Matthew Kelly argues that one-SKU brands should expand through variations like new flavors rather than entirely new products. Launching a genuinely new product means starting a business from scratch with double the creative effort. Most artists never match their debut album, and the same holds for product lines.
'Cause something that I see is brands will launch a new product, but then they forget what's made the original product successful in the way that you basically optimise business. Let's say you're a one SKU business. You go into a new category. As you should still be, probably. You go into a new category, but you just think that you set the product live, it's just gonna sell. But in reality, you built a whole ecosystem and a whole like audience around this one product. You've launched something completely new and you basically starting the business again with a new product. Well, I think that's the wrong way to do it.
That's why I think you do versions and formats and flavours, not, new products, basically. I'm talking like supplements, probably a bit different in fashion and so on, but in consumables, like, we probably should have done a collagen rainbow dust, not a fucking collagen fruity vitamin blend that we did last year.
Because I see people launch it but they don't treat it like— if you're a one SKU business and you're now going to two and you've got the same hopes for that, like, you're basically doubling the amount. And almost—
and I've seen this with other brands as well, and like other founders that are way smarter than me, but like, you almost always— you almost never— it's like when, I don't know, a big artist releases like their first or second album, like, you almost never get the same magic again. Maybe Drake's like the one exception, but there's a lot of bands and stuff where they had like one album, right? It's similar. Obviously not— I'm not saying it's always the case, but I've heard it from many people and I've seen it. Like, we've probably had one other product that was semi-decent, which are sleep products. All the rest in comparison, it's never really cracked. It was also a focus thing. Like, you could crack it, but it's a problem if it's an entirely new product. It's basically a new business, your point. Whereas a new flavour, I actually think is going to have way more impact than a new product if it's a good product, because it's already established. This stuff's so obvious in hindsight, but—
You're doubling the amount of creative you're doing. If you want it to do the same volume, you're doubling the amount of creative. But people launch it without thinking about the offer.
