What did and what did we not have when launching our brand? minimalism
Hello!
Today we come to talk about the beginnings of Minimalism grouping and explaining several questions that you always ask us at events and talks.
It is quite clear that this blog feeds on your doubts/queries and, from time to time, on your requests, keep asking ;)
We have grouped several questions into two sections.
The first we have called: What did we not have when we launched Minimalism? : we will talk about time, money, team, brand, business plan...
And on the other, called: What if we had? : where we will talk about product, knowledge, technology, logistics, marketing and common sense.
Let's go with the first one, we will try to break some myth about startups and companies and give you our vision in each part of the process:
What didn't we have?
The first thing we did not have was time to dedicate to the project as it required . Each of us had one or more activities in which he spent his time. On the one hand, Víctor with a company with more than 15 employees and I with a small marketing agency. It wasn't the best way to start. We estimated that Minimalism would take 10% of our time, obviously we were wrong. Recommendation, to validate if your business model works, perhaps it is worth dedicating just enough time to it, but in the long run you should dedicate at least 75% of your work activity to it.
The second thing we did not have was external money . Minimalism is born from our pocket. The first investments were for technology, the first website cost us 80e, read it here , also for the first products and to attract traffic. Whoever tells you that setting up an ecommerce is cheap is lying to you. An ecommerce is not just about taking out the platform or the brand, you have to feed an ecommerce and bring it traffic , don't forget at least 40% of your budget to attract traffic.
We also had no salary . In fact, we spent many months without receiving anything, reinvesting everything that came in to make the company grow. This is the most normal. If you are going to mount something, it is possible that you will be a good time without salary.
We didn't have a team either . At first we were two partners dividing up tasks. Today we are at least 4 and several freelancers contributing where we do not arrive. Our recommendation is to subcontract what you do not know and cannot learn, especially if it can bring you serious consequences in the future, for example, advice, taxes, imports... these things can have many consequences if they are not done well and properly. long cause the company to fail.
We did not have a brand , in the last post we talked about what things a brand should have and why users consume not only for the product but also for the global computation of the brand. At the beginning we had nothing, we had to set up a brand from scratch, this is exciting and complicated in equal parts, today we can say that we have a "little brand".
No business plan or future plan . It's no joke that the goal we had when setting up the project was to go to Burningman , we didn't think the company would be what it is today or what it would be in the future, what we wanted was to sell bags and grow. Over time we have a roadmap with short and long goals that we are more or less fulfilling.
That was what we did not have, but what we did have or thought we had.
Product , we knew the case of brands that had succeeded with the concept of minimalist bags. We believed that this trend would soon enter Spain and what better way than to bring it with us. We believed that it would work and after 21,000 bags sold we can say that there is a real demand for this type of product. You can consult all our numbers from last year by clicking here.
After setting up ecommerce for 4 years for other clients, we had enough knowledge to know what platforms we needed to validate the project and what the next development would be if the brand was successful .
Marketing and brand development, we know something, which does not mean that we know everything . Víctor had set up several projects, highlighting Upplication , a SaaS platform to develop mobile applications. And I had been setting up projects and managing my clients' brands at Betheclient for 4 years. With this knowledge we knew what things could work and what things we should not do. In addition, we really wanted to try things that our customers were hesitant to launch . That was another of the objectives, to do things that had not been done before. How to issue daily billing for example, you can see it HERE
Logistics, we had a warehouse at our disposal that could manage everything related to shipments. After making 600 orders by hand one weekend, we decided to introduce this service and outsource the logistics. We knew it could work but we had to prove it, in the logistics center we started 2 companies, today we are 15.
There were two more things we had, a great desire to have fun and little common sense . Having the desire is absolutely necessary, if you don't like what you are going to build, better not do it, we wanted to try and create something from scratch that would cover a need in the market and we set about it. In our own way, knowing a lot or a little, having everything or nothing, but we launched ourselves without knowing where it would end.
When we sold the first bag we didn't know how far the company could grow, in fact now that we've included backpacks and clothing we don't know either. For us every day is the beginning, we will continue working and learning, and yes, it is a pleasure to do it with you ;)
we start
Any questions you can write to us at hola@minimalism.es, share it with a friend or sign up for the newsletter, interesting things are coming, let us know.
