It's a matter of Supply and Demand

One box of Wild Juice (passion fruit) was purchased at retail price of R14 and sold for a profit of R6. The simple reason for this is that Wild Juice in this flavor it not so readily available. There is a definite balance that seem to exist with the availability of a certain product and its perceived value. I have an inkling that I will need to explore this link in more detail in order to discover a business secret.

Not What you Know

You've probably heard this one before, but in life and especially in business it is often not so much what you know, than who you know. During my first month of the 50c challenge this sentiment has become really apparent to me. So many of my deals were made possible through my network of contacts. Now you need to understand one thing, I have an extremely small business network. Still the people I know and have come to know via other people have been instrumental in the deals I were able to complete. What I am thinking at the moment is that even when you are starting out with nothing it is of the utmost importance that you use every opportunity available to you to build your network.

Another thing I found really interesting is that in most cases the people in my personal network, and extended network, did not become part of the network because I had some plan for them. The people in the network became part of my network through interaction and simply adding value to each others lives. I do not condone running out pushing business cards into peoples' hand at every opportunity, as I suspect this will have the opposite effect. What I suggest you do is, where ever your life takes you, take some time to invest in the people around you. Be of service where ever you can, and do not begrudge giving somebody the leg up. Cultivate a friendly attitude and a willingness to help others get ahead in life. The bonds you make and the seeds you sow can not but return to you much larger than your initial investment.

Just a small word of warning. If you help people to get something from them somewhere in the future, you will be disappointed. People tend to realize that your intentions are false, and thus they will not trust you. That is why you need to cultivate a character of helping. The second warning, and just as important as the first is not to help people too your own detriment. Some people want to be liked or loved so much that they will harm themselves and their interests in order to help someone else. Balance is the key. The selfish person cannot reach his true potential, nut the flip side is also true, if you give out of weakness you will take away your own ability to be successful.

Help people be better and have more, but not in such a way that you will need to be helped. It's in the Bible.

Just keep the Ticker running

Annelie Strauss is now the happy owner of the first set of Erwin Vessel hand crafted African spoons. She was the quickest respondent to the introductory offer. This takes my total capital up to R76.75. It seems strange how so many people really liked the spoons, but the liking did not translate into actual sales. This makes me wonder about the value of market research. Clearly market research is a critical part of setting up a business, and no business plan will be complete or realistic without it. Still my experience with the spoons suggests that market research tells you only so much. Interest does not necessarily translate into sales. The research is but a useful tool to measure potential for a product and never a fool proof method for determining the actual success of the business. What I would suggest you look at when conducting this type of research is the following: Research related products and your main competition. Look at the size of the market into which you want to release your product, it is no use you have a unique product that nobody want to use, or see the need for. What are the average turnovers of businesses in your target market. In short, look for facts, quantitative facts, if and only if these facts suggest a profitable investment, should you be considering opinions. When asking for opinions, try and question unbiased outsiders.

Although there are many untapped markets, and a large number innovative ideas, you still need to calculate your exposure. Yes, you want to take risks. No, you can't just through money at ideas until one of them makes it big, rather take that cash and make your way to a slot machine, the odds are better.

Our initial success with the fudge made Tanya and I decide to take it one step further, we are going to run a tuck shop in a high school hostel for 30 minutes in their study break, once a week. This will obviously take some time to gain momentum and form a habit in the learners, but we have relatively low exposure and we will not be spending too many hours on this endeavor. Each of us invested R14.45 initially, and at first we will only stock fudge, later we plan to add chips and coke to the inventory. So for now we each stand to make R25 from our stock.

Strange things are happening to me lately. I no longer see small change in the same light, infact I pick up coins if I see them on the pavement. The onther thing that caught my attention is that even in this early stage of the game I have the burning desire to diversify my investments, which is a strange idea if your total cash in hand is R62.25.

May be I'll find something interesting in the next few days.

Fudge it all

Tanya had a brilliant idea for doubling our money from a combined total of R17 (my contribution being R9). We were going to be selling fudge. I'm not one for sweets, and selling them is quite daunting to me. The idea of being "those people" is just a tad unappealing.

How can one sell pieces of fudge for 50c and still be proud and self assured, that was the question. Our initial idea of selling to a group of hokey players that came to town for a clinic over the Easter weekend did not work out the way we planned, so on Saturday morning we took to the streets. We were selling fudge door to door. Guess what, people still like fudge, and our return on investment was way more than 100%

R9 was turned into R26.75

What I have learned is that people want to buy a packet of things (when it comes to sweets). Somehow paying 50c seems to be harder than paying R5. And if you will be selling, you will need to learn to deal with rejection quickly.

Barbra told Tanya:"In sales there is only two answers from the customer: yes and no. From the salesperson there is only one answer: thank you." This simple quote got new meaning for me this weekend. One lady made quite the spectacle of telling her husband how expensive our product seemed to her, even though we were selling our fudge at R2 less than the shops. This should be a case of so what, one person's ripoff is another person's bargain, and yet my initial reaction was to feel hurt and angry at the women for not wanting our fudge and being so rude about it. I'm beginning the realize that it is our reaction to people being really rude and unfriendly to us that determines how far you will go in sales. It's easy to stay motivated when every potential customer turns into a sale, it's a different kettle of fish if someone tells you to sod off.

Our fudge venture was so successful that we decided to try a tuck shop during the study break at the hostel where Tanya is staying. 30 Minutes every Wednesday. Only 3 products will be available: fudge, coke, and chips.

Last of the Freebies

Leaving product in the freezer has its own advantages, this is not encouraged for perishable goods. The packet of dried peaches spent a lot of time in a prominent position in the freezer, and this morning my mother could not resist its hypnotic call, and so the peaches was sold for R5. There are no more items left from my run of freebies. Total capital as it stands: R9.00.

The spoons still need to be delivered. Annelie Strauss will soon be the proud owner of a set of handcrafted copper spoons. There seems to be more people interested in the spoons, so I will be making more of them on order.

The obvious question begs an answer, what next?

Many spoons and a fish

I have been busy, so no deals were done. But, and this is a massive but, the spoon is now complete. Now I need to arrange for the sale, and Bob's your uncle. On the picture you will also see a fish, this is an example of the tablecloth weights that Tanya makes.

In that time since I have started the challenge I have realized that adding value is one of the main drivers behind healthy economic growth. When you take a bunch of raw materials and create something from them, you are actively adding value to the economy. Yes the value you are adding might be small, inconsequential even, but you are growing the economy far more effectively than when you buy a share and sell it for a higher price. I'm wondering what the effect will be if large numbers of people begin adding to the economy in this way.

Apart from the philosophy I found that if I want to increase your profit margin to such a degree that I can keep up with the schedule I will need to take raw materials that I can afford and transform them into a product that has more value than the mere sum of its raw parts. Initially a set like this will sell for R32, that is to the first buyer.

Now to find said buyer and make the sale.

Two Cookie or not Two Cookie

Blood donations can be a viable source of start-up capital in this game. Today I once again capitalized on the blood swap. The two cookies I got (one for my own donation, and the other was given to me by Gericke, who went along for moral support) was sold for 50c a piece to Beatrix and Anton. Now they have something to sell for their challenge, as they do not have large amounts of free time to spare. Thus the tally stands on R4 total capital, one packet of dried peaches, one authentic handcrafted spoon (soon to become part of a set), and some copper wire.

Those of you who have been following closely will note a slight discrepancy, the bottle of mineral water is missing from my inventory. The simple reason for this is that there is some risk involved in storing your products in your parents' fridge, especially if they do not realize the importance of said item. I'm not to upset, I got the water for free, so no tangible losses were experienced, and there was no malice in the action. Hope you enjoyed your water dad, it's going to cost you R2. Ok, I am joking.

Who knows what tomorrow will bring.

Blood sweat and bums

So I went to donate some blood today, and when they say donate they mean is in the strictest sense of the word.  In years gone by you actually could get free blood when needed, given that you are a registered blood donor, this is no longer the case anymore. in this day and age you will be lucky to get two boxes of juice and a cookie for your trouble, and you can call me lucky.  My plan was to keep the first juice I get and sell that and my cookie, but the nurse forced me to open my juice and drink it while donating.  But you see I was lucky, and when you are trying to turn 50c into R1000000 you need a little bit of luck.  Once my first box of juice was finished they offered me a second one, and this one I saved.  So in effect I swopped one pint of blood for one box of mango juice.  As it stands I have yet to make use of my initial 50c as the blood is in my, and my body makes it free of charge.

So other than the gift I got from this mornings breakfast, a packet of dried peaches and a bottle of distilled water,  I had a box of juice and 2 cookies, oh yes and die infamous copper spoon.  I feel raw fear before approaching anyone to offer them something to buy, just another reason to push harder in the challenge.  So Tanya helped by pushing me to approach people.  The first person was a gardener raking some leaves.  He had no money or my sales technique was lacking, I suspect the latter.  When I got back into the car I said that it would be an amazing experience to try and convince a bum to buy something from me.  You should watch what you say around my friends.  So when we saw a group of beggars Tanya simply stopped the car, and that was that, I was not getting back into the car without making a sale.

So I approached the group, the day was hot.  So I knew that the juice would probably be my best bet.  I played up the heat and the thirst that they must be feeling.  One of the bums, like the leader bum, said that they have no money.  I could see one of the guys looking like he might be up for the sale, so I switched my attention to him.  When he asked to see the juice I jumped, the juice was ice cold, and little droplets of water clung to the sides of the box.  It looked like an advertisement.  My client was more than happy to pay R1 for such a seductive box of juice.

After this transaction my total capital stood on R1.50 as I am still in possession of my initial 50c.  I used R1 to purchase Tanya's juice from her, then I sold that box of juice to my father for R2.50, as he buys boxes of juice for his office for more than that.  As a rule I would rather not sell to my family, but in cases where I can provide a product that they would buy in any case, and provide it at a better price I have no problem, as this would be a win win situation.  The main motivation not to sell to family is that you do not want to take wealth from your family, as this does not enrich your environment.  I feel that where you can save your family money and still make a profit you counter help your family save and grow your turnover, thus enriching your environment on two fronts.

After day two I have R3.00 in cash, two large cookies, one bottle of mineral water, one packet of dried peaches, one copper jam/sugar spoon, and 4 strands of copper wire.  My goal is thus to some how make R3.00 of profit tomorrow.

There is a spoon

Cheers to you Neo.

So after finding a number of ways in which a spoon can't be crafted I finally found one that works. When I was in high school I had a very short lived love affair with copper jewelry, bangles and the such. During this painful period I spent many an afternoon digging in some or the other heap of scrap in our local scrap yard. One sunny day, I hit the mother load, I found a good hand full of thick copper wire. This must have been before people started steeling them like diamonds, because as far as I can remember it cost me one or two rands. Sadly my copper craze died a quite death just after my investment, and thus the wires were relegated to the bottom of a box.

So why all this nonsense about scrap yards and copper wires? Well en my search for a material that would serve as an effective bowl for my spoon I found my long lost treasure! And this enabled me to create the spoon...

I have no potential purchaser as of yet, but the spoon is valued at R16 and I will be trying to sell it for R8. I have realized that it is a lot harder to sell one thing than selling stuff. There seems to be a certain safety in numbers, especially in this low range.

As an alternative I will be donating blood tomorrow, no in South Africa they decided that buying blood from people would not work, so now they beg for it., so I will be GIVING my blood away. Why is this important? It is of the utmost importance, because when you give blood you are given a cookie. I will be attempting to sell said cookie for 50c thus doubling my portfolio.

adios

Frustration

So day 2 is almost half way done, and I need to fit this challenge thing into the rest of my day. I'm totally committed to the challenge, but day one was filled with frustration, as the legal constraints hampered my plan to make a copper sugar spoon. I got a piece of copper wire for free from the scrap yard, I asked how much I could get for 50c and the guy gave me a funny look and said to take the piece I have in my hand for free. a 5c piece would have been perfect for the bowl, but alas destruction of government property is illegal and thus not within the rules of the game. I tried using the bottom of a Cream Soda can, but that turned into a small disaster. Soda cans are coated with some sort of plastic that will not come off. Oh and torn cans cut like razors, ask my hands.

So today I will have to mission out to another scrap yard and try to procure a piece of copper plate to shape in order to complete the spoon. This spoon should sell for R8 which will get me back on track with regards to the parameters of the challenge. Darn you government property!