Darren Hutchinson's Lockwood makes $10-20k monthly selling leather iPhone cases to male entrepreneurs. Ryan Daniel Moran says the real problem isn't the product, it's that one item can't build a brand. He recommends adding 3-5 travel accessories, raising $30-50k, and advertising where entrepreneurs already are.
Today's submission comes from Darren Hutchinson. He's one of our tribe members. Our tribe is our incubator where we take brand owners, audience builders, investors, partner them together. We help people get funding if they need funding. We look at their businesses, help them grow and create networking opportunities for them. And Darren's company is called Lockwood. They sell leather iPhone cases. He says his ideal customer are male professionals and entrepreneurs age 25 to 45 who are who appreciate versatile tech and travel accessories inspired by classic and minimalistic design. Right now he's selling between 10 and $20,000 a month. He's hoping to grow to about 300 to 400,000 a year, which would be about a doubling or a tripling of his business. All right, Darren, so I am looking at your business. First of all, I want to give you kudos for having a really clear idea for who it is that you serve rather than the products that you sell. Big, big difference, identifying who you sell to and what you sell. Problem I see, however, is there's a disconnect between those two. You're very clear about who it is that you're selling to, but you've really only got one product. I'm looking at you on Amazon and all of your products are leather iPhone cases. They look great, by the way. They're perfectly tailor made to the person that you described. But it's really hard to see Lockwood as anything more than just a leather iPhone case company. If you really want to serve the male entrepreneur who travels, let's look at what are the three to five products that that individual might buy. That's how we're going to create a brand out of this. My guess is that the thing limiting you right now is a lack of capital. IPhone cases are super cheap to source. They're super easy to roll out because you can have one for the 6. The 6s, the iPhone 7. That's an easy, predictable product to sell. My question to you is what other products can we roll into that line? And if capital is the problem, this is the type of business that if you're very clear on who you are marketing to, it might be worth going out and getting a capital partner who puts up 30 to $50,000 so that you can roll out product two, product three. So what else does the traveling male entrepreneur want to buy besides just a leather iPhone case? You're sitting on a really cool opportunity to basically be a high end travel accessory company. I think the name Lockwood is an awesome name for what it is that you're looking to do for that target market. But we've got to increase the number of products and the perception that the marketplace has of us. And that's not going to happen if you have just iPhone cases. I'm looking at your website, lockwoodco.com. there's nothing for me to be able to say, ah, this is for me. I am a male entrepreneur who travels. There's nothing on your website that makes me say, that's for me. There's no picture of somebody who looks like me. There's no obvious buy button in the top right. I don't even know what the product line is. And my guess is the product line's not on here because right now it's just iPhone cases. So my recommendation again, I think you're heading in the right direction with who you serve and the types of products that you're going to serve to them, because the iPhone case looks awesome. My recommendation would be make a list now of the next three products you'd roll out to that person. And if capital is the biggest restraint, go out and get a capital partner. And I would start featuring the products that will serve that target market here on the website. So people like me, who are your target market, come to your website, see your store, and say, that's for me. I want to be part of this business. Then you can go out and advertise on the podcasts that service that market, the YouTube channels that service that market, the blogs that talk to that market. And that's where you're going to have your audience to drive into your business and really set you up as a legitimate brand. The hidden lesson in that analysis is that your ideal customer hangs out somewhere, and that could be on blogs, it could be following certain people. And if we know how to get in front of those people, we can make any type of magic happen. So what darren is doing really well is he knows who that is. There's just a disconnect between the products that service, that community and who he wants to serve. So we can bridge that gap by expanding the product line and then going out and finding the audience members that are hanging out on other channels or following certain individuals. And we make our money by bridging those two together. We take the audience that's hanging out, following somebody and the products that you have, and that's where business happens. So if you run a business and you're not sure how to scale this thing to where you want, the question that you simply need to ask is, who is it that I'm serving? And where do they already hang out? And if I could get in front of them, would they want to hang out with me? Does my product line clearly communicate who it is that I serve and how I make their lives better? And that's what marketing is. It's bridging those two gaps together. A lot of business owners are sitting on gold mines and they don't know it just because they're not going out and putting their stuff in front of the right people. We can do that very easily by spending the 500 bucks a month or whatever it is to get in front of those people, or making the strategic relationships that we need in order to bring our product in front of our ideal customers.
Sam.
