Need Advice

[Sailor]

Hi all, I am a retire Navy guy. Getting bored as a porch monkey. I came up with this idea for golf club attachment, that I can make at home, package and sell for maybe $10 a pop. Obviously I'm not going to be a threat to the big golf accessory warehouses. However I have never owned a business or run one. I just want to make a few bucks, occupy my time and help a few golfers along the way.

Where do I need to go from here. Do I need a business license, trademark my name, get a lawyer, etc... I know nothing. I don't want to end up in jail here. My initial plan is to make a hundred of these things, go around to all the golf courses and give them 5 free to sell, leave them a business card and if they like them they can call me and buy them for $10 a piece. maybe if they take off, put up a webpage. Hell maybe even startup a real company making them. But that's a little ways down the road.

Basically for now, what do I need to do, to just make them in my garage and sell them locally. Thanks

Mark

[mnphysicist]

I'd hook up with your local score chapter. They can get you rolling quickly and give you some advice as to the process. www.score.org

As far as golfing goes, the big show is in January, thats where a great deal of new products are introduced. And unlike a lot of trade shows, actual selling occurs on the floor. (At least it used to be that way).

A few other pointers.
1. try to determine the market size, if its large enough, you may want to look at intellectual property protection. If its smaller, than you want to hit it big, eg promote the heck out of it, figure on one year or less where you will have an exclusive product, as others may copy it.

2. Figure out exactly how much it costs to produce. This is a common problem when building things in your garage. People put little value on their time, and then went sales grow, and you need to add assemblers, or outsource the manufacturing, one often finds they make little money.

A rough guideline, unless you can be in the enviable position of setting the list price of the item to the limit of what the market will bear, is 5-10 X the cost of the sum of labor and materials. One can also weight labor vs materials depending on economic conditions. Eg, put labor at a higher multiplier than materials if you have problems finding employees.

3. If you have competition, but you are much more efficient, or the design is much lower in cost or has better yields. Do not try to capture the market by too low a price. It kills credibility and sales. I learned this the hard way..... Its lot easier to have a ton of sales with an insanely high markup, than few sales with a nominal markup due to the consumers perception of low price = low credibility and quality.

Thanks
Ron

[cd_replication]

Have you also thought about selling them on ebay?

Originally Posted by Sailor

Hi all, I am a retire Navy guy. Getting bored as a porch monkey. I came up with this idea for golf club attachment, that I can make at home, package and sell for maybe $10 a pop. Obviously I'm not going to be a threat to the big golf accessory warehouses. However I have never owned a business or run one. I just want to make a few bucks, occupy my time and help a few golfers along the way.

Where do I need to go from here. Do I need a business license, trademark my name, get a lawyer, etc... I know nothing. I don't want to end up in jail here. My initial plan is to make a hundred of these things, go around to all the golf courses and give them 5 free to sell, leave them a business card and if they like them they can call me and buy them for $10 a piece. maybe if they take off, put up a webpage. Hell maybe even startup a real company making them. But that's a little ways down the road.

Basically for now, what do I need to do, to just make them in my garage and sell them locally. Thanks

Mark

[JennyFine]

Hi Sailor!

You have a very interesting business idea, I don't think many people would come up with this idea so I am sure you will have a success. I think you got a very good advice from Ron how to organize your business. I can give you some marketing tip as you need to promote yourself in order to make your business successful.

You said that you want to establish partnership with golf clubs and courses.
You will have to initially present yourself as a professional so those businessmen would seriously consider your suggestion. For that you will need clear strong business identity that will make proper first impression on your potential customers. I know the importance of this stuff. I have seen many times the effect that business identity makes on business development because I work at web design company that designs logos, business cards, letterheades, envelopes (all that makes up business identity). I think Business Identity is extremely important especially in your area of business where business cards will be the first step to promotion.

Think about it and if you have any questions or need more info you can contact me for free consultation at eif@intetics.com

JennyFine

Originally Posted by Sailor

Hi all, I am a retire Navy guy. Getting bored as a porch monkey. I came up with this idea for golf club attachment, that I can make at home, package and sell for maybe $10 a pop. Obviously I'm not going to be a threat to the big golf accessory warehouses. However I have never owned a business or run one. I just want to make a few bucks, occupy my time and help a few golfers along the way.

Where do I need to go from here. Do I need a business license, trademark my name, get a lawyer, etc... I know nothing. I don't want to end up in jail here. My initial plan is to make a hundred of these things, go around to all the golf courses and give them 5 free to sell, leave them a business card and if they like them they can call me and buy them for $10 a piece. maybe if they take off, put up a webpage. Hell maybe even startup a real company making them. But that's a little ways down the road.

Basically for now, what do I need to do, to just make them in my garage and sell them locally. Thanks

Mark