No Shortcuts - The Power of Having Nothing

Having plentiful resources SEEMS like the best option.  The answer to the question, "Do you want plentiful resources to go to war or not?" would be a pretty obvious answer.  "YES"!  Give me everything I can take. 

In starting a business I often think that starting with a lot of resources is a curse.  It leads to unneeded spending and laziness.  The attitude of money will solve everything starts taking over.  The fact is that money isn't the x factor in success.  You see this in almost all successful businesses.  What wins is attitude, fight and unending hard work. 

There are so many examples in history of this.  The Wright Brothers figuring out flight before the much better funded competition is just one.  The Wright Brothers just flat out wanted it more.  They had the grit to keep going and figure it out. 

For Sloane there were a number of things we just had to figure it out.  If we actually had money we might have made different choices and I think would've ended up in a worse place. 

Logo:  We could've hired an expensive firm to do this.  Instead we leveraged 99 Designs to come up with our logo.  We were forced to think about what we wanted our brand to be about.  This took a LONG time.  That thought allowed the story of Sloane to come out, which gave us pride and was a story we could tell to our consumers.  A quick fix cute logo from an expensive design firm would have never let our story come to life. 

Website:  We found a freelancer in OR who made our website.  We did not find the hottest website design company out there.  We just got it done.  We spent probably one-third what we could have.  The website worked and served us well in the beginning. 

Models:  We found models for the website on our own.  We worked with an agency to find people, but went with guys who got the job done versus being the top of the line guys.  Each time you look at the options as you build your company it hurts a bit to take the middle of the road options, but for most decisions that is fine.  Spend on the KEY items, but don't spend on ALL the items.  You will need every penny as you grow. 

These are three quick examples of where we saved thousands of dollars.  That saved money was put into our product.  We didn't want to have a sweet website and a terrible undershirt.  The undershirt is where we needed to differentiate.  We chose the best fabric on the market.  This was a wise decision because when people wore it they told their friends.  Those friends went to our so so website.  Saw our so so design.  Saw our so so models.  And purchased. 

Figure out what is the most important thing to drive purchase.  Invest the most in that.