Setting Up Online Store With No Previous Experience: Steve Of MyWifeQuitHerJob

I am resuming the Interview With Successful Entrepreneurs series. I haven’t been writing about entrepreneurship for a while, but it’s something very close to my heart. Entrepreneurship is empowering. It’s about believing in yourself and your idea and taking the initiative to bring it to the world. (Photo by leefotos)

Today’s guest is Steve at My Wife Quit Her Job. His blog is full of practical advice. I am very interested in what he has to say because his business is about selling stuffs, not service. So far, we’ve had only one guest (Susanna Ordway, who sells her handmade jewelry) who is in product-based business. All others are in service business, and I myself am in service business.

I guess product-based business has a set of unique challenges, such as managing logistics and inventory. To me, it sounds so difficult.

So please welcome Steve.

1. Tell us a bit about your business and why you started it.

When my wife and I first got engaged, she laid down the terms up front that she was going to become a housewife and quit her job as soon as we had our first child. This was something that I had no problem with since I strongly believe in having a parent stay at home with a child especially during the early years.

But when my wife became pregnant with our first child, we faced a huge dilemma. With mounting bills to pay and a child right around the corner, we would be taking a 50% hit on our total household income during a period of time in which our expenses would increase dramatically.

Since my wife was not going to work and we needed the money, we decided to create an online business selling wedding linens to offset her lost income and thus Bumblebee Linens was born.

We chose the wedding industry because my wife and I thoroughly enjoyed planning our own wedding and wanted to help others do the same. If you are interested in how we stumbled upon on our store idea, you can read more about How We Found Our Niche For Our Online Store for more details.

2. What were the three biggest challenges when you were starting off as a new entrepreneur?

I would say that most of our challenges were mental. Getting the online store website up was relatively easy. But working out the logistics and getting customers in the door was the hard part. In fact, there was a point after we launched our online store in which we had no business for many weeks and we almost decided to call it quits. It’s difficult to narrow down the biggest challenges down to three but I would say that the following were the largest obstacles.

• It was extremely hard for us to find the time and motivation to actually work on the business. Both my wife and I had full time jobs at the time and we were always extremely tired after coming home from work. In fact, working on the business was probably the last thing on our minds at the end of the day. It also didn’t help that my wife and I are lazy at heart and like to relax in front of the TV
• It was also really hard for us take action early on because we knew absolutely nothing. We had no idea what the hell we were doing. I didn’t know a single thing about websites or web programming. My wife didn’t know anything about how to run an online store. What ended up happening was that we got stuck in this loop of doing research instead of taking action because we were afraid of doing something wrong.
• When we finally got some momentum going, we found that there was an enormous amount of information that we had to digest and learn in order to open our online store and we constantly burned ourselves out while trying to cram it all in. The problem was that we wanted to get our online store up and profitable as quickly as possible so we often worked late hours to try and jam everything in. All of these late nights took a huge toll on our psyche and our morale. Then, when we finally opened our online store to zero customers, our excitement and hopes turned into despair.

3. And how did you work through these challenges?

Finding the time and motivation was probably the hardest obstacle to overcome. Our minds were always motivated but somehow we could never find time in our schedules to work on the business early on.

Starting a business is hard work and requires constant, steady progress. Steady being the key word, my wife and I overcame this barrier by dropping certain activities and setting aside specific times and days during the work week to work on the business. By setting aside and scheduling “business” time, we eventually started making progress towards our goals.

The “knowing nothing” aspect of our business was very frustrating as well. We kept second guessing ourselves and early on, we had a bad case of analysis paralysis. Ultimately, we overcame this by just putting our foot down and telling ourselves “Screw it! Let’s just launch the business and figure things out as they come”. Turned out to be a wise decision because in the end we came across problems and issues that we would never have been able to predict ahead of time. For example, we were completely wrong in terms of what we predicted would be our best selling products.

Once we got going, my wife and I kept burning ourselves out. For example, I stopped exercising, stopped eating, stopped sleeping and focused all of my time on the business. It took us a while but after getting sick multiple times, we finally discovered a proper balance between work and play. It’s easy to get caught up with your business early on, but it’s important to find the time for a break as well. Ironically, taking time away from the business allows you to be more productive.

4. What is the best part of being an entrepreneur for you?

The best part of being an entrepreneur is the ability to set your own schedules. These days, my wife stays at home with our daughter full time and works on the business when our daughter takes naps. There’s no way that you could do this with a full time day job.

In addition, I like feeling in control over my own destiny. Running a business is hard work, but it’s worth it knowing that you get to call all of the shots.

5. Any advice for people who dream to have their own business and yet find it hard to make the leap?

My advice is to set aside at least one day of the week to think about and brainstorm business ideas. Once you have a few ideas in mind, you then need to find that magical trigger that will motivate you to follow through with your plan. Why do you want to have a business? Are you really serious about it?

Our trigger was obviously our first child. We desperately needed to find another money source to replace my wife’s lost income. In fact, our desperation was probably the single most important reason why we were successful with our online store.

Motivation will provide you with persistence and mental strength when things go wrong. Motivation will provide you with the necessary energy to succeed. I strongly believe that if you are properly motivated that everything will work itself out. Everyone has their own “Go” button. You just need to find yours.

Regarding the product-based business aspect, my wife and I had no prior experience in managing logistics, importing goods or managing inventory.  We basically learned through trial and error and getting advice from friends who run brick and mortar stores.  My advice to people in the product business is to find a friend or mentor that you can consult with early on so you don’t get bogged down with stupid mistakes.

My Takeaway
I love their “Just do it” attitude. As he says, we could be caught up in the analysis paralysis forever. And that doesn’t get you anywhere nor make money. Taking actions empowers you. And I agree that there are problems you get to learn only after you start — even if your pre-launch research is extensive.

I checked their online store and it’s beautiful and easy to navigate. It even has some fun craft ideas, so even if you are not getting married, you might enjoy checking it out ^_^

Are you interested in starting your own business? Not just as a way to pay bills but as a way to bring more meaning, passion, and fulfillment to your life? Check out my (free) eBook, too!