April 2016 Report
April was an eye opening month in many ways. I quickly came to the realization that my runway is not long enough. I need sales and I need sales bad. This ship is constantly on the brink of sinking. I was able to match the sales from March despite the decrease in the number of new customers. In April I added 10 new customers to the 15 from March. A decrease is not good.
In this report I’ll discuss how I plan to remedy the situation.
Sales
The most glaring thing is the number of days with no sales at all (17). That means I had a lot of time on my hands. During that time I got discouraged and slowed down. But I still got some things done, mostly in marketing and business development. Gross Sales grew by a mere 4%. I’m pretty disappointed in the numbers for April.
Advertising
Part of the reason for the decrease in new customers is that I put all of my eggs in one basket so to speak, and that basket was Instagram. 79% of my advertising dollars went to Instagram. The rest went to Facebook which garnered no customers, and Google which garnered 2 customers.
I think the reason the Instagram conversions have dropped is because it is no longer new. I have already cycled through the hardcore Instagram users because my ad had been shown an average of 3 times each to 60,000 people.
The silver lining in all of this is that I now have a much better grasp of who my customers are and where they live. Now I plan to get in front of them through their front office. It turns out that most of my customers live in luxury high rises in Uptown Dallas. So I began the process of approaching these places one by one to pitch my services to their residents, through them.
The first such project is a place called The Alara. I have already made the deal with them and I have an appointment tomorrow to put my flyers in the lobby and elevators. A few days later I’m going to put door hangers on all the doors as well as a gentle reminder. The flyers show that the whole project is sanctioned by the front office.
I have made another such deal with a place called the Mosaic closer to downtown Dallas. I’m still ironing out the details of the service there because they have a concierge which makes pick up and delivery even easier. That complex has 2 buildings going up 31 floors and 21 floors respectively. That’s a lot more time on the elevators.
The point is that my general customer acquisition plan has shifted to making deals with luxury places to promote my service to their residents as partners.
More of these deals are surely to come this upcoming month.
Budget
This is where I’m struggling the most. There is no doubt in my mind that I will need a loan or an investment within the next few months. Am I going to wait until I run out of money? I only have $3,500 in the bank. In all honesty I believe I’m at a point, or will be soon, where the business can pay for all of it’s expenses except my own personal pay.
That’s where it gets a bit tricky because I’m reaching the end of my personal rope. It is improbable that I will be able to generate enough revenue to begin paying myself anytime soon.
Getting a business loan would be ideal. But I think I may have a hard time with it unless I can really increase revenue and show substantial growth. That is why April was so disappointing and why May and June are going to be crucial as far as making deals and executing on them.
Expenses
One of the more important initiatives I’m taking in May is lowering the advertising budget below $500. I believe my new approach of advertising through the front office of luxury high rises will lower my overall ad costs and increase my customer base.
May will be the month that normalizes my spending and hopefully will be the first month where revenue surpasses expenses, not counting my salary.
Profit & Loss
Here is the year to date profit and loss for Feather —
This story is part of a series documenting the journey of a 2016 Dallas startup called Feather. For your reference here is the Table of Contents for the series.
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