I make a lot of cards (occasion cards such as birthday, or christmas) and have been told by plenty of people that i should open my own business. I am only 17, and this seems like a daunting task... could anyone help me on how i should start out?
2 things, 1. Local market: Feel free to talk to a couple of business owners, preferably who have gift shops, flower shops, etc to find out if they think the market for your cards is in the area. They specialize in gifts and cards so ask the experts!!! You never know, they might buy some of your cards to distribute,2. Web market: Go to google keyword search tool and type in what you are trying to sell. I typed in birthday cards and it was searched for 368,000 times in november. So lets say that 1% of 368,000 people go to your site. That is 3,680 people that looked at your site in November. The normal statistics of people who will buy your product is 37 people. If you go to switchtarget.com, there is a program (The Tank Method) that teaches how to put up a website from beginning to end. The cost of the program is $10. First, make sure you watch the intro video to make sure this is something you are looking for. I hope that this helped and feel free to write back with any questions! my email is at bryan.vet80@yahoo.com.
sure. first, make sure your designs are unique and catchy. most likely if people have told you they are, you have something good. 1) handle the finances. decide how much you can put into the business in terms of money for: supplies, software, ink, printer, etc.2) come up with a catchy name you like.3) decide who is going to help you, if you need it.4) get a website where you can promote yourself. there are a lot of cheap options. you don t need anything super intricate at this point. just a cool website.5) start marketing. i d market at your school. see if you can put up flyers with your custom work at local high schools and colleges in your area. they all should have a bulletin board for advertising.marketing is most likely going to be the most time-consuming. just be sure to get yourself into all free marketing avenues you can find. i d even call up local public radio station in your area after you are set up and ask about coming on for an interview. (they also probably will want you to buy ad time, but you can get a lot of freebies if you agree to go in.)good luck! any other questions- ask me and i ll tell you what i know.
You always want to compare the risk vs the reward. Everyone gets so tied up with what they could do, they never stop think about what they should do.The pros: Very low overhead, no employees to pay. little money needed to start up.The cons: Saturated market you have to compete with some big names like Hallmark, there are tons of sites out there that are free, you have to sell a WHOLE LOT of cards to make any real money on a steady basis.Back to the risk vs the reward... I do not kill people cuz the risk is not worth the reward. I do break all kinds of traffic laws on a daily basis (like so many millions of others).Ok so what does this have to do with you? Well guess what else I do like millions of others? When I need a card do not want to think something up.... I go to your site, find the card I want/like, take a screen shot of it, paste it into any paint program print it out free of charge, I can also modify what you have so it better fits my occasion.Why in the world would I pay for it? Think people do not do this? How many songs movies are bootlegged each day online? Singers actors still get the perks of being famous tho, what do you get from it?
