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Grew a Shopify store to £100k in 8 months. Looking for input and feedback on the growth guide we are writing

After having a store of my own that peaked at £50k revenue, I've been helping a friend build his store since September 2020. He recently went over the £100k mark and we want to share what we have learned.

So, we are currently writing a guide to help other people grow an e-commerce business, hopefully to £100k or more in less than a year.

This is about focus, managing time, and being smart about what you sell and who you sell it to.

What we are looking for:

  1. We would love to know what you’d like to read in this book. We want to make sure it includes exactly what you need. Any ideas, questions, and suggestions are welcome.

  2. Draft readers: in exchange for a copy of this little ebook when it's done, we're looking for people to read drafts of sections/chapters and provide comments, spot typos, and give feedback.

  3. We would love to hear from other people who we could include in the book too. If you have reached 100k revenue with your online store(or close to it!) we'd love to share your tips, stories, hard lessons learned and also promote your store in the book too!

Leave a comment below with responses to any of these, or message me via my IH profile.

Reach out too if you want to know when the book is ready!

Our Story

My friend's store has been super successful having only opened it in September 2020. Today his total revenue is over £115K in ~8 months!

We are both Product Managers in our day jobs. So we have a good insight into building products, understanding customers, growing an audience, cornering markets and how to do effective marketing for high ROI.

We each have children of our own who are less than 2 years old - this is just to clarify that we had day jobs and busy lives while doing this.

Working together to overcome the challenges of building a £100k+ online store has been valuable for both of us. Now we want to share everything we have learned to help other people build a good income from a simple online e-commerce business.

  1. 2

    This is a good project.
    I will like to read the ebook when you're done.

    Thanks,
    Kingsley
    [email protected]
    www.kingsleytheophilus.com

  2. 2

    Hi there! Thank you for sharing your story thus far. I would be very interested to read and look over your new e-book! Hopefully I can provide some insight, but it seems like you have a wonderful start already.

    1. 1

      Thank you @TheHamburglar, we'd really like to hear any insights you have. There's always more to learn!

      I spent a few hours putting a landing page together where you can subscribe for future updates and a big discount on the book when it's done. I'll add you to the list of people who might want to review it.

      https://zerotogrowthbook.com/

      We welcome any feedback on the landing page itself too :)

  3. 2

    I also have 2 very small ecom stores. I can't help much in terms of content because we are so small <$1k, but I would love to help draft read.

    1. 1

      Thanks Tariq. I have a landing page up you can sign up to, i will make a note to come back to you about draft reading.

      I'm sure you have insights and lessons learned already even as a small store. Do you have any particular questions or challenges you would hope to find help with in the book?

  4. 2

    Would be interested in becoming a draft reader. I have a lot of e-commerce experience.

    1. 1

      Great! Thank you for the offer. I'll come back to you :)

  5. 2

    Hi and congratulations on your success! I'm interested in this book and I'm in the process of exploring a drop shipping ecommerce project myself.

    I think it requires a vast amount of knowledge in a lot of areas to pull of a successful online store. I'm a software developer and I'd like to know more information on how you conduct research and decide if a product or category of products is worth selling or not.

    Are there any business details to watch out for? To prevent being sued, liability etc.

    Did you bootstrap or start with some investment?

    What did you invest money on?

    Do you handle products physically or drop ship everything?

    Did you hire a developer or use a no code Shopify out of the box solution?

    1. 1

      Great questions Matt! You're right, it does take a diverse set of knowledge. We've been very fortunate to have a lot of experience between us that has helped, which we want to pass on as best we can.

      We are aiming to provide guidance on researching product categories and markets. Importantly - how to validate the basic numbers!

      Liability is an interesting point, I'll make a note to address it in the guide.

      This was entirely bootstrapped.

      Money was invested in stock (a niche food category)

      All orders is still picked, packed and managed internally.

      The store is entirely Shopify's standard offering. There were no requirements that Shopify doesn't have to achieve this.

      Thanks for the questions Matt, we will do our best to answer as many as possible in the guide!

  6. 2

    Would love to read this to research how to build my online store

    1. 1

      That's encouraging :)

      It would be great to know what's holding you back or what you want to know - have you launched something already or are you trying to identify what products to sell?

      1. 1

        Well I am at the very, very tip of the beginning, but I am wanting to learn as much about the process of setting up an online store from different altitudes. I am interested in seeing how other people focus and manage time. I am a visual artist and I've found that the type of work I do doesn't easily or exactly map into everyone else's process for: being smart about what you sell and who you sell it to.

  7. 2

    I would love to read this. Do you have a newsletter or blog as well?

    1. 1

      No newsletter or blog, just https://zerotogrowthbook.com/ where you can sign up for updates about the book :)

      Thanks for commenting, it's encouraging for us!

      I'm always interested to know what people would love to get from the book - what's your story @argovaerts - are you starting or growing a store right now?

  8. 2

    How did you do product research?

    1. 1

      Great question! This is an early section of the book, i have a very rough draft right now.

      Generally, I approach it at both a high-level and a low-level. The high-level is by looking at market trends using anything from Google to trend newsletters and specialist trend identifying tools.

      In the book I am providing a list of those tools, example strategies and even ways to analysis the macro trend information you find.

      By low-level product research I mean the details like unit costs, supplier locations, wholesalers, shipping, storage costs and risk etc. As well as reviews and perceptions of the product or a competitor across social media, blogs etc by individuals.

      Again, I'll be providing some useful links but also take people through how to actually go from product research to either validation or rejection of the product as a suitable idea to build a store around.

      A key area is around communities. It's so overlooked and I feel that we're approaching this is an interesting way. Not new, maybe not entirely unique. But we've learned a lot about communities and building trust and loyalty authentically.

      It will all be in the book:
      https://zerotogrowthbook.com/

  9. 2

    Congrats on the success! Looking forward to reading your guide :)

    1. 1

      Thanks! We made a landing page where you can sign up for updates and some early content stuff: https://zerotogrowthbook.com/

  10. 2

    Do you have a blog detailing your journey to success?

  11. 2

    Would love to read it the it's ready! Looking to learn more about ecommerce right now.

    1. 2

      I second this, maybe make a quick and dirty landing to sign up to it :p

      1. 1

        Good idea @nafetswirth !

        This is my first time using The Unicorn Platform. Turns out its a fantastic tool to knock up a landing page in a couple of hours.

        https://zerotogrowthbook.com/

        Let me know your thoughts - don't forget to sign up!

  12. 1

    Would be happy to review the draft of the book for you :)

    1. 1

      Amazing, thank you. I'll circle back to you on IH when the time is right. In the meantime, I put up a quick landing page where you can sign up for updates + probably some free stuff and early access..

      https://zerotogrowthbook.com/

  13. 1

    What are you selling though?

    1. 1

      Most likely an eBook. It will be a playbook of sorts.. we had thought of doing it as a Notion document. Right now we're leaning towards an eBook though.

      Based on feedback in another comment I put together this landing page today. If you want, you can subscribe - we will give all early subscribers a decent discount :)

      https://zero-100k.unicornplatform.page/

  14. 2

    This comment was deleted 2 years ago.

    1. 1

      Thanks Tom! Future updates and early access to content from the book will be via the new landing page where you can be one of the first: https://zerotogrowthbook.com/

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