10 ms·

I started an online subscription business from Malaysia

113 points by patwalls 7y ago

manbearpiggy 7y ago
Love how candid this is, real insight into the shady world of e-commerce.
- superasn 7y ago
  The worst part is the more you know it the more unbelievable it becomes to you and you start to think to yourself "yeah right nobody would believe that." Then you do a split test and bullshit like this (fake scarcity, benefits not features, forced optins, etc) show a conversion rate of 8% whereas your honest to goodness page is at 0.5% you understand that it's not your customers who are ignorant, it's you and your understanding of how the world works :/
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
tsherr 7y ago
I'm all for marketing, but there must be some honesty. This is a lesson on how to lie your way to success. Which is an option, but any idiot with no morals can do that. Of course, large companies do this all the time with no repercussions, so I get why he went this route.
- thaumasiotes 7y ago
  > This is a lesson on how to lie your way to success. Which is an option, but any idiot with no morals can do that. What an idiot with no morals can do is lie. Getting to success is harder.
- bradenb 7y ago
  I assume you're referring to building out a store with no inventory to test the market? This is a pretty common tactic spread by books such as "The 4-Hour Work Week" so it's not surprising to see it in use for a site like this. Honestly, I don't really have a problem with it. A more honest approach would be ideal, but if I had to choose between doing that and bootstrapping an entire business with stock before getting my first sale I would choose the "dishonest" method. It's a little inconvenient for the user, but presumably they want the product, so in the end they just end up waiting a bit for it. People don't want to help you test your idea, so presenting it in any other way without rewarding them is unlikely to result in sales.
  - maxlamb 7y ago
    I think it's referring to the part where the web page says "that we’ve “sold out” due to “overwhelming demand”" when obviously there is no overwhelming demand at first. If you say there is huge demand for your product even though there isn't any, that's going a bit further than just "we're sold out". But since in the end the demand does pick up I get the argument that it's a grey area.
    - scotty79 7y ago
      If you are selling nothing and have zero inventory any demand is technically overwhelming. It's still a lie though like almost all of his ways of getting a customer. But I find it refreshing how clear it is. Advertisers mostly pretend they are not lying which shapes wrong impression that advertisement can be honest. No, it can't if it is to be successful. Honest advertisement is just information and that's almost worthless for a seller.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- TheGRS 7y ago
  My thoughts as well. Kind of a clever trick and I guess I can give him that this particular marketing trick doesn't have any real victims nor does it really hurt anyone, but its still dishonest at the end of the day.
stef25 7y ago
Here I am, a 40 something very mediocre webdev with 2 kids and a mortgage, taking home 30K / year struggling to learn the framework-du-jour my boss thinks I should be using, unable to find another job cause I'm too expensive, wondering what the hell to do with my life. And then there's a kid in Malaysia of all places selling frigging vapers, taking home every month what I take home per year.
- sleepychu 7y ago
  Where are you based?
  - stef25 7y ago
    Belgium
    - fnigi 7y ago
      How can you earn 30k gross there ? Is not under the minimum wage ?
      - stef25 7y ago
        That's net, gross is around 50K.
        chosenbreed37 7y ago
        > That's net, gross is around 50K. The taxes are a bit high but have a lot of benefits of living in Belgium. But it is true that you have to make some compromises/sacrifices if you want to make your disposable income stretch.
        stef25 7y ago
        Taxes are brutal, thankfully it gets better once you have kids.
    - 7y ago
heyalexej 7y ago
>I coded the web app from the ground up using what I’ve learned from the coding bootcamp and launched the service on the 22nd of September 2019. Something doesn't add up here. Ahrefs shows rankings going back as far as September of 2016 with the first archive.org snapshot on September 14 2015 showing a landing page for a subscription box.
- tatami 7y ago
  Must be 2015, as the story starts there. Also, September 2019 is in the future.
- dragonsh 7y ago
  It's a tobacco and nicotin business without regulatory oversight in MY, neighbouring Singapore just made it illegal. So there is nothing innovative in it except the product itself is responsible for selling itself like cigarettes, just with icing of no regulatory oversight.
Insanity 7y ago
Lying about being sold out and asking to share the link is not something I'd be comfortable with doing myself.. but then again, his business has gained success through it and I don't have a business :D Apart from the ethical issues, I do think it was a smart idea. Kudos to him.
gilbertmpanga12 7y ago
Launched September 22, 2019, is that a typo?
- bigwheeler 7y ago
  He also bootstrapped a time machine, but since vaping is all the rage these days, that’s where the story is.
jmkd 7y ago
Leaves me very uncomfortable, this combination of honesty as a humblebrag with ethically-dubious practices. What lesson does this teach me, an unemployed program manager with plenty of experience and principles?
- drenvuk 7y ago
  A practical one. Your principles may not be conducive to creating wealth and if wealth is your goal you should adjust them.
  - addicted 7y ago
    That’s backwards. This shows that it’s possible to have a successful business without the principles the OP adheres to. It does not say anything about whether or not it’s possible to be successful with the principles, or if there is a need to adjust them. It’s completely possible the principles the OP adheres to make success more likely, or is likely to make any success larger. Or the opposite may be true, but this one story does not tell you anything about that.
    - drenvuk 7y ago
      I like you. I see the logic but now I wonder whether the article hints at the possibility that the principles aren't helpful. Following your logic it sounds like the only way to be sure is to wait until OP passes away or we have a large sample size of people who have similar principles. What about the opposite though? We have numerous examples where people who some could argue don't have the best principles but have been very successful. Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, Steve Jobs, Carly Fiorina, Marissa Mayer, Henry Nicholas III, Elon Musk, John D. Rockefeller, Cornelius Vanderbilt, and more. Putting it bluntly, they just do what's needed to further their goals - and everyone else be damned if it's not helpful to their goals to help them out. If you go past the puff pieces and dig a bit you see the net effect of their principles is to let them win. Maybe lack of evidence about the effectiveness of OP's principles is not evidence but it's reasonable to consider following in the winner's example.
chosenbreed37 7y ago
There may be some dubious/shady aspects of this enterprise or at least the way it's been presented. I just look at it as an eye-opener. With the view of challenging my thinking about where I am now, where I want to be and what paths might be available to get me there. For instance, e-commerce hadn't come to me as an option. Looking at this account makes me at the very least think about whether or not it is worth pursuing. It could be a different product, market, etc. It may well be that it wouldn't work for me. But the exploration of the basic idea is worth my while.
- stef25 7y ago
  There's a huge rabbit hole you can go down :) Finding products (either reselling existing ones, having your own made, ...). Many people do this successfully on Amazon (as many benefits as caveats) Launching something on your own e-commerce platform is pretty hard, requiring either an extremely attractive product that spreads with word of mouth, or you need to invest heavily in "social" or SEO. Otherwise you just won't stand out anymore.
  - TheGRS 7y ago
    The last company I worked at was geared at optimizing recommended items to customers on a storefront. Working there I kind of realized how saturated e-commerce has become. There will always be room for new ideas and tricks to squeeze money out of the space, but I can't help think you're not really providing a lot of value add most of the time.
tzhenghao 7y ago
“To put things into perspective, the median average household income in Malaysia is USD1,215. Not too bad for a single unmarried 28 year old chap eh?” Maybe he should just leave this part out.
scotty79 7y ago
Some of us may think that he's ways of getting customers are dishonest. Please treat it as a reminder to yourself that there's no such thing as honest advertisement. If you are seeing advertisemnt you are being lied to. It might be hard to spot because the parts of your brain that the advertisement lies to might be far from your conciousness. But you are lied to nontheless. Honest advertisement is just information and that's almost worthless for any seller. There's a great movie documentary "Czech dream" created by two film students opening fake Wallmart type store. Especially wonderful is the scene in marketing agency that is to prepare large marketing campaign mimicking campaigns of other similar stores. They are in on the joke and are completely fine with decieving the public, except for one employee that feels strongly about "you won't go home emptyhanded" line on the advert because there is no store and "you can't lie in advertisement!" He calms down after students promise that if anyone shows up to the fake store opening they'll give them baloon so they won't go home emptyhanded. Your successful advertisement is always a lie. Regardless of whether you can massage yourself into believing it is not.

113 points by patwalls 7y ago

manbearpiggy 7y ago

Love how candid this is, real insight into the shady world of e-commerce.

superasn 7y ago
The worst part is the more you know it the more unbelievable it becomes to you and you start to think to yourself "yeah right nobody would believe that." Then you do a split test and bullshit like this (fake scarcity, benefits not features, forced optins, etc) show a conversion rate of 8% whereas your honest to goodness page is at 0.5% you understand that it's not your customers who are ignorant, it's you and your understanding of how the world works :/

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

tsherr 7y ago

I'm all for marketing, but there must be some honesty. This is a lesson on how to lie your way to success. Which is an option, but any idiot with no morals can do that. Of course, large companies do this all the time with no repercussions, so I get why he went this route.

thaumasiotes 7y ago
> This is a lesson on how to lie your way to success. Which is an option, but any idiot with no morals can do that. What an idiot with no morals can do is lie. Getting to success is harder.
bradenb 7y ago
I assume you're referring to building out a store with no inventory to test the market? This is a pretty common tactic spread by books such as "The 4-Hour Work Week" so it's not surprising to see it in use for a site like this. Honestly, I don't really have a problem with it. A more honest approach would be ideal, but if I had to choose between doing that and bootstrapping an entire business with stock before getting my first sale I would choose the "dishonest" method. It's a little inconvenient for the user, but presumably they want the product, so in the end they just end up waiting a bit for it. People don't want to help you test your idea, so presenting it in any other way without rewarding them is unlikely to result in sales.
- maxlamb 7y ago
  I think it's referring to the part where the web page says "that we’ve “sold out” due to “overwhelming demand”" when obviously there is no overwhelming demand at first. If you say there is huge demand for your product even though there isn't any, that's going a bit further than just "we're sold out". But since in the end the demand does pick up I get the argument that it's a grey area.
  - scotty79 7y ago
    If you are selling nothing and have zero inventory any demand is technically overwhelming. It's still a lie though like almost all of his ways of getting a customer. But I find it refreshing how clear it is. Advertisers mostly pretend they are not lying which shapes wrong impression that advertisement can be honest. No, it can't if it is to be successful. Honest advertisement is just information and that's almost worthless for a seller.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
TheGRS 7y ago
My thoughts as well. Kind of a clever trick and I guess I can give him that this particular marketing trick doesn't have any real victims nor does it really hurt anyone, but its still dishonest at the end of the day.

stef25 7y ago

Here I am, a 40 something very mediocre webdev with 2 kids and a mortgage, taking home 30K / year struggling to learn the framework-du-jour my boss thinks I should be using, unable to find another job cause I'm too expensive, wondering what the hell to do with my life. And then there's a kid in Malaysia of all places selling frigging vapers, taking home every month what I take home per year.

sleepychu 7y ago
Where are you based?
- stef25 7y ago
  Belgium
  - fnigi 7y ago
    How can you earn 30k gross there ? Is not under the minimum wage ?
    - stef25 7y ago
      That's net, gross is around 50K.
      - chosenbreed37 7y ago
        > That's net, gross is around 50K. The taxes are a bit high but have a lot of benefits of living in Belgium. But it is true that you have to make some compromises/sacrifices if you want to make your disposable income stretch.
        stef25 7y ago
        Taxes are brutal, thankfully it gets better once you have kids.
  - 7y ago

heyalexej 7y ago

>I coded the web app from the ground up using what I’ve learned from the coding bootcamp and launched the service on the 22nd of September 2019. Something doesn't add up here. Ahrefs shows rankings going back as far as September of 2016 with the first archive.org snapshot on September 14 2015 showing a landing page for a subscription box.

tatami 7y ago
Must be 2015, as the story starts there. Also, September 2019 is in the future.
dragonsh 7y ago
It's a tobacco and nicotin business without regulatory oversight in MY, neighbouring Singapore just made it illegal. So there is nothing innovative in it except the product itself is responsible for selling itself like cigarettes, just with icing of no regulatory oversight.

Insanity 7y ago

Lying about being sold out and asking to share the link is not something I'd be comfortable with doing myself.. but then again, his business has gained success through it and I don't have a business :D Apart from the ethical issues, I do think it was a smart idea. Kudos to him.

gilbertmpanga12 7y ago

Launched September 22, 2019, is that a typo?

bigwheeler 7y ago
He also bootstrapped a time machine, but since vaping is all the rage these days, that’s where the story is.

jmkd 7y ago

Leaves me very uncomfortable, this combination of honesty as a humblebrag with ethically-dubious practices. What lesson does this teach me, an unemployed program manager with plenty of experience and principles?

drenvuk 7y ago
A practical one. Your principles may not be conducive to creating wealth and if wealth is your goal you should adjust them.
- addicted 7y ago
  That’s backwards. This shows that it’s possible to have a successful business without the principles the OP adheres to. It does not say anything about whether or not it’s possible to be successful with the principles, or if there is a need to adjust them. It’s completely possible the principles the OP adheres to make success more likely, or is likely to make any success larger. Or the opposite may be true, but this one story does not tell you anything about that.
  - drenvuk 7y ago
    I like you. I see the logic but now I wonder whether the article hints at the possibility that the principles aren't helpful. Following your logic it sounds like the only way to be sure is to wait until OP passes away or we have a large sample size of people who have similar principles. What about the opposite though? We have numerous examples where people who some could argue don't have the best principles but have been very successful. Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, Steve Jobs, Carly Fiorina, Marissa Mayer, Henry Nicholas III, Elon Musk, John D. Rockefeller, Cornelius Vanderbilt, and more. Putting it bluntly, they just do what's needed to further their goals - and everyone else be damned if it's not helpful to their goals to help them out. If you go past the puff pieces and dig a bit you see the net effect of their principles is to let them win. Maybe lack of evidence about the effectiveness of OP's principles is not evidence but it's reasonable to consider following in the winner's example.

chosenbreed37 7y ago

There may be some dubious/shady aspects of this enterprise or at least the way it's been presented. I just look at it as an eye-opener. With the view of challenging my thinking about where I am now, where I want to be and what paths might be available to get me there. For instance, e-commerce hadn't come to me as an option. Looking at this account makes me at the very least think about whether or not it is worth pursuing. It could be a different product, market, etc. It may well be that it wouldn't work for me. But the exploration of the basic idea is worth my while.

stef25 7y ago
There's a huge rabbit hole you can go down :) Finding products (either reselling existing ones, having your own made, ...). Many people do this successfully on Amazon (as many benefits as caveats) Launching something on your own e-commerce platform is pretty hard, requiring either an extremely attractive product that spreads with word of mouth, or you need to invest heavily in "social" or SEO. Otherwise you just won't stand out anymore.
- TheGRS 7y ago
  The last company I worked at was geared at optimizing recommended items to customers on a storefront. Working there I kind of realized how saturated e-commerce has become. There will always be room for new ideas and tricks to squeeze money out of the space, but I can't help think you're not really providing a lot of value add most of the time.

tzhenghao 7y ago

“To put things into perspective, the median average household income in Malaysia is USD1,215. Not too bad for a single unmarried 28 year old chap eh?” Maybe he should just leave this part out.

scotty79 7y ago

Some of us may think that he's ways of getting customers are dishonest. Please treat it as a reminder to yourself that there's no such thing as honest advertisement. If you are seeing advertisemnt you are being lied to. It might be hard to spot because the parts of your brain that the advertisement lies to might be far from your conciousness. But you are lied to nontheless. Honest advertisement is just information and that's almost worthless for any seller. There's a great movie documentary "Czech dream" created by two film students opening fake Wallmart type store. Especially wonderful is the scene in marketing agency that is to prepare large marketing campaign mimicking campaigns of other similar stores. They are in on the joke and are completely fine with decieving the public, except for one employee that feels strongly about "you won't go home emptyhanded" line on the advert because there is no store and "you can't lie in advertisement!" He calms down after students promise that if anyone shows up to the fake store opening they'll give them baloon so they won't go home emptyhanded. Your successful advertisement is always a lie. Regardless of whether you can massage yourself into believing it is not.