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 The Solopreneur Life | Passive Income | Home Business

How I Made My First $10,000: Sebastian Schweyen

  • By Gregory Rouse
  • 13 Mar, 2019

This is “How I Made My First $10,000,” a feature that gives all of us a glimpse at how other solopreneurs hit the $10k milestone. If you would like to be the “How I Made My First $10,000,” please send me an email. Click Here for more Solopreneur Success Stories.

Sebastian Schweyen (Photo ©Helen S. Nicolai)
Sebastian Schweyen (Photo ©Helen S. Nicolai)

Name of solopreneur:
Sebastian Schweyen

Name of business and city:
Berlin, Germany

Website addresses:
Website: www.waescherei-suche.de
News: www.waescherei-suche.de/aktuelles.html
Business Directory: www.waescherei-suche.de/s/berlin.html

Type of business:
I founded Germany’s first portal for professional laundry services. Waescherei-Suche.de is a specialized marketplace offering a custom search as well as a business directory, general information and related news. Our visitors type in their zip code and the kind of service they are looking for, we show relevant companies and our visitor can request a quote from these companies with just a few simple clicks. The companies pay a small fee for each quote.

When did you officially go into business?
I started with the marketplace roughly four years ago.

Why did you start your own business?
I was born into an entrepreneurial family; my family runs a medium sized laundry service in the fourth generation now. This is where I got the idea for waescherei-suche.de. We often had potential customers requesting a quote from us, but we were unable to do so because the lead was either too small, too far away or we didn’t offer the services they needed. So I figured this might be a good niche to start a business.

What was the financial situation for the business when it launched?
I had some savings so I financed it privately.

What worked — and didn’t work — for landing new clients/customers?
I underestimated how hard it would be to have someone pay for my service. The laundry profession is somewhat lagging behind regarding internet and social media so I had a lot of explaining to do. What finally worked was giving them a few quotes free of charge and with no obligation to test the service.

How long did it take for you to reach $10,000?
The first $10k revenue in about six months, the first $10k profit took a bit longer.

After you reached $10,000, was it easier to earn the next $10,000?
Yes, considerably. The nice thing about my business model is that it scales quite easily as I never planned to hire anyone and we built our software to automate as much as possible.

What was the best thing you did on the way to $10,000?
One thing was a lucky incident of getting to know a young web designer/programmer during an online marketing event. He happened to have started his own business as well and he was looking for his first few customers. We started to work together and his ideas and his efforts really helped shape the website.

What’s the biggest mistake you made on the way to $10,000?
I tried to custom-build a complete website instead of using as many pre-built pieces as possible. I also wanted to have *all* the features from the beginning. In hindsight less might had been more.

How did you deal with fear/uncertainty?
My friends and family were a fantastic support and always believed in the idea. However, some executives of companies I tried to win as partners were skeptical and doubted the idea. In the end, I always believed in my idea and that really helped to combat the occasional fear and doubt.

Did you ever consider quitting?
I did, but fear of quitting just before it’s really working kept me going.

What would you have done differently?
Back then I didn’t know about the concept of a minimal viable product or agile development. So doing the same thing again would probably start with a really simple page to proof the concept and then improve with as many pre-built services as possible (instead of custom-building everything).

What’s your advice for aspiring and brand-new solopreneurs?
1. Identify the one most important aspect of your business and vigorously focus on that part.

2. Start small, get the first paying customer before anything else. Having someone pay for your services is both an incredible boost to self esteem as well as a validation of your business.

3. Ask people for help and feedback. Most people are really nice and love to share their experiences.

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