Hi Pat. Thank you for your voice in question, “how to start a clothing business with designs I don’t see in the market that I have on hand?”

The basic concept of starting a business is that it’s about what the market wants and not what you have to offer. Starting with a product to sell instead of finding out what the market needs can be tricky.

In this case, you already have a unique design in mind that’s not on the market. The next logical step would be first to test the market. To do this, we will need to go back to a few business model questions.

Who is your target market? Paint a clear picture with an avatar. How old is your customer avatar? Is your avatar male or female? Married or single? If married, how many children? Where are the children studying? What car does your avatar drive? Where does your avatar live? How much money does your avatar household make? Paint a clear picture of your target market using an avatar.

The next question is, where can we find your avatar? Does your avatar belong to an organization? What websites interest them? Where do they shop for clothes? What type of clothes do they wear? What are their buying preferences? What social media do they prefer surfing?

What makes your design unique? Who are your direct competitors? Are they making money? How long have they been in the market? What’s their unique value proposition?

Let us say that you have done your due diligence and crafted a good business model. The next step is to shoot bullets before shooting a canon. Come up with a plan to pilot test your concept. Try it out on a very targeted and small scale before investing in manufacturing a vast number of SKU. Try two or three limited edition designs. Set up a simple yet compelling website and social media presence. Don’t spend too much at this point. You want to test your idea.

Depending on the outcome of your test, pivot your concept if you have not quite hit the mark with your target market. Drop the idea if you pivoted many times to no avail. Gradually grow your line of designs and distribution network if it’s picking up very well.

If you notice, I am suggesting moving with caution. You want to be careful in coming out with a new business. Be lean, be smart.

Thank you very much for your question, Pat. Please feel free to come up with other questions.

Stay safe

We have a voiced in quesiton from an anonymous listener “Is launching a new brand from the same company more preferable than franchising?”

These are two distinct topics and I am not quite sure how they relate to each other. Unfortunately, it was an anonymouse sender. The listener who sent the ‘voice’ question did not leave a name or email address.

Let’s see. Let me tackle this as two questions. The first one “Launching a new brand from the same company”. If the new brand is not targetting a different customer then there should be no problem with that. Assuming that the new brand is still on-brand with the overall branding of the company.

However, if the new brand being launched is targetting a totally different set of customers then it’s best to launch the new brand as a totally different company. As an example. When the Toyota Motors directors decided to go after the luxury class of automotives they know that they cannot launch the new brand of cars under the “Toyota’ brand.

The ‘Toyota’ brand stood for quality and affordability. The target market is the middle class and lower middle class. Coming out with a luxury brand of cars would confuse buyers. The target market is upper-class of buyers. These target customers are likely to buy ‘Toyota’ cars for their personal use. They are after prestige and luxury.

So not to confuse their existing ‘Toyota’ market and their target luxury market, the car manufacturer decided to come up a separate branding and company for it. They came out with the Lexus brand of cars. Lexus was created to go after the market of Mercendez Benz and BMW. They offered the same luxury level of automobiles with the reliability, high quality and more affortable pricing that Japanese manufacturers are known for. One conglomerate, two brands of cars.

With regards to the second topic, franchising. I don’t have enough context to properly reply. Hopefully, the listener that sent the question will be able to read this and send a follow-up question. Please provide a little bit more context so I can properly reply.

In the meantime, have. good day everyone and be safe.

If you have a question in mind, please send your question via the link below.

https://bit.ly/Askjordan

Hi Pat, thank you very much for your question “How would you know if your new businiess is financially feasible.” It’s an interesing question that I am certain in all entreps minds.

From a straight financial perspective, you need to generate more sales than your total expense. Of course, this may not be possible from the first month. However, in time, hopefully in six months you still going cash flow positive.

From a business perspective, we may need to go back to your business model. The primary quesiton to test is will your specific target customer pay for your product or service that solves a problem they have? Is their problem pressing enough for them to go out and pay for a service.

Let us take for instance a pet grooming business. One of a pet parents problem is that they don’t like to have their lovable pets look disheveled and smelling bad. The solution would be to find a trusted groomer for their lovable fur babies. Another problem that comes to mind is trust and peace of mind. Can they trust the groomer with their fur babies. It’s a similar question to parents. Will you trust someone with your child? Do you have peace of mind when leave your child for half an hour with a stylist? Do you trust that your child will look better when you leave the parlor?

Assuming that you have a service that uniquely solves your target customers problems, the next question is that is it scalable? Can your business scale bigger? If your business model does not scale, that’s still not so bad specially if it provides good income. It’s more an income generating hobby or a source of good revenue for you, a solopreneur.

If it is scalable, then the set of questions change. Can you get funding for it’s growth at a later time? Can you maintain the level of service quality and operational excellence that brought you initial success? How much of your shares are you willing to give up in exchange for funding?

I hope that I was able to answer your question Pat. If you have followup questions, please feel free to send your voicemails.

Thank you everyone and stay safe.

https://bit.ly/Askjordan

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Speakpipe 4 How to enter the market during the pandemic and high inflation rate? Anonymous

Thank you so much for your question, Ms. Anonymous. Historically, growth is born during tough times. The best way to figure out a business model in tough times is to look for a general problem you want to address.

Take Zoom, for instance. Zoom has grown exponentially during the pandemic. It solves the problem of companies that need to continue collaboration but in a remote environment. Work cannot stop during the pandemic. Collaboration, meetings, and brainstorming are still required.

Other companies that thrive in challenging times are; Slack, Github, Twilio, Okta, AppDynamics, Freshworks, Nutanix, Zscaler. Even my personal favorite, Netflix, grew exponentially.

Even though department store sales went down, grocery revenues skyrocketed. Sales of alcohol, face mask, toilet paper, and bottled water also had a good ride.

There will always be opportunities. I suggest you seek these opportunities through the lenses of problems you can solve. Please revert to the lean business model. A successful business solves a specific problem of a targeted set of customers using a unique approach (unique value proposition or UVP). Your solution is better if it’s uniquely different from competitors.

Difficulty produces better focus. You will need to be more careful about your strategies and use of resources. You are more cautious with your tactics and activities.

Challenging times develop better and more resilient entrepreneurs.

Find a problem to solve Ms. Anonymous for a target niche of customers. Solve it in a manner that’s different from your competitors.

Thank you for your question. Please feel free to send in more “voice in” questions as I enter the ones in the pipeline.

Have a good day Ms. Anonymous.

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