By Davian Koren
Overview
I started my rabbitry when I was 12. Now, three years later, I have a successful business that brings in customers from as far as four hours away to come and purchase my bunnies!
Today I’m going to talk about some of the challenges I faced while growing my business, how I overcame them, and how you can become an entrepreneur as well!
Challenges
Experience. When I first started, I didn’t know that much about rabbits! Yes, I had done a lot of research, but a lot of things I hadn’t come across before. It was very hard the first time one of my rabbits got sick, and (since I didn’t know what to do at first) it took a lot of time and effort to help it recover.
Over time, I was able to overcome this by asking people that did have experience for advice, doing more research, and being open to trying new things when I failed. By now I’ve become way more familiar with my animals, and I need help less often!
It’s always helpful to know someone (a parent, friend, or mentor) that knows more than you on the subject that way they can help you when you need it.
Funding. I began my business with just the few hundred dollars I had managed to save since my early childhood. My parents were (and are!) very supportive, but they weren’t going to do it all for me! They generously let me use their space for housing the rabbits, and my father helped a lot with building the hutches, but I had to invest in it myself and have some skin in the game.
I was able to pool enough money from taking odd jobs from family, friends, neighbors, and other people in my community. I also ran a small Etsy shop for a while, and this helped me earn as well.
I still wouldn’t have had enough to get going, but I was able to make up for what I didn’t have in cash in repurposed materials, scrounging for wood scraps and other items that I needed to build my hutches.
Marketing. Once I was up and running, it took a while before I was able to make many sales. I had no experience with marketing, and had no idea how to sell my products. I ended up posting my rabbits on Craigslist and Facebook, putting up flyers around town, as well as occasionally posting information on various rabbit-specific websites.
It took a lot of time to build up enough reputation to have our website get found on the web and for people to happily spread word to their friends of their good experience with us.
When I was designing our website and ads for my business, I liked to look at what successful people working in similar fields had done. This meant checking out other rabbitry’s sites, social posts, and flyers to see what they had done that worked well. I then applied what I learned to our ads, tweaking them to fit my business.
Reservation and Deposits. Once my rabbits were reserved, there were multiple times when a customer would back out unexpectedly, or even just not show up to pick up their bunny on the day we had planned.
There seemed to be no good way to fix this problem. I looked on the web at other rabbitry’s websites to see how they addressed this issue, and found that they usually took deposits. This helps to have the buyer have some skin in the game and gives more incentive for them to follow through with a purchase. It also takes away risk from my end, since even if they back out I still have earned enough to compensate for the setback.
Five Steps to Start a Small Business
Do your research. Come up with a plan, including a budget and goals for your business. You’ll also need a business name as well as (preferably) a logo.
Gather your materials and assemble. If you need to purchase any items, do it. Always use recycled or repurposed items when you’re able to in order to save on cost.
Market your business. You can market using social media (Facebook/Instagram posts, etc.), putting ads in the newspaper/flyers, and/or posting listings of your products on other various websites.
It’s very helpful to have your own website where you can talk about your business and list your products as well.
Making sales – keep happy customers! When you make sales, be sure to treat your customers well! Be polite, answer inquiries promptly, and do the best you can to have high quality products that will make them satisfied.
Continually improve you business as you grow. You should constantly be improving and changing your business for the better as you go along!
Wrapping Up…
Starting a business can be a great way to learn responsibility, new skills, and work ethic. In my experience it’s also helped a lot with my public speaking!
There’s so much that I’ve learned while doing this, and it’s really amazing to see the fruits of that.
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