How I Started My ONLINE BUSINESS With LESS THAN $100

hey friends welcome back to our channel and welcome to another episode of good girls gone boss if you're new here my name is Lyn Allure and Good Girls Gone Boss is a series I started on my channel where we talk about everything girl boss related everything from side hustles making money saving money making smart financial decisions and essentially making that transition from being an employee to being your own boss full-time so if you love conversations like that definitely join the party don't forget to subscribe I have an entire playlist of a Good Girl Gone Boss episodes for you to check out I'll leave a link down below for those episodes and a playlist as well so good girl gone boss episode 3 we discussed 14 side hustles that you can start with little to no money and one side hustle that I didn't actually mention is an e-commerce store I'm gonna be doing a video specifically for online side hustles but in this video I'm gonna be talking specifically about my online side hustle and that's why we're kind of in a different setting this is like my little little cute little desk office space honey that I create for myself but I just finished packaging an order so I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to tell you guys how I started my ecommerce store with little to no money well I started it with under $100 in this video I'm gonna be talking about things I did specifically for my ecommerce store but a lot of these tips are transferable so you can kind of use them for any type of online store that you want to start whether it is an online boutique or selling lashes whatever a lot of these tips and tricks and keys to success that I'm sharing with you guys are transferable I plan to drop a lot of gems here I'm not one of those people who are like stingy with the knowledge you feel me like if I learned something in my business I just feel like it's only right that I share it because number one that's blessings number two like I probably learned it from somewhere else so I'm just paying it forward and three if I'm sharing it someone else is gonna be inspired to share their experiences and then I could potentially learn from them someone else can potentially learn from them like you know we just just a circle circle of light circle of knowledge so be prepared 'cause there's gonna be a lot of gems that we droppin' okay if you have to take out your pen and paper you gotta take out the notes on your phone whatever you got to do like do it thumbs up this video also you know it won't hurt you it's free you could thumbs up the video it's okay so my e-commerce business is a hair extension company it's called trophy life hair and it's for the everyday boss babe working on attaining and/or maintaining her best trophy life it's luxury hair for the lifestyle that you deserve and I just have never really talked about it on my channel simply because I wanted to see if I'd be able to build a brand organically without attaching it to my YouTube brand so without already having a following if I could just grow a company organically and then also I'm not even going to lie to you guys it was a bit of a conflict of interest because I was still contractually obligated to do hair reviews for certain companies and so for a little bit of time I was doing hair reviews for other companies but I still had my own hair extension company so sometimes I'd be wearing my own company's hair extensions on my youtube videos if someone asked Oh where's your hair from I would just put it but I didn't actually do like a whole hair review on my own hair I just thought that that would be kind of funny like for me to do a review and act like oh a hair company sent me some hair and mean while is me I am the hair company so I just hadn't really promoted it much on my YouTube but now I think that it only makes sense it's only right for me to you know share with you guys my experiences with having a online hair company especially since I'm trying to share with you guys and help you guys to grow your online businesses and your side hustles and things like that it's only fair it only makes sense and it just goes with the direction of where my youtube channel is finally going and I'm so thankful that it's going in this direction you guys have no idea how happy that makes me so yeah when I say that I started my hair company with $100 I'm talking everything my website my domain my marketing my inventory yes my inventory okay and we're gonna get all up in that so first things first let's talk about this domain you can get your domain for as little as $0.99 on GoDaddy it's so unprofessional for you to have a website that's like Trophy Life Hair dot myshopify dot com or Trophy Life Hair dot Big Cartel dot com no bueno so buy your domain for as little as $0.99 so that people are going to your direct link to your website for example trophy life hair dot com which brings me to our next point which is a host site you need to find a website host your domain on you can do Shopify Wix Big Cartel Squarespace things like that you can use WordPress but it is a little bit more expensive to start up and it's a little bit more difficult so if you are a beginner and you're starting out on building a website I would definitely recommend doing like a Shopify or a Wix or a big cartel I would recommend doing sites like that because they're very user friendly and they're very beginner friendly as well so I had a Shopify store already when I was selling my pre-loved wigs through youtube I really liked it I just felt like the templates were a little limiting so I liked the way that Wix was so easy to build your website exactly how you wanted to build it so I decided to try out Wix for trophy life hair and I didn't like the back end I came back now to Shopify very recently I'm so glad I did I missed it I'm glad I'm back and I am not going anywhere anytime soon Shopify is actually very affordable you can do a 14-day free trial it grants you two weeks free to just kind of play around with your site and create the site the way you want it to look and kind of decide it's Shopify is for you fun fact a lot of online retailers actually use Shopify for example Fashion Nova if I am looking at my phone a lot please don't judge me I have a lot of my notes on here as well as e-mails to see the receipts of how much I paid for a lot of these things so after the two weeks you are able to launch the website and pay monthly and it's only twenty nine US dollars for like the basic package get some sort of e-commerce hosting site I personally recommend Shopify but if you are more comfortable or familiar with Squarespace Big Cartel Wix then do that sure no problem I personally I like Shopify alright so next let's talk about pictures cuz you're gonna need images for your website one thing that you can do is ask your vendor if you can use the pictures that they use and most likely they're gonna tell you yes and that's a safe way of doing it as well because if you're getting loose wave from your vendor and that's how their loose wave looks then that's the same loose wave that you can promote on your website you know what it means for example it's loose waves that are like more like ringlets and then there's loose waves that are like that maybe inserts some pictures here for example if you're selling water wave different people have different water waves or loose waves or deep waves kinky curly whatever but if you're getting your hair from this vendor then you guys' image is gonna look the same you guys' bundles are typically gonna look the same so that's a safe bet to ask your vendor if you can use their pictures because that's what I did which brings us on to the next step which is finding a vendor. woo! this is gonna be the longest process in your journey of launching your business because that is essentially your meat and potatoes your product is what you're selling and that's the integrity of your business if you're selling bad bundles your customer is gonna wear it for a month the hair is gonna go bad and they're always gonna have that perception of your business even if you change your vendor so choosing a great vendor is essential and it's the most important step having good hair is essentially what's gonna keep your business in business long term also people are more inclined to go on the internet and write a bad review than they are to write a good review if I received some good bundles I'm like well I was expecting good bundles because I paid good money for this so obviously I'm gonna get good bundles their first reaction isn't oh let me write a review so other people know how great this hair is some people do and that's amazing but it's not everyone's first or initial thought but the moment someone gets bad hair woah wonders shall never and they're gonna be writing bad reviews left right and center on your business thank God nothing like that has happened to me yet oh my God I don't even want to put that out there but I mean it happens it's a part of business and it comes with the territory but the goal is to get as few bad reviews as possible you don't want every customer to have a bad experience with your hair essentially and even when you change your vendor in the future people are still gonna associate your brand your product your company with trash hair and you don't want to be associated with bad quality hair so that's very important for me like I said I was working with a lot of hair companies prior to starting my hair company so I had the idea in the back of my mind for quite some time and so when it was time for me to go I already had three companies specifically that I was like I like the quality of their hair now it's time for me to do more digging more research and more negotiations so I tried to find out who their vendors were something that a lot of people don't know about the hair industry is that a lot of these hair companies especially the ones on Aliexpress they are actually not the manufacturers they're middlemen as well there's three very popular and predominant hair vendors or hair manufacturers I should say in Asia and most of these companies get their hair from I'm not gonna tell you who my vendor is because that's just like a restaurant being known for their famous spaghetti sauce and then they tell you where they source their spaghetti sauce from you know it's like that but I can tell you how I found my vendor and you can use those same methods or you know alter them to fit your needs or be creative you might find a better vendor than me you might get a better deal than me whatever but I'll tell you the way I did it and it was basically a lot of Google okay you'd be surprised how much is literally just on the www you'd be surprised how much information is just free and out there for you there are forums reviews there are videos I mean like look you're watching this video you're already doing your research you're doing amazing sweetie basically research research research look at addresses if you're receiving a sample from a company or a vendor look at the address where is it coming from because a lot of these times they're actually drop shipping from their vendor let's say for example you're buying hair from one to three bundles I don't know if this is somebody's business but you're buying hair from one to three bundles and they're in Asia so you're thinking they're the manufacturer right but an actuality they're hitting up their manufacturer and it's getting shipped out or dropshipped from that manufacturers so that's something that a lot of people don't know but yes look at addresses if you get a sample look Google the address there's Google Maps you can literally get a what's it call it's like a street view of how this facility look you can look it up Google things Google Google Google Google Google Google Google Google Google Google Google and when you're not sure Google some more also don't be afraid to double check on what these vendors tell you they're gonna talk up their business yes we're able to manufacture oh five hundred thousand oh we are the manufacturers oh we do this we do that request to have a Skype call FaceTime call WhatsApp video call and just see their facility if you're telling me you're the manufacturer let me see give me a virtual tour you know I can't make it to Asia at the moment but if we can schedule something just a quick five minute phone call for me to see the facility I want to see your brand name in the background I want to know that I'm getting it directly from the manufacturer and you're not a middleman I want to get it directly from the source so don't be afraid to add these people on WhatsApp if they get annoying you can easily block them but for me I feel like it's the easiest quickest method of communication to this day I still talk to my vendor on whatsapp another thing - in the beginning I was ordering my inventory per order so if I get a notification at 11:00 p.m. that someone has bought bundles wig frontal whatever I would message my vendor on whatsapp right at 11:00 p.m. there is a time difference but I actually worked to my advantage because they were ahead of us in time at 11:00 p.m. when I messaged them it was like 11:00 a.m. their time so they were ready to go they'd send the order right away so that I'm able to get my order out in a timely manner and that's why when I was choosing my vendor yes the quality is great but also how's the communication do you get to me in a timely manner because if I message you and I say I need hair today I don't need you to message me two days from now and act like these two days didn't just go by and we're not working on the process of getting my customers their hair bundles so it was very important for me to work with vendors that respected the urgency of every single order when you start making money in the business that's when you're able to reinvest that revenue back into the business and start ordering your bundles in bulk and then also you'll be able to know which bundles to order more of based off of your prior order you'll be able to see what bundle lengths are most calming what people order more of and what sells out a lot quicker so our next topic of discussion is the social media we are so blessed to live in a time now where social media is free for anyone to get on it's free for anyone to promote yes you can pay for your ads to show up in front of anyone's face that doesn't follow you but it's free to open an account advertise and organically grow an audience without paying a single dollar in ads I don't want to say this too loud before you know these social media and the Internet's hear me but if you think about it like at any moment they can literally just restrict all profiles from advertising anything on their platforms like can you imagine Instagram just took off likes without asking for anyone's permission did you guys give them permission cuz I didn't cuz you know why they don't need your permission imagine if they just started like restricting profiles from like anything that looks like an advertisement you know then what we done the who knows we might be like grandmas and grandpas and talking to our grandkids like Oh back in my day you have to be able to just use Instagram and Facebook and Twitter to advertise for free we should be taking advantage of this what is time to be alive I use Instagram for marketing so you guys know because I spoke about this in the last side hustle video but I'm such an advocate of promoting on Instagram I realized though there's also a huge market on Facebook and Facebook marketplace and things of that sort I'm on Instagram so I'm always saying Instagram but whatever social medium that you use and you see an audience and you feel like there's a buzz there definitely tap into that I opened up an Instagram account and I'm gonna tell you guys what I did it was the very beginning I didn't have no sales I didn't know have no pictures all I had was a hair on my head so I uploaded some pictures of myself now like a year later looking back I thought they were kind of dingy I took some of those off but I used myself as like the social proof of this hair and then I also tagged a lot of hair inpos and I would always be sure to tag the source or tag the model and tag the stylist as well just so that there is like transparency and it doesn't look like I'm trying to pass these works off as you know like trophy like hair models or something like that so I would always take the source if I could find it or the model if I can find it or both overall what I was trying to establish was like a brand and like I said trophy life hair is for the everyday boss babe working on attaining and maintaining her best trophy life so this is for you know the doll who appreciates the finer things and appreciates looking good you feel me so what I had to do was find images that look like that basically if you're likely trying to establish your brand and like a present get an aesthetic together you have to always think in mind of your avatar your target ideal customer where does she shop what does she do on the weekend what is her dream house looked like does she like to go on vacations what's her idea of romantic every time I was posting an image I was thinking is this reflective of my ideal customer you know what it's kind of like SIMS did y'all used to play Sims I know I wasn't the only one that played Sims don't play me Try to get as specific as possible when you're trying to create your ideal customer that'll help you to find pictures that are reflective of your overall company brand and I also would go on to popular like hair inpso pages and literally just go into the comments and I'd see people who were asking how much is that wig cost how much does I hair and I was just like followed I'm gonna follow bunch of people I just kept following following liking following whatever I wouldn't go harass them and be in their dms like hey check out our website or anything like that I would just follow them and like like a few of their pictures and if they followed me back they did and if they didn't that's cool too I was mainly just trying to get eyeballs onto my Instagram page so I'm about to drop this major major key alert major keys I started an affiliate program so that was actually a big part of getting sales onto my website starting an affiliate program was amazing because in order to sign up for the affiliate program you didn't have to buy my hair you didn't have to be an influencer you didn't have to be anyone literally anyone can sign up to be a part of the affiliate program they can create their customizable code and share it with their social media share with their friends share it with whoever they want to and if I got a sale that was using that affiliate link that person gets $10 so let's say you were to sign up for the affiliate program you've never bought my hair before you're not wearing my hair to do that you post it in your story and someone sees it and it's like oh if I use this code I get 50% off so someone who sees your story uses your code and buys hair automatically $10 off of that sale gets sent directly to you so that affiliate program was amazing and it played a big part in getting sales to our hair site because it was getting our site in front of profiles that weren't following us yet or weren't following us at all and then also it ended up working out for the person who created the affiliate link for themself because they get money and they didn't have to do anything it's literally passive income for them they post it and either the audience picks up on it and they get $10 per every order made or nobody picks up on it and they haven't lost any money so it's like literally such great passive income actually in the affiliate link that's doing the best is actually owned by a man the own pages that are dedicated to black love and I guess a large portion of his audience are black women if there's a black love instagram page so yeah from him posting it I got a lot of traffic and then I knew ok this is someone that we should definitely continue to work together some more and also he was like yeah if I could make money from doing nothing literally all I do this post and I get money $10 per happy ordered me then why not so yeah he obviously is he isn't wearing no trophy life hair but he has an audience that likes trophy life hair so it works out so that's a major major key alert and a great marketing tactic y'all thank me later if it works for you cuz mmm it definitely works for me next I created the graphics which was also free because I did it myself so what I used was Canva and PicMonkey I love Canva so much there's so much that you to do with Canva literally like people create ebooks with canva they create courses with canva you can create Flyers posts like literally everything you can do with canva they have an app they have a desktop version you can also use PicMonkey PicMonkey is really great as well for creating flyers I created my business card on PicMonkey and canva I don't remember which I used for what but like essentially you can do the same thing on both I think I learned about all the capabilities of canva after PicMonkey so I might have used PicMonkey for all of this yeah I did I used PicMonkey for literally all of this I created the business cards on PicMonkey I created the tags on PicMonkey and on the back of the hangtag is some haircare instructions and I created a Thank You card that I put inside on PicMonkey as well on the back of this I'm gonna drop another major gem for you guys so basically this thank you card I just started it and it's basically to get some more social proof so this is show us your selfies for five dollars back I need to create some more social proof because I realized I'm making these orders but on social media no one's really tagging the hair company like that because I don't know about you guys but it wasn't until I started YouTube and like company started sending me their products that I started tagging like outfit details or shared details makeup details on Instagram it was just like not something that I do because I'm like why like who cares where I got my hair from or my clothes from or whatever though a lot of people they buy their products but they're not tagging outfit details hair details on their social media so me creating this it's just for some social proof and it's an incentive for the customers to tag us on their social media so that one it's also putting our company in front of you know other profiles and then to I get to use your image like hey another beautiful doll rocking trophy life hair that is another idea hopefully that's sparking ideas and motivation inspiration stuff like that like and different methods that you can use and this cost me free 99 to create I saved myself a few hundred dollars because depending on where you go it's at least a few hundred dollars to get a graphic designer to create hang tags for you business cards and flyers so I saved money on the designing of all of this stuff but I had to get them printed out I used Vista Print to get these all printed out and I used some codes that I found online she'd make it cheaper the flyer was $14.03 these business cards were $23 and then these business cards these hangtags are actually on business cards you know I had to be resourceful and so what a peon and so I printed them on business cards and just hole punched them was also $23 it was a little bit pricey for these business cards because I decided to do them glossy and double sided as well but you can get 500 business cards for as little as 10 bucks yeah there's definitely option so yeah I paid money to get them printed out but I say to hundreds for the designing inside of it and trust me I am a no type of graphic design or anything like that believe me honey if you guys want to see a video on how I did that I have no problem sharing that at all like I said I'm not stingy with the knowledge I learned some of the stuff from watching tutorials online as well so I have no issues sharing with you guess what I've learned it so if you guys want to know how I did that definitely ask your questions or anything like that down below but a lot of it is pretty self-explanatory if you just go on there and kind of play around with it a lot of it it's also just you being able to like flex your creative muscles and do what I do do what it do so I think that's about it those were all my starting costs for starting the business and I was operating up and running and doing my things hopefully that gave you guys some inspiration and motivation yeah we're still a small company I'm not about to sit up here in front to you guys like what make it 100 sales a day no I'm still learning the business is still slowly growing every month we're getting better and better like I said this was a side hustle of mine when I first started this business I was in school full-time I was simultaneously working full-time and I still had my side hustles I had YouTube etc I was building this on my spare time or whenever I can get time in I remember when I was creating this these graphics it was the business card that I was creating while I was in school I was in university I was actually in corporate finance I remember the first week like orientation week up the professor was talking about like you know the syllabus and what to expect for the semester and blah blah and I was creating this business card one of my girls I was sitting behind me it was like girl what are you doing like what are you working on and I was so shook if because I'm like first of all it's none of your business I never tell people what I'm working on until you know it's done okay I just I keep it secret till it's secure okay even the relationships honey everything I keep a secret till it's secure but yeah I was like nothing oh you no just playing around on the internet you know I'm just bored or whatever so yeah that was the time that I had available to work on it and so I was making the best of the time I had available I was still present I was listening to what he was saying but I was also just playing around with PicMonkey and you know doing my thing on there I needed to create a logo and I needed to create business cards and things like that so I was there designing while I was listening to the syllabus but I say that to say if this is a side business of yours you can definitely find time to work on it don't ever tell yourself you don't have enough time because you do for me my guilty pleasure is reality TV girl if I have time to watch Real Housewives of Atlanta then I have time to design business cards and logo you make time for what you want period if you really want this you'll be able to find the time also I mentioned it in my other side also video but I really want to reiterate that what other people think of your profession is none of your business people might say everybody has a hair extension company that's fine but not everyone is you not everyone is as resourceful as you as tenacious as you has your creativity your resources when it comes to marketing they don't have your ideas they're not you period no one is you and that's your superpower so you don't have to focus on Oh Joe Schmo sells bundles this person sells lashes this person has an online boutique so I can't do that that's nonsense if you want to succeed at something you're gonna succeed at it regardless of what anyone else is doing with their life focus on your path focus on what you think is best for you focus on what you want for your life what other people are doing with their life is none of your business and what you're doing what yours is none of theirs you feel me like just focus on your path focus on what it is that you want to do if you want to have an online here bundle store and it's gonna be the millionth hair bundle site on the internet that's fine that's no problem you're gonna succeed if you want to succeed also people feel like you need a hundred sales a day to be successful no all you're looking for is profit as long as you're not in the Reds you're good another thing too is that you still need to make smart financial decisions when you're starting these stores so for me like I said when I first started this I was in school full time I working full-time I wanted to start a business but I wasn't hundred percent sure on the future of the business so I didn't want to invest so much money into it and then in two months I realized this is not what I want to do this is not what I expected it to be and then I quit it and now I have all this money invested in bundles and I'm sitting on like ten thousand dollars worth of bundles you still need to make smart financial decisions when you are starting a business so I invested in my business but clearly I invested time and not much money I started the business with less than a hundred dollars and we're growing we're still making profits we're still making sales but I started it with zero dollars so at this point any money that I am spending on the business it's money that the business has made itself I would say that time is the biggest investment and it's the most expensive investment it's even more important than investing your money it's essential to growing the business anyways you don't necessarily have to put a lot of money in it it does take a bit of time in the beginning but you gotta do your legwork if it's something that you want but it is important to remember that the same day you plant a tree is not the same day you eat the fruit so in the beginning it's gonna be a little bit of work but you've got this you've got this you're gonna reap the benefits if you just stay consistent and persistent and open-minded like I said these were all things very specific to what I did with my store however a lot of these tips and tricks are transferable and also I hope that it sparks some ideas and gave you motivation and helped you to look at things from a different perspective so yeah that is it for this episode of Good Girls Gone Boss I hope it's not that long of a video but I have a feeling it's really long and I'm sorry but if you made it to the end of the video comment down below and the video gang just know that I appreciate you really for making it all the way to the end of this video but hopefully it was helpful to at least one person I wish you guys nothing but success in your businesses and your personal lives I wish you nothing but a prosperous business and prosperous life thank you so much for rockin with me I love you guys so much Levy to the moon and back and be true to you

Channel: Lyn Allure

Views: 757,913

Keywords: how to start an online business, how to start a business, online hair boutique, how to start an online store, how to start a shopify store, how to start a hair business, how to be an entrepreneur, how i start my business, side hustle ideas, online side hustles, millionaire side hustles, start an online business canada, canadian side hustle idease, make money from home canada, jordan cheyenne, money mondays, at home side hustles, start a business with no money

Id: oWlAR9RSDFA

Length: 28min 44sec (1724 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 02 2020