business is run by the entrepreneur who continues to be motivated throughout their entrepreneurial journey. There are many different aspects that can motivate an entrepreneur, but having a constant motivation is necessary for the success of the venture.

As we all know, entrepreneurship is a high-risk, high-reward career. There are a lot of factors that can motivate a person to start a business. Some well-known entrepreneurs might be compelled by their passion or their vision to take on the risk and turn it into something meaningful and remarkable. Others might have been looking for an opportunity to launch their own venture, and they seized the moment as soon as it came up.

I believe that every day is a gift from God and we need to make it a memorable time by writing a great story for us. So the motivation is to get up and create success for me personally and for my small business and bring change in other people’s lives by uplifting them too! I believe in being a hero who solves problems for people around.

What skills do you think should an entrepreneur develop to stay ahead?

As we are moving through a very fast pace of digital revolution, an entrepreneur who wants to build a remarkable brand quickly with his business idea should develop digital marketing skills to stay in the game, or else you will have to depend on others who would charge exorbitant amount sometimes for a simple task!

The most important knowledge and skills that should be developed by entrepreneurs are directly related to business, such as planning and forecasting ,managing finances, understanding legal requirements of running a business, and so on.

Then of-course skills like marketing, branding, public relations, networking, salesmanship etc. are inevitable from the skills-set of entrepreneurs!

What marketing strategies do you attribute to your success?

With regards to marketing strategies, it is simply the shop on ebay . So with the right SEO, I am able to get prospects who are searching for shoelaces to my page. Word-of-mouth too can not be discounted. However, there are plans to do ads on Facebook and Instagram to get targeted traffic to my page.

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For small businesses just starting out providing remarkable customer service is key to success!

always provide the highest quality product or service, strive for excellence, and integrity is the keyword for long term success in your small business!

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Why would customers/clients do repeat business with you?

I have many customers who do repeat business with me. I believe they come back mainly because they get to choose from a variety of shoelaces, value for money and great customer service! For small businesses just starting out providing remarkable customer service is key to success!

Does your business help the community where it is located or do you have plans in store?

Being an online business, I do not do any help locally. Nevertheless, I support many charities around the globe based on how pressing the need of an organisation is. Actually this question got me thinking that I should get myself to lend a helping hand to the local community as the need arises.

Actually, I can show support for a genuine cause by sponsoring an event or may be sponsor a local sports team.

What books would you recommend to new entrepreneurs?

Well, the first book any entrepreneur should read is “Business made simple” by Donald Miller, where he breaks down certain key aspects so that in 60 days you could master Character, leadership, personal productivity, business strategy, messaging, marketing, sales , negotiation, management and execution. Then there is “Marketing made simple” and “Building a story brand” by the same author. The 22 Immutable laws of marketing by Al Ries and Jack Trout could give a head start when embarking on a business venture, where the authors present 22 remarkable tools and innovative techniques for the everchanging modern marketplace.”The 1 page Marketing plan” by Allan Dib is also a handy resource for entrepreneurs! All these are great resources to help your small business ideas to spearhead for success.

Are there any websites/blogs/apps that you can’t imagine your day without? Give your reasons.

As a matter of fact, technology has completely changed the life of us entrepreneurs. It has enabled us to have different ways of running our business operations. We can find apps for any need through search engines or through social media.

Today, there are apps made especially for entrepreneurs and with these types of apps, you can check your business analytics, monitor your team’s performance, create posters and other marketing materials to attract new clients and much more.

Canva is a great website for anyone who wants to do Graphic design and it’s free to use unless you want to upgrade to the pro version. Unsplash and Pixabay are great for free images, the Hubspot blog , Digital maketer blog and Neil Patel’s blog have great resources for entrepreneurs and marketers! Simply said these blogs could 10 X your entrepreneurial journey! There are a couple of podcasts such as “The Tim Ferris Show” and “Entrepreneurs on fire” that really helps you get to a different perspective and strive for greatness!

Few other apps that caught my attention are as follows:

Accomplish

Accomplish is an app that allows you to plan your day at a glance and keep on track with what needs to be done on each day, make sure you never miss important deadlines, and share your projects with others.

Pocket Expense

Pocket Expense offers expense tracking tools which helps make it easier for accounting purposes. Track your expenses by entering them manually or taking pictures of receipts and data about the purchase so that you can create reports at the end of each month.

I would also advice on an app I recently got to know about called Crowdfire. which is a social media management tool that helps you get followers on social media while also finding new people to connect with. The app offers a free trial period, which is useful while looking for which apps to invest in your business.

If you had one piece of advice to someone just starting out, what would it be?

Unlike earlier days, now it has become much easier to do a research and find out what the demand for a particular product or service through the number of search queries for a keyword, you could look at google trends and there are many soft-wares available to get an idea about the demand for something. Once you are clear with that, I would say take the plunge! Having said that, always provide the highest quality product or service, strive for excellence, and integrity is the keyword for long term success in your small business!

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