what i wish i knew before starting my biz

hello! i was calculating everything i earned from my crochet business from the start till now and realised i earned around $800+?!?!!! been around 6 months since i started my business and wanna share what i learnt and some pitfalls!

i think as a small business, you’d think that one of the best ways to market ur brand and get exposure is through boothing! and i 100% agree with that! i started my business by boothing w hammock market and got my first few orders from there as well! however, i do think that choosing who to booth from and what type of booths u r renting is vvv important!

1. u need to research the brands/shops u r boothing w

this helps to make sure that ur items match what their customers like so as to maximise ur sales and attract more potential customers for your business as well! for example, when i booth w hammock, i did not do much research about the customers gg to hammock market and just brought EVERYTHING i made… because of that, i didn’t get to sell quite a few items but from there i actually can see what people gg to hammock market r looking out for and what r some of the popular items among them as well!

2. recommend to start w one day booth

there r a lot of diff types of booths w diff durations with some being a day long, weekend, month! usually boothing for one month will be more worth it in terms of daily costs but isit really?!? from my experience, booths w one month lease r usually over $100 and as a business that’s just starting out, it might be too much of a risk :<

and daily booths r also better because u get to see what r some of ur popular items and gauge what type of things people r looking from! once u have a better idea of what items r more likely to sell, u can make more for ur next booth! however, if u start w booths that last for an entire weekend or month, it might be hard for u to see what’s popular and bring in more (esp if u r makers booth like me and my crochet ..) defo recommend u guys to start w shorter booths duration for market research & lower risk <33 hammock market is quite a good starting place or mercury fest? (i heard their rental fee is cheaper! and they have quite a big following too!)

3. prepared to lose money.

WHILE I DO NOT WANT ANY OF U TO LOSE MONEY, but u need to mentally prepare urself for this possibility! there’s always risk associated w business and sometimes what u think might be cute/popular, might not be the case to ur customer! set realistic expectations for ur business and mentally encourage urself that it’s ok! for me, i comfort myself by saying that while i might not earn as much, i’m experiencing new things and pushing myself out of the comfort zone and that is good enough!! <33

that’s all i have for today <33 go slay my entrepreneur girl bosses <33 #smallbusiness #MyLemon8Diary