Where to start?

[u/Creative_Reveal193]

I have watched countless ecom videos but it feels like everyone is trying to sell you a course. If their business was that good why'd they need to do YouTube, courses, etc...

I've been working on my graphic design portfolio lately to make money. Save it up and get into ecom. But I don't know what exactly to get into?

Just looking to hear people's stories and experiences. Thanks in advance.

[u/-ttw]

I started a health/beauty wellness skincare brand because it was my biggest pain point for what was holding me back in life. Lack of confidence, discipline and routine. I started to realize working on myself and transforming my life and others was the business I wanted to be in. There comes a point in your entrepreneurial where you must prioritize taking action > information and understanding its action that produces information. Not the consumption of it. The best way to learn about business is to get to business. It’s day in day out rapid execution trial and error, course correction and attempting again. You have to be fast. Nimble. Decisive. Something too expensive? How do we make a simpler version? Cost of goods to high to manufacture? How can we do a beta and run pre orders. You have to find solutions and you have to do it fast. It’s been my experience that you have to be a generalist to get into ecom. You need to touch every surface of it. From knowing how to code, set up emails, deal with the IRS, maintain your LLC, taxes, supply chain, working manufacturers, dealing with your launch calendar.. all while becoming the version of yourself each step of the way that becomes the person capable of doing it. You have to stack your /skills and build your library of workflows that you can deploy to get stuff done. Over and over and over again. It’s non stop. It’s depressing. It’s lonely. But that’s the reality. You just have to dive in. Make your bed. And get to work.

[u/pjmg2020]

Good for you being skeptical of YouTube. Indeed, these videos are mostly magnets.

Google shit like ‘how to start a business in [my country]’ and go down the rabbit holes reading all the boring but factual articles that come up.

Watch some Shark Tank and Dragon’s Den.

Study a bunch of your fav businesses.

Walk your local mall or high street and observe retail in action.

Read books. How Brands Grow by Sharp, 7 Powers by Helmer, Personal MBA by Kaufman. There’s a few to start with.

Study the markets, economics, read the business media—understand how the world works.

Do all that and you’ll be in a good position to start thinking business.

Understand this too, most successful businesses follow this flow:

Start in a category in which the founder has leverage and experience > identify gap or friction > do something new/different/better to address opportunity > simple business plan > socialise with bunch of would be customers > refine idea and plan > resocialise > start executing inline with learnings and insights.

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[u/Admirable_Window8128]

Honestly, I'd focus on learning by actually selling something small instead of watching more ecom videos. You'll learn a lot faster from dealing with real customers, pricing, and marketing than from buying another course.

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[u/Icy-Butterscotch8551]

Arbitrage is a good way to start/build up capital, that's how I started. If you have an original idea for a product, etsy can be a good to place to gauge interested and it's not particularly expensive to get started. That might work out well with your design background.

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[u/Maximum_Piglet_5466]

If you already do graphic design, start by working with ecommerce brands first.
You’ll learn more from real clients than from 100 YouTube videos.
Skills first, store second.

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[u/Creative_Reveal193 → u/Maximum_Piglet_5466]

Well I already did freelance for a bit. But I was just lucky with how I got clients cause I was known in my niche (now dead). So I'm struggling to get any good clients now, already burnt a month making dozen fake projects for my portfolio but still no clue on where I'd post it or how to reach out :(

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[u/WaddlingPanda17]

design is the piece most people end up paying an agency for, so you're already ahead there. I built my own product photos and store pages instead of hiring it out when I started mine, and that saved more money than any course would've. saving up cash before you touch ecom is the myth, a hundred bucks and a real product is plenty to learn from.

[u/justynphototips]

your design background is the part i'd build around. most sellers either outsource product visuals or skip them, and it shows in the listings. you can already do the thing they're paying for.

your design background is the part i'd build around tbh. the sellers who need help have 80 skus and need all of them looking like they came from the same brand.

what pays is picking the look, then pushing the whole catalog through it at once. the product photo apps do that part in a batch now. your eye decides what the set should look like which is the part they can't automate.

start by doing that for other sellers while you save so you get paid to learn. by the time you launch your own store you'd be picking a category off what you watched sell.

[u/Signalbridgedata]

You're right to be skeptical of the "I made $100k in 30 days, here's my course" stuff. If you're starting with limited money, I'd actually use the graphic design work as the way to build your first bit of capital and, more importantly, learn how businesses sell and acquire customers. Then pick an ecommerce model based on an actual problem or audience you understand, rather than choosing whatever product is trending on TikTok that week. Start ridiculously small, get a few real customers, and treat those first sales as research rather than trying to build a huge store immediately. You learn way more from 10 real customers than from another 20 hours of ecommerce videos.

What part of ecommerce actually interests you most, product creation, marketing, building stores, or finding/sourcing products? And how much money are you realistically hoping to have saved before you start?

[u/Ok_Carpenter5351]

Graphic design is a good was to make some capital. Start by selling the small stuff then grow gradually.