Adventures with Corndog: Corndog's Fish Store

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Tmac

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I still check in on Foh a few times a week, I just don't post much as I don't have as much time.

On a basic level, I find business comes down to a grind. Save up money, invest it in the next item, that farms money faster. Rinse and repeat. I just replaced mmorpg addiction with RL money farming. At some point I just realized, farming platinum or gold is the same as farming dollars. Doesn't really matter how slow you do it, if you do it a lot. Over time you find the better farm spots, upgrade your gear. Maximizing return for efforts.

Obviously a very simplistic approach, it's just hard rolling as a level 1 halfling with a rusty sword farming copper. Once your life has an upkeep cost of mortgage and bills, you can't really decide to reroll. I was lucky to have a friend to invest startup money that allowed me to farm it back and then continue to go on. At the high end you still have to "don't stand in the poison" but it gets easier to avoid as you learn the encounters. Then you just teach the others in your raid how to dodge it, and the new hires are new recruits. I really see lots of parallels to guild leading, raiding, min/maxing in gaming to the business world.

I wanted to add, I am still always stockpiling as if Naxx is coming. The consumes costs are high when learning something new. So if I want to delve into a new product development, new selling space etc, save up knowing you'll fail a lot, before you learn the encounters to then farm them.

Shit’s real.

When I was 15-18 it used to bother my dad to no end that I played online games for hours. He played college football and I guess the thought that his son was a nerd was just other worldly. I also played football, but the point remains.

Then like 5 years later when I was a Junior in college he made a comment like, “Hey, I read an article from a Harvard business grad that he’d rather hire someone with raid leading experience than without. Isn’t that what you did?” I replied, “Yeah dad, that’s what I did.” He kind of chuckled, “Well, sorry I gave you such a hard time about it. I guess it taught you some valuable things.”

We now work together in SAAS software and I pay him to be the sales guy.

Business is pretty parallel to farming, raiding, etc.

Whatever happened to Lyrical?
 
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Chanur

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Still blown away by how much his business has grown. He is the Amazon of fish tank supplies it looks like now.

C Corndog I work in warehousing and logistics and I like your set up. Im more on the planning side now but ive been in the business for 10 years as a proffessional. Done all kinds of warehousing and inventory. I didn't finish the video yet but the guy in it said you always try to carry 3-6 months worth of stock on everything. My question is why? Thats a lot of cash flow and capital tied up that likely isnt necessary depending upon supplier reliability and lead times.
 

moonarchia

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C Corndog I work in warehousing and logistics and I like your set up. Im more on the planning side now but ive been in the business for 10 years as a proffessional. Done all kinds of warehousing and inventory. I didn't finish the video yet but the guy in it said you always try to carry 3-6 months worth of stock on everything. My question is why? Thats a lot of cash flow and capital tied up that likely isnt necessary depending upon supplier reliability and lead times.
Supplier reliability would be my guess.
 
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BrutulTM

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Shit’s real.

When I was 15-18 it used to bother my dad to no end that I played online games for hours. He played college football and I guess the thought that his son was a nerd was just other worldly. I also played football, but the point remains.

Then like 5 years later when I was a Junior in college he made a comment like, “Hey, I read an article from a Harvard business grad that he’d rather hire someone with raid leading experience than without. Isn’t that what you did?” I replied, “Yeah dad, that’s what I did.” He kind of chuckled, “Well, sorry I gave you such a hard time about it. I guess it taught you some valuable things.”

We now work together in SAAS software and I pay him to be the sales guy.

Business is pretty parallel to farming, raiding, etc.

Whatever happened to Lyrical?

I have always said that if 80% of people wouldn't think I was insane because of it, I would put being the leader of a raiding guild on my resume. I learned so much about dealing with people from doing that.
 
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Corndog

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C Corndog I work in warehousing and logistics and I like your set up. Im more on the planning side now but ive been in the business for 10 years as a proffessional. Done all kinds of warehousing and inventory. I didn't finish the video yet but the guy in it said you always try to carry 3-6 months worth of stock on everything. My question is why? Thats a lot of cash flow and capital tied up that likely isnt necessary depending upon supplier reliability and lead times.
Mostly manufacturers in my industry are really behind the times. Pre pandemic, a leading company would be out of stock anywhere from 90-180 days on items. We have doubled revenue every year since we went online. This leads to shortages for us. No matter how many times we ask to meet with companies logistics people, they always underestimate us. We always fly out, meet with them. Tell them we are going to sell more than the rest of the USA combined and will be your #1 buyer. They always say, we have no problems meeting demands. Then a month later, "we've never seen this kind of demand before". Essentially these companies have never seen true influencer marketing. They don't account for, we are going to purchase more than anyone, but our marketing is going to drive the demand for the product on every single website and retail brick and morter store in the world. Sure we don't reach everyone, but we hit 3+ million people a month on youtube alone. They are used to putting advertisements in a fish magazine with 10k readership.

One example would be a med, our intial order was more than they sold the entire year of 2019. We sold it out in 30 days. On top of that, we started just producing our own products instead of waiting for a container to come in for a manufacture, then route straight to us. Our analytics can forecast much better than our suppliers as we can move on trends in real time. Then there's the oops, I mentioned a product in the video and now demand will be 3x what our forecast was prior. Then add Covid to the mix. We had one product manufactured specifically for in Florida. We ordered it in June, we had 60 days of supply in stock at that point. It landed at our warehouse 2 weeks ago... in 2021, after placing the order 6 months ago, meaning we sat out of stock for 4 months.

Another product comes from Malaysia. Their entire system shut down, no mail or packages leaving for many months. As this is a natural product there is no where else to get it. Once we depleted our reserves. We then sat out for 6 months. When our supply finally arrived, it was enough for the previous whole year combined, we estimated 6 months of this year with growth. It lasted 42 days before selling out. We are currently waiting for more to make it's way here. We ordered a second order before the first order even arrived. The second ordered hasn't arrived yet. We placed an order for some ridiculous amount now, and they are having a hard time even getting enough of the product to prep to send us. It's a leaf that falls off a free. Just has to be collected and dried, then packed.

As fast as we can move for a product being manufactured. It takes 30 days for China, Vietnam, Taiwan etc to spin up the factory, box our stuff, put it on a boat. 30 days to arrive, then 15 days at port with covid jamming things up currently. This puts us as 2.5 months from the minute we know we need to order. We have a cargo container of goods landing every month in addition to buying from wholesalers. I still have 20 out of 236 items out of stock currently on our online store. Essentially money can't buy these items currently and once we can get our hands on it, we'll grab 6+ months because this just repeats itself.

I find that we lose far too many sales being out of stock than the cost of storage and taxes from inflated inventory. Lastly, every one of my competitors is having chronic out of stocks, we win purely by having things in stock. Plus there's so many other elements, marketing materials in the form of blog articles and videos that can't release until we can get supply. Nothing gets an angry mob faster than hyping up a product we are sold out on. An example of that is, we have a live plant that we can get in once every 4-6 months. They sell for $29.99 each, which is expensive. A few weeks ago, I was able to get 140 of them shipped in. I mentioned it to members only on youtube, and it sold out within 90 minutes. The paying members were even upset they missed out and there are only 2000 of them. Now open that up to a demand of 530k instead of 2000 and you can see the strain.

As we are told and say all the time, "it's a good problem to have" and my response is always, it's still a problem. I should also add that we are very selective in the products we want to carry. We sell lots of volume of few products. This no doubt puts strain on our suppliers but is the correct choice. We don't buy into, just bring on the whole line mentality.
 
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Tmac

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Mostly manufacturers in my industry are really behind the times. Pre pandemic, a leading company would be out of stock anywhere from 90-180 days on items. We have doubled revenue every year since we went online. This leads to shortages for us. No matter how many times we ask to meet with companies logistics people, they always underestimate us. We always fly out, meet with them. Tell them we are going to sell more than the rest of the USA combined and will be your #1 buyer. They always say, we have no problems meeting demands. Then a month later, "we've never seen this kind of demand before". Essentially these companies have never seen true influencer marketing. They don't account for, we are going to purchase more than anyone, but our marketing is going to drive the demand for the product on every single website and retail brick and morter store in the world. Sure we don't reach everyone, but we hit 3+ million people a month on youtube alone. They are used to putting advertisements in a fish magazine with 10k readership.

One example would be a med, our intial order was more than they sold the entire year of 2019. We sold it out in 30 days. On top of that, we started just producing our own products instead of waiting for a container to come in for a manufacture, then route straight to us. Our analytics can forecast much better than our suppliers as we can move on trends in real time. Then there's the oops, I mentioned a product in the video and now demand will be 3x what our forecast was prior. Then add Covid to the mix. We had one product manufactured specifically for in Florida. We ordered it in June, we had 60 days of supply in stock at that point. It landed at our warehouse 2 weeks ago... in 2021, after placing the order 6 months ago, meaning we sat out of stock for 4 months.

Another product comes from Malaysia. Their entire system shut down, no mail or packages leaving for many months. As this is a natural product there is no where else to get it. Once we depleted our reserves. We then sat out for 6 months. When our supply finally arrived, it was enough for the previous whole year combined, we estimated 6 months of this year with growth. It lasted 42 days before selling out. We are currently waiting for more to make it's way here. We ordered a second order before the first order even arrived. The second ordered hasn't arrived yet. We placed an order for some ridiculous amount now, and they are having a hard time even getting enough of the product to prep to send us. It's a leaf that falls off a free. Just has to be collected and dried, then packed.

As fast as we can move for a product being manufactured. It takes 30 days for China, Vietnam, Taiwan etc to spin up the factory, box our stuff, put it on a boat. 30 days to arrive, then 15 days at port with covid jamming things up currently. This puts us as 2.5 months from the minute we know we need to order. We have a cargo container of goods landing every month in addition to buying from wholesalers. I still have 20 out of 236 items out of stock currently on our online store. Essentially money can't buy these items currently and once we can get our hands on it, we'll grab 6+ months because this just repeats itself.

I find that we lose far too many sales being out of stock than the cost of storage and taxes from inflated inventory. Lastly, every one of my competitors is having chronic out of stocks, we win purely by having things in stock. Plus there's so many other elements, marketing materials in the form of blog articles and videos that can't release until we can get supply. Nothing gets an angry mob faster than hyping up a product we are sold out on. An example of that is, we have a live plant that we can get in once every 4-6 months. They sell for $29.99 each, which is expensive. A few weeks ago, I was able to get 140 of them shipped in. I mentioned it to members only on youtube, and it sold out within 90 minutes. The paying members were even upset they missed out and there are only 2000 of them. Now open that up to a demand of 530k instead of 2000 and you can see the strain.

As we are told and say all the time, "it's a good problem to have" and my response is always, it's still a problem. I should also add that we are very selective in the products we want to carry. We sell lots of volume of few products. This no doubt puts strain on our suppliers but is the correct choice. We don't buy into, just bring on the whole line mentality.

Sounds like it’s time to get in the leaf drying and shipping business.
 

Springbok

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C Corndog

I just recently started a small 10 gallon planted tank for my kids play room (have 5 Harlequin rasboras, a few amano's etc) and I bought my plants from y'all. The water sprites are doing well and showed up in superb condition. As the kids become more involved in the hobby, we'll definitely purchase our stuff from you guys. Also bought a nano grow light from you that is awesome!

Anyways, congrats on the business again - your website is great, and the youtube video's are the best in the business. Helped steer my son & I towards a 10g planted with a betta and small school of peaceful fish.
 

Hateyou

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C Corndog

I just recently started a small 10 gallon planted tank for my kids play room (have 5 Harlequin rasboras, a few amano's etc) and I bought my plants from y'all. The water sprites are doing well and showed up in superb condition. As the kids become more involved in the hobby, we'll definitely purchase our stuff from you guys. Also bought a nano grow light from you that is awesome!

Anyways, congrats on the business again - your website is great, and the youtube video's are the best in the business. Helped steer my son & I towards a 10g planted with a betta and small school of peaceful fish.
What other fish did you put in there? I have a 3 gallon with a betta. Want to put a mystery snail or two in there but the only shop that has them is like 40 minute drive so haven’t done it. He’s closing in on two year mark too so not sure how much longer he will live. I may end up doing a larger tank at some point, was thinking a betta, mystery snails and 2-3 of those guppies with the big tails.
 

Springbok

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I've heard from C Corndog on his youtube channel that guppies and betta's may not be the best idea.

I'm doing 3-5 amano shrimp (they're so great), 5 harlequin rasbora, and a betta in a pretty heavily planted 10gal long. I've had the tank about a month now, it's gone through the nitro cycle and am now just trying to keep these really stable before adding the betta in a few weeks. I'd heard that establishing the group tank before adding the betta is a good idea! I'm a n00b though so I get all my info from youtube.
 

Hateyou

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I've heard from C Corndog on his youtube channel that guppies and betta's may not be the best idea.

I'm doing 3-5 amano shrimp (they're so great), 5 harlequin rasbora, and a betta in a pretty heavily planted 10gal long. I've had the tank about a month now, it's gone through the nitro cycle and am now just trying to keep these really stable before adding the betta in a few weeks. I'd heard that establishing the group tank before adding the betta is a good idea! I'm a n00b though so I get all my info from youtube.
From what I’ve read the guppies and betta can be fine as long as it’s big enough and planted enough. I may just look into shrimp instead. I like the look of a heavily planted tank so that wouldn’t be an issue with me. I want my tank to look like I’m looking into a pond (without nasty water). I’d really like to do a couple Corys but they need such a big ground surface. Not sure I’m even going to be able to talk the wife into allowing a 10 gal, let alone one big enough for them.
 

BrutulTM

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You can tell her that smaller tanks are harder to take care of for a beginner which is true. The more water you have, the less the conditions in the tank are going to fluctuate. Start with a 60 and let her talk you down to a 40.
 

CaughtCross

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His retail fish store is looking pretty good these days. Really makes me wanna get a fish tank.

 
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Sterling

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Yeah, I keep thinking I might get back into it. A nice community tank really adds something to a room.
 

Shonuff

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There is a lot of variance depending on what type of content for youtube in regards to income. If you swear a bunch of get demonetized. How long the content is, and even just your keywords. For instance real estate youtube channels make a ton of money cause when advertisers get a new mortgage client, they make bank so they are willing to bid higher. With covid19 going on, ad revenue is going down because less people are advertising. So while it's cheaper to advertise, many businesses aren't because of the uncertainty of income later. The last 6 months or so. I average about 14k a month in ad revenue. You can see that even though I get 3 million views a month, only 5.6 million were views where adblocker wasn't used. Another big factor is where the views come from. USA has high ad payout, where somewhere like india would be low ad revenue. So sometimes a video will go viral, but in a different country and not earn much. Graphic is the last 90 days of revenue.

View attachment 265179

Glad you are doing well, and you've definitely refined your approach, I see.
 

mkopec

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Yeah I love fish, even when I was a kid I was always fascinated with the fish thank. Too bad I suck at actually keeping them and every time I try they all die within 6mos.
 

Hateyou

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Yeah I love fish, even when I was a kid I was always fascinated with the fish thank. Too bad I suck at actually keeping them and every time I try they all die within 6mos.
You trying hardy fish and still failing? We’ve had a betta going for a couple years. Just do a 30% water change every week or two and he’s good.

Ordered some new plants from Corey’s store, current ones are looking pretty rough.
 

BrutulTM

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Just do a 30% water change every week or two and he’s good.
This is literally the only thing you have to do take care of an aquarium aside from feeding the fish but it's surprising how few people know that.
 

Tarrant

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Man, good for him. It’s cool looking back on his posts when this was just a dream and watching that video and seeing that he’s shipping 600-700 packages a day from that warehouse.
 
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