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Jas0n United States. May 03 2012 15:10. Posts 1866 | | |
Business has been really good. We've already grossed ~$550,000 this year and we're on track for $2-$2.5 million by the end of the year. Once August hits we're going to be swamped again with holiday sales. Definitely dreading the amount of work that's coming up. Last year, during the weeks before Christmas, I worked 18 hours a day for a month. This year will probably be no different so I'll be sure to stock up on coffee and five hour energy drinks.
Going to have to hire some official employees soon instead of just paying Acckerman and another friend to do the manual work. Also probably going to need a new photographer because our current one is thinking about a job in New York. I have no idea how the hiring process works. Will have to consider things like health insurance, overtime pay, workman's compensation insurance, running background checks, reading résumés, and whatever else we'll need to do to hire someone. We plan on talking to a lawyer soon to figure all this out.
We also plan on hiring a few employees who can do technical stuff a little later on. Right now edzwoo and I have to do things on a daily basis that we can easily pay someone else to do. But these tasks will require some technical knowledge and a ton of training because what we'd need them to do is really specific. Once we have these people we're going to get a manager to just oversee everything. The plan is that by 2013 or 2014 everything will be full automated by our employees and edzwoo and I won't have to come in to the office anymore. We'd just be making the more important decisions, attending trade shows and just living it up.
We're going to be heading back to the suburbs in early-mid June. It'll be really nice to get out of Champaign-Urbana. I've been here for five years now and I'm pretty sick of this area. It's been fun but I'm ready to get out of here. Really looking forwards to hanging out with friends from high school that are still in the Chicago area.
We're leaving because our lease is about to end so we found a nice warehouse to move our business to. edzwoo's brother used to work in real estate and he hooked us up with a friend of his who's a commercial realtor. We drove back two weeks ago to check out some warehouses with the realtor and ended up picking one that's actually right next to where edzwoo's dad lives. The warehouse was somewhere around 6000 square feet, had plenty of office space (enough for maybe 6 or 7 people) and a ballin kitchen area which edzwoo really liked. The warehouse was newly renovated so it looked really nice. The place was owned by CRP Holdings, a huge and well established real estate company. Having a large landlord is always a plus because they're financially stable and have efficient procedures to handle problems tenants might have. We were pretty set on the place but we thought that the price was somewhere around $8/sq ft. It turns out the property was actually $11.50/sq ft, $21,000/year more than we expected.
Nice as it was, we just couldn't lease the place because there were other warehouses of the same size that went for a lower price. We decided to go with a 5200 sq ft warehouse at $7.50/sq ft instead which comes out to be ~$40,000 per year. It wasn't nearly as nice and the landlord is much smaller so there was some risk involved with that. We let our realtor know about our decision and he actually takes this information and gives it to CRP Holdings (the first landlord). They in turn offered us a 6200 sq ft building at $6.45/sq ft. WHAT? Talk about unexpected. This was a much better deal. The reason CRP offered it to us at $6.45/sq ft is because they saw what our realtor sent them and they came up with a price per square foot that would also end up being $40,000 per year.
The 6200 sq ft place is a little beat up but there was no way we could pass it up for that price. We got the license agreement today so we should have everything finalized pretty soon. Never thought I could be this excited about a warehouse.
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Sanai United States. May 03 2012 15:18. Posts 643 | | | |
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inde Germany. May 03 2012 15:25. Posts 1298 | | |
are we still talking softairs here or did you expand to other products somehow? |
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Zep United States. May 03 2012 15:30. Posts 2292 | | |
GL! It's awesome to see LPers succeeding outside the poker world. I'm 6 months into starting a new business and will probably be getting a warehouse in 1 - 1.5 years. If you don't mind, if i have any questions that come up, i might ask for your advice in the future. I'm not trying to take up your time or use you for consulting or anything like that, but it would be nice to have a fellow LP businessman to exchange ideas with. GL! |
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| NeillyJQ: I really wanted to prove to myself I could beat NL200, I did over a small sample, and believe Ill be crushing there in the future. | |
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Jas0n United States. May 03 2012 15:38. Posts 1866 | | |
| | On May 03 2012 14:25 inde wrote:
are we still talking softairs here or did you expand to other products somehow? |
We're selling more than just airsoft products now but we're still focusing on outdoor sporting goods
| | On May 03 2012 14:30 Zep wrote:
GL! It's awesome to see LPers succeeding outside the poker world. I'm 6 months into starting a new business and will probably be getting a warehouse in 1 - 1.5 years. If you don't mind, if i have any questions that come up, i might ask for your advice in the future. I'm not trying to take up your time or use you for consulting or anything like that, but it would be nice to have a fellow LP businessman to exchange ideas with. GL! |
Sounds good, shoot me a pm if you have something on your mind. Good luck with your business too. |
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2c0ntent Egypt. May 03 2012 15:42. Posts 1387 | | |
nice
also curious about the products you're selling these days |
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DooMeR United States. May 03 2012 16:03. Posts 8545 | | |
very very impressive im super jelly. I always dream of starting some business but ideas and know how too lacking atm T_T one day! |
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| I just saved a bunch of money on my car insurance, by running away from the scene of an accident. | |
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thewh00sel  United States. May 03 2012 16:07. Posts 2734 | | |
This is really cool stuff, keep these posts coming. And congrats on the success, mad props. |
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| A government is the most dangerous threat to man’s rights: it holds a legal monopoly on the use of physical force against legally disarmed victims. - Ayn Rand | |
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Stim_Abuser United States. May 03 2012 16:11. Posts 7499 | | | |
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| Hey Im slinging mad volume and fat stackin benjies I dont got time for spellin n shit - skinny pete | |
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Silver_nz New Zealand. May 03 2012 16:26. Posts 5647 | | |
Holy Shit. This is awesome. Living the dream, I jelly. |
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Eluflop Estonia. May 03 2012 16:51. Posts 3835 | | | |
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TheTrees United States. May 03 2012 17:19. Posts 1592 | | |
jas0n, awesome stuff.
what was your initial investment if you don't mind me asking? and do you import your own products from asia or just buy them direct here in the US? |
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SIG1 United States. May 03 2012 17:21. Posts 651 | | |
siiiiiick. check pm jason |
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mnj United States. May 03 2012 17:29. Posts 3848 | | | |
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Jas0n United States. May 03 2012 17:38. Posts 1866 | | |
We started off with about $3000 in the fall of 2010, edzwoo's $1500 came from poker, haha |
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HaiVan Bulgaria. May 03 2012 18:27. Posts 2083 | | | |
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TheTrees United States. May 03 2012 18:34. Posts 1592 | | |
haha, that's sick. also do you still use the postal service for domestic deliveries or have you branched out to the private sector? |
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Jas0n United States. May 03 2012 18:52. Posts 1866 | | |
For outgoing we use USPS and UPS, for incoming we use USPS, UPS, FedEx, and about 6 freight companies |
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Highcard Canada. May 03 2012 19:47. Posts 5428 | | |
super baller man, awesome road to success and was cool watching it unfold in the blog |
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| I have learned from poker that being at the table is not a grind, the grind is living and poker is how I pass the time | |
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dogmeat Czech Republic. May 03 2012 20:49. Posts 6374 | | | |
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