Sean Everett explains how to turn beliefs and strategy into physical or digital products. He covers market gaps, differentiation through competing or creating new categories, pricing strategies, distribution, and building defensibility through brand storytelling.
Chapters
Okay, it's early, early, early, or maybe it's late. We'll find out here. The first 2 pillars that we ran through in this video series, the first was related to building belief, the second was related to building strategy. This third one is building real. And the topic of conversation for this video is how do I build or create a product from scratch? How do I take that belief, those core values, the things that we've gotten clear on? How do we take that strategy where we've looked at the market, we've looked at competitors, we looked at our unique value proposition, the things that are just authentic, totally pure, unique, different from us, and package that into a product or service such that other people can get benefit from that and find value in it. And that's what this 3rd pillar is all about, is taking these esoteric concepts, these ideas, these vibrations, these feelings, and embedding it into something real. Now that real can be a physical thing or it can be a digital thing. In the digital world on the internet, we can think about it in terms of different media formats. So that's text, that could be a tweet, it could be a book, it could be a story, it could be an image, photography, things like Instagram creators, can be a video, film, shorts. We see a lot of video products out there. That's marketers, Hollywood-grade studios, 2-hour films, 15-minute shorts, walkthrough videos, YouTube, super shorts, couple seconds long like TikTok. You could have the stories media format, which is a series of photos and sound over the top of them into like mini flipbook stories. So that's the digital world. There can also be applications which are interactive. Digital products. So that's things like games and also apps like enterprise SaaS apps or the apps on your iPhone. Like weather is an app, Uber's an app, Instagram's an app, anything you interact with. So all the way back to like Wolfenstein 3D games if you go way back with me. So that's digital. For the physical world, it can be things that consume, that you consume and they go away and you need to buy them and replace them, or they can be things that stay Things that stick around are like clothes, devices, furniture, homes, physical objects that are robust in a way. Cars, sure, they degrade over time, but for the most part, they don't— you don't consume them and they're gone in a day or a minute. The consumables are more like food, water, oxygen, the things that we really need to survive, electricity, compute. on AWS is another example, although that's not really physical. The chips and the data centers and the computers are physical. The iPhone in your hand, sunglasses, fashion, that sort of thing. Okay, so now that we've covered the definition of these things, how then do we take this vibe, this wave, this swag, and put it into a product? That's what we're going to cover over these next few things. And then How we— these next few videos, and then how we take those things, take them to market, distribute them, grow brand, things like that. So really the idea, one of the core ideas, is you should look around at the things that you're already interacting with on a day-to-day basis, the things that you already buy. So from the moment you wake up in the morning until you go to bed at night, and even when you go to bed, so for example, the sheets, The pillows, the bed frame, the mattress, the things in the room beside you, the side table, the glass of water, whatever that's next to your bed, the phone next to you. And if you just run through your day and all the things that you interact with that you have already bought, then you can compare and contrast the reason why you bought that particular thing. And that you can look at through the lens of the buyer and now switch your lens and your perspective into something different, which is the lens of the creator and say, well, one, can I make something that's better than that and sort of copy the design language, the product language, the service language? And can I do it better, faster, cheaper? Pick one, pick two. Three is hard, almost impossible. And then to our conversation last time on strategy, you know, you have this choice of, do I want to be a direct competitor? Strategy is how you win regardless what competitors do. So you can say, oh, there's a bed, a mattress, I'm going to compete and do something completely, you know, just a different brand, like, oh, better springs, like more fluffy top pillow. Or you can create a new category, you can define a new market. So maybe Maybe you don't believe in mattresses. Maybe sleeping on something that's a little more substantial is better for your back, you know, maybe a mat on the floor. I'm just spitballing here, right? But you think differently about that product set, and it's solving a problem that is very, very deep and also pretty realistic to who you are that you've figured out. And maybe you've gone to the extreme and there's this product or this service where you've done a ton of research, you're looking for this specific thing in your mind's eye up here, and you can't find it. And like, there's a gap everywhere you look. It's like, eh, this isn't quite right, this isn't quite right. And there could even be 1,000 iterations on a theme, but they're still missing that certain like line, that certain feeling, that certain vibe, the certain aesthetic, the certain brand. It's like, yeah, that's just not there. That then is an opportunity because you have a very clear perspective on exactly what you want. And also, it identifies a large gap in the market. It may be tiny to other people, but it's so gigantic. It's like the Grand Canyon to you. It's like it couldn't be bigger. And so as you think about what you're going to create, then it's like, actually, I want this thing. to exist in the market, and then I'm going to infuse my values, my belief system, my strategy, and I'm going to put that into the market, and it's going to be infused with this richness and this soul that I bring to it. And then when you start moving into distribution after you get the thing made, which we can go into later— so assume you've got it made, right, and you have a number of these things that you can now sell or take to market— then you can talk about it in the way that led you to create this thing in the first place, which is like, hey, Hey, have you ever looked for this like thing and that thing? It's like not quite right. It's like too big, too small. It's like Goldilocks, right? Like too hot, too cold, and it just wasn't quite right. And so really this thing that was missing was this, and it's this tiny detail that's microscopic on the surface but has a gigantic impact on the market and in the mind's eye of your customer. And so that's the thing that you then explode and you spend a ton of time focused on that, a ton of space on the website, on social campaigns with influencers, with whatever else. And you just expand that to become the size of a universe. And then the rest of the market and other people, maybe they haven't been specifically focused on that thing as deeply as you are. But now, they see it through your lens and they're like, ah, you know what? Like, he or she's right. Like, I actually am upset about that, and like, maybe I can give it a shot. And so if it's of an inexpensive enough price point or low risk enough, then I'm willing to take that bet. I'm willing to like plunk down my credit card. I'm willing to take a trip to the store to check it out if it's low friction. Like, the lower the friction, the the better. Unless you're going for like this ultra luxury, ultra premium sort of thing, in which case, um, the uniqueness and the low inventory, low quantity of that actually is part of the aesthetic. And in that case, it's more aspirational. And so then you really need to build the brand structure around it and the storytelling around it. And, you know, it's got to be out there in some way. Otherwise people will just forget about it and like shrug it off. It's like, oh, that's way too expensive. I can never afford that. The third method, and we're already jumping ahead here into the growth side, but you give them sort of a, I don't want to say watered-down version, but a light version, right? So maybe it's like not as great a material or it doesn't have quite the full aesthetic of your vision. And it's a gateway in order to get them into this mindset or this product ecosystem along with like your partners that you've built as well. And so, um, when you do that, uh, good things, good things will happen. So that is a short discussion on how we take something that's simply an idea in your brain and then transition that into something real, into something physical, whether you can physically touch it and hold it in your hand, or it's something that you can interact with in digital space. And even better, something that's both. And it takes you on this continuous journey through the brand, and it's a story. And I'm willing to follow you as a brand because every single, like, point is there's something new unfolding, some new unlock, some new element of a story that I'm interacting with, that I'm experiencing. And then that becomes a reason for me to follow you. It's not just because— You drop some new colorway of something, it's because you're, you're taking me on a journey, on an adventure with you, like The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter. It's like, I want to see what happens next because X, because Y, or therefore, like, now we've got to do this thing. And it's these forks in the road and it's the moment of change between the people who interact with your brand, who buy these products and services. And that is really powerful. That is really sticky. That's really hard to create, but also intensely difficult to copy in the same way, which therein creates defensibility and long-term value creation, which is then duration because duration beats everything. So, you know, go all the way back to the beginning. Get clear on who you are with your core values. Develop the strategy that you're going to use in the marketplace. Are you gonna compete with others head-to-head and go to war? Are you gonna build an ecosystem? If so, like, what are the partners? What are the things that only you 2, 3, 4 uniquely can do together? And then where is that gap in the market of something that you understand so natively and truly authentically to the first 2 pillars that it becomes clear and obvious on what you should create? And then it's just a matter of bringing that to life. And then telling that story, taking it to market. And there's 8 billion people on this planet and trillions of machines. And so if you're feeling it, it's highly likely there's at least one other entity on this closed ecosystem on planet Earth that, that has it. And so maybe over the long time period, long time horizons, we'll expand beyond just the single planet and go multi-planetary. Then things get really interesting. All right, that's it for today. Hope you have a great day. And you know, night mode's upon us, so we got our night mode shades and, uh, we've got our jetpack pin here and, um, feeling good, just vibing out. So enjoy yourself. Night mode.
