I started a new company in 13 hours
Zero to 1 customers in 48 hours
You probably know this by now, but I work a normal job.
I am, by all accounts, very ordinary.
I’m not a director. I don’t have a team. I don’t make millions.
On Friday, I decided to start a new business*, in something I have no idea about, because, well, I wanted to. Here’s what happened, what’s next, and what I learned.
*I had the day off and this is how I like to spend my free time (lol).
Some stuff before we start
The reason I did this is because I have this overarching mantra I keep repeating to myself, over and over again.
» stop be scared of life«
Most people fail not because they’re not good enough, smart enough, talented enough, or whatever else. Most people fail simply because they rule themselves out of the game.
I’ve done it and see so many people doing it. The main thing you lack is self-belief. And really that stems from the fear of being seen as a failure.
Now, when things go right, the stakes get higher. I’ve managed to build a little following in this corner of the internet, so I do have in my head ‘what if it doesn’t go right’ ‘what if people think I’m a total idiot’.
But that is all the more reason to do the thing.
The reality is, building something from scratch is WAYYY harder than you think. It takes months for things to click, an age to get your first customer, and weeks of hard work before anything goes right.
And so, I wanted to show that:
a) it’s wayyyy harder than the internet leads you to believe
b) That is a really good thing and not something to shy away from
Remember: If you want to do a thing, you can just do it. You can start a business tomorrow. You can. Nobody will stop you.
The idea…
About a year ago, I changed my dog’s food. It was actually because of my dad (my hero). He’d been speaking to someone at the doggy daycare (yep, he takes his dog to doggy daycare) and they’d mentioned that there was a hierarchy of dog food, aka the raw stuff is the best, the kibble/dry stuff is the worst in terms of nutritional value.
So he started to make the shift to give his little dog a better diet, and that influenced me to shift my girls (I have 2 sprockers) to better food. It’s been about 1.5 years since then, and I make the girls’ food every few days from scratch (it’s actually cooking right now as I’m typing this).
Anyway, I tried the girls on raw, I didn’t love it, so I switched them to cooked stuff, but the good thing about raw is it has a percentage of bone in the meat, which is good for them (obviously I’m not a doggy nutritionist I just read about abit).
My dad started giving his dog natural chews for her digestion and for a bit of crunch, and so I started doing the same with my girls.
Then we were down the pub and bumped into someone who said their uncle’s dog had the cleanest teeth ever, and he saw by giving his dog a chicken foot every night.
I’ve been giving my girls natural chews for the last month, and I started to see a noticeable improvement in their teeth. The problem when you go to the shop is that you buy them in bags, and you can’t select what you want.
So I thought, I’d solve that problem.
Friday, 8 am — building (it started bad)
Total hours worked: 6ish
In 3 hours, I’d built the website, then rebuilt it. It was very bad in the beginning… like this bad (yes the first name was ‘Chompwell’ and yes I’m cringing).
After 60 minutes of building the website, I decided I didn’t like the branding, so I shifted it and then landed on the name ‘Wild Munch’* —naming the thing was wayyyyy harder than I thought.
After a bit of Googling, I was worried that the idea didn’t have much legs because people could just go to the shop and get the chews, and so I decided to pivot to a monthly subscription box, taking inspiration from BarkBox and ButternutBox.
And so I went about setting that up on Shopify and building
*I also found out that ‘Wild Munch’ was trademarked, so I shifted to Honest Munch and bought the domain — www.honestmunch.co.uk.
Saturday - finding customers
Total hours worked: 5 ish
I posted on Reddit, Facebook, and started a TikTok.
Results:
Over 30 comments across platforms
94 sessions on the website
£0 made
I won’t lie - I hit a bit of a blocker on Saturday. I sat staring at my screen thinking about all the things:
‘This won’t work.’ ‘I’m not good enough.’ ‘I have no idea what I’m doing.’
But I do what I get in that head space — I find examples and evidence of people achieving much more, with much less, with ‘on paper’ worse ideas. And I remind myself, I’m not trying to change the world, the stakes are very low (I have a day job and a profitable side business). This is just an idea I’m exploring.
Sunday — reflecting…
Total hours worked: 3 ish
I spent a little longer shifting the brand to look a bit nicer and then ended up with this design:
Which I think is much cleaner. And I read through the comments from all the people I asked what they thought of the idea, general themes:
I don’t like everything in the box — I’d like to pick
I get my dog chews from [insert store/online shop]
I’d like to buy just once instead of signing up for a monthly subscription
So I went through them all and themed them, and figured out what to fix next.
Also on Sunday (or Saturday, I can’t remember), I realised that ButcherBox launched through a Kickstarter campaign. So, next was drafting up a Kickstarter campaign — launching TBC.
Here’s how it’s shaping up so far…
And then I felt pretty rubbish about the idea, my life, and what I’m capable of achieving for the evening. The general feedback from the initial launch was that barely anyone said they would buy from a subscription box, and that they get their dog chews locally.
Mood = low.
The upside of Sunday, though, was that I landed my first influencer who agreed to promote my stuff for a commission and has over 7,000 followers on TikTok. So that’s a win.
So I woke up this morning thinking this…
What’s next:
Creating an actual MVP - I need to show the product and what it looks like (likely to be very bad on the first iteration).
TikTok campaign for local folks to get on board.
Facebook ads (maybe, maybe not — yet to be decided).*
*I don’t want to advertise an MVP that is half-baked because no matter how good the concept if it’s half-baked, people will lose faith and not buy.
That’s all for today, and I keep repeating in my head, I’m 13 hours in. It was never going to be easy. Work through the hard stuff.
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That’s all for today
Much love,
Eve
Founder - Smart Growth Labs (BETA), Part-Time Creator Club