r/alibaba
In this economy, what turned out to be the best (and worst) business investments?
The author asks business owners and investors to share their best and worst business investment experiences in the current economy.
I’m curious to hear from Americans who own businesses or have invested in one. What ended up being your best business investment like something that gave strong returns or genuinely helped growth, especially in this economy? And on the flip side, what was a bad investment that looked promising but turned into a waste of money?
I feel like people talk a lot about wins, but not enough about the expensive mistakes and lessons learned. Curious what actually worked (or didn’t) for people running businesses right now.
Best investment for us was outsourcing certain roles instead of building a huge in-house team too early. We kept only the roles that directly impact customers and outsourced the rest. Even our IT is outsourced, and we get services from Skytek Solutions. They are working remotely. Helped a lot with payroll and flexibility, especially in this economy. Worst for me was paid ads without a clear strategy. Burned money fast.
Worst investment was spending too much on branding early on before fixing operations. Fancy website, logo refresh, expensive marketing materials… looked great but didn’t really move revenue
If you dont mind sharing, what order did you use when branding and creating your website/marketing strategy? Im currently past my branding and logo and now im in between ordering product and creating my website. I dont expect to pay anyone to create my website since I can do some light coding and shspicy is a skill im willing to leearn slowly when i have free time.
I’d probably order a small batch first before going too hard on the website. We did branding early too, but looking back I think validating demand mattered more. Since you can do some coding, I’d just make a simple website first and improve it over time. No need to make it perfect before you even know what sells. Small batch, test demand, tweak website/marketing as you go.
How is this specifically related to Alibaba?
Best tip is don't blindly follow all the Gurus online, start small and keep re-investing.
hi, I've tried to dm you, but keep getting rejected can you send me a message?
No idea why it is being filtered but we don't want unsolicited DMs anyway. If you have a business enquiry welcome to send us an enquiry via our website.