To Financially Free: My Online Business Story

Fat Fit Free

My Online Business Journey

This last story is about financial independence during the retirement years. As I grow older, I always wanted to be sure I had enough income to enjoy retirement as well as having something to retire into so I can stay active and socially engaged in society. As I documented my journey on weight lost and realizing how I can help people achieve their goals by showing them what I did to lose the weight why not see if I can start an online business and promote some of the products, I use to help me achieve my weight goals.

If I haven’t lost, you yet and you too are interested in starting an online business then join me in my journey. I have no way of knowing if I succeed unless I dive right in and put in the work necessary to achieve my goals.  The first two stories lay the foundation on the next part of my lifestyle change starting an online business, which is a work in progress since I am still fine tuning my store and marketing strategy, but my intention is to document and share my experience along the way, so you don’t make the same mistakes I do when you decide to start your own online business.

Where Did It All Start?

First a little background. I am the first generation of an Italian American family who came to the US to claim their fortune. My mom found a job as a seamstress and my dad a Longshore Man. We never went without, and I never notice I was missing anything.  Growing up I always heard about my friends getting an allowance but that was very foreign for my parents not understanding why you would give an allowance to your kids for doing chores around the house. Looking back, I’m glad that was the case since it forced me to find other ways of making money.

Get Your Paper!

When I was old enough (10-12) years of age I tried getting a paper route around my home, but the routes were all locked up since they paid well in tips, every boy and girl stayed on way longer then they needed to.  During my childhood days, I always found myself reading the ads behind a comic book that would advertise how you can make money selling Christmas cards. I took the challenge and order my first set of Christmas cards on the company and went door to door.  What a great experience! I had thoughts of every person I would knock on the door would greet me with open arms and buy everything.

Well that didn’t happen and after a few door slams and a few dog barks I did find a few that bought just enough to keep me going until I sold the whole lot. After that I was hooked on making money on my own where I could.

What do you need to start an online business?

• Determination to succeed
• Don’t be afraid to take a chance

 Coffee… Who Wants Coffee?

Fast forward 25 years .. By this time, I have been through the up and downs of getting into different business some profitable and others not so much. When I get a call from a cousin in Italy. I remember vividly how he was telling me how rich we would get by selling espresso in the US and that he must fly in and review his business plan with me. I kept telling him …this is the US,  we have every type of coffee available known to man, why anyone would want to buy another brand they never heard of.

After a few days of back-and-forth discussions, I finally gave in and hosted him over the house where he showed off his products with samples of different types of food and of course his coffee/espresso. We spent all day and night going over different strategies all of which I wasn’t too keen on. I had no warehouse, no distribution groups, I knew nothing about the international import export business he was trying to get me into. Let alone the thought of putting up a small fee to get everything going.

What do you need to Online Business to Start ?

• Funding
• Don’t be afraid of taking a chance
• Understand the work you need to put in
• Determination to succeed
• Product or service your audience needs

The Deal

That same weekend he flew in I had a family party we all attended where one of my other cousins was a controller at a large hair salon distributor. They both struck up a conversation and the next thing I know I’m sitting down with the president of the company showing our espresso product line that same week. On a hand shake my cousin from Italy makes a deal worth ~10,000 USD with no paperwork, no commitment notice, no invoice, or evidence we were even there. I was never so upset in my life but with the notion we had a close contact to the president I went along with it.

What do you need to start an online business?

• Funding
• Don’t be afraid of taking a chance
• Understand the work you need to put in
• Determination to succeed
• Product or service your audience needs
• If its too good to be true then run away fast

Speed Schooling

After that handshake, I was in the import export business that I knew nothing about. Thank god for the internet since I was up all hours of the night learning about custom brokers, LCL Container regulation, International shipping regulation, terrorist compliance reports, international banking rules and local trucking rules and how to setup up an LLC.

What do you need to start an online business?

• Funding
• Understand the work you need to put in with the business at hand
• Determination to succeed
• Product or service your customer or client’s need
• If its too good to true then run away fast
• Educate yourself on your business. You don’t need to do every task, but it very important to know what’s involved.
• Stay involved in every major decision that affects your business
• They buy your product because of you, not just what you’re selling or promoting

I See Dead People

After a few weeks of getting everything in order, the delivery of 3 pallets (4x4x6) of espresso and espresso pod machines finally arrived at the distributors warehouse. A meeting was setup to finalize the deal of the merchandize they so much wanted.  Yeah.. or so I thought. Instead, I met the board of directors and their full legal team telling me I had an hour to get every piece of merchandise out of the warehouse.

Apparently, the person I met who was the president was on his way out and had no business authority on making any business decision. I smiled and not sure what happened after that since I wasn’t mentally stable, and I was trying to refrain from stabbing my cousin from Italy with a pen in the neck. After calming down and making a few calls I was able to split the merchandise between my basement and brother-in laws warehouse space.  (A shout out to Steve! A Big Thank You) I was so lucky to have a backup plan ready knowing on how fast things can go south with a handshake deal.

What do you need to start an online business?

• Understand the work you need to put in with the business at hand
• Determination to succeed
• Product or service your customer or client’s need
• If its too good to true then run away fast
• Educate yourself on your business. You don’t need to do every task, but it is very important to know what’s involved.
• Stay involved in every major decision that affects your business
• They buy your product because of you, not just what you’re selling or promoting
• Refrain from stabbing your family in the neck on bad business deals
• Always have a backup plan ready

Now What

After sitting on a few hundred cases espresso and coffee machines for a few days. I decided to give Ebay a try since it was a hot marketplace at the time. After a few marketing tweaks I was able to successfully sell it all. It so successful I decided to reorder the espresso and stand up my own website with a simple shopping cart attached. I emersed myself in learning about SEO search engine Optimization to ensure my website was ranking as high as possible. So I can get new customers and keep growing my business organically without any paid advertising. I had a glimmer of hope that it was all going to work out and I finally had a consistent side hustle slowly growing.

*BrunoCaffe was the brand I ordered from in Italy. Anyone interested in ordering direct from the manufacturer let me know.

Don’t Be Evil

After a year or 2 I felt comfortable of ordering. More inventory knowing what my volume of sales was each year until it all came crashing down. The title don’t evil used to be a clause in Google’s code of conduct but its clear they don’t intend to stand by it since they removed the phrase. You can check it out more here.

Like anyone in a business you always want to check. What your daily sales forecast and this day wasn’t any different except my new sales dropped off considerably. I was in a panic trying to find out why I was off so much until I read Google decided to change. The playing field and rank other website higher under certain criteria’s. I devastated and not ready on what that really meant for my business and spent countless nights trying to figure it all out.

A few months had passed, and sales were dropping off I decided to hold off on re-orders. I was clearly out of my league on figuring out how to regain my ranking. This is the time when the internet was fast and furious on how to market across all social media platforms. Having a full time job that I devoted to I could not find any more time with out working 24/7. Its when I decided to put my espresso coffee business on hold and eventually dispersed.

What do you need to start an online business?

• Understand the work you need to put in with the business at hand
• Determination to succeed
• Product or service your customer or client’s need
• If its too good to be true then run away fast
• Educate yourself on your business. You don’t need to do every task, but it very important to know what’s involved.
• Stay involved in every major decision that affects your business
• They buy your product because of you, not just what you’re selling or promoting
• Refrain from stabbing your family in the neck on bad business deals
• Always have a backup plan ready
• Know when to pull the plug

Rear View Mirrors

Looking back at it all. It was a crazy time for me, but it was also an eye opener and gave me the taste of the money you can make online. The one thing I should have done was to look for a consultant to help steer me in the right direction. There was a lot of potentials I had since I developed an email list and customers that reordering. I didn’t have the vision of the importance of nurturing the list I had.  Email lists that have a history of buying products in a particular niche is worth a lot. I could easily have made a few modifications and work with consultants to keep up the required posts needed to keep ranking at the top.

The biggest take away I have from what I have been through is creating a circle of like-minded businesses.  Associates including consultants so you can have the proper advice and education to come successful.

Which is why I have partner with one main business consultant to help me in my next business venture. Keep in touch with many like-minded business associates.

“Experience is the best teacher, as long as its someone else experience.”  Not sure where I picked that line-up but it a very powerful statement and holds true in what you need to do to get started in an online business.

What do you need to start an online business?

• Understand the work you need to put in with the business at hand
• Determination to succeed
• Product or service your customer or client’s need
• If its too good to true then run away fast
• Educate yourself on your business. You don’t need to do every task, but it very important to know what’s involved.
• Stay involved in every major decision that affects your business
• They buy your product because of you not just what you’re selling or promoting
• Refrain from stabbing your family in the neck on bad business deals
• Always have a backup plan ready
• Know when to pull the plug
• Partnering up with likeminded business associates and business consultants who have the experience intaking you through the process. Until you become successful.

Walking Through The Mine Fields.

In my next post I will write about the details of what I went through in starting an online business and updated my progress. As I continue my journey from FAT to Fit to Financially Free!

Follow me here on Starting an Online business Please leave your comments on any experience you have on starting an online business or just drop me a line to say hello.

Good Luck!

Vito