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Hello everyone,
This course has been a pretty intense learning curve so far. I’m beginning to see why the course material focuses on the Business model Canvas. Filling out the canvas I’ve had to make some adjustments to what my business model is and in what areas I will be focusing my energy.
For example, originally I was planning on having a few product lines of wood furniture. Building them in batches to save time and increase efficiency. My second revenue stream would be from selling custom furniture. However, I realized my direct competition would be the big box furniture stores like Leons and Ikea. I don’t think my small business would survive in a market with those big fish. So, what separates my business from them? Custom. My plan moving forward is to focus on Custom woodworking and drive sales towards that and try to sell some of my product lines to my loyal customer base that I intend to create by providing extra value. I’ll do this by giving freebies to go with purchases of large items. (A set of handmade coasters to go with a table set, book ends for a bookshelf).
I think it’s going to be a lot of trial and error and learning from my mistakes. I’m currently prototyping some products right now and looking at the costs of starting a business. Looking forward to input from everyone. If anyone has advice for a newbie with limited business know-how, I’d love to hear it.
-K.G.
Hi Kody,
I’m glad the canvas is helping you evolve your business model. I love the canvas process for this reason. Imagine if you were still iterating your business model, but using a business plan to do that… anytime you had an insight on something that needed to change, you’d have to go through all of those pages of the business plan to make the adjustments! The canvas is where you create and iterate, the plan is where you being to implement.
Deciding on your products is going to completely hinge on who you are targeting and understanding what they are looking for. People who buy from Ikea and Leons are motivated by price and convenience. Those are not your people, because they are very clearly not looking for heirloom pieces they can pass down to family members. They are giving up quality for price and convenience. You want to understand the people who are willing to wait longer and pay more, in order to get the craftsmanship you can offer.
There will always be more money in custom work. Over time, you will probably get more efficient once you can see patterns in what people are looking for. You might have a base design you can modify to achieve custom needs/wants, instead of starting from scratch with every project.
Erin.
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