You’ve had a realization: it’s time to join the major leagues and make some real money.
You’ve decided to become a small business owner. You liquidate your IRA, empty your savings, and borrow from friends and family.
Business idea? Everyone loves Cupcakes. You call it Badass Cupcakes. It’s on.
Business plan? Pshhh, so last year.
With the $235,852.22 collected, you realize it’s not enough so you take out a small business loan for another $164,147.78 for an even $400k. Now it’s really on.
You’re super duper excited so you take the first store-front you come across with not a lot of foot-traffic. It’s ok — if you make it, they will come. Guaranteed.
You foresee cupcake madness and a two block line out the door so you hire your niece, a baker, and someone to manage the flood and moolah about to come in.
It takes money to make money so you spend $10k on a new site, allocate $1k a month to social media advertising, and buy badass business cards. You also pimp your new bakery out, 50 Cent style.
Your baker asks what kind of cupcakes to bake and you say red velvet because that’s your favorite and you know best. You go.
It’s almost time to launch Badass Cupcakes so you publish your first blog post, share it to your 17 Twitter followers and 13 Facebook followers, and shout that Badass is almost open for business.
It’s time to open Badass Cupcakes for biz. You tell everyone and their — dogs.
Only a handful of people come in so you blow another two grand on geo-targeted social media ads — you’re feeling like a tech god.
It’s been three months and you’ve spent around $10,000 on advertising. How many customers has that gotten you? No clue. Seems to be kind of working though but there’s no way of really knowing.
It’s been six months and you’ve attempted deep discounts with no luck. In fact, you think you’ve lost money. Yep, who are you kidding — this time you know for sure you’ve lost money.
You’re a year in. You have $13,559.11 left in the bank. You go back to the bank. Declined. You go back to family and friends but you’ve already dried them out. You fire your niece who wasn’t that good in the first place, the baker who sucked at making red velvet cupcakes- your favorite, and the CFO, who you never really needed… Like, at all.
Wait. You’ve heard this story before; it’s what happens in real life all too often. You decide to envision a better story.
You’ve had a realization: having a boss sucks, you want to work for yourself, build something cool, and change the world.
You know you love cupcakes but should probably do some market research before taking the plunge. Good choice, cookies seem to be in high demand right now, not cupcakes — your favorite.
You want to sell the best cookies so you start interviewing bakers. First guy sucks. Second guys sucks. You start loosing hope. You get a recommendation from someone on Twitter. This guy rocks. You’ve found a badass baker.
Together you start looking for a place to set up shop. You ask questions. You do your due diligence. You hire the least amount of people to get the job done right.
Once everything is set, you write a business plan and present it to friends and family to show how serious you are. You offer them equity in your cookie making monster, which they accept in exchange for a generous sum of money. Now you have startup capital.
Since you’re the Michael Bay of small business you know that social media was designed for communication, not driving foot-traffic. You also know that deep discounts will most likely lose you money and that ads on store listing sites will cost a fortune just to get a click. No dice.
You realize the best way to market your business would be to market directly to interested people, locally. People actually interested in cookies. Duh.
Someone recommends Hiccup, a solution that does just that: People specify what they’re looking for in real-time, and you can market directly to them. You realize this also provides insight into market trends so you can properly adapt. Its raw, interested foot-traffic, on-demand. Perfect. And, it’s only a fraction of what others are charging.
It’s been three months and business is good. You’ve even hired another badass baker.
After six months, demand for cookies seems to be going down. You check Hiccup and see that people are more interested in cupcakes than cookies. YES! You shift to baking cupcakes — your favorite. You initiate cupcake armageddon with red velvet raining down like asteroids. Boom.
It’s been a year and you’re selling both cookies and cupcakes like there’s no tomorrow. People love your cookies and cupcakes because you’ve made them specifically for them — they feel special. Look, you get to better serve your neighbors and in doing so everyone feels a better sense of community.
You start feeling emotional. You might cry.
Not really, but you do have peace of mind because Hiccup’s always there for you. Like an invisible super hero always at the ready. You feel like a badass business owner. No, you are a badass business owner.
Life is good.
Wait. You realize this story not only makes more sense, but is actually possible. Woah.
