I think that's kind of the point of the article - there's going to be a massive shift in the structure of the economy when 10 million jobs disappear.
That being said, I think pretty much all of silicon valley is built on the principle that the future will "reward people with access to capital and/or technology."
I actually helped these guys with their beta and one of the founders is a buddy of mine. They did some really advanced statistics and analysis of our customers that we would never have been able to do on our own. The TC article makes it sound a bit fluffy, but they do an awesome statistical deep dive.
Thanks - that's always been my guiding tenant as an entrepreneur - start a business that makes money right away.
Our primary marketing is currently focused on the business owner, since they're the one that pays us for the subscription. However, we are launching a feature that lets buyers refer other businesses in exchange for Amazon gift cards ("Like buying this way? Tell your other suppliers!")
Good thought on going after the 4HWW community - this is perfect for a sub-10 employee business that doesn't have a lot of manpower to waste on pushing paper.
The idea came about since I also own several manufacturing businesses. We couldn't find ANYTHING that addressed this market - all the solutions were either old school (desktop software), or very focused on the fashion market (nuOrder, Joor).
So being that I have a startup/tech background, we started to build our own solution. I made the decision early on to put in the extra effort to built it multi-tenant as a SaaS app so others could use it too.
So yes, it's built directly to scratch our own itch - and it's an itch I know others have as well from chatting with other business owners over the last few years. There was nothing out there for it, so we built it :)
Thanks for chiming in - you're definitely our target market exactly. Good points on POs coming from QB. We thought of QB in that we already built an integration for the seller to push invoices into QB automatically, but I hadn't thought about it from the buyer's perspective with POs. We currently allow you to enter a PO number on each order in OrderCircle so it can be traced back, but I see the need for deeper integration if possible.
Very familiar with NowCommerce - they're really the only one out there doing it even close to correctly (though they're very limited and locked into QB). Also fairly expensive, yes?
Great thought on a QB PO importer/reader. It's a bit tough since POs are free-form and you'd need to somehow automatically map it to the seller's SKUs. But we'll definitely put that on the list to think through further.
Direct sales is really tough, but here's the plan:
1.) Seed to about 10-15 businesses I know personally - these guys have been using it for about a month in private beta and giving feedback.
2.) I'm a frequent guest on several ecommerce podcasts and blogs - going to use the opportunity to speak about the difficulties of wholesale for small brands, with a small link to OrderCircle at the end.
3.) Building integrations to Shopify and Bigcommerce, which should help us get listed in their app stores and drive traffic.
Thanks for checking it out Jonah - you're absolutely right that integrations are key. I've been working in ecommerce for a while and the one thing I figured out is that absolutely everyone has a different setup - which is why we went API first.
But you're totally right - we've got integrations with Bigcommerce and Shopify on the roadmap so users can pull in their products and make getting started easier.
For inventory, API is the best bet for now. When we launch our cart integrations, we'll probably treat the carts as "the truth" and decrement their inventory levels for wholesale transactions. Our early users are telling us they use their carts primarily to manage inventory.
Hey all - I'm the founder and have been working on this for months, solo (all bootstrapped). Would love to chat with anyone from the community and hear what you think!
AskAllOf.us - a platform for you to share comments you made on other blogs that needed answers. Sort of a hybrid of Disqus and Quora. Never did anything with it, I'd sell it if anyone wants it.
1orZero.com - think Hot or Not, but a much simpler scale. Would you or wouldn't you...
Be careful, the IRS is on the lookout for misclassification of employees as independent contractors. It wouldn't be too hard to figure out either, since the majority of your income would be coming from a single "client" on your tax returns, and that amount would match the totals for the company. Make sure you read and understand the rules or you could end up liable for penalties and back taxes.
Me too Papa - I've never had a single entrepreneur miss a payment. It's really remarkable the drive these people have to succeed and honor their commitments. That's why I keep coming back and giving to microfinance.
Great analogy with the bike - continued pedaling is absolutely key. I think the skydiving analogy is trying to capture that feeling you have when you're teetering on the edge of the plane that makes a lot of people turn back or never jump.
After the jump though - the parachute and landing zone become critical.
When starting a company, probably the last thing any entrepreneur thinks about is his exit strategy. The exit strategy, sometimes referred to as a “liquidity event” or “harvest strategy” is basically the entrepreneur’s way of “cashing out” of their company. This is the part where years of hard work come to fruition and turn into profit. Cashing out is often not as simple as it seems. There are numerous ways of converting the non-liquid asset of equity in a private company to the liquid asset of cash, and each is fraught with it’s own unique pitfalls.
