I Sold My Business, Moved To a New City and Launched A Used Bikes Business
This is a follow up story for Framed Tweets (Now its Sticker Mule). If you're interested in reading how they got started, published over 5 years ago, check it out here.
Hello again! Remind us who you are and what business you started.
Hey there! I started Framed Tweets, which was a website where you could buy tweets in picture frames to hang on your wall. If you want to read more about that story, check out my original Starter Story.
We also sold them on mugs and giant canvases. We had all kinds of customers, from people looking to spruce up their homes/offices to those looking for a funny or meaningful gift for a friend.
We even had some unique business customers, like Helium Comedy Club in Indianapolis building a whole wall of framed tweets in their lobby.
Tell us about what you’ve been up to! Has the business been growing?
Well, it was growing. It was grossing about $10k/month, and netting much less than that—just enough to pay rent and whatnot. But I was having trouble figuring out how to scale it. So I looked for someone to buy the business in NYC, without luck. Then, on a trip to Mexico City a few months later, I met Anthony, the CEO of Sticker Mule. He had just purchased a Framed Tweet, saw on my Twitter that I was in Mexico, and DMed me asking if I wanted to hang out. We instantly hit it off, and he ended up buying Framed Tweets—we made the deal while eating street tacos. Pretty wild.
Sticker Mule sold framed tweets for about a year, and recently sunset the product because they’ve launched a new social network called Stimulus. It’s a cool concept, I suggest checking it out.
It’s surprisingly easy to meet people/make friends if you get comfortable with talking to strangers
Last year, I moved to Amsterdam and started a new business selling Dutch bikes to the USA. It’s called Used Dutch Bikes.
So far, I’ve sold about a dozen bikes, but it’s just getting started. It’s a pretty simple model: Dutch bikes—the classic kind, with the step-through frame and swept handlebars—are impossible to find in the United States, so I buy them from local bike shops in Amsterdam, list them on the website, market them, and sell them.
I honestly haven’t figured out the marketing yet; most (if not all) sales have come from people just searching for Dutch bikes on Google. It’d be great to sell straight to American bike shops, so if you’re a bike shop owner and are interested in buying some authentic Dutch bikes at a great wholesale price, get in touch!
What have been your biggest lessons learned in the last year?
- Moving to a new city won’t solve all your problems, but it can solve some of them. It can also help you appreciate the things you might have taken for granted about the city you moved from!
- Yoga is one of the highest-ROI activities
- Pretty effective cure for dry eyes: Pour boiling water on a towel, let it cool off a bit, then lay it on your eyes for ~10 minutes
- It’s surprisingly easy to meet people/make friends if you get comfortable with talking to strangers
- Simple, underrated things that can have a dramatic effect on your mood: Wearing new clothes, stretching, flossing
What’s in the plans for the upcoming year, and the next 5 years?
For the upcoming year, I plan to grow the bike business so I have a consistent income to pay rent, travel, and work on my music, save, and invest.
How do I plan to grow it? Well, I’m going to take it a bit slower than I did last time around (with Framed Tweets). Instead of putting crazy amounts of money into Facebook ads and “letting it rip,” I’m going to let sales come more naturally. Listing bikes on Etsy and eBay, letting organic SEO sales come in, advertising on local bike blogs, etc.
In the next five years, I plan to make more music and perform it and get better at like, enjoying things in life that aren’t business-related (friends and family, nature, traveling, reading, etc.).
I feel like over the past few years I’ve neglected that kind of stuff to work on my businesses, and (this is so cliche it hurts to type this) moving to Europe has made me realize the value of work/life balance.
Have you read any good books in the last year?
- Bikram Yoga by Bikram Choudhury
- Levels of Energy by Frederick Dodson
- Parallel Universes of Self by Frederick Dodson
Advice for other entrepreneurs who might be struggling to grow their business?
Do Yin yoga. It never fails to make me feel way, way more relaxed, which makes coming up with ideas and doing stuff way easier. I suggest reading about what it is and why it works if you’re at all skeptical or curious. It’s really powerful stuff.
I also recommend Bikram yoga (see my book suggestion above). It makes you feel like a little kid again and increases your energy and enthusiasm in a way that makes coffee and weed seem like cheap imitations (even though they’re good too).
Are you looking to hire for certain positions right now?
No, but if you are a bike shop in the US or Canada and are interested in selling authentic Dutch bikes, send me an email! zach (at) useddutchbikes.com.
Where can we go to learn more?
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Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
