One Week Into Launching ManThings: 3 Sales, Double the Rent and Why We’re Carrying On
TL;DR
ManThings has officially been live for a week.
The result? One website order, two eBay sales, a workshop that's about to get considerably emptier, and a rent bill that's about to get considerably bigger.
Three sales isn't exactly enough to start measuring up for the company yacht, but it's a start.
More importantly, ManThings isn't just another online shop. The aim is to use the business to create real jobs and practical digital training opportunities for people caught in the skills gap.
Week one has taught us one thing already: this is going to be harder than we thought.
We're doing it anyway.
So… How Did the First Week of ManThings Actually Go?
We've now survived the first full week since launching the ManThings website.
And because there's very little point pretending everything in business is sunshine, exponential growth and people shouting "scale!" at each other on LinkedIn, we thought we'd tell you how it actually went.
There has been some good news.
There has been some bad news.
And there have been three sales.
We'll come back to those.
First, we need to deal with the workshop.
“Three sales might not sound like much. That's because it isn't. But it is three more than we had before.”
The Good News: We Can Finally See Some Workshop Floor
ManThings currently operates from a unit that we've been sharing with somebody else.
They're now moving out.
Obviously, that means we're losing somebody who was helping towards the cost of the place - more on that particular financial delight shortly - but it also means roughly half of the stuff currently occupying the workshop is disappearing.
That includes a Land Rover engine that's been sat in exactly the wrong place for quite some time.
The engine itself wasn't really doing anything wrong.
It was simply very large, very heavy and very much where we needed a car to be.
Once it's gone, we'll finally have enough space to start getting vehicles properly into the unit.
That's important because one of the ideas behind ManThings has always been to create somewhere that can be used for practical work, learning and training, rather than simply having shelves full of stock and a laptop in the corner.
The workshop is slowly starting to become usable.
Emphasis on slowly.
There's Just One Rather Large Problem Left
The Land Rover engine might be disappearing, but we've still got a massive industrial air compressor sitting in the workshop.
And when we say massive, we don't mean something you chuck in the boot for blowing your tyres up.
It's enormous.
Unfortunately, there's also something wrong with it.
We don't currently know exactly what.
Getting an engineer out to diagnose and repair it would cost money that the project simply doesn't have available at the moment.
So the compressor has reached that unfortunate stage in its life where everyone stands around looking at it and eventually concludes:
“That's going to have to go.”
Anyone who has ever tried setting up a workshop on a tight budget will probably recognise this stage.
You start with grand ideas about creating the perfect working space.
Then reality arrives carrying several tonnes of machinery you don't know what to do with.
“Running a workshop on a shoestring involves quite a lot of looking at enormous objects and wondering how you're going to move them.”
The Bad News: Our Rent Is About to Double
There is, unfortunately, another side to getting the entire unit to ourselves.
We'll also have the entire rent bill to ourselves.
That means the amount ManThings needs to find for the workshop each month is effectively doubling.
That's slightly inconvenient when the first week's sales figures aren't exactly threatening Amazon.
ManThings is being built on a very tight budget.
This isn't a business where somebody has dropped a few hundred grand of investment into the bank account and told us to go and conquer the internet.
We're trying to build something useful from what we've got.
And what we've got, at the moment, is determination, a workshop, some stock and a worryingly large compressor.
So, How Many Sales Did ManThings Make in Week One?
Right.
The bit everybody actually wants to know.
After one full week of the ManThings website being live, how many orders did we receive?
One.
We also made two sales through eBay.
So our grand total for the first seven days was:
- 1 ManThings website sale
- 2 eBay sales
- 3 sales in total
Now, we could dress that up.
We could call it early-stage market validation.
We could talk about initial customer acquisition.
We could probably make a graph where the line goes upwards if we were creative enough with the scale.
But let's not.
It's three sales.
We need considerably more than three sales a week if ManThings is going to become the project we want it to become.
And that's fine.
It's week one.
“We're not going to pretend three sales is brilliant. But we're certainly not giving up after seven days either.”
Every new online shop has to start somewhere.
Getting a website live is one thing.
Getting people to discover it, trust it, visit it and eventually buy something from it is another job entirely.
That's what we're learning now.
Why ManThings Sales Matter More Than Just Selling Stuff
This is the important bit.
ManThings isn't being built simply because we fancied opening another online shop.
There are already quite enough places on the internet willing to sell you things.
The bigger aim behind ManThings is training and employment.
We want the project to provide practical opportunities for people who need experience using the tools modern businesses actually use.
That includes things like:
- e-commerce
- managing online product listings
- stock handling and fulfilment
- digital marketing
- creating website content
- photography and video
- AI-assisted content creation
- customer service
- general digital workplace skills
Rather than learning everything from a worksheet or sitting through another theoretical training course, the idea is to give people experience working on a real operating business.
Real products.
Real customers.
Real orders.
Real problems.
And, as we've established this week, occasionally a real Land Rover engine blocking the workshop.
That's where the sales become important.
Because the basic equation behind the whole project is fairly simple:
More products → more sales → more jobs → more training opportunities.
Without customers, none of the rest of it works.
Donated Stock Is Helping Us Build the Business
Thankfully, we're also discovering that people understand what we're trying to do.
This week we've had a weight bench donated to the project.
Rather than leaving it gathering dust somewhere, it was listed for sale and has now sold through eBay.
That's money that can go back into keeping the project moving.
One of Pete's clients has also offered us more stock.
Pete tried to buy it from him.
He wouldn't take the money.
Instead, he's sending it to ManThings completely free of charge.
That kind of support matters enormously when you're trying to build something without huge amounts of capital behind you.
Every useful item we can sell gives ManThings another opportunity to generate income.
And every bit of income gives us a slightly better chance of reaching the point where we can create meaningful training and employment opportunities.
Starting an Online Shop Is Harder Than It Looks
One of the biggest lessons from the first week?
Launching the website was the easy bit.
Getting the first version of an online shop live can feel like reaching the finish line.
In reality, you've mostly just arrived at the starting line wearing slightly uncomfortable shoes.
Now you've got to get people there.
You've got to build awareness.
Create useful content.
Improve products and listings.
Work on search visibility.
Build social media channels.
Earn trust.
Test what works.
Work out what doesn't.
Then do more of the things that work and considerably less of the things that don't.
For ManThings, that process has only just started.
We'd obviously have preferred to announce that thousands of orders had flooded through the doors during week one.
They didn't.
But three customers decided to buy something from a brand-new project that barely existed a few weeks ago.
That's something to build on.
What Happens Next?
The immediate priority is straightforward:
We need more people to discover ManThings.
That means adding more stock, improving the website, creating more videos, continuing the blog and showing people what we're actually building behind the scenes.
We'll also keep sharing these updates rather than pretending we've magically cracked e-commerce overnight.
Some weeks will hopefully be brilliant.
Some will probably be terrible.
Most will likely involve something going wrong in the workshop.
But that's part of the point of documenting it.
If you've ever wondered what it actually looks like to launch a small online business from scratch, you're going to see it happening in real time.
Want to Help ManThings Grow?
There are several ways you can help us without needing to arrive at the workshop with a suitcase full of money.
The biggest one is simply to visit the ManThings website and have a look around.
If you find something useful, buying it directly helps us keep the project moving.
You can also share our videos, follow the social pages and tell somebody else about what we're building.
It might not seem like much.
When you're building something this early, it genuinely is.
“More sales mean more jobs. More jobs mean more opportunities to train people who are stuck in the skills gap.”
Final Thoughts
Week one wasn't spectacular.
Three sales.
A workshop that's changing shape.
A huge compressor we've somehow got to get rid of.
And a rent bill that's about to double.
But ManThings exists.
The website is live.
Products are selling.
People are donating stock.
And we're learning what needs to happen next.
That's considerably better than having an idea that never made it out of a notebook.
We're going to give it another seven days, keep working, keep adding products and keep telling you exactly how it's going.
Hopefully next week's sales number will be slightly less embarrassing.
And if it isn't?
We'll tell you that too.
Keep the Wheels Turning
Fancy helping ManThings along without having to come down here and personally wrestle an industrial air compressor out of the workshop?
Give us a follow, watch a video, share something, or chuck a quid in the pot.
Every follow helps more people find us.
Every sale helps the project grow.
And every bit of support gets us closer to creating more jobs and more practical training opportunities.
Go on. Be useful.
YouTube
Videos, workshop updates, products and the occasional admission that something hasn't gone quite to plan.
https://www.youtube.com/@manthingsuk
New products, behind-the-scenes updates and general ManThings nonsense.
https://www.facebook.com/ManThingsUK
Reels, products, workshop bits and updates best consumed while you're supposed to be doing something else.
https://www.instagram.com/man_things_uk/
TikTok
Short videos about what we're doing, what we're selling and whatever has gone wrong this week.
https://www.tiktok.com/@man_things_uk
Fancy Chucking Us a Quid?
If you'd like to support the project directly, you can make a donation here.
It'll be put to considerably better use than buying Pete a yacht.
https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=PHHBKMECLGEP2
Follow. Share. Buy something useful. Chuck us a quid.
We're not fussy.
