From an idea to a business- Nicole Nagelgast

all right so welcome back to another champions journey video with uh an absolute legend i know i say absolute legend for every champions journey video but honestly you know the people that we feature in champions journey are all legends and nicole knucklehust nachelcast 10 out of 10 for pronunciation right yes thank you nicole is joining us today and she is going to share her journey for creating her e-commerce business the adventure book so nicole thank you very much for joining us today welcome it's awesome to have you here how are you doing i'm doing very well thank you for having me it's great talking to you again it's been almost a year almost a year yeah last time um we were just saying before we started recording this that it was australia wasn't it for the momentum day event in gold coast literally seems like another lifetime ago i think it like was just before just before yeah because kovid was just like we were just aware of covered weren't we i think there was a first five cases in australia or something yeah and i missed the sun oh god don't don't start don't start like me we'll just start by crying on this cool no we're fine we'll make it through we're entrepreneurs we're we're gonna make it we're gonna exactly i love it we've got this so nicole tell us a little bit uh what i'd like to hear about is your journey with the adventure book now before we we dive into that just a quick intro so that everybody watching knows who nicole is and her uh an overview of what she's done and basically launched the adventure book which is an awesome travel journal um nicole do you have any handy that you can hold off or show us anything like that oh yeah we didn't plan that one at all holy night so there you go as you can see it's an adventure travel journal with every independent country in the world uh featured within it and correct me if any of this is wrong nicole but i believe that you started the idea um because a friend of yours was looking for a sort of product before like this before she went on her travels and you looked online and you couldn't find anything like it at all so that was kind of the the idea yeah so that was the idea for the travel journal um graphic designer by trade and then when you launched uh the adventure book first couple of months you got it on the market you started selling products and then you sold your first thousand copies of the book within six to seven weeks is that right that's correct that was crazy and we end the first few months we ran it from the back of a van because we had planned the trip to australia and we just were like fulfilling orders from the back of a van in the middle of the outback like it was crazy wow i love that that is literally the ultimate bootstrap entrepreneur launch story ever it was it was oh amazing well tell us then a little bit about a little bit more detail of kind of how that happens so when you when you talk with your friend and um that you got this idea what was kind of the process after that between then and getting it to actual market i think the the first time the idea popped up and then actually uh producing it i think there was like a maybe a half of a year or a year in between because like how many times do you have an idea where you're like that would be really cool and then just not do anything with it at all just like just one ear in with the other ear out um so uh but my boyfriend robin he's always very supportive he's like that's a great idea you should write it down so i was like no no it's okay he's like nope write it down and then i was like well if i would do such a thing like it was would be cool if like this would be in there and that would be in there it's like write it all down so that's kind of like didn't think about it for months and then um my friend was like did you do anything with that the idea and i was like no not really like but it sparked the idea again and i just started working on it on and off so like a couple of hours a month and just kind of working out the idea um but it wasn't really a serious project and then i spoke to someone who runs the e-commerce project the e-commerce product within uh the ssm mentors community so import experts that's a community that just teaches people to how to do online entrepreneurship in all kinds of ways and i was asking like hey i have this idea um do you think it would be would be good for me to pursue this and he was so excited and like oh that sounds amazing you should totally do that and i think that was like june july 2018 and he was like but this is a great uh like gift for the holidays so if you can just get cracking and just launch it in november that would be great because then you can sell it for everyone as a christmas present um so that's what i did i just like what's what's to say i buckled down and and and just like went to work and then um in november we launched like we had to build a website we had to find a fulfillment center because i was not going to go to the post office every single day like i needed help with stuff like that um and i kind of realized it was a pretty big project so robin he offered like can i help with anything so i kind of took on the creative side of everything and the marketing and he did all the logistics and those parts and yeah yeah there we there we went there you went i think um you mentioned nicole that point where you kind of had the idea and then nothing really happened for a while because you're always like yeah it's a great idea but you know get around to it at some point or and i think a lot of us can really relate to that i mean i certainly can i've had many many things that i've either put off or not follow through on thought they're a good idea um and also friends the amount of time that i hear a friend say i thought of that idea but they never did anything with it and then someone else launched it so let's say someone is in that space right now maybe they've got an idea of sort of a physical product or something they'd love to explore and launch what would you say would be good advice to help somebody start to get a bit of momentum and turn it into something real uh to get towards that point for launching their first product oh that's that's a tricky one because obviously there are so many different ways you can you can do that i mean for instance i'm i'm a designer myself i'm a graphic designer so i had the skills to kind of just play around with that idea myself um without like having to pay a lot for a model to be made or anything but i think if you have an idea just um kind of sketching it out just just it whatever if it's if it's a book but you're not a designer for instance uh i would always just what all what are all the ideas that you have write them all down write them all out and just grab a notebook and like what would be the layout of your book like what will be on this page what will be there what will be there so just and it doesn't have to be a book but the idea is that you have to make it visual for yourself so that new ideas pop up and that new ideas can can can start to form um but i think the the main thing is i did a lot of research before i actually kind of started to seriously work on it because i didn't want to be like oh i did this and then a half three months later find out that it existed after all yeah so always just do your research what is already out there how could your product be different how could you improve on it um and just start somewhere if i think yeah cliche and bad advice like i really want to be more specific but like your idea could be like as big or as small and and like it's very hard to give advice on a specific thing but just start working on the baby steps and then the next step will often will just present itself yeah i think you're you're so right that i mean it's not not bad advice at all it's perfect advice that we you just have to start doing something because i found exactly the same thing when i was doing um bamboo bar so e-commerce business um kind of got put on whole kazakhovic but we're launching again very soon so it's like this little solid stick deodorant bar goes in the bamboo case and this started life as a sketch in the back of the journal and that's sometimes all it needs like you need the idea and then you just need to decide you know what i'm actually going to take this somewhere and do something with it and i think the moment that you make that kind of commitment because you decide i wanna i wanna see if i can make this happen i'm gonna put you know energy behind it that's when it starts to get momentum um so you mentioned as well about involving robbing your boyfriend in in the the project when it started getting a bit of that momentum um was there anyone else that you involved or was it just yourself or kind of how did how did other people start getting in into the mix uh i i definitely do not do this alone like we don't have any set staff but like uh from the very early on from very early on we had a printing uh expert uh who handles all like um make sure that we have the right quality for the cover for the paper on the inside make sure that like every all the um communication with the printer is going well like he really has my back and he would be asking me like look what do you want to do with this and like that's a really good question i didn't think about that yet so like having someone like that was really really helpful like i said we have the fulfillment center so that's a bunch of people helping us um and since just like almost almost a year now we have a personal va as well a virtual assistant that helps us with our customer service because that just became a little bit overwhelming uh yeah especially with cobit hitting and everybody wanted to know what was happening to their packages so we get a lot of help from that i have a financial advisor that helps me just make sure everything is good to go we have enough money for investments we have enough money set aside for our taxes we have like everything is now it feels structured and i feel confident and like i felt so much better having all my ducks in a row now that i also left my last like clients uh that i worked for um before like because a month ago i quit all of that so it's now just solely the adventure book so that's a big step but i feel very confident that we can make it now because we have solid plans and yeah so we get lots and lots of help um but yeah it's mostly just me and robin awesome and out of everything there there was something that you you mentioned and i want to pinpoint it because i relate to this this so much and it's again back to this point of like of actually starting the journey and actually turning an idea into something real that has momentum um because i launched an event in london last year funnily enough right before we were in australia so it's february the eighth was the event and we were in australia i think at the end of february it was like the last week or so february um 2020 and the event was called connect you london and that kind of it started as an idea because of a seminar sort of mastermind that i was going to for the year before and i was i had i had the idea and i wanted to launch it but i was dragging my heels and wasn't really making that much progress and the second that things got real and it just was like a snowball was the moment that i started looking at venues and started having conversations with other people and you said um there about the your your printing company and you spoke to them and then they start coming back to you and suggesting ideas and changes and and i just wanted to really pick up on this for for someone watching who's thinking well i've got an idea not really getting much traction but i want to get started i think one of the most powerful things you can do is just pick up the phone and inquire or contact with someone that will be involved in the process because suddenly you're accountable and suddenly you're their client and they're gonna they're gonna keep you moving forwards absolutely brilliant and any anything that you'd add to that like you know when when you did pick up the phone did you notice that something like that happened or was it already going beforehand it was i think it was when i talked to john from import experts when he was so excited and he was like well then you should get move on and do this before christmas and he's like kind of laying out a few things okay you'll need a website you'll need some someone or a company that helps you with shipping it and like the product needs to be there and those were like the three big items but then you're like okay how i'm gonna reverse engineer from that and like you said now he was kind of checking up on me every week like what what's going on what have you done and uh and and when i reached out to tim our our printing expert like he got me moving and like was like you have to submit it by this date if you want to have it before then and um yeah i think that you're absolutely right when you start involving other people in your project that you are suddenly thinking of okay what else needs to be done what else do i need to figure out before we get to that launch moment or um yeah because gosh if i had known all the steps that were there from moment one i would be like maybe not yeah like you say as soon as you're on that process and you you're speaking to other people and it becomes real you know you just you just overcome each challenge bit by bit you just take the next step and take the next step um would you say nicole were there any major sort of fears and doubts and things that were holding you back in the early stages or that you really had to overcome like what was the was there a big one or two fears doubts concerns uncertainties um like i can remember thinking to myself like uh if i would just like sell one at the first three days that would be great so like that already shows like how confident i was that everyone wanted to buy it so obviously you always fear that people might not like it or it's just not a success but before i started it i already knew that i had put aside some some savings and i knew okay the first print is going to cost this much well if if it fails then i have lost a bit of savings but we're not in trouble or anything yeah it's like we're just going to try it it seems like an awesome project to try and what who knows what it can bring to us and it did a lot um so that that took away a lot of the stress like it had like it had to work out financially um but yeah there was a big fear of like well okay now people have this book and they're not going to be a lot of people that aren't going to want to buy it and it's going to be hard to find customers or because it's only been like a few months since we launched our second book and um i i was really like worried that just having one product because our store just had one product for almost three years that like how are we going to make that profitable like we're not we don't have much many return customers like like a clothing store or anything yeah so uh i didn't want to be a one hit wonder either like at one point we were like okay people are really liking it that's awesome but we want to make this a sustainable business so um now we're working on uh so we have the second book but we're also working on a stationary line and just all kinds of things that people can use for their journals and we're working on other books so yeah you had to start somewhere and that was great but yeah that was one of my worries like but how are we going to make this sustainable like yeah will this work out so but yeah i didn't have those ideas from day one either it was just like start with that see where it goes and now we have tons of ideas what we can do what do you reckon the next product is going to be um first things are going uh sticker sets uh we're gonna probably do like an advent calendar at like next christmas so we're already planning next christmas wow because i had like a torturous like busy period because brexit covet everything came together and um so that was horrible so i'm like not gonna let that happen next year so i'm already planning on like christmas um so like a lot of stationery products are coming first we have a couple of books um planned and and just also just a lot of people ask me for recommendations for pens for stuff to use and just stationary supplies so we're also going to stock those as well just to make it an easy one-stop shop and uh yeah nice and i suppose that that's a really cool upsell isn't it like you you someone buys the adventure book and then you have this this nice like you know pen set maybe felt pen or something so people can really yeah yeah and people just want to make sure be sure that oh um i don't want to have uh the pens bleed through the paper so offering them on your own website like these won't bleed through this specific book like that's not enough for most people and uh something that i'm really looking forward to uh doing this year is not necessarily a direct like extra income stream but it's really um working on my youtube channel because a lot of people are like a bit afraid or that they're not creative enough so a lot of people want to see how do you make a page like that how do you how do you fill it in how do you make it look pretty and um so there's a lot of uh interest in that so that's something i want to do to help the people that we already that are already our customer also as a way to organically find new people that would be interested in our products and uh it could be a new income stream once we hit that uh that thousand subscribers and three thousand watching watched hours or something and start to kind of build an income stream with that as well because i think it could be really big but it's obviously gonna take quite a bit quite a bit of time and effort before we would hit that point but yeah love it good work well let's um let's take all of that then and sort of uh let's dilute it down into a really tangible lesson again for anyone watching who's in the early stages and maybe thinking about thinking about launching something and i think out of what you said then nicole a few things that i can definitely relate to is this idea of not not trying to run before you can walk so you only need to see a few steps ahead you don't need to necessarily plan out the entire life of the business before you start and number two i think you you have definitely done something in an area that you are passionate about and that you are interested in because travel has always been a passion of yours hasn't it definitely and i that's one of the tips that i was about to give like when you do uh come up with a product of your own make sure that it's something that you want to talk about you're excited about because like i can make like three hour long youtube videos and just never stop talking about it because i i love talking about it yeah and um if if you're gonna make something your business you want to make sure that you're passionate about it like uh otherwise you're not gonna have the same enthusiasm to bring up like after the first highs um yeah you just want to make sure that uh it's something you you love and cherish and and women love and cherish but you can start to live in chairs once it's your own baby yeah i i let's talk about this for a second because it's such a contested topic in the entrepreneurial space the whole idea of follow your passions and there's arguments on on both sides and and both arguments make sense and obviously different people have different opinions about this i do very much believe that as you've pointed out there that if you do not enjoy or not in some way passionate about what it is that you're doing at the core of your business the product you're offering the service you're offering if you're not interested or passionate about it it's not sustainable in the long term you're not gonna stick it out for three years five years ten years and really grow something awesome if you're just selling like i don't know toilet cleaners or something you're like i don't give a crap it's just a way to earn money um if anyone is selling toilet cleaners and you love it i'm sorry it was just an example that came to mind so yeah i think it is important to find something that you are interested in and also because there's just like there's so much opportunity out there now with the internet and like you have every market imaginable to the entire online population of the world which is billions yeah there is so much opportunity and therefore it's really hard to hone in on something specific yeah unless you're like right well i love travel so let's do something in that idea ding right and and what happened then as well and i think this is super important is that because you you're interested in this and you know and understand you know people who travel and what they might like and what the pains and problems are i would like what you would like exactly and that then was the basis of creating the idea yeah because if i was to like try and create an idea for a product in um i don't know curling or something i have no idea what challenges or problems or interests someone who does curling would you know would have so i'm never going to come up with it it's tricky so yeah so just off the back of that nicole like um let's say someone's watching and they think well i mean i have these i have some passions but i just i can't come up with any ideas or any products so i don't know what would work or what would sell like what would you say to someone in that space um well first of all i was you because i started out uh like i was a designer i was like that's not gonna be it for the rest of my life so i started to do affiliate um promotions and affiliate business and i really enjoyed that and that gave me a lot of freedom because i i worked on it a lot so i became quite good at it and there i learned like a lot of marketing skills so once i had my own product i knew how to market that like that was kind of like okay i need to do this and this and this um so i already like took a step learning other skills i knew like that was not going to be my pride and joy forever but it taught me a lot of new things um before i actually came up with the adventure book but what i would tell you to do is just what do i what do you enjoy doing now like go do those things like if it's if it's comic books like you could dm like a hundred people and just ask them like can i work for you like uh can i just do an internship with you i'll work for free or i'll uh just start gathering experiences and like if you message 100 people a couple will reply and just start experiencing things so that you can just continuously come up with new ideas and just um get deeper into that thing that you you're not even passionate about but you're interested in and see if that is something you can delve deeper uh into and always just chat with people who are in that community and just ask just not necessarily asking like if there was a product that you think could really be good for this because you're probably not gonna get something out of that but just listen and see what what what they are like oh wouldn't it be fun if for this or or i'd really love this and maybe then you can become that connecting factor um yeah i think just going out there and trying things out and just then ideas will spring up i believe love it and you mentioned as well about the the community the sfm and mentors community that really helped you learn those skills get the education how important would you say that was on your journey oh i think it was it was pretty massive um i think i think if i hadn't had the experience in selling online and knowing how to do marketing i think the the idea of the adventure book would just have passed me by it was like really cool for someone else to do um so it really gave me the confidence like well i know how to make a book i now know how to sell it wouldn't know how to sell it this could work so it gave me a lot of confidence um and uh yeah cool so i suppose i mean if somebody is watching this and they're thinking hold on i would like to find out what this education is about if someone's watching this under scrap the nine to five i'll pop a link just below where you can learn more about sfm mentors if you're watching through nicole um nicole guessing you could probably do the same right just pop a link below for where you learn through so family mentors yeah cool sure yep good so final couple of questions then if somebody is so they're starting out they've got the products idea they want to launch something they're like okay i know that i need an education i know that i need to get started um what other advice would you say had really helped you in those first six months of the adventure book with getting it off the ground any other top tips bits of advice guidance that you'd share with someone starting out i think social media is your friend and i think someone once told me like um when people introduce themselves they're entrepreneurs but they introduce themselves like uh i'm a i'm a masseuse or i am a therapist or i i'm a stock broker or whatever and he argued that that was the wrong way to put it because basically you're not any of those like the masseuse is actually i market a massage company because as as the um the owner of the business it's your your job to get customers and to make sure that people see it and know that it exists and other people could actually do the job within but the most important thing really is getting it in front of people like you could have the most amazing product but people don't know it exists like well we know what happens nothing um so that always kind of stuck in my head like okay i sell travel journals no i well i make travel journals you know i sell them i need to i market them i need to continuously find ways to make sure that people see them and that they are interested in them and show all the kinds of ways that it can enrich their lives and i think that's a piece of advice that really really helped me because we kind of kind of can get lost in all the little bits and bobs and pieces of what you need to do to uh to get started like get your core idea like it doesn't have to be freaking perfect like i would have loved to have a hardcover for my first book but that just felt like like no that must be too expensive we can't do that the investment would be too big so i'll start with a smaller one i'll start with a soft cover and um i just really honed in on okay how can i make it look good and attractive and show people how fun it is um and that is what helped me sell it and and people will and like i had quite a lot of likes grammar mistakes like no no grammar like venezuela instead of venezuela like hyping airs i was like oh god like a lot and people were like super nice about it they were like i know you're a small business you're doing great but i just wanted to let you know that it's venezuela so stuff like that it doesn't have to be perfect and um yeah marketing is really the the blood of your business um and marketing can sound like really but i just have to be in facebook ads all day well maybe but it's also just being present online like like i said with youtube that's going to be a big one for us i think maybe tick tock like yeah and of course it depends on what your product is like i'm a real b2b young audience like uh instagram is a great place for us but maybe your business is more linked in or more yeah so it depends got it so perfection is the enemy of great and be willing to just fail forwards just one little step at a time and getting eyeballs on your product i.e marketing is crucially important to learn if you're going to succeed as an entrepreneur absolutely i think that's the difference i think learning marketing before i started started selling this is the difference between me being successful now and being a starving artist got it great advice to finish on i love that nicole thank you so much for sharing that i love the adventure book i i love the concept i can't wait to start traveling again and i will definitely be picking up a copy of your book so that i can fill in whether venezuela or wherever it doesn't matter it's fixed now no that's great and you just need to sort out brexit because you're making it awfully hard for me at the moment tell me about it i mean i'm not even going to get into the political discussion right now it's absurd but um the challenges of an entrepreneur thank you so much thank you so much i will speak to you soon and have a good day bye for now bye bye you

2021-03-01 07:06

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