It has been three weeks since 'Read It and Eat' moved from preview to live on Cratejoy and it has been a thrill. Exciting, tiring, nerve-wracking, all of the above, but that is what we should expect with our side hustles and dreams, right? If a goal wasn't scary it wouldn't really be worth pursuing, at least to me.
Launching this box is part supply chain, part research and development, and part marketing.
There is a Lot to Research, But Don't Forget to GO!
A great deal of the upfront work is research and development; I spent the summer understanding the subscription box landscape, looking at the profiles that work, networking with other entrepreneurs and so on. I participated in a few networking events with other entrepreneurs to learn what worked when they launched and what didn't. But one of the biggest pieces of advice I got was to just LAUNCH and to TRY. That's a big thing. I can be such a perfectionist and want everything ready, I could have sat here for another six months trying to feel prepared. Sometimes you just have to take the leap!
2. Congrats, You Are Your Only Employee, For Now
A good deal of building a subscription box is the supply chain. I have had to learn pretty quickly to ask for wholesale pricing, learning minimum order quantities, and so on. My mailroom downstairs much hate me for the fifty paperbacks that showed up. They said it was rather heavy but thankfully I'm a powerlifter. Also, I am my own manual labor! Do you know who is individually wrapping books per box? Me! But that's okay. If you haven't heard from a vendor, no one else is going to follow up but you. That's your job too! You are IT (google analytics and google ads, anyone?), marketing (social media, podcasts, more on this in another blog post), supply chain, and more.
I have a lot of marketing lessons coming - but I think I'll save that for another post.
I want to end by thanking all of my first customers, my supportive friends and family, and also say, GO KIM, YOU DID A THING!
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