It’s been a little over a month since we’ve updated you with the progress of Swolled. It’s been so long because we’ve been doing some more research and wanted to make sure we choose the right design company for our website. It’s been quite a hectic process because there are so many design companies to choose from. With that said, we have chosen to move on with the company Innate Media Group.

The Next Step
The next step that we’re taking with Innate Media Group is the details document. Ultimately, the details document will lead to the design and backend coding of our website. We can’t give much detail about the whole process or what the documents include because on July 4th, 2007 we signed an NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement). What I can say is that the CEO and founder, Will Webb, has been very responsive to phone calls and emails. This also helped us make our decision because we believe in working with someone who will be easily contactable throughout the day and will return our emails and phone calls in a timely manner.

Innate Media Group also has a policy where we are given a certain amount of days to find bugs and errors in the coding. We’ve decided that we’re going to hire Kevin Henney of Quartz Mountain, if time permits with his schedule, to help us find the bugs and errors in the coding. Quartz Mountain was also a design company that we almost decided to go through with because of the professional looking designs Quartz Mountain offers and the personal level Kevin offers to his clients and friends.

Decisions for Swolled
We’ve decided that Swolled is going to act as a division of our father’s already existing business, H3 Associates, as a limited liability partnership (LLP). We’ve always wanted to incorporate something together as a family and this is the perfect opportunity.

We have also decided that it would be in our best interest to begin selling products from well known companies such as Optimum Nutrition, Muscle Tech, Met-RX, CytoSport, and a few others. We want to begin our operations with about 10 companies and offer their best selling products only. Once we begin to produce a specific amount of sales we will disburse ourselves further into each company’s product line. Why did we choose this path?

Growing a business such as Swolled will take a few years and we’re not afraid of that fact. We know that recurring sales won’t begin to happen until after a month or two of a customer’s first purchase. We also know that we won’t receive recurring sales everyday, but we can build up to that volume with time. We’ve decided to sell each company’s already best selling products to begin with, for example Optimum Nutrition’s 100% Gold Standard Whey Protein, because we have a specific budget coming from our own pockets. Since Swolled will act as a reseller, we will be dealing with most of the companies nearest distribution centers. Every company we’ve contacted doesn’t drop ship their products, so we’re also looking for a building to purchase to keep our inventory. Our father is already looking at a business building with his business partner and we would rent out space there. This will also enable us to have a business address and phone number, which is important and as we addressed in our post 8 steps to create your home business identity.

Right now, we believe that things are running smoothly. When we first had the idea to create a business together we expected to have it up and running by the end of our summer break (mid September). It’s been a great ride so far and we’re learning a lot, but our goal to have it up and running by the end of our summer break was truly unrealistic. We now expect to have our website within 4-5 months.

Tags: Business, Creating a Business, Design Companies, Online Supplements, Starting a Business, Supplements

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