Maui CEO

Chapter 1 Setting Your Core Business Strategy
There are three possible core business strategies, and I explain why you should be a low-cost leader.

Chapter 2 Deciding Which Product to Buy for Resale

Worried that you and 50 others will be selling the same thing on eBay? Seek barriers to entry. I give clear guidelines on product branding, product quality, pricing research, and whether you should sell new or used. I also discuss whether you should target businesses or individual consumers.

Chapter 3 Developing Your Corporate Identity
This chapter discusses creating your corporate identity, including your business name, logo, letterhead, URL, email and Skype accounts.

Chapter 4 Establishing Your Corporate Structure
For most businesses, the ideal structure is a “C” in Nevada. Want to incorporate for cheap? Get some money back if your business files bankruptcy? I’ll tell you how.

Chapter 5 Finding Sellers in China
You can buy product from China, India, or almost anywhere else. Here are some key tips and guidelines on this mysterious process.

Chapter 6 How to Order Your First Container
This book outlines the following: getting a good deal on container shipping, processing international payment, finding a customs broker, and determining import duties.

Chapter 7 Getting Your Web Site Up
We start by discussing your pricing/payment strategy and need for interactivity.  With that information in mind, we move to the fun stuff, including databases, site hosting, XML, and merchant integration.

Chapter 8 Finding a Warehouse Distribution Center
What’s the best place for a warehouse? Long Beach, CA. Why do you even need a warehouse, and what’s the most important requirement for during evaluation? I tell you here.

Chapter 9 Getting Product From the Warehouse to the Customer
After your container has arrived and been unloaded, then what happens? We discuss your logistical choices, using technology to optimize the processes. The importance of aligning customer expectations to logistical reality is highlighted.

Chapter 10 EBay, PayPal, Escrow, and Your Security
EBay will undoubtedly be one of your channels. I tell you how to minimize everyone’s risk through escrow, spoof prophylactics, PayPal verification, and so on.

Chapter 11 Organizational Design (Hiring Employees #1-5)
After your business starts to grow, what kind of employees and independent contractors should you hire? What about outsourcing to India or the Philippines? What is the best organizational design? Start with the goal of $200,000 of revenue per employee.

Chapter 12 Maui CEO Gets a Marketing Makeover
We address press relations versus advertising, and learn to apply multiple Harvard-type frameworks to evaluate and refine your offering—capturing pragmatists and their dollars. Positioning relative to your competition is also tackled.

Chapter 13 Advertising in the Networked Economy—Google and YouTube, Paid Search and Viral Videos
We focus on search engine optimization and paid search. What’s the area where you can get significant leverage, given your higher ASPs? Read on.

Introduction

Cleveland. El Paso. Atlanta. What is the common thread? Each city is full of people who don’t want to live there. These people have taken job opportunities based on the employer’s location and the job offer—but not necessarily on what the location has to offer the employee individually.

Put another way, would you rather live in Cleveland or Maui? Most would answer Maui, based on the island’s good weather, and the image of excellent mental and physical health. Maui is of course only representative of any ideal location; living in the mountains of Switzerland may be equally appealing. Regardless of this ideal location’s name, the reason you don’t live there is likely because you can’t find a good job in Maui. Selling timeshares isn’t what you had in mind, right?

Maui CEO shows you how to start your own business, specifically designed from the ground up to managed remotely from anywhere you want. One of the biggest challenges to a new business is building systems and structures without a clear framework. Maui CEO solves this challenge. This book is your blueprint, and will show you how to select a product; buy that product in China; import the goods into the U.S.; and sell and deliver online, particularly through eBay.

This second edition deepens the content from the first edition, and utilizes feedback received from readers like you via email. One thing I haven’t changed is the size of the book. I was in a bus in Taiwan and saw a guy reading Maui CEO; when I asked him about it, the first thing he identified was how convenient the book was to physically carry around with him and make notes as he thought about each section. While this book may be shorter than others you are considering, Maui CEO is heavy on content. I don’t waste a lot of space on fluff—the shorter the book, the smaller the environmental impact.

The original concept was to have two separate books, each addressing pre-launch activities and the other tackling post-launch growth. In retrospect, customers wanted everyone in one concise place. Finally, a lot of changed since the first edition was published in 2005. Skype went from practically nothing to having over 200M users and being a viable part of your telco strategy, for instance. To make sure you’re getting the latest and greatest, I’ve taken executive education courses on Marketing and Strategy at Harvard and MIT this year, and have attended (and spoke at) eBay Live and the eBay Developer’s Conferences in 2006 and 2007.

I believe your chances for future success are high because Maui CEO is practical.

This guide is practical for two reasons: first, you are provided detailed content. I provide you specific information rather than broad platitudes. For instance, instead of advising you to “go incorporate,” I explain why; tell you specifically to incorporate in Nevada; and give you the name, number, and URL of the best place to help you incorporate. Second, this guide is practical because I am also your project manager. I provide you a “project plan” which gives you the right order of milestones and tasks. This way, you can reduce redundancy and get your business up and running as fast as possible. I would venture a guess that this book will give you a 9 month advantage minimum over someone else trying to figure all of this out on their own.

Why am I qualified to write this book? Because I have done everything I will be asking you to do, and have the benefit of successes and failures to draw upon. In the small business world, I have started California and Nevada corporations; created a dot-com which lead its field (until a divorce gutted the capital base); and managed or outsourced every time of small business function, from advertising to accounting. In the large business world, I have worked for such well-known companies as Intel, Hewlett-Packard, Domino’s Pizza International, and WordPerfect. I also hold a J.D. and MBA from the University of Michigan, and have taught graduate-level E-commerce and business strategy courses at the University of Phoenix. My knowledge and experience are current, and you are the beneficiary.

Now, on to some assumptions: first, I am writing this book not to the academic establishment, but instead to the person who has always dreamed of being an entrepreneur. This category of reader could realistically include a corporate-type who wants to spend more time with his or her children; a spouse who is bored of the tennis scene; a displaced Southern Californian who longs to return to the beach; or a Starbucks manager.

A manager at Starbucks is actually the ideal candidate to start an online global business. This person, while neither a Harvard MBA nor a frequent target of Korn Ferry headhunters, has the “smarts,” exposure to good processes, and $22,000 (or so) it will take to get things going.

I also assume that you’ve already decided to start your business. You’ve read the latest books and articles, such as Michael Gerber’s  text on why most small businesses don’t work. In other words, the scope of this book does not address whether you have what it takes to be successful. I will give you a valuable head start—the rest is up to you.

Another important assumption is that no venture capitalist will want to invest in this business you will be creating. Based on my experience at venture capital conferences, you can expect venture equity investment only if you can reasonably grow your business to from $0 to $50M in revenue—in three years. We all have dreams of starting a cool company, only to be bought by Yahoo or Google. I too had this vision, but now I know better. You should instead plan your business with one of these two exit strategies in mind: 1) either sell your successful business to a larger entity after 4 or 5 years; or 2) move to Hawaii and run your business from there. In the latter scenario, you don’t exit the business but manage it in your mornings and play island golf in the afternoons. You become the Maui CEO!

A final assumption is that you are initially targeting American consumers. North Americans have the money and market size to deserve your focus. After establishing the success of your business, you can eventually expand globally.

Moving on, a common focus on eBay runs through both the texts. eBay is your most important channel—at least for now—and therefore dominates thematically. Ebay is organized by category, and our joint goal is to dominate that competitive group. I will show you how to create an eBay category killer.