I'm the founder and lead amateur designer over at
7bucktees and we've had quite a year of growth, profit and lessons learned. When I started that site, I didn't do it to make a profit, I did it to troll and mock non-believers and learn a new industry for myself.
I've rolled the profits from that site into a new startup that has been going through about 5 months of alpha testing, two name changes, and is now ready to exit the alpha test stage. That site is called
coinSMITHS, an "open source" creative market website, similar to RedBubble or Zazzle or the rest.
Where we will differ is 4-fold:
1. We're offering very high commissions, starting at 33% and going all the way up to 70%, on each sale
2. All commissions will be paid in BTC, regardless of how the order was paid for (paypal, BTC, LTC maybe?)
3. We are
open-sourcing our books nearly completely
4. True bitcoin-to-bitcoin wholesale supply chain/acquisitions of materials
The reason for this site's existence is to bring together 4 completely different markets:
1. artists internationally who can't easily transact with the mainstream creative markets
2. newcomers to bitcoin who aren't familiar with entrepreneurship and need a good taste of what it takes to run a business, profit-and-loss, etc
3. fulfillment companies nationally and internationally who want additional business
4. Expand the infrastructure of bitcoin employees to the international scope -- customer service agents, etc.
The first point is easy to comprehend: there are a lot of artists out there who aren't capable of selling on the big sites, and even the big artists might want to get paid in BTC. The second point is about bringing an education to those interested in running a business for BTC or fiat. Our books will be very open, posted on Google Docs for all to see and inquire about. The last point is a "future project" -- I want to allow print shops to engage in bidding on zip codes and item types, and when the order is booked, the cheapest shop to the customer can have that order. That's a big work in progress, and I don't expect it to happen any time soon, but it's a long-term goal.
In terms of commissions, we'll be doing something unique with our site: active vendors (those getting at least a sale a month) will be also sharing a "commission pool". The commission pool is 5% of sales, plus 33% of sales from any designs originating from me or the website (designs without vendors/artists). If someone comes and buys a
Bitcoin Accepted Here wooden sign, 33% of that purchase goes into the commission pool to be shared with ALL active vendors equally. As long as your product or products are selling, you'll qualify for your personal commissions (33%-66%) plus an equal portion of the commission pool. All paid in BTC.
In terms of the bitcoin-to-bitcoin wholesale acquisitions of materials item, I have already negotiated with 2 of my Chinese suppliers to accept bitcoin as payment. This is huge for me, although it's only a tiny portion of the materials we use on a weekly basis (less than 5% of my wholesale cost). In 3 weeks, I head to India to talk to my cotton suppliers. If I can get bitcoin into the supply chain on cotton goods, that's 25% of my wholesale cost. In spring 2014, I am traveling to Western Europe to talk to a Baltic birch wholesaler for the same purpose -- bitcoin wholesale supply chain to the States.
I'm hoping there are people here who might be interested in some aspect of this site -- if you're an artist, sign up (I'm giving away the first 25-50 vendor accounts for free during the beta kick-off). If you're a customer, order something. If you're a wholesale supplier of hard goods, talk to me.
TL;DR -- I want to make bitcoin a business reality, from start to finish, and I want to disclose everything I do and earn openly.
