How I Started My First Business

It's fun taking the trip down memory lane for brainquig and way back in the day, the sports nutrition company. And I say sports nutrition because turns out Americans did not want to be smarter at all. So selling something for improving cognition at that point didn't work at all. But I got reports back. This is when it's very high touch from athletes, especially NCAA athletes who bought it for studying. They're like, yeah, I don't really care about studying though, but it improved my time off the blocks for my track event. It helped me with this. Tell me what that end being the idiot that I was. I ignored that for ages.

对于Brainquig和早期的体育营养公司来说，回忆过去的旅程真是有趣。我之所以说体育营养，是因为事实证明，美国人根本不想变得更聪明。所以当时销售改善认知能力的产品根本行不通。但我收到了报告，这些报告来自运动员，尤其是购买该产品用于学习的大学体育协会（NCAA）的运动员。他们说，嗯，我真的不太在意学习，但这确实提高了我在田径比赛起跑线的时间。它对我有所帮助。告诉我这一切，而当时的我真是个白痴，我对此一直视而不见。

I was like, no, this is brainquig. Right. In my own head. So I kept pounding my head against a brick wall. Didn't work. And eventually I was like, well, wait a second. They're using this for sports. The only reason I spent so much money on my supplementation as a percentage of my incomes, because I cared about sports performance really, and then pivoted. And that's when the whole thing took off. But that's not the takeaway that I was going to share.

我当时就觉得，不，这是脑筋急转弯。就在我自己的脑海中。所以我不停地往墙上撞头。结果并没效果。最后我又想，嗯，等一下。他们是在用这个来进行体育运动。之前我在补充品上花了这么多钱，这是因为我真的关心运动性能，然后我改变了思路。从那时起，整个事情就起飞了。但这不是我要分享的要点。

What I was going to share is at the very earliest stages, I had a website up, which a coworker at work, a true sand had put together for next to nothing. Right. Cause we were always scheming and we were always just like going out to lunch and bullshitting and we were friends. So I paid him, but I couldn't pay him much. And he was like, it's fine. And he put together a website for me. I had not manufactured anything. I had done quite a bit of basic math to figure out if the economics would work. Nothing fancy though. It's like, how much do I think I could manufacture this for? What are some of the basic costs of sourcing? Da da da da. Land it on a retail price. And at this point, nothing has been made. Nothing has been manufactured. There's no product to ship. And I just went to coworkers who were friends and asked them if they would. And it wasn't exactly guilty, but these people at that point didn't really need this necessarily. Like it could be a benefit. But I was like, Hey, I want to try this out. Like, would you be willing to just pay for one of these so that I can try to do a first manufacturing run? And they're like, yeah, sure. Why not? You know, 50 bucks or something at the time. And that gave me just the bare minimum of capital to start having conversations.

我原本打算分享的是早期阶段的事情，我搭建了一个网站，是一个真正的同事免费帮我做的。对，因为我们经常在一起策划，一起出去吃饭聊天，我们是朋友。所以我给了他一些钱，但我付不了太多。他说没关系，然后为我制作了一个网站。当时我还没有生产任何东西。我做了一些基本的数学计算，以确定经济是否可行。没什么复杂的，就是我能以多少价格生产这个产品？一些基本的采购成本是多少？最终确定了一个零售价格。而在这个阶段，还没有制造任何东西。没有产品需要发货。然后我就去找一些同事朋友，问他们是否愿意。当时这些人并不一定真正需要这个产品，但是它可能有益处。但我就是想试一试，我问他们是否愿意支付一笔费用，这样我可以尝试进行第一次生产。他们说，好啊，为什么不呢？当时可能是50美元之类的费用。这给了我开始交流的最低资金。

A lot of that. And then I had to negotiate everything, right? Because I would go to these contract manufacturers and they're like, well, our minimum order size is this. And I had them like impossible. That's never going to work. And then they're like, and our minimum term of commitment is this. I was like, Oh, also impossible. And so I had to sell a vision. And at that time, I was able to, because I'd learned through cold calling off hours, get ahold of the president of this manufacturer, got him on the phone at one point. And I was just like, I know at some point somebody gave you a break. I'm not asking for anything other than, can I drive to you at any time and just tell you about my vision for this business? And if we are able to find a way to work together, which I would like to, I promise you that I will work with you exclusively as manufacturer as we grow the business. Went down and I think he just maybe just amused more than anything else. He's like, okay, sure. Like after all of a sudden done, and then I used them for years, right? And that's how the deal got done. But it all hinged on in the very beginning, the pre sales, right?

那么多事情。然后我必须去协商一切，对吧？因为我会去找这些合同制造商，他们会说，我们的最小订单量是这个。我会告诉他们这是不可能的，这行不通。然后他们又告诉我，我们的最小承诺期是这个。我会说，哦，这也是不可能的。所以我不得不卖一个梦想。那时候，我通过在非工作时间打冷电话学到了一些技巧，最终成功联系上了这家制造商的总裁。有一天我成功地给他打了电话，我只是告诉他，我知道在某个时刻肯定有人给过你机会。我不要求任何其他东西，只想知道我可以随时开车去拜访你，讲述我对这个业务的愿景。如果我们能找到一种合作方式（我希望如此），我保证我们会作为独家制造商一起发展业务。我去见了他，我觉得他或许只是觉得好笑，仅此罢了。他说，好吧，当然可以。经过一番努力，我终于和他们合作了好几年。这就是交易达成的过程。但一切的关键始于最初的售前工作。

And also I was buying, I mean, negotiating at that time. You want to talk about a real pain in the ass magazine advertisements. Feedback loop is really slow, right? After you have put out the cash for the advertising, you might not know what you're selling for months. It could take a really, really long time. And so what I did when I started getting more ambitious, because I started with small ads, of course, and then once I got to kind of full page ads, I would go to. Say distributors. And I would say I would love to feature you exclusively in this particular ad. But for that to work, I would just need you to preorder X amount of inventory. So they buy X amount of inventory. Let's say that's $10,000. And I would also say like it's $10,000, but the rate card for this full page is like 40 grand. And they'd be like, okay, well, seems reasonable, especially since we're going to make a profit on the product. Then I would buy the ad space as a remnant. So I would negotiate last minute. I would get that like five grand. So what has happened? If I had them preorder, let's say 10 K paid five, I'm already in the black, no matter what the outcome of the advertisement, right? And this is the kind of stuff most entrepreneurs are going to have to do on some level, something like that.

当时我正在购买，或者说是谈判。你要说说这些杂志广告真是让人头疼。反馈循环真的很慢，对吧？在你投放广告的时候，可能几个月都不知道你在卖些什么。这可能需要很长很长的时间。所以当我开始更有野心时，因为我开始从小广告入手，然后逐渐转向整版广告，我就去找经销商。我会说我很想在这个特定广告中专门推荐你们。但为了使其奏效，我需要你们预定一定数量的库存。所以他们购买了一定数量的库存，假设是1万美元。我还会说，这个全版广告的标价是4万美元，但你们只需支付1万美元。他们可能会说，好的，看起来合理，尤其因为我们的产品能赚钱。然后我会以次品的价格购买广告空间，即最后时刻谈判，我会争取到5千美元。这样一来，如果他们预定了1万美元的产品，支付了5千美元，无论广告结果如何，我都已经盈利了，对吧？这就是大多数创业者在某个程度上都要做的事情之一。