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I am starting up a vegan business - big time!


tuc
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Just wanted to tell you all that I am starting up an own company which will import vegan food, supplements, vitamins and superfoods to Finland!

 

I'll start with a modest budget of 10 000 EUR (15 000 USD). If you have vegan stuff that you think I might be able to sell directly to consumers or to retail stores, please contact me! I am able to buy stuff in a week or two.

 

I am convinced that my company will greatly help Finnish vegans to get good protein and stay healthy. My pricing will be modest, since I am more into helping vegans than making money. I print my own labels and I won't have much fixed costs so there isn't that big risk for me. If I can't sell something, I eat it myself!

 

Wish me luck!

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  • 4 weeks later...
Just wanted to tell you all that I am starting up an own company which will import vegan food, supplements, vitamins and superfoods to Finland!

 

I'll start with a modest budget of 10 000 EUR (15 000 USD). If you have vegan stuff that you think I might be able to sell directly to consumers or to retail stores, please contact me! I am able to buy stuff in a week or two.

 

I am convinced that my company will greatly help Finnish vegans to get good protein and stay healthy. My pricing will be modest, since I am more into helping vegans than making money. I print my own labels and I won't have much fixed costs so there isn't that big risk for me. If I can't sell something, I eat it myself!

 

Wish me luck!

 

Good for you I might say have some real food in your store make it a one stop shop.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Thank you all! It's great to hear that I am not the only one who's really excited about this!

 

Things are now happening for real! I spent ~ 5000 USD today while ordering food (about 1000 lbs food on its way over here!). I already have web pages almost finished:

http://www.vegetukku.tarjoaa.fi/ (don't worry about the top banner, the pic will change and it just says that DON'T ORDER YET, TEST MODE ONLY!)

 

Things I still have to do:

 

- Order sh*tloads of more stuff such as protein powders ect.

- Receive items as soon as they arrive and print labels in Finnish.

- Type in all the items in my web store.

- SELL EVERYTHING AND MAKE THE WHOLE FINLAND EAT VEGAN FOOD!

 

Right now I will have things such as:

 

- Protein powders and other sports nutrition

- A large variety of soy and lupin food products including bulk packs (20 lbs of textured soy products in one box, now that should last for a while)

- Sausages, tofu, Spacebars

- Primal jerky

- over 10 different vegan protein bars

- Vegan toothpaste

- Goji berries, spirulina, maca, coconut and such

- Spices

 

All vegan, many products are 100 % organic, some raw food...

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  • 3 weeks later...

YEAH ROBERT! (Still looking forward for you to send me some promotional stuff! )

 

Now it's open!

 

Today 10.01.10 @ 10:01:10 I opened the shop. Nice amount of orders already, even though I am still waiting for most of the stuff which means my product palette is a bit weak right now.

 

JP showed how it's done, so I really have to give a big up for JP for being such an inspiration! He started the first vegan food webstore in Finnish and now we have two, which of course support each other!

 

Tomorrow is the first interview, I'm getting loads of free publicity in a few weeks!

 

You can check my web pages, which are now pretty much finished (and in Finnish): http://vegetukku.fi/

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Hey! Quick question.

 

I'll get the VEGA answer to you asap...but my question is, is it just food/supplements, or would you like some VBB clothing or Vegan Fitness DVDs to re-sell and things like that? Or mostly just food stuff?

 

No worries either way, just want to know what to ship to you

 

-Robert

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  • 3 weeks later...

How are things going?

 

Still no word, so we can just try ordering and see how it goes. It's just not a country we've shipped to before since we work mostly with US and Canadian stores, some in the UK, etc.

 

Of course people like VeganProteins and Vegan Essentials ship all over the world, but it would be awesome if you could just buy wholesale from our company...so let's give it a try.

 

Let me know what you'd like to order and I'll place the order and send some additional bonus stuff once it is shipped out.

 

I ran out of money lately so I didn't ship any shirts..I had to sell them asap. I had a surgery last week that was expensive and I don't have insurance.

 

But I can still send Vega type bonus stuff, just no shirts.

 

Have fun!

 

Robert

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Yo Robert!

 

Sorry, I have been SUPER BUSY lately! I have sold stuff worth more than 10 000 USD in just 3 weeks! I am creating something huge here, since on friday I'll take 15 000 USD more loan and I already have some restaurant customers and I will get a proper warehouse soon (I hate all the regulations and bureaucracy you have to do in order to get one!!!), and next week I will probably get a really nice ecological van for my company so that I can move stuff harder, better, faster and stronger than now. On one saturday I had more than 1000 USD sales!

 

But yeah, I think I mostly need is some Vega stuff. Some small bags for starters I guess and a lot of those trial packages since we first have to make the brand known. And I just love giving away some free stuff with every order, and those packages will do the job more than well!

 

If you ship via UPS it shouldn't be a problem since I've ordered loads of stuff from the U.S. and I've never had any problems.

 

I'm sorry to hear about your surgery. It really sucks for you guys to get sick or hurt yourself in the U.S. without insurance!

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Wow!

 

What incredible success!

 

OK, I'll email you a sample order to get your approval, and then we'll just need your business info, payment info, shipping info, etc.

 

I'll email you our price lists, etc.

 

Email [email protected] so I can reply from reg email rather than forum so I can add attachments, etc.

 

Thanks!

 

Congratulations on amazing success so far!

 

-Robert

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  • 10 months later...

I thought that someone might be interested to hear how I am doing so here are some facts and thoughts.

 

I just broke another milestone: I have now spent more than 100 000 EUR (130 000 USD) to various stuff for my company, mainly to products obviously. In case you haven't read the whole thread, I started having nothing and opened the business on January 2010.

 

I will very likely have more than 1500 orders this year and the sales will be around 100 000 EUR as well.

 

Something negative as well: I've now worked full days for the whole year having only 1 week vacation (which I spent in Vegan Fitness Week in Germany) and I haven't paid myself a dime in salaries yet. I've managed to pay back a lot of my debts so the year has been profitable anyway, don't worry! I work the evenings in other jobs and so that I can pay for my living since I don't get any help or social security (small scale entrepreneurs are the ones who get kicked in the face by the government here). Also, I've bought 50 % shares of a limited company which is starting to import high quality food from China and it will be a great help in creating a succesful business.

 

Another downside has been that I haven't been able to work out as much as I would have wanted but I've kept myself in decent shape. I have to be in shape in order to represent vegan lifestyle as a healthy option!

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Wow ! Amazing ! I didn't know about all this and just found out few minutes ago. I've thought about it, that you should start a business like this when I met you and told me you were selling those vegan weiners and when I came back I thought I should do the same in Canada but its still just a project. Congratulations!

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