I ask because most of the posts I read here are from service providers. And while a decent amount of the info is relatable, I’d love to hear from people who sell physical products and have to deal with manufacturing, inventory, wholesale/retail/ecom sales, etc.
As for my business, I own and game company (board games, card games). My two current titles are aimed at kids 3 and up. My next title (going into production shortly) will be same demo, then the following two titles will be aimed at the whole family (ages 8+). While my business is mostly profitable, I’m basically investing every dollar back into the company (more inventory, more titles, more marketing/sales).
I’m just 2 years into my journey (mostly part time), learning an entirely new industry, and would love to hear stories from other people selling consumer goods.
Where are you in your journey? What struggles did you encounter/are you encountering? What was the hardest part in the early years? Hardest ongoing struggles? Did you have any aha moments that helped you turn a corner? Did you ever get to a place of any real profitability? If so, how long?
I don’t have much of a network of people doing anything similar, so thanks in advance…hopefully we get a good discussion.
Congrats! I just took in a small investment from a relative who has been to a couple trade shows with me and has been able to see the reception we’ve been getting. But otherwise it’s been all self funded, which has been great to start. But I definitely need more than a I can personally invest to be able to scale faster.
After being involved in another startup project a few years back, I can look at almost everything the owner did as a “what not to do”, so that’s been extremely helpful on how I set up the foundation of my business.