An Insight into How We Started – The New Daily Article

The New Daily is a relatively new online “newspaper” style source of national news and information based in Australia. Last week I did an interview with reporter Susannah Guthrie about how Mr Cycling World started. In it, the article mentions a few fun facts:

• Mr Cycling World started as a small eBay seller (think about the smallest eBay seller going around. That was us!).
• The first item we sold online was a cycling cap (a Nike US Postal Cap to be precise). As you can see, we still sell it to this day.
• We purchased that item from an agent in Europe, whom we still source products from today. Grand total starting capital was $10.00. No jokes. (Remember how I said “small”?).
• At the time, my partner and I were each working in corporate jobs. Neither of us particularly liked it, and Mr Cycling World was a way to escape the rat race.
• We still maintain our eBay store, which remains popular and averages around 500 feedback per month. But the current business is focused on our online store away from eBay (mrcyclingworld.com.au, ie the very site you are reading right now).
• If it’s nice weather in the afternoon we will knock off early, go out and ride our bikes. Hey, wouldn’t you?
• We often work late into the night, so if you get an email at some ungodly hour don’t be surprised. We’re working hard here to make this business work. We don’t regret or begrudge what we do. We love it and the feeling of watching your business grow into something popular that people get value out of is hard to describe. With that, I can only say thank you to our customers.

Is there something that you would like to know about us that perhaps we haven’t covered? Let us know in the comments below!

The full article from The New Daily is available here.

Cycling enthusiast Rhys Smith also knows the value of keeping your costs low by using online platforms. He started selling secondhand items on eBay with his partner as a hobby, before realising its potential.

“It became something we really enjoyed,” Mr Smith says, “we started looking at the possibility of buying things to resell.”

They settled in cycling equipment and started small, buying limited stock from a contact in Europe.

“The first thing we bought was a cycling cap that cost $10. We still sell it to this day.”

Working full-time, Mr Evans started noticing that the amount of time he spent on eBay correlated with sales. So, he quit his corporate job and decided to take things up a notch.

“Everything changed when we left our regular nine-to-five jobs and we could think about it from a business perspective not just a hobby perspective,” Mr Smith recalls.

Now, they run a hugely successful online store as well as maintaining a popular eBay account.

“I used to hate joining the rat race to get to work by 9am, but no more,” Mr Smith says.

“These days I time my day to ensure there are no additional stresses. If it’s a nice afternoon we’ll get our bikes and go riding – because we can. That might mean we’re working late into the night, but so what? Our customers still get looked after and we’re a lot happier for it. I couldn’t imagine it any other way.”