[BUSINESS] 25K USD Investment - more info inside - 200% ROI

[Blaater]

Going to give a little bit of insight into how this startup is doing. Which I believe is not bad and things should start to turn around now.

Week(from-to-dates)	Visits	% Change to last week
Week 9 (27-2 to 5-3)	295	--
Week 10 (6-3 to 12-3)	170	-42%
Week 11 (13-3 to 19-3)	589	+346% (online campaign started)
Week 12 (20-3 to 26-3)
Week 13 (27-3 to 2-4)

Finances

Week	Incoming	Outgoing	Difference
Week 9 (27-2 to 5-3)	€ 301,10	€ 1.013,73	€ -712,63
Week 10 (6-3 to 12-3)	€ 253,60	€ 307,70	€ -54,10
Week 11 (13-3 to 19-3)	€ 249,65	€ 381,25	€ -131,60
Week 12 (20-3 to 26-3)
Week 13 (27-3 to 2-4)

The outgoing each month will be a steady €105,73 for standard costs (Webhosting/Domain/Internet/Advertising), which is not very high. Above this the main cost will be investing in stock. We are missing out on a lot of sales at the moment due to not having enough items in stock. Out conversion rate on the website is currently very low and would be much higher with a better stock.

Big events coming up:
- Buying products for sale: Begin of April, currently set at € 930 euro.
- Three days event in The Netherlands: 15th, 16th and 17th of April, expecting a revenue of roughly €600 to €800 in those 3 days, but mostly used for advertising our website.

This website/company can turn profitable in a very short amount of time, the main factor is having items for sale, for which I am looking for an investor. I am expecting week 12 (this week) to be the first profitable week in the company.

If no real interest will come from an investor in the next few weeks, then this offer will also pass over. As soon as the revenue stream in consistent I will be able to get a standard loan from the bank for the company. But the bank requires the company to be atleast 3 months old, which is the reason why I have not yet taken that step.

[Blaater]

Update with last week:

Week(from-to-dates)	Visits	% Change to last week
Week 9 (27-2 to 5-3)	295	--
Week 10 (6-3 to 12-3)	170	-42%
Week 11 (13-3 to 19-3)	589	+346% (online campaign started)
Week 12 (20-3 to 26-3)	1.097	+86%
Week 13 (27-3 to 2-4)

Visits to website nearly doubled to 1.097 unique visitors.

Finances

Week	Incoming	Outgoing	Difference
Week 9 (27-2 to 5-3)	€ 301,10	€ 1.013,73	€ -712,63
Week 10 (6-3 to 12-3)	€ 253,60	€ 307,70	€ -54,10
Week 11 (13-3 to 19-3)	€ 249,65	€ 381,25	€ -131,60
Week 12 (20-3 to 26-3)	€ 202,16	€ 83,93	€ 118,23
Week 13 (27-3 to 2-4)

Without any physical events and a little less time marketing this week, our income did not drop a lot, I am happy with this result, as it is also our first week of turning profit.

Goals:

• Higher conversion rate
  
  • Add more items on the website for sale that are not cards
  • Add more single cards on the website
  • Rework and make a new banner on the site that is more attrective
  • Fill the homepage with items that will 'catch' the visitor to lower the bounce rate of homepage
• Maintain daily visitors while lowering marketing costs
• Start preperations for 3-days physical events, which will give a big exposure to the website

[Blaater]

Update with last week:

Week(from-to-dates)	Visits	% Change to last week
Week 9 (27-2 to 5-3)	295	--
Week 10 (6-3 to 12-3)	170	-42%
Week 11 (13-3 to 19-3)	589	+346% (online campaign started)
Week 12 (20-3 to 26-3)	1.097	+86%
Week 13 (27-3 to 2-4)	1.060	-3.5%

Visits to website remained the same, while lowering budget for marketing.

Finances

Week	Incoming	Outgoing	Difference
Week 9 (27-2 to 5-3)	€ 301,10	€ 1.013,73	€ -712,63
Week 10 (6-3 to 12-3)	€ 253,60	€ 307,70	€ -54,10
Week 11 (13-3 to 19-3)	€ 249,65	€ 381,25	€ -131,60
Week 12 (20-3 to 26-3)	€ 202,16	€ 83,93	€ 118,23
Week 13 (27-3 to 2-4)	€ 175,06	€ 1.112,32	€ -937,26

Week started out really slow, most likely due to our slower marketing in these days, which resulted in zero sales in a timeperiod of 4 days. And then it started again, the complete income was made in the weekend, and although they are not yet marked down as it is a new week, in week 14 we are already at €122 which came in just after 00:00 for the new week.

Goals:

• Higher conversion rate
  
  • Add more items on the website for sale that are not cards <-- We received our next items, we added Collection boxes, Tin boxes, maps, mats, codes etc.
  • Add more single cards on the website <-- Only roughly 100 cards were added to the site, this will remain a goal for this week. Almost all sets are now organised in maps, so it will be easier to add them on the site.
  • Rework and make a new banner on the site that is more attractive <-- We totally reworked the homepage and made the banner much smaller, this has improved the bouncerate so far, will keep an eye out after we have enough statistics how much of an improvement this was.
  • Fill the homepage with items that will 'catch' the visitor to lower the bounce rate of homepage <-- Done
• Maintain daily visitors while lowering marketing costs <-- I have lowered the Google adwords to €1,00 a day (from 5), and stopped the Markplaats Extra which costed €50 a month, we are getting a steady userbase now, and I am lowering the costs of running this business to start focussing on profit.
• Start preperations for 3-days physical events, which will give a big exposure to the website <-- Design for flyer is being made, which is step 1 for this event.

Updated the post with new numbers. While it does not look profitable, this is mostly because every profit we are making at the moment is spent on new items and extending our stock.

I may have found a first investor outside the board, it is within family and we are talking things over now, next step is making a complete businessplan.

As I am more and more confident in this business, I will also offer new investors on this board an interest rate of 8% yearly, instead of a cut of the profit as was first offered (if they are more interested in steady interest rate).

[Blaater]

Closing this topic for now. Have reached an agreement with a relative that is willing to provide this loan.