1. What are you going to sell?
Probably the best place to start, think of something you would buy yourself. Whilst there are a lot of items out there that are in high demand, there's not much point selling it if you're not passionate about it. I'm feeling really proud of my business (attempt) because I've created it myself from the name, the finance to the final sale, so it is important I'm selling something I can be proud of and enjoy marketing.
At first I would recommend choosing only a few products, maybe even one to start off with, for example I've chosen swimwear. As my business (hopefully) gets more successful, I want to get more styles in and expand into other areas of clothing including some handmade, self-designed pieces, such as my two pieces, when I have more time (final uni year problems).
If you can, choose something unique, don't copy anyone else because you are just creating competition for yourself - and what's the fun in being a copy cat? Finally, decide where you are going to source your items or how you are going to make them.
2. Finance.
The boring part. Starting a business is not easy, you can't just order some stuff one day and have it sold over night. Neither can you just dive in, you need to think about branding, copyright (which I will talk more about later) and of course - money. Depending on what you wanna sell, you're gonna need a sizeable chunk of cash to start up. I had to first work out how many bikinis I wanted to buy from my source, what styles, what sizes, how many of each size and what this will all cost. I want my business to be as professional as possible, which unfortunately requires more dollar input. I wanted my bikinis to be housed in a box, which I would decorate and then delivered in a mail bag. Again, I'm really nitty-gritty about sticking to my brand's theme so the mail bags had to be a certain colour, the decorations had to be just so, and so on. All costing £££ extra. I did manage to cut some cost by sizing down on the boxes.
Still interested? The best way for novices like me to keep track of spending, or to just experiment with numbers, I think, is Excel. Everyone hated it in school, no one understood it, "I'm going to use this in the future" said no student, ever. But, it's actually been quite helpful and its surprising how quickly I remembered/picked up the basics to create a simple total money-out spend spreadsheet. I won't bore you with the details but I basically kept it organised and simple with a column for my products, their size, price to me, price I'd sell for, postage, blah blah blah and another for all the extra branding items, followed by a grand total. I managed to make the spreadsheet 'work' so if my outcome/income will correspond with how many units I've bought/sold. It's geeky but I find it quite satisfying.
However, a small business can be done on the cheap by going basic if you're not too fussed about packaging.
2. Finance.
The boring part. Starting a business is not easy, you can't just order some stuff one day and have it sold over night. Neither can you just dive in, you need to think about branding, copyright (which I will talk more about later) and of course - money. Depending on what you wanna sell, you're gonna need a sizeable chunk of cash to start up. I had to first work out how many bikinis I wanted to buy from my source, what styles, what sizes, how many of each size and what this will all cost. I want my business to be as professional as possible, which unfortunately requires more dollar input. I wanted my bikinis to be housed in a box, which I would decorate and then delivered in a mail bag. Again, I'm really nitty-gritty about sticking to my brand's theme so the mail bags had to be a certain colour, the decorations had to be just so, and so on. All costing £££ extra. I did manage to cut some cost by sizing down on the boxes.
Still interested? The best way for novices like me to keep track of spending, or to just experiment with numbers, I think, is Excel. Everyone hated it in school, no one understood it, "I'm going to use this in the future" said no student, ever. But, it's actually been quite helpful and its surprising how quickly I remembered/picked up the basics to create a simple total money-out spend spreadsheet. I won't bore you with the details but I basically kept it organised and simple with a column for my products, their size, price to me, price I'd sell for, postage, blah blah blah and another for all the extra branding items, followed by a grand total. I managed to make the spreadsheet 'work' so if my outcome/income will correspond with how many units I've bought/sold. It's geeky but I find it quite satisfying.
However, a small business can be done on the cheap by going basic if you're not too fussed about packaging.
3. Create your brand.
This is probably the most important part of building a business. You need to think of some sort of theme and stick to it. So, firstly, a name. It could just be your name, a random word, something that means something to you. I've called mine Magical Matilda Apparel after my dog's Kennel Club/fancy pants show name, Magical Matilda. She is my world and my first ever dog which I begged my parents to get me for years, so she's a pretty special reason to name my business after. Make sure no one else has your business name by a simple Google search or something. Again, make it unique, try not to copy.
Next I thought of the style I wanted to use, so colours, fonts, patterns etc. I wanted my brand to be girly but modern and sophisticated. For fonts I didn't want it to be too sharp so I went on a hunt for some handwritten fonts online - there are 1000's out there to download for free! Sticking with the handwritten/hand made effect, I went for some watercolour effects to tie the whole thing together. It's important not to use anything online, such as a picture or pattern, without permission. I don't know the laws on this kind of thing, but it's best to just avoid any copyright sticky situations and make your own stuff, just in case. Obviously if there is a pre-set available to download saying "take this for your own use" or something, then yeah you can use it. But it's nice to make your own patterns and drawings from scratch!
I recommend using Pinterest to search for ideas, if you follow me using the link on the left hand side you can see some of the inspiration I pinned for reference. It was also helpful to create a brand mood board thingy, where you can create ever element of your brand in one document so you can see if it all looks good together, like the fonts, colours, patterns etc.
4. The logo.
The logo doesn't need to be a picture, it could just be your brand name in some kind of fancy font and arrangement but as my biz name is "Magical Matilda", I wanted some magical element to go with it. So I chose a unicorn! I couldn't just steal any old image from Pinterest, I had to create my own using a free design program GIMP. It's like Photoshop but less advanced. I got several images of unicorns together, used ideas from each of them to digitally draw my own unicorn from scratch. Its really simple, identifiable and says what I want my brand to tell people. I also created a sublogo from my main logo. This is kind of like a watermark and handy to put on smaller products.
5. Copyright.
I'm no expert in this field, I'm not 100% about the rules, laws and regulations but all I know is don't use anyone else's name, branding, logo, picture, font, emblem, whatever without permission. Same goes for products, it's illegal to sell fakes and with replicas... I'm not too sure, it's a really grey area from what I can understand and I do law! I'd just do your research and steer clear, be original. I've seen several other companies using certain character images on their products and selling items as "copies" of the designer brand and...meh... I'm not going to say anything but I would not do this! Just be careful out der.
6. Packaging!
I've already touched on this briefly, I love nothing more than receiving something new and it's in cute packaging! The whole point of me forking out extra for the boxes is because I want the customer to feel they can keep their product inside the box or use it for something else cause it is just so God damn pretty! I've made some stickers with my logo on to paste onto the box, along with some colourful adhesive film from craft stores and other iddy biddy little accents I have in my art box at home that are inkeeping with my brand. I don't mind each box being slightly different, as long as they all have the same theme. You can get some pretty cheap bits and bobs to use as decoration such as wrapping paper, printable sticker paper and self adhesive film. Try Wilko.
7. Taking photographs of your products
You should aim to make your products look as beautiful as possible. I used a plain backdrop to make the item stand out and cleared the background from any clutter. I used some self-adhesive film in a marble effect, it's really handy to roll out quickly whenever you need to take a few snaps. I used a proper camera to take the photos, too, not just a phone so the images can be good quality to look as profession as possible. I've also slightly edited them by making the background whiter and a few brightness/saturation adjustments but nothing too much so the product looks unrealistic.
Wilko Marble Self Adhesive Film £5
8. Advertising, selling and social media
There are so many platforms to sell goods these days, from eBay and Etsy to your own website or a simple PayPal transaction. I'm going to pay out for a nice website platform once I'm up and running as I feel this is the ultimate professional element to a business! If using a selling site, the site takes some commission when your item has sold so it is important to think about that extra cost too.
The best way to get yourself noticed is marketing, which is why I'm putting so much time and money into the look of my brand as I want people to stop and feel interested by it. I have created an Instagram for my business (@magicalmatildaapparel) before it is launched to get some form of following and interest while I'm adding finishing touches. Luckily I have a blog Instagram with a reasonable follower count where I can 'shout out' my business page to get it noticed that way. Hashtags are also my friend for that same reason. I'm also thinking of creating other social media pages like Facebook to ask my FaceyB friends and fam to join and share. I think it's good to get these accounts set up before you're ready to launch, or else you're just gonna be sat there twiddling your thumbs, all your products ready to go, just waiting for your first order to come through! Its fun to keep people waiting a little bit, bring about an element of excitement and WOW IT'S LAUNCHED when it finally does... No? Lol.
SOOO, those are my very unprofessional tips for starting a small business! If you understand non of these jibberish ramblings I've just been blabbing about at 1am, just try to comprehend that it's basically best not to copy! I should probably mention that tip 9. would be to have fun with it too - it's not all doom and gloom, surprisingly.
Next I thought of the style I wanted to use, so colours, fonts, patterns etc. I wanted my brand to be girly but modern and sophisticated. For fonts I didn't want it to be too sharp so I went on a hunt for some handwritten fonts online - there are 1000's out there to download for free! Sticking with the handwritten/hand made effect, I went for some watercolour effects to tie the whole thing together. It's important not to use anything online, such as a picture or pattern, without permission. I don't know the laws on this kind of thing, but it's best to just avoid any copyright sticky situations and make your own stuff, just in case. Obviously if there is a pre-set available to download saying "take this for your own use" or something, then yeah you can use it. But it's nice to make your own patterns and drawings from scratch!
I recommend using Pinterest to search for ideas, if you follow me using the link on the left hand side you can see some of the inspiration I pinned for reference. It was also helpful to create a brand mood board thingy, where you can create ever element of your brand in one document so you can see if it all looks good together, like the fonts, colours, patterns etc.
4. The logo.
The logo doesn't need to be a picture, it could just be your brand name in some kind of fancy font and arrangement but as my biz name is "Magical Matilda", I wanted some magical element to go with it. So I chose a unicorn! I couldn't just steal any old image from Pinterest, I had to create my own using a free design program GIMP. It's like Photoshop but less advanced. I got several images of unicorns together, used ideas from each of them to digitally draw my own unicorn from scratch. Its really simple, identifiable and says what I want my brand to tell people. I also created a sublogo from my main logo. This is kind of like a watermark and handy to put on smaller products.
5. Copyright.
I'm no expert in this field, I'm not 100% about the rules, laws and regulations but all I know is don't use anyone else's name, branding, logo, picture, font, emblem, whatever without permission. Same goes for products, it's illegal to sell fakes and with replicas... I'm not too sure, it's a really grey area from what I can understand and I do law! I'd just do your research and steer clear, be original. I've seen several other companies using certain character images on their products and selling items as "copies" of the designer brand and...meh... I'm not going to say anything but I would not do this! Just be careful out der.
6. Packaging!
I've already touched on this briefly, I love nothing more than receiving something new and it's in cute packaging! The whole point of me forking out extra for the boxes is because I want the customer to feel they can keep their product inside the box or use it for something else cause it is just so God damn pretty! I've made some stickers with my logo on to paste onto the box, along with some colourful adhesive film from craft stores and other iddy biddy little accents I have in my art box at home that are inkeeping with my brand. I don't mind each box being slightly different, as long as they all have the same theme. You can get some pretty cheap bits and bobs to use as decoration such as wrapping paper, printable sticker paper and self adhesive film. Try Wilko.
7. Taking photographs of your products
You should aim to make your products look as beautiful as possible. I used a plain backdrop to make the item stand out and cleared the background from any clutter. I used some self-adhesive film in a marble effect, it's really handy to roll out quickly whenever you need to take a few snaps. I used a proper camera to take the photos, too, not just a phone so the images can be good quality to look as profession as possible. I've also slightly edited them by making the background whiter and a few brightness/saturation adjustments but nothing too much so the product looks unrealistic.
Wilko Marble Self Adhesive Film £5
8. Advertising, selling and social media
There are so many platforms to sell goods these days, from eBay and Etsy to your own website or a simple PayPal transaction. I'm going to pay out for a nice website platform once I'm up and running as I feel this is the ultimate professional element to a business! If using a selling site, the site takes some commission when your item has sold so it is important to think about that extra cost too.
The best way to get yourself noticed is marketing, which is why I'm putting so much time and money into the look of my brand as I want people to stop and feel interested by it. I have created an Instagram for my business (@magicalmatildaapparel) before it is launched to get some form of following and interest while I'm adding finishing touches. Luckily I have a blog Instagram with a reasonable follower count where I can 'shout out' my business page to get it noticed that way. Hashtags are also my friend for that same reason. I'm also thinking of creating other social media pages like Facebook to ask my FaceyB friends and fam to join and share. I think it's good to get these accounts set up before you're ready to launch, or else you're just gonna be sat there twiddling your thumbs, all your products ready to go, just waiting for your first order to come through! Its fun to keep people waiting a little bit, bring about an element of excitement and WOW IT'S LAUNCHED when it finally does... No? Lol.
SOOO, those are my very unprofessional tips for starting a small business! If you understand non of these jibberish ramblings I've just been blabbing about at 1am, just try to comprehend that it's basically best not to copy! I should probably mention that tip 9. would be to have fun with it too - it's not all doom and gloom, surprisingly.
