You can literally start making money in just a few days!
So, let me tell you a little story about how I got started. I had some paracord that I had bought from the dollar store that I used to tie down the tarps when I moved some items out of storage. Remembering back from my navy days, as a Boatswains Mate, I used to tie several different knots for my job. One particular knot that not only performed a particular function, also looked pretty cool as well. That is the monkey fist knot.
We used this knot whenever we wanted to toss a line over long distance. Back in my navy days, we would hammer lead into a round ball and make the knot around the lead. One common use for the knot was for mooring lines. We’d swing the monkey fist knot line over to the peer that was attached to our mooring lines for the dock workers to pull across from the ship.
So anyway, I wanted to see if I still remembered how to make them. Well, let’s just say that Youtube is a great resource for learning how to do nearly anything.
After finishing it up, using a golf ball for the core, I showed my wife my great accomplishment. She was rather impressed and told me that I should make them and sell them on eBay. I kind of laughed her suggestion off, but proceeded to make a few more, as she was telling me some of the practical uses for them, such as luggage pull tags, key chains and miscellaneous decorative items.
After doing a search on eBay, I realized there was actually quite a large market for them. So, I made up a few key chain monkey fist knots using hollow plastic golf balls. I think I sold a couple, but they didn’t really seem like they were selling as much as I’d hoped. Looking at all of the other options for key chains, I saw where some were making them using steel balls for the core and selling them as defensive weapons.
Now that perked my interest. There were several different designs people had come up with, so I decided to make a few myself. I searched and ordered some of the 1 inch ball bearings, key rings and paracord so I could make up a few defensive key chains myself. After looking at other designs, I decided on making my monkey fist key chains using 4 different knots. The combination just looked to be the best design from every other design I compared it to.
I put a few of them up for sale on eBay and was surprised how quickly they sold. This motivated me to buy more supplies so I could post more variations for sale. I was amazed at how many different colors and patterns you could get for paracord. After a few weeks of adding more options to my eBay listings, the sales continued to trickle in, a few each week. And, just as anyone looking to reduce costs would do, I started searching at other options for where I could purchase my supplies from. I found out that in order to get better pricing, I could no longer buy my supplies retail and make the profit I was hoping for. I joined Thomasnet.com, which is a huge sourcing resource for all things direct from US distributors and manufacturers. I assembled a list of manufacturers for all of the parts used to make my monkey fist key chains and contacted several for each part.
Just as you would suspect, in order to get the great prices from distributors and manufacturers, you have to buy in bulk or large quantity. Most of them won’t sell to individuals or anyone that does not have a legitimate business. Some won’t sell to you unless you have an actual store location. That pushed me to get an EIN from the IRS and register with my state for sales tax. That gave me the ability to purchase items I use for my business tax exempt.
To continue with the story, I used a bit of cash I had on hand to buy my first bulk orders of key rings, paracord and steel ball bearings. Needless to say, after using up a good portion of those supplies to create a little bit of inventory of key chains, plus what I was selling, I was in need of ordering more supplies. For the first couple of months, I was literally using every bit of income from my sales to buy more supplies. But that’s not all, I also had to invest in other things, such as labels for shipping, copy paper for my printing and I also bought a new inkjet printer that could handle the amount of printing I was doing each week. I also had to buy packaging material for shipping the key chains to the customers.
I then wanted to spread out and get more exposure on other selling sites, so I also signed up with Etsy, Mercari and Bonanza. I also spent money on a domain name and built my own site to shop at using WordPress and WooCommerce…which is this site you are reading this article on. Before I knew it, I had so much money coming in and going out, I was having trouble keeping track of everything. I signed up with Wave Accounting, www.waveapps.com. They offer a free version that allows you to keep track of purchases and sales…pretty much everything you need as a startup business.
I was quickly shocked at how and where all of the money was going. After just a few short months, I am dealing with nearly 20 different vendors and have had hundreds of sales. I went from a few sales each week to a few each day and have since sold over $2000 worth of key chains in the past 30 days. Of course, looking to increase sales, I found other types of defensive key chains I could add to my inventory, which have only helped my overall sales.
Now, I am looking to broaden my inventory with other items to add to my store. I really don’t think it matters what the items are, as if it is being made, someone is looking to buy it.
I was just reflecting back about what it is that I have started and what this has actually done for the economy. I am providing products that people want to buy, so they are spending money on them, in which gets to me after the selling service takes their cut, which usually involves PayPal or some other merchant service.
This has caused me to buy various supplies from US manufacturers, so I am helping them maintain a need for production, which employs US workers.
You can literally pick anything on a site like eBay and sell it yourself. Do a little bit of research on how you can either make it yourself or where you can buy it at a discounted price and turn around and sell it.
Overall, starting a business is one of the best things anyone can do to help the economy. You will cause a need for supplies of many different items and eventually trickle some income your way to boot.
So what are you waiting for? Get out there and start making money today!
