Starting a Business

[karecares]

Any of you guys start an online or in person business and have some tips I may need to know before jumping in, you know the 'oh shit i should have thought of that' kind of stuff?

I'm in the early process of starting odor controlling lined stash bags along with other related items. I have a business plan in the works, lined up some potential suppliers and manufacturers and am figuring out the advertising budget and licensing costs and all that fun stuff now. my least favorite part. Probably a few weeks before I have some solid numbers to work with but in the meantime if there's anything that you think may be worth sharing please do.

[malcolmjamalawesome]

Wait. What is the product?

[Grant]

stash bags, for like, weed, that like, don't give off the scent of weed

[donkey sex]

I have a business plan in the works, lined up some potential suppliers and manufacturers and am figuring out the advertising budget and licensing costs and all that fun stuff now.

You sound like you know what you're doing. I opened an S-Corp in 2006 through Legalzoom (cheap and easy) and it was the best thing I ever did businesswise. Just gotta dive in. My advice is real basic: get multiple vendor quotes and make them compete for your business, always pay referrals to folks who refer you business (I pay 15% of the margin), stay calm and professional at all times and under any circumstance, give customers gifts (people love gifts). Pretty basic really. And have fun! Smile! Yippie!

[malcolmjamalawesome]

What are you going to outwardly say the product is being used for?

[lowfront]

Honestly man, sounds like something that would need to be on an infomercial to sell.


Do pot smokers really care about having a premium bag? I take my bud right out of the bag and put it in air tight glass container. Fuck bags

[Grant]

She/he won't have to outwardly say anything once it becomes legalized in California in a couple months

[PotVsKtl]

Or you could vacuum-seal it.

[malcolmjamalawesome]

Well if it's legalized you won't really need to conceal the smell, either.

[lowfront]

"hey man I brought the bud"


"WHAT YOU GOT REFEER!!!!, I CAN"T EVEN SMELL THAT SHIT!!!"


"ya man, I'm rocking this new sweet odorless bags"


"HOLY SHIT I NEED THAT!!!!"

[karecares]

She is selling to the medical marijuana adult professional clientele. and we are referring to travel size items. i went into an office to rent space and my bag REAKED which outed my use right away, i have MS and look very healthy so most ppl would just assume i'm a pothead. and equally as important i've killed a few very expensive handbags because of that beautiful waft that rolls in when your carrying some quality meds. I'm in Cali and there are 15 medical marijuana states in you include DC who just passed the other day

[Grant]

Well smoking cigarettes is perfectly legal, but a lot of places fine people for smoking nowadays... And maybe people would want to conceal the smell so that they don't get caught having it in certain situations.

[karecares]

Well if it's legalized you won't really need to conceal the smell, either.

in cali gov arnie refused to sign into law work protection for those who utilize medical marijuana even if it's for medical use. there are plenty of reason's to conceal the smell. think about your older generations who have a lot to loose if they get caught with something they have the legal and medical right to have.

[PotVsKtl]

Or you could just not bring weed to business meetings.

[karecares]

that sounded a lot worse than it was. i didn't actually bring the weed in but it had permeated the handbag and i realized it after already there

[lowfront]

What I usually do is just spray all my bud with fabreeze when I get it

[Drinkey McDrinkerstein]

it's pretty silly to think that just because pot is legal it would be okay to just carry around and let people know about it. Legal or not it's still a drug. People who smell like alcohol are still ostracized because of it.

[malcolmjamalawesome]

Good point. On a related note, I hate hippies.

[PotVsKtl]

When we legalize weed I'm going to smoke it INSIDE YOUR BODY.

[karecares]

You sound like you know what you're doing. I opened an S-Corp in 2006 through Legalzoom (cheap and easy) and it was the best thing I ever did businesswise. Just gotta dive in. My advice is real basic: get multiple vendor quotes and make them compete for your business, always pay referrals to folks who refer you business (I pay 15% of the margin), stay calm and professional at all times and under any circumstance, give customers gifts (people love gifts). Pretty basic really. And have fun! Smile! Yippie!

Cool, I was considering doing all the paperwork myself instead of LegalZoom, I'll take another look at it when i'm ready to make the move to llc but initially i'm starting out as a general partnership, obviously with a partner and looking to start on an ecommerce site and go to the trade shows

[Grant]

sounds intriguing

[malcolmjamalawesome]

Why General Partnership? Go LLC. Unless you enjoy being personally liable for your drug paraphernalia company, Scarface.

[PotVsKtl]

That's how they got Chong.

[karecares]

the start up money is going all into the sample products and first couple of runs of production. i'm bootlegging it and unemployed and in order to get the start up funding i'm going to need i am going to have to produce the samples first. After that I plan on going llc.

[PotVsKtl]

Go on that show where they make fun of your shitty product and then try to buy it out from under you.

[malcolmjamalawesome]

Or go on a gameshow.

[karecares]

That's how they got Chong.

Poor Tommy, sent to prison solely for licensing his images onto bongs. He was also a very big message case for pissing off the dea/cops so much with their movies. Got to love C&C

[donkey sex]

Cool, I was considering doing all the paperwork myself instead of LegalZoom, I'll take another look at it when i'm ready to make the move to llc but initially i'm starting out as a general partnership, obviously with a partner and looking to start on an ecommerce site and go to the trade shows

Yeah, if you know the in's and out's, then save yourself some money. I went in pretty blind.

I love the effectiveness of door-to-door marketing, some people call it guerilla marketing or feet-to-the-street. Make alot of sales calls. Databases from InfoUSA for mailors to targeted clientel. *I'm getting myself excited*. *Deep breath*. But if you are doing strickly ecommerce then maybe none of that applies. Ha. I guess "adwords" and "site linking" and all that.

[karecares]

i'm going to want to keep this baby for a few years before somebody tries to fuck me out of it and ruin my product and want although i haven't done my end of business section for my business plan yet but i have a feeling that after all this work i'm going to want to not loose it as soon as they'd want me to

[karecares]

Yeah, if you know the in's and out's, then save yourself some money. I went in pretty blind.

I love the effectiveness of door-to-door marketing, some people call it guerilla marketing or feet-to-the-street. Make alot of sales calls. Databases from InfoUSA for mailors to targeted clientel. *I'm getting myself excited*. *Deep breath*. But if you are doing strickly ecommerce then maybe none of that applies. Ha. I guess "adwords" and "site linking" and all that.

i like the door to door marketing/ guerilla marketing, it suits my personality. any other suggestions on where to get databases? The cannabis community is pretty grass roots and bc of what it is i dont know how much info databases would contain. I plan on doing both the site/adwords etc and in vivo.