

Ask HN: Has anyone here dabbled in non-tech entrepreneurship? - deafcheese

Has anyone here dabbled in non-tech entrepreneurship? Can you share your experiences? In the end, what made you choose/not choose tech entrepreneurship?
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triviatise
I run a couple of CEO roundtables so have worked with around 25 people that
run non tech companies. What are you looking for more specifically?

One more interesting one is a guy who had a company in china make free samples
of 10 types of products. He put them all on amazon forsale and one of them
took off so he made more of that one. His net profit is around 300K/year after
just one year.

Another one uses prison labor to manufacture electronic components. The
recidivism rate among the inmates who go through the program is much lower
than the average. Other industries include:

pet products, doggie day care, health insurance, HR consulting, hair salon,
convenience store, restaurants etc. Most of them were never in tech, but some
were and just wanted something more traditional. For example, the hair salon
netted about 50K/year. One wouldnt make a living but 5 or 6 would.

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vitovito
I launched a seasonal product to ship necessities to college-bound freshmen
called Dorm Duffle. You can see the flyer for it here:
<http://hirevito.com/oldportfolio/dormduffle/>

Flyers were sent "to the parents of" over 15,000 incoming freshmen students
for several universities in the southwest. We had one order.

Not one percent. Just one.

Market research might have told us that we might have been able to launch such
a thing in NYC, but perhaps that in the southwest, people like shopping for
their kids.

I don't see my entrepreneurship activities as tech or non-tech. They're all
curiosity and problem-solving.

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webbruce
I first ran an apparel business that sold streetwear and skateboarding
clothing to shops in Illinois called Kerosin (<http://kerosinclothing.com> )
and then we bought screen printing equipment to mass produce printed apparel
and we printed for the University of Illinois departments, frats, clubs, etc.
It was called Wooden Cotton <http://woodencotton.net> and we had a physical
location aka rent and all that other good stuff. Just sold that business and
now we're onto software to manage screen printers <http://printavo.com>

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will_lam
Yes, I ran an eBay business, selling signed comic books back in 2003 through
2004 during the retro comics craze (G.I. Joe, Transformers, Street Fighter).

I was doing something I deeply enjoyed and forged a new friendships,
partnerships, and learned about price arbitrage and the timing of the comic
book markets.

I didn't realize at the time, but I had incredibly low startup costs and did
it for about a year. Paid for my hobby of comic books at the time and made a
hefty $10,000 profit.

I didn't really "choose" tech entrepreneurship, I just fell into it after
applying for Extreme University and got in (think Y-Combinator in Toronto,
Canada)

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iworkforthem
I run a namecard printing business on the side, primarily dropship. I
partnered a printing house in another country, I get orders/partners locally.
And email my orders overseas for fulfillment.

I'm working on a photo scanning business now, similar to the first, customers
mail the photos to my address in US, UK. It get dispatch to my team in another
country. They scan it to DVD and mail it back to my customer.

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katieben
I teach Zumba (dance exercise), freelance. I love it! I've "monetized my
exercise".

It's not something I'd want to scale, I prefer web dev for the majority of my
time - but now I get paid to exercise, instead of paying someone else. And
I've gotten to meet a LOT of new people - people I can market my startup to,
and bounce feedback off of.

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guids
I built and owned a nightclub, if you have anything specific--business related
only-- feel free to ask away

~~~
riskish
how much did you make profit?

~~~
guids
I am an optimist, so I may have a skewed view; I put X amount of my own money
into the project, which I sold after 2 years, I sold my end for X, so I made
my initial investment back. During the time I actually operated the place I
worked 60-100 hours a week I made roughly 50k/ year, which is obviously a loss
because I could have worked a "normal" job, and made the same for much less
hours, but imo I came out ahead because I learned more than a lot of people
who pay 6 figures for their college degrees.

