Entrepreneur here looking to start my first business

I'm trying to work on mine OP. Granted I'm not sure if it is a business. More of a way me and friend think we can make decent money doing.

What are you trying to do?

a couple of things, I like to keep business ideas secret until I have the patents/business in my possession

I swear I won't steal it :)
I'm too busy working on my own machine learning projects to care. Just curious what other anons are doing.

I dabble in machine learning as well, hoping to make an automated trading system for myself.
Is that what you are doing?

Sure buddy, just don't expect quick replies like you would with other boards.

>Did you have to raise money for servers or do you use cloud hosting?
Cloud, most people don't have their own dedicated server. It's expensive, and most of us can't justify the cost.

>Did it require knowledge of website building?
No, I hired someone to do it. Obviously you need to know what you're looking for as well, and communicate it clearly enough to the designer.

>What's your point of sale system? Do you have to outsource that to pay pal or something?
No sales, entirely dependent on Adsense revenue. Not quite sure I get your other question.

>how do you advertise?
FB is pretty cheap and brings rather quality traffic.

how much money are you making with your site?

what kind of site is it? news, entertainment, porn?

Very similar but not the stock market or any securities. Is your business going to involve ML?

Not my first business, no, I want to have more resources at my disposal before I tackle a tech field.

Makes sense. It's the only thing I'm halfway decent at so I'm going full force into it. If I fail then at least I'll be able to put a lot of ML experience on my resume. And those guys get paid pretty well.
I think it's going to be a game changer when regular CS guys start dedicating time to ML/AI. I'm probably the only one in undergrad at my state university with any understanding.

Did you say your business is going to be Internet based or more brick 'n mortar?

I'm hoping to be internet based to avoid the brick and mortar costs

smart move, good luck with whatever you're working on. Bust your ass on it.

Work less on your product and more on marketing.

No Art of the Deal?

Git out.

This specific image has changed my life.
I will be a millionaire before I'm 35 and It's thanks to this stupid shitposting board.One book is all it takes,just don't read too much because you'll never do shit besides read.

If you have no clue where to start I suggest you pick up a few books to get started.My favorite are The millionaire Fastlane,Think and Grow Rich, and How to win friends and influence people.Also pick up any book by the author Robert Greene

>have actually started a business
yes

>Did you have to raise money for servers or do you use cloud hosting?
cloud of course
>Did it require knowledge of website building?
yes unless you want to throw money at it
>What's your point of sale system? Do you have to outsource that to pay pal or something?
fuck paypal

I use stripe

>how do you advertise?
lotta word of mouth.

>FB is pretty cheap and brings rather quality traffic.
I might look into that

don't do this.

>How to win friends and influence people

I read this one and all I took away from it was the feeling that Dale Carnegie wanted to bowl one up Teddy Roosevelt.

The only half useful bit was the list of bullet points at the end, summarising what the book was about; most of which were intuitive anyway.

If it helped you, that's fine, I'm just always seeing it recommended and have to say that it did nothing for me.

has literally no one on biz started a business?

hello...I have started a business with pretty much nothing in my pocket, ran it for 8 years with 9 full time employees at its peak but eventually had to close it because reasons.

>>Did you have to raise money for servers or do you use cloud hosting?
>Cloud, most people don't have their own dedicated server. It's expensive, and most of us can't justify the cost.
>>Did it require knowledge of website building?
>No, I hired someone to do it. Obviously you need to know what you're looking for as well, and communicate it clearly enough to the designer.
>>What's your point of sale system? Do you have to outsource that to pay pal or something?
>No sales, entirely dependent on Adsense revenue. Not quite sure I get your other question.
>>how do you advertise?
>FB is pretty cheap and brings rather quality traffic.
what is your website?

>What was your experience like?

It was much better than working a full time job, even when taking into account the problems it came with.
On the plus side...when a load of cash hits your bank account, I feels great...then when it keeps hammering your account for years..you feel pretty good...
On the bad side...I learned how to work 72 hours straight twice a week.

> What knowledge do you wish you had had before starting

No knowledge per se, basically from day one I knew what I had to know.
Everything isn't under your control.

> What were your biggest challenges?

At home with the wife, it was nasty and violent (from her side since I don't beat girls) and had been for years before I opened a company. She had a habit to beat me up when I had an important day coming.
Overall this was my biggest problem. She is asian and fierce like tiger on bathsalts, ready to strike at any moment...while you least expect it. like at 4 o'clock when you're sleeping...
I could count on her being a tough son of a bitch though so that was a plus.

> What was the first year like?

The first year wasn't special compared to any other years. A bit more administration work, getting an office going and things like that.

> How did you get to a position where you could start a company?

This question was missing...

OK I'm on a train that's making my phone wacky but here goes.

Don't start one business to fund another business. Just save the money or get a loan. If business A gets into trouble, business B will never happen.

Your suppliers will lie to your face. Stuff always arrives after you needed it and you're on your own if it's damaged. And while your supplier can go "uh oh spaghetti o" at any time for any reason, you're held to all commitments and dinged like crazy if you try to get out.

Never sell at a loss. People will poorfag you to death if they think they can get away with it. Starting out, you can't take hut after hut after hit.

Along those lines, sometimes you just have to pass on a good product because of poorfags. I know it's hard but that inventory will just get in the way until the end of time.

Scope out venues before you invest any money. That would've saved me so much money on conventions full of poorfags. Better to miss one year of a good show than flush table fees for a bad one down the toilet.

Started my own business about a month ago. Had some shit happen in my personal life to prevent me from working on it full force, but now that I have that cleared I've been working this month.
I do lead generation and mobile marketing and it is very fun.

What was your experience like?
>I had no experience in either of the services I provide prior to starting. Learned it all through courses.

What knowledge do you wish you had had before starting?
>Network Network Network. How to network.
Seriously, this is so important for a small business owner.

What was the most important thing you learned?
>How to network.
Facebook groups and meetup are a huge boon for me. I can contact other small business owners for sales very easy.

What were your biggest challenges?
>Landing clients
Because I am in a small town, people don't really understand the importance of having a source for leads and rely on traditional marketing which simply doesn't work as well these days. Mobile marketing is extremely important and most of the leads I go after don't even have a website or do have a site that looks like some angelfire geocities abortion.

What was the first year like?
>Currently a lot of work.
I had a lot of work to do in order to get seriously started, but now that I have that under control, my day to day is just trying to set up meetings with potential clients.

You can spank your wife you know. That way it's controlled and she still gets the message.

Then again I'm 6'2'' 190 and shes 5'1' 120 and I have her permission to spank her if she needs it.

I can't imagine her beating me. Aren't asians little? Why do you put up with it or are you her submissive?

Violence is controlled by escalation. If you attempt to use your hands and spank your naughty wife and she suddenly pulls a knife and tries to violently stab you, as in giving all her might attempting to kill you, are you gonna spank the knife? Fuck no, you've just lost the escalation of violence.
She escalated it and you didn't, and you lost.
Next time you're in your bed sleeping good and nice and BANG she smashed your face with a vase.
You lost, you weren't even putting up a fight.
You say something, she puts up a hand, you put up a hand, she puts up a knife, you put up a knife, well fuck then you're insane.

Yes and no, I put up with it because I had too much to lose, like not putting up a fight, using my larger body to physically overpower her in a fight and going to prison for it. Not losing our kids and stuff like that.
Instead I terrorizing her psychologically, made being her suck.

Wow your relationship sucks

did she end up getting half?

>And while your supplier can go "uh oh spaghetti o" at any time for any reason, you're held to all commitments and dinged like crazy if you try to get out.

I read in rich dad poor dad that the way around that is to include the contingency of "partner must agree to the transaction" and his partner was his cat.