The Autistic Entrepreneur Thread: Let's network/share ideas

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Let's use this thread to share with each other strategies, business plans, marketing ideas, investments, capital needs, staffing issues, licenses, regulatory factors, book-keeping, legal, websites, PR, shrinking margins, etc....

Whether you are self-employed company of one or whether you have employees, share your successes and failures.

We can really help each other if we will open up and try it.

What business do you run?

Once I had online retail store with T-shirts for various youth subcultures. The ideas was simple - we buy high quality T-shirts in US online and then re-sale them in Russia. Odds were on our side - most of T-shirts in Russia are of poor quality (so even average American is awesome there), wholesale and even retail prices on clothes in US are 3-4 times lower then in Russia for the same quality so we were able to set prices lower than our competitors had, and the audience for T-shirts is quite large everywhere in the world.
Business was successful, with minimal investments we had a profit of something like 20-25% per month, that's very good.
I had a team of few guys whose duties were to maintain site and facebook group, to deal with customers and to advertize our goods. Personally I was coordinating activities, formed the assortment with their assistance, and negotiated with the suppliers - the lattr was difficult sometimes but while it's been done by e-mail nothing impossible.
Clients were very happy with our T-shirts and prices, however finally I found it's too boring, in fact it was just another job with the only purpose to make money. That's why I dropped the business.

Congrats on your success.

May I ask what you do now since folding the business?

For money I'm working as IT Manager, boring office 9-5. I tried various side projects, mostly of social and nonprofit directions, not business - and finally I found an idea of one really interesting and useful for people around. Now it's on the preparation stage, and in next two weeks, before the end of May, it will be launched for public. I'll make notification on Worng Planet forum - I'm sure it will be especially interesting for many people from here

I guess I am what you could call a 'picker'. I am an e-commerce merchant. I buy stuff specifically to resell online. While I haven't really been able to commit to it recently being away at University, I hope this summer to get as much inventory as I can listed and sold now that I have the time. I have been selling since July 2012, and it has put roughly and extra $1800-$2100 in my savings, and I have a lot more inventory which has never been listed waiting to find new homes. Here is a breakdown of what I sell. I've noticed that the stuff I sell either directly or indirectly relates to an interest or interests of mine. Here is what I usually sell.

Trading cards
- Hockey cards, basketball cards, Magic The Gathering cards, Lord of the Rings cards, Pokemon cards, Star Wars cards, and others.
Old coins
- I mostly have old foreign coins, but I do have some U.S. Lincoln wheat cents.
Vintage and collectible books
- Pretty much anything with a 1970's or older print date I sell.
Music
- Cassette tapes and CD's
Movies
- Mostly DVD/BD's, but I do have some VHS like Disney, obscure, classic films, non mass produced, and brand new still sealed titles.
Video/computer games and software
- I mostly have computer games and software, but I do occasionally sell a console video game.
Toy cars
- Brands like Hot Wheels and Matchbox as well as other brands.
Collectibles
- This could be anything from mugs, glasses, things made from precious metals, or anything really that could be defined as collectible.
Computer/electronics
- This is something I have recently gotten into. I mostly sell cables, film cameras, cases for smartphones, electronic and computer accessories, vintage electronics, and anything else that could fall under this category.
Automotive parts
- My primary things are emblems and lights (corner, turn signal, side marker, etc), though I have a large variety of different parts for all kinds of cars and trucks to sell.

I think that shows that I am a bit more than someone who sells something they find at home two times a month or so. I made a post a while back in RD about me as an e-commerce merchant. I made it so that anyone else who was interested in doing this could ask and learn from someone who has 1. Done this for a while. and 2. Knows what to do, how things should be done, good tips, etc. Alas, no one posted anything under it so it is lost under a mass of RD topics. Maybe here would be a better place for it?

So yeah, that's me as an entrepreneur. I am more than happy to help people out who want to try this out. Even if they don't list or sell to my degree, I know lots of tips and advice that can be most beneficial to someone new to the game. I actually have the links to my eBid stores and my Bonanza booth in my signature. If anyone wants to see how a listing should look, look at mine for ideas. Also, I just may have something you may want or know someone who would want.

I've had a website/online store up for a while which is powered by one of those print-on-demand companies who will take care of all the fulfillment of orders from customers.

But although I get a few visits from the link I put on my YouTube channel, I know I'm not marketing aggressively enough for my online store to be found by a wider audience on the internet.

Should I create a Facebook Page dedicated to my online store? I don't like social media on a personal level, but I can see that businesses of any description probably rely on it heavily for reaching a massive audience.

I feel that if I could only get even just a couple of my design/images to "go viral" my sales could go like hot cakes and I might even have an income. I know from the company blog that other members stores and designs do actually sell and these people are having success with theirs, so it can work. I think it's just all in the marketing to make enough people aware of your stuff.

Advertising is an essential if you want things to sell. Without it you sole dependency of sales will come from traffic that directly searches the site you are selling on.

I don't know if this would apply to your case or not since I am in complete control of my inventory, how it is packed, etc, and never have had someone else do that, but having lots of key words in your titles will make them easy for buyers to find in Google Shopping, which is how a majority of e-buyers find what they want to buy.

I have heard that social media can greatly help. I have a Google+ page to advertise my items and will soon be creating Facebook pages for my stores and booth. Anything that puts your items out there is helpful.

Oh, I always wanted to know a bit more about reselling business, thanks for info Do you buy stuff online or offline? I've heard some guys manage to both buy and sell on ebay and get profit somehow - sounds fantastic for me.

Thanks for that input AspergersActor; I've got the titles very key-word rich, but I haven't looked into Google+ pages so it's time to check that out, and I probably should create a Facebook page for my store. Multiple methods of exposure is key, I'm realizing.

About your e-commerce business -- I had wondered about selling on e-bay but the few things I started to sell incurred my PayPal account automatically transforming into "Business" status and I got hit with a monthly fee whether I continued to sell on e-bay or not. I wound up not selling any more yet was stuck with the PayPal business fee until I had to shut down that account.

Is there any way to dip one's toe into trying an e-bay business without getting stuck with that PayPal "upgrade" when you might not continue to be a seller after all?

Sometimes the stuff I sell online I got online. Almost all of the emblems I sell have come from lots purchased online. It is still possible to find something online and sell it for more, though I no longer sell on ebay.


I have never heard of that before. I don't or have ever had any monthly business fees that I have ever paid. Perhaps what you may be thinking of are the PayPal fees. Unless the buyer had money in their PayPal account to begin with, any transaction done through PayPal unless specified as a personal expense (i.e. payment owed, gift, etc) PayPal will take 2.9% of the total amount sent to you plus 30 cents. That doesn't include what ebay charges you (10% of the sale price, 10% of what you charge for shipping, plus any listing fees and add-on extras you may have incurred, and these fees will soon be going up if they haven't already). Part of the reason I no longer use feebay.

I think that Paypal has merchant services for businesses, but I think you would have to select that option yourself. I don't see how a few transactions would automatically make you a business. The PayPal fees are the best guess I can come up with for what those expenses are.

There are some other payment methods out there, but I have not researched them in depth and cannot give a good opinion on them since I don't know anything about them.

Sounds great!
I'll watch for the notification

I want to have a business making various entertainment products, such as small-scope video games (like mobile devices or indie services), graphic novels (web comic), episodic novellas, maybe some normal novels, etc. These kinds of things tend to bring in a decent chunk of money up-front and then have a trickle of residual income for quite a while after, so if I could get a few products released, I think it would be financially viable.

But I haven't managed to get going because I have too many "issues" that make it hard for me to work diligently on the projects. I have a few half-finished projects that probably need to be re-started.

I had a go at buying and selling domains in the past. Didn't make too much money.

I still own a nice domain that with development can become a huge hit.

Go Daddy sure did ....rich MFers