how to start a SUCCESSFUL small business in 2024 🌷📦 the ULTIMATE guide, advice, everything i learned

foreign [Music] starting your own small business if you're anything like me when I was first trying to start my own small business you're probably watching a lot of videos on YouTube trying to figure out how to actually get started and grow your shop and getting super inspired by watching others pack hundreds of orders on their channels I remember when I was first starting out I wished I could see not only the logistical side of how others got started but also the methods people use to stay on track to actually make progress towards their goals so in this video I want to share with you my journey and the most important lessons I learned along the way to hopefully help you get inspired and see how possible starting and growing your small business actually is I hope this helps please keep in mind that I am not an expert and I do not have the hugest most successful shop so I would take my advice with a grain of salt but because I have a few years of experience running my shop I hope that what I share can help you to not make the same mistakes that I did I would say that my journey really began when I opened up a journaling account on Instagram in high school at this point I did not have any intention to sell anything I was just creating for fun but I started gaining a following and took notice of that and started to actually take it more seriously but one mistake that I made at this point was that I really didn't have a big picture idea for where this account was taking me so even though I had grown a following to around 28 000 followers over two years it was really hard for me to stay motivated to keep posting because I couldn't see the purpose of continuing to pour so much effort into this account that I couldn't really see as being part of my future so from this I learned two main lessons the first lesson is that consistency actually works and I'm sure that you've heard this many many times before but I think that consistency works not only for the reason that it pleases the algorithm but mainly because each time that you post consistently you're exercising a skill of creating posting and sharing your work which ultimately leads you to develop your own unique style and voice and and in my case that style really helped me to build my following and the second lesson that I learned is that you really need to have a big picture idea of where your goals are taking you even if you're just getting started because you like creating I would still recommend that you have a big picture idea or plan as to what you're going to do because everybody changes and everybody's interests change so if you don't have a Clear Vision for why these are your goals you will find it much more difficult to continue working towards your goals when things aren't going as smoothly as you expected them to the next key moment was when I actually had the idea of starting my own shop given that I already had a following on Instagram it seemed possible for me to open up a shop and start selling my own designs so once that idea entered my brain I got planning and I started thinking about what I'd want to sell and in this stage I really was planning and thinking and planning and thinking without any action and for over a year I made zero actual tangible progress towards opening up my shop now from this I learned that ultimately there's only so much planning that you can do and you will learn a hundred times faster starting out on your own journey and learning along the way then trying to learn everything from other people's experiences on the internet and of course this doesn't apply if you're not the type of person to overthink everything and never get started because I do think that it's important to balance the thinking with action and too much of either one is probably not the most efficient in the long run continuing on the next key moment in my journey was when I actually started designing my own products I had finally saved up enough money to fully commit to buying an iPad Pro apple pencil and procreate so I bought it and started getting to work and I quickly learned that I may have developed my own unique style from creating my journal spreads but creating sticker sheets in the art prints was a completely new thing for me so you could say that I was less than satisfied with my work still feeling inspired to improve my designs though I went to school and I remember that my group of friends asked me if they could see the progress on my design so far so I hesitantly showed them and I just remember that their reactions were pretty mixed some of them were hyping me up a lot and some of them were really quiet I really don't blame them because we were all just tired high school students trying to get by but because I cared about my shop a lot and was really excited about it at the time the lack of reaction from the quiet friends did affect me now what I learned from this experience is something that really stuck with me and it's basically to not share your goals or plans with others before you actually execute them and I know that this can sound a little sad but I learned that I work best this way because there's no pressure to perform well from the very beginning I do think that this is why my journaling account grew as quickly as it did because even until I had thousands of followers no one other than my sister knew about the account and looking back it really was easier for me to post when I was sharing my work with people that I didn't know and I think that this goes against some of the advice that recommends people to share their businesses when they're starting out with the people that they know in real life to get it off its feet and bring some attention to it but ultimately for me in my experience I found that growing my audience and following organically was the way that I developed my own skills to reach a bigger audience which is what I wanted my shop to do I wanted it to reach people outside of my own community and of course this really depends on your personality and how you work best because telling other people about your goals may keep you accountable or motivate you even more but this was really just a key Insight that I had with myself and how I work best and it's also the reason why I didn't tell anyone else except my boyfriend that I was starting this YouTube channel the next key moment is probably the most important thing that you could take away from this video and it's basically when I set a hard deadline for when I would open my shop this hard deadline meant that no matter how many products I had created or finalized I would just announce my shop and start selling I basically set this hard deadline because I was really tired of wanting to start something so badly yet contradicting Myself by not starting it for too long and because the shop was something that I really knew that I wanted to start I decided that I should probably get it done before College app season because I was a high school senior at this point from my one year of doing nothing so in order to finish everything before College app season that meant that I had to open my shop in around six weeks and within those six weeks I really got to work immediately after I finished school work and my other extracurriculars I would just get started on designing during these six weeks I really promised myself that I would open no matter what so this deadline actually scared me and I was designing as I was researching manufacturers and materials packaging and equipment that I might need to start my shop and this is when I learned the importance of a deadline and by a deadline I mean a deadline that actually means something to you so if you haven't already create your deadline create your plan and just get to work because as you will get it done if you have that time pressure and that promise that you made to yourself that that deadline is real okay so the next key moment in my journey was when I actually opened and launched my shop I announced that I had started a shop account on my main journaling account and that day with that one announcement I gained around 700 followers who were interested in my products and after a few days of posting and showcasing my designs on my shop account it was finally launch day now I was really expecting my launch to be very successful like the many channels that I see on YouTube packing hundreds of orders so when my own launch happened I was actually pretty disappointed I got around 30 orders and made around 600 in sales I was super excited of course and grateful for all of the support and the fact that I was sending my work all around the world but it got me wondering what I might have done wrong and as to why my shop launch may have fallen short of my expectations looking back the number of orders I got for all of the mistakes that I made is actually a lot now these lessons that I learned are lessons that are more practical but number one keep your expectations moderate number two offer some cheaper shipping options when I launched my shop I only offered tracked shipping so that meant for international orders shipping would be eight dollars and fifty cents and for us orders shipping would be three dollars and fifty cents and keep in mind that I was selling flat sticker sheets and art prints that cost much less than eight dollars and fifty cents with flat paper goods it's a really good idea to start also offering untracked shipping options such as letter mail that can be much cheaper and more affordable for international orders where letter mail from the US is only two dollars and letter mail being sent within the US is less than one dollar the next lesson is to start off with as many products as you can so that the highest possible order total is greater back when I opened my shop I had two products where the highest possible order total was 18.50 but now given that I held a lot of shop updates and created many more products the highest possible order total is over a hundred dollars and just from a practicality standpoint of if you're selling physical products packing orders does take a long time so if your average order total is higher it's a lot more rewarding for the amount of effort that you're putting in the next lesson is to really consider which website to host on for me I decided to start off with my own website instead of etsy or any other selling platform that already had an existing Marketplace I thought that this would be a good idea because I already had a following and I really wanted to establish my brand now that I'm in University though and a lot busier I wonder if Etsy would have been a better idea because with Etsy you can continue to bring in sales through the Etsy search feature even if you're not actively trying to grow and maintain your social media accounts but this really could just be the grass looking greener on the other side because I haven't used Etsy as a platform myself and I have heard that Etsy does take a large percentage of the revenue that you make per order now the next tip that I have is also a practical one it is to streamline your packaging I know that you want it to look cute because I really really wanted it to but balance that cuteness with practicality if you want to grow and scale your small business you can't be putting in all of your time into packing a few orders because what will you do when you get hundreds of orders you really can't neglect other areas of your life just to pack orders because if you're a student like me or have a job or have other responsibilities you're going to have other things that you need to get to and packing all of your orders in a really nice fancy custom way isn't going to be the best use of your time now the next tip that I have is to consider digital products this is something that I'm looking into more this year because with digital products you don't need to worry about keeping an inventory or packing every order that comes in so especially for me as a student having a few digital products could be a great way for me to continue sharing my work while saving some time moving on the next key moment in my journey after my shop launch was when it was time for my next shop update as I was packing orders and dealing with that inner disappointment it was harder for me to post consistently and design other products for my shop update I think that this had to do with the fear of disappointing other people I thought that my next products for the launch had to be better than my original products and because of that pressure that I put on myself it was really hard to create anything the lessons that I learned from working towards my first shop update were to keep a Content calendar to help you stay consistent you're not going to be able to keep up if you continue creating posts just barely In Time by the time you need to post them this is something that I had been doing for two years with my journaling account and with my shop account I was creating posts right by the time I needed to post them and of course with this system you are going to burn out and you're going to run out of ideas so with the content calendar if you can batch create all of your posts and products by a certain date you don't need to worry about them constantly and you will ideally have posts and products ready to go so by the time that you need to post them the second lesson that I learned is to evaluate your primary platform early this is one of the things that I wish I had done because I would rather have YouTube be my primary platform knowing what I know now rather than Instagram this is because with Instagram you have to continually post and post and post every single week to have your content recommended to other people whereas with YouTube you can create content once a week and it can get recommended to people years down the line so in that way it's much more sustainable for my lifestyle currently as a student and I also do think that established YouTube channels have a more dedicated Following over a more short form content platform like Instagram or tick tock the third lesson that I learned from this is to try to detach yourself from your work so whether it performs well or bad don't get too happy or too disappointed and of course take the analytics into account but don't dwell over them just learn from them and move on to creating your next post or product because ultimately that's what's going to move you forward and lead to progress so a few shop updates later we're now at where I am now so I'm a sophomore studying computer science and art at Carnegie Mellon University and I'm still trying to devote more time to my shop but like I said instead of on Instagram through YouTube more consistently this is my second video on YouTube so I feel like I'm super new to the game but I'm so excited to build a community here and just share parts of my life and my journey on my shop productivity and University student things so if you're interested in any of those things please feel free to join my to subscribe and yeah see you guys in the next video thanks for watching

Channel: Johanna Park

Views: 1,454,667

Keywords: how to make money as a teen, ways to make money online 2023, how to grow your online store, grow your online business fast, starting your own small business, make money online in 2023, small business guide, how to start a small business, pack orders with me, starting my own small business, packing orders asmr

Id: AW-Szrc1I_U

Length: 16min 10sec (970 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 12 2023