$100 Project Report

 Coming up with ideas is hard for me; I have a lot of very exciting ones when it is time to do something else, and I have trouble remembering them when I really need them. Perhaps I need to develop the habit of writing them down. When I was coming up with the idea for my $100 project it was one of those times without a lot of ideas. I chose to make and sell crepes because I wanted to do something within my reach, both financially and time wise; that meant doing something that I knew how to prepare.

I found many challenges along the way like choosing the right kinds of ingredients, setting an appropriate price for them, keeping them warm and reheating them, finding customers, etc. One of the greatest lessons I learned was that people love to buy, but hate to be sold to. I had to find ways to make the product attractive and use strategies that persuade customers to buy it because they want to, not because I offer them something. Some of the strategies I used were making signs or ads, offering the product to other people in front of my customers, and eat crepes in front of them so they would have a craving for them also. I also realized that it was easier to sell to big groups of people, and it became even easier after the first person said yes and created social pressure for the rest.

During this project I made the crepes at home and sold them with my wife’s help. I cooked them, then put them in a topper, and right before it was time to sell them I would reheat them, add a sweetener and put them in plastic food boxes.

I learned that most of my customers were college age women. Most of them are with their friends (other women), or boyfriends who buy the crepes for them. Older people don’t really like them, or know them, and younger people often can’t afford them.

At the end I was only able to make $60 USD in profits. I didn’t reach my goal since it was difficult to sell and very time consuming for the revenue obtained. I developed more respect for people who sell people in the street for a living. It is difficult to sell at the beginning when nobody knows you. My most loyal customers were my wife’s classmates since they already knew and liked the product. It takes time for a business like this to build a reputation among people in the area, and that reputation is essential for having returning customers and become profitable. I see why buying franchise can be worth it: it addresses the reputation issue from the very beginning.

Next time I launch a business (and I have better ideas now), I will choose something that I am more passionate about, I will run it for longer so I can learn and correct the things that don’t work, I will build it like a system to make money and not as a job, and I will involve more people around me.

The main thing I learned from this experience was the value of failing. I learned a lot from my failures and I even tried to fail as soon as possible with little things so I could take notes of what doesn’t work and try something different. Those small corrections really helped the project, and got me excited about failing with bigger and better projects so I can make them successful one day. I also learned that I’m capable of doing anything I want to achieve; this might sound counterintuitive since I didn’t achieve my goal this time, but towards the end of the project I realized that I’m smart, I know how to create online businesses, I know about finances and accounting, and I am willing to fail and learn. This was an epiphany for me that I need to find a project and make it real soon. I can do it.