From hobbyist to entrepreneur, journey of a thousand miles

[Dr. Dendrostein]

For everyone planning to move from hobby to entrepreneur.

Couldn't find a forum for this topic. Truly enjoyed Matt Pedersen tips to turn our hobby aquaculture into a business.
A little about me , own and operate a service business in the HVACR industry. 25+ years at it. So have a little knowledge/experience on starting a business in my feild. Enough said. This will be a journal, sometimes I'll input other times won't hear from me for long time. Hope it helps someone in the end. God willing, end result is to turn our hobby into a profitable business.

Right now getting a business plan together.
Here's mission statement:
Oceanana is a company that is concern with the health of the ocean's reefs and concern that future generations will never get to experience and know the beauty of the ocean reefs. And treat our customers as we would like to be treated.

More soon, comrades

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

Bump

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

God willing, I see in 3-5 yrs aquaculture beginning for dendronephthya and scleronephthya colonies. If all goes well. We start small and go from there.

I'm hoping these and other corals similar will invite more to our hobby.

 

[Hemmdog]

Ok ok, non profit ? Helping the reefs?
I’m down.

 

[don_chuwish]

Best of luck, enjoy the journey!

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

On Monday will call Chamber of Commerce for help with business plan.

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

Bump

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

Although already running a different business, it's different.

Quick run down

1. Business Plan , get help at Chamber of Commerce for next steps
2. Register business name, get permits, bank acct, logistics, licenses, I'm missing something or some things
3. Get more assistance at Chamber of Commerce
4. Aquaculture what you can, I'm already doing some, just make sure logistics in place.

Because I'm still in R&D(3 years to go) phase, after completing Business Plan, Chamber of Commerce will let me know next steps, then I can determine to wait or go forward.

One of our frags. This species of dendronephthya maybe only ones in USA. Bummer

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

Here's what I prepared/already done
1. Registered a business name
2. Business bank acct
3. Seller's permits
4. Business licenses
5. Domain name


Scleronephthya sp.

 

[Reef-junky]

Speaking from my experience you don’t want to turn a hobby into a job. It takes the fun out of the hobby. I did this with poker and it went from being fun to a grind.

 

[Tumey]

Speaking from my experience you don’t want to turn a hobby into a job. It takes the fun out of the hobby. I did this with poker and it went from being fun to a grind.

I’m gonna have to say I completely agree with this!

 

[Reef-junky]

How to you plan to complete with say divers den ect?

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

Here's our goals/dream

If God willing, in 2-3 yrs, if successful with these softies, we're going crowd funding, one project at a time, we want to provide a 50 gallon tank, with gyre's, feeding device, computer system to create proper flow, stand, and also 24 dendronephthya and scleronephthya with other nps corals, donate to one aquarium institution, after all expenses to rent truck,get all accessories together and any other expenses, funds left ,donate to them, then do it again, different Institution, and so on, eventually full on aquaculture, sell them to public, down the line.

This is the way it's done, so EVERYONE can enjoy first,,then.....

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

How to you plan to complete with say divers den ect?

There is no competing with them. When was the last time you saw Scleronephthya in in their websites for sale that are the actual photos, were they're healthy and completely open the polyps or have you ever seen often dendronephthya sold by them where they look healthy and fully open, I don't remember once and I've bought from them in the past. Most of them who offer these corals and similar ones are pretty much trash or junk and I say this because I've bought them from most of the competitors out there if you call them competitors.

From 10 orders,maybe five are healthy.

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

I’m gonna have to say I completely agree with this!

Not everyone is entrepreneur material, some people need to clock in every day and receive a paycheck once every week or two then you have the entrepreneur which is a totally different animal. Many things we have today we wouldn't have if it wasn't for necessity. Necessity the mother of invention.

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

Speaking from my experience you don’t want to turn a hobby into a job. It takes the fun out of the hobby. I did this with poker and it went from being fun to a grind.

Not everyone is entrepreneur material, some people need to clock in every day and receive a paycheck once every week or two then you have the entrepreneur which is a totally different animal. Many things we have today we wouldn't have if it wasn't for necessity. Necessity the mother of invention.

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

Speaking from my experience you don’t want to turn a hobby into a job. It takes the fun out of the hobby. I did this with poker and it went from being fun to a grind.

I have a client who's profession is gambler, he's done well for himself. Here in California when real estate was hot 2002 to 2006. My brother being in real estate and love to gamble, Texas Hold'em and of course being into real estate all his buddies were either in real estate or providing loans for real estate so some of them played on the weekend Texas Hold'em,at his home. The pot was no less than $80,000 up to $200,000. Those that lost, their attitude was, "I'll just charge my clients more fees on their loan to get my money back." Point is gambling can make you big money just like many other professions. It all depends on how hungry you are

 

[Reefer_Rob]

Hey neighbor, I work in Fullerton.

I like the idea! How can we help?

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

Hey neighbor, I work in Fullerton.

I like the idea! How can we help?

Thank you for offering, all I can ask is, if your on Instagram, FB, promote Oceanana dendronephthya Scleronephthya on FB, Instagram it's dr. dendrostein. Friend me in Instagram, so I can have you in circles of close friends, remind me there we spoke here.

Mention our goals in 2-3 years , especially we're going crowd funding then, God willing.

Here's our goals/dream

If God willing, in 2-3 yrs, if successful with these softies, we're going crowd funding, one project at a time, we want to provide a 50 gallon tank, with gyre's, feeding device, computer system to create proper flow, stand, and also 24 dendronephthya and scleronephthya with other nps corals, donate to one aquarium institution, after all expenses to rent truck,get all accessories together and any other expenses, funds left ,donate to them, then do it again, different Institution, and so on, eventually full on aquaculture, sell them to public, down the line.

This is the way it's done, so EVERYONE can enjoy first,,then.....

Pm me tomorrow about this time, if you can. I have some questions
Thanks for offering

 

[Reef-junky]

I have a client who's profession is gambler, he's done well for himself. Here in California when real estate was hot 2002 to 2006. My brother being in real estate and love to gamble, Texas Hold'em and of course being into real estate all his buddies were either in real estate or providing loans for real estate so some of them played on the weekend Texas Hold'em,at his home. The pot was no less than $80,000 up to $200,000. Those that lost, their attitude was, "I'll just charge my clients more fees on their loan to get my money back." Point is gambling can make you big money just like many other professions. It all depends on how hungry you are

It’s the losses you have to be able to take. I miss the poker show high stakes. When you start playing every day and your putting in work looking at stats ect that’s when It stops becoming fun.