How much do we charge at Minimalism Brand? How have we financed the company?

Let's face it, this is about making money by solving problems to subsequently improve your world.

When you are an entrepreneur, money starts to take center stage in your life, and the fight against that money begins. That fine line between obsession and freedom: using money as a way of life or using money as a tool to achieve what you want to be?

“Every Euro counts”, this is one of the rules that we have set ourselves at Minimalism Brand since day one. It has been an unconscious rule and the result of our past experiences. We could say here that money is the least important thing, that it is important to grow as a company and as people to get a wonderful experience out of this. But no. The truth is that money is important, and after almost two paragraphs in which you have not made anything clear, it is my turn to answer: what happens with money at Minimalism Brand? How have you financed yourselves? What objectives do you have? How much do you charge? What comes next is a mix of ingenuity, nerve, experience and unconsciousness.

MINIMALISM STARTED WITH €70,000 FROM A FAMILY MEMBER

No way, we started with €5,012 out of our own pockets. The €3,012 that the founders put in with a notary to set up the SL and the €2,000 that we put in to make a first product order, packaging , transport, servers, a photo shoot without models (thanks @Xtriman ) and to create a logo with the great Jesús Castillejo . This was in September 2017, a while ago.

Our goal has always been to run the company on its own, without the need for external investment (at least for the first year and a half of its life). The plan was:

1. We invested about €5k-€6k from our own pockets.
2. From day one, we started selling only 3 wallet models ( black , green, maroon), with a normal online store and a well-cared-for brand image.
3. We invested around €300 in our first Facebook Ads campaign, we used WhatsApp to spam all our contacts and we used our networks to move it as much as we could.
4. We need to sell enough to recoup our investment and place another minimum order for twice as many bags.

We invoiced our first €1,000 in 35 days, with almost no investment in online marketing. I still remember Pepe saying: “the goal is to put 5,000 wallets in people’s homes.” That phrase generated a feeling of slowness in us that took over the decisions we were going to make in the future. We launched the “FREE Wallet” campaign and BOOM, we invoiced around €7,000 in 4 days with the consequent logistics problems we had and which we already told you about a few months ago in this post . This left us without stock for 5 weeks but with a financed company.

WE GOT AN AMERICAN INVESTOR

It is also a lie, as I say, the company has to finance itself with the company's own sales. Customers are our best investors and the product + brand is our greatest supporter.

We made a second large batch of wallets to face Black Friday, Cyber ​​Monday, Christmas and Sales. In this order we already incorporated new versions of the wallet and launched the REVOLUT versions. In addition, we greatly improved the quality of the wallet without the product costing us more to manufacture. We reached an agreement with our logistics center for the shipment of our product to the entire peninsula, with the possibility of paying invoices within 30 days. This gives us a lot of financial support since we can predict our cash flows without stress.

It was before Christmas when we, the partners, had to put up some money to have capital available and invest in online marketing, a key driver of our growth from the beginning.

COLLABORATIONS WITH IRONHACK AND CAMPUS MADRID

This is true. With these two collaborations we had the goal of creating a brand and noise, and also generating cash. These were two sources of income that helped us a lot at the end of 2017 and the beginning of 2018.

We have always been very respectful of the famous “fixed costs”. Right now we only have the monthly Shopify fee plus some plugins, a freelance fee, the domains (annual) and some magical and wonderful bank commission. The other expenses are variable and linked to the amount of sales we make. New product manufacturing, shipments to customers, Stripe and Shopify commission. Obviously we don’t have a salary yet, nor do we expect to do so in the short term. Luckily, the team has ways to earn income apart from Minimalism Brand, so right now this is not the priority. Although it will be at some point.

OBJECTIVE ACHIEVED, TODAY

We are happy that after 6 and a half months the company is self-financing thanks to the evolution of sales . The founders are prepared in case we ever have to help the company out of a slump, although it seems that we will not need it for months.

And what about the future? The truth is that sometimes we are too short-term and we don't think about this now. We want to and we are going to create a brand that offers different products under the same philosophy of life. The day that this continues to grow, we will start to use other means of financing, provided that the one we are following today is no longer viable.

As always, we are at your complete disposal at hola@minimalism.es