Why not work backwards and start making sales before you have stock, so you know if the business is possible, and if so, what kind of margins you're working with to pay for advertising, inventory, fullfilling orders, packing, shipping, wages, rent, etc?
For example, setup your online store and buy your Facebook ad campaign for teen girls, and try to sell them the Justin Beiber case that you could potentially order from China. When they go through the order process, inform them it's 'out of stock', and flag a potential sale in your database. Now, analyze the numbers, look at how much your ad campaign costed, how many potential sales you generated, how much it would cost to order those actual cases from China, how much it would cost to ship them, etc, and see if the business makes sense. If so, start with a small batch of inventory as you said, you'll get more experience with the entire process, any hidden costs or time involved you overlooked, and go from there.
Well, like the video explains, I think a lot of people don't recognize the problem, because it's less obvious with 24-bit color. And, if they do recognize the problem, they might think it can't be fixed, or they might not think subtle bands are worth fixing.
I've used the following in the past with a lot of success, for one-click fixing Photoshop banding.
You have no successes, but you're 100% sure this product will take off like a rocket? That's not the way it works. Most people believe in their product, that's why they develop it and invest the long hours in the first place. However, you're only one person, and until that product sees the light of day and you get real feedback, you're living in a bubble.
I did the same thing once, and then never again. I developed a product for a year in my free time. Everything was finished, polished, all the features were fully developed, and it was ready to go. What happened? I 'launched', a handful of users registered, there were a dozen posts, and that was it. Only in that moment, did I realize it wasn't that great of an idea in the first place, and how absurd it was to invest a year of my time before getting feedback from my target audience.
What I do now is try to launch asap. I get a rough concept up and running, and launch in a weekend, a week, or a month. I developed one site over the course of 48 hours (from idea to working beta), launched, and it had 2,000 registered users in less than a day. It still failed a year later. I launched another site after a month of development, and that one had 3,000 users the first day, and now it has a million and continues to grow.
By not launching, you're wasting time. There's a 95%+ chance the product is going to fail, you'll get a tiny spike of traffic day one from your marketing, and that'll be the most traffic you ever see. That's why you should launch asap. If you invest a few weeks, and it fails, that's great, you proved the idea doesn't work, and you move onto the next. You can launch a dozen products and services in a year this way, identify the failures, and when one appears to gain traction, then you can flesh it out more. I don't think my site had a FAQ until it had 25k+ users, a support section until it had 50k+ users. It didn't get a ToS until it had 500k+ users. Launching is a good way to validate the core idea, before you invest all the time in the extras.
Same here, my parents never told me, it was just a growing suspicion that slowly came together. At the same time, I never recall being angry with them, it was just a fact of life that parents pretend Santa exists.
It is strange that we lie to children, but at the same time, kids have interesting minds, and they seem to really appreciate fantasies, creativity and adventures. This is the one time in their life when they can honestly believe a magic fairy leaves money for their teeth, or that the treasure map they discovered for lost candy in their backyard is real, and left by a pirate 500 years ago. As adults, we lose that magic as we get a better understanding of the world, and we try to relive some of it through movies or games, but for kids, it can exist in reality.
So, yes, we lie to them, but in return they live years in what feels like a more fantastical world, and I think they appreciate those memories when they grow up.
Yes, it's fair, because many developers live in a little bubble. The United States, Canada, Australia, Russia and all of Europe combined is only 15% of the world's population.
You can argue the other 85% doesn't have internet access or isn't your target audience. However, I run a site that's geared to the US market, it's entirely in English, and 12k of my registered users are from China (1.5%). If I included files from the Google CDN, I'd be losing 1.5% of my users due to one line of code.
The site looks like a clone of Google Maps, but you're limited to London, you show far fewer results in any given location, and the search doesn't work nearly as well.
For example, I can visit Google Maps, type in 'Italian food in Mayfair' and I instantly have results. On your site I type the same thing, and I get nothing. Instead, your site gives search suggestions for Indian and British food for my Italian search, and I'm forced to click one of the suggestions.
It also doesn't allow me to search cuisine and location at the same time. I can search for Italian food across your entire database, or I can search for a location like Mayfair. To do both, I need to search the location first, and then apply a filter for Italian cuisine. Also, why can I search cuisines, then filter cuisines? I mean, I can use the British search suggestion, and then apply a filter for Indian. Why is this even possible? Filters shouldn't exist, the search bar should be able to combine cuisine and location.
Lastly, for my original search, your site shows 8 results. Google is returning hundreds. You're going to get absolutely no traction when you offer an inferior product to a well established competitor with millions of users.
Why don't you tell us some reasons why someone should use your site instead of the competitors, like Google Maps?
The easiest solution is to raise the price so it's no longer a viable business to squat domains. Right now you can buy 1,000 domains for $10k a year, and you just need to a handful of those to be worth something to the right person, and you break even.
Raise the price of a .com to $100 per year. This remains a minimal cost to any profitable business, and it's cheap enough for new startups to buy a domain for a year or two while attempting a new business.
If you can't afford it, well, you have countless other domain extensions you can choose from at a cheaper rate.
I'd much rather pay $100 per year for a .com that I want, instead of having a domain squatter asking $2k, and then having to settle for my fourth or fifth choice that's actually available to register.
For example, setup your online store and buy your Facebook ad campaign for teen girls, and try to sell them the Justin Beiber case that you could potentially order from China. When they go through the order process, inform them it's 'out of stock', and flag a potential sale in your database. Now, analyze the numbers, look at how much your ad campaign costed, how many potential sales you generated, how much it would cost to order those actual cases from China, how much it would cost to ship them, etc, and see if the business makes sense. If so, start with a small batch of inventory as you said, you'll get more experience with the entire process, any hidden costs or time involved you overlooked, and go from there.