Should You Do It: Prototyping, Selling, and Everything in Between

Protect your brand, product or invention from the hazards of consumer product launching and go from idea to product to big brand. With guidance from retail product design and development experts Tracy and Tom Hazzard. Get the insider secrets to put the right things in the right order with the right resources so you can out design, outsource and out profit your way to retail success.

Our topic today is Should I do it?

Yeah. By the way, hello, everybody.

Hi, everybody.

Tom, Tracy, we're those two that are. Yeah.

And sorry it's a week delayed, but.

Yeah, we had some big issues last week and also wanted to make sure I had all the scoop information for those of you who might be interested in our announcement about our live events.

Yeah.

So anyway, very exciting. Yes. But we'll talk about that towards the end.

Okay.

But today we're going to talk about should I do it? Should you do it?

Should you do it? Is that like, should I make it? Should I prototype it? Should I sell it? What is it?

I think it's should I? All over the place.

All over the place.

So I've had, because of my Inc Column, had the privilege of interviewing quite a lot of startups that might have lasted a little too long recently and shouldn't have done it to begin with. And so I've kind of dived into a few things that I learned from that. And there are quite a few reasons why you shouldn't do something, but the main thing is, is that you, you aren't thinking about criteria. It's when you do it, it's emotional. And that's a huge problem because you're talking about a lot of money that could potentially be spent, a lot of time that could potentially be wasted. And yet you're making an emotional decision instead of a more empirical criteria based.

Decision instead of a business decision. You're making it from the heart.

Right.

And you should be passionate about what you do though. Right?

Right. Well, you know, I think that the real thing that I've learned from talking to a lot of people and from Compari, comparing them to the sort of level of success we have where we don't have a lot of absolute failures. I mean, we have early failures, like we stop them quickly before we spend a lot of money. That. So yes, there's failures, but they're learning failures. They're not. You know, I've been in this business for five years and then crashed it because it was never successful. Like, there's indicators all along the way that you're not listening to if you go that far. So anyway, the idea of what I've come to is that emotional decision making is a significant part of the problem. You fall in love with your idea or your product or your invention, and then what happens is you do not hear or care to hear what other people have to say about it. And you don't have any kind of objective criteria to evaluate it. You don't set for yourself some evaluation review points. We on our seven step plan, which is available on the site, on the Facebook page. You can download it from there, I'm pretty sure. If not, send us an email and we're happy to send it to you. And on the seven step plan, we have a review and a go, no go kind of process. So we have a review, revise, and. What is the other part? I forgot? Review, revise and go. Right? Review, revise, go. I was like, I thought it was another R, but maybe.

No, there has to be a go if we're, if we're going to go, right? It's just if you don't go, you are reviewing it and maybe revising it, right?

No, it is actually an R. We changed it. It used to be a go. It's review, revise and reject. It's an actual stop. Why, why am I blanking on it? I guess we haven't rejected in a while, which we need to. Actually, we need to reject more. So review, revise and reject. And so you have to have. I mean, how do you make that decision? And sometimes you don't have enough good information and you continue on to the next stage, but you at least know that you don't have enough good information. And you say, okay, well, now I need to seek the answer to that so that at the next stage I have a more educated review. That's it. And you don't go diving into the full depth of all the costs and all the time commitment and all of those things until you have some of those unknowns at least dialed in with what will be the signs that they are successful or not successful that I need to watch for so that I stop soon enough. So I got to talk to this wonderful woman who ran a Kickstopper project. Not a Kickstopper, not a Kickstarter, a Kickstarter stopper. And it was a really interesting towel. So she got in love with the idea that she would create these striped T shirts that would be in sports colors. So whether you were a football fan, and that could be either kind of football. I'm not being picky here. A football fan, a baseball fan doesn't matter what kind of fan you are, but you could wear the shirts across it. And it wasn't logoed. It just had the team colors, and you could represent without having to wear a big old logo on the middle of your chest. And so she fell in love with the idea of it. She bought 10,000 pieces of different colors of these striped shirts. And she spent five years doing the business and spent about $120,000, which doesn't seem like a tremendous amount, but at the end of the day, when you sold, what did she sell out of the 10,000 pieces? She sold three, sold 4,000.

So she had 6,000 shirts left over.

Yep.

Yeah, that clearly was.

Yeah, after five years.

So it didn't work. Obviously didn't work. And she had set in her mind that she was going to give it five years because five years is how long it takes for, you know, a business to really succeed or fail. But there were so many signs along the way, and she didn't pay attention to them. And that's kind of what I want to point out here is that I see so often, like, when I review inventions and when I talk to companies, startups, and other things, I look at them and I'm like, oh, my gosh, red flag, red flag.

Stop.

Stop the play. I mean, stop doing it right? And you don't see it because you're in it. So I want you guys, this is what I'm hoping we're going to get across today, is I want you guys to get a little objectivity to your baby, okay? It's possible your baby is ugly. It's highly possible. Nobody wants to hold your baby.

And I think we're all, as inventors, at some point, we're all guilty of this. I think it's very hard to be completely objective. And while it may be initially painful to really consider the fact that maybe your idea isn't great as you think it is, it's really the wise thing to do. And I think the smart inventor, the wise inventor gets independent, objective opinions, not from your friends or family, again, from others as to whether you've really got something or not, you know, and because that. What good does it do you? I mean, there's a difference between perseverance and, you know, being committed to your idea. I mean, it definitely does take that to bring an invention all the way. But, you know, there's also stubbornness and recklessness that can come in to play. And, you know, there will always be naysayers. And I'm not saying to listen to all the Negativity by any means. But you need to do your due diligence, right, and make sure that the idea, the concept that you have that you want to develop into a fully baked invention and product at some point is actually going to sell at the end of the day. And it is not all about making a big enough run so you get the price point down to a production level. In fact, I would rather see people spend a whole lot more money than it actually would cost in the long term, and then, you know, a whole lot more money than it would cost, you know, per item to do a short run and prove a market than it would be to just spend the big money on a big production run so that your unit price is actually lower. We all know, and we can estimate that the production run cost, we can know what that will be, we can predict that. But is anybody actually going to buy it? It'd be nice to find that out before you go spend money on a run of 10,000 or even 5,000. I'm talking about a run of 100 or 200, you know, the most. 500. Right. And if she had done that, maybe it would have cost her more per shirt. Right. But she would have sold through them in a shorter period of time, wouldn't be stuck with trying to move all that inventory.

Right. And in her case, she got kind of caught up in the idea of it being a. How do I say this? She got caught up in the idea that it was not possible to get the quality that you want and do whatever it is that she wanted to test out required her to do that. And I think that that kind of sense is very, very common. Like you're saying it doesn't exist anywhere. So of course I have to build it, I have to show people, they don't understand it. And my thing is that reality is that I think if they don't understand it, then that's a red flag right there that you have to try to figure out what you're not communicating properly to get them to understand that. And the biggest failure that I see overall isn't in the concept itself, it's in the execution of the concept in that it's not matched with the audience you might have. So she over built her site, overbuilt her product, did all of these things, and it was a mismatch with the pricing in her case. So the shirt was too much money and it was too premium for something that was actually really plain in terms of its design. So it ended up being a mismatch. And then she found a lot of heavy price competition with J. Crew and some of these other companies. And so she was never competing. So instead of, you know, moving out of it and. And getting out of it faster, which was another mistake, like when you see those signs, you need to do something drastic to help yourself move out of it, she doubled down. And she would just say, I got to throw more marketing at it. I got to throw me more PR at it. I got to find more influencers. And she would double down on the things she knew already. Which is also another problem I see, is that when things go wrong and you shouldn't be doing it, it's because you don't know what you don't know. It's because you have an area of expertise, and you're living in that bubble of expertise, and all those other areas aren't getting fixed and touched on in your business. And we are guilty of that, too. I mean, we are admittedly not the best marketers.

That's true. Marketing frustrates the heck out of me.

Right? But, you know, because it's not something that we normally do in our core business. Our core business is that somebody else is marketing the product. Our job is to design it for the marketing channel that they have with. It's on the retail shelf or online or whatever their venue is. That's our job, is to design for that, not to actually execute. So executing it on our own business is, like, completely frustrating. And it's also like, for us, we're like, oh, my God, I have to spend that much money. Like, that's also, like, you know, big surprise. But the reality is, is that if we wanted to be successful in that, we absolutely have to do that, and us not doing it is the reason for failure. So that's really also where I see that so many people, like, they budget themselves, they give themselves a startup budget, and they say, I'm going to spend this amount of money. But they spend it all, all on the product and not on the sales and marketing and not on any testing of that sales and marketing with a little bout of money from the beginning. And so when you've done that, you've run out of money, and now you've backed yourself into a corner, and now you can't get someone to buy it. What good is it? You have made it so that your baby will, even as great as it might be, will never get to market, will never gain traction because you've handcuffed yourself and your marketing ability. So for us, this is why our process is shifted so that we really do and test out the things we don't know. Can we test out marketing reach? Can we really reach influencers and will they do something about it? Is there conversion? Do they like what we have? Like, we've talked about this, there's a whole video on prove it. Right. And I think it's like the very first one we have in the system. So go back and watch that again and listen to it again with new perspective. But I really think that the main thing that you have to think about is just sit down and take your idea. And I don't want you to think about it as like we're risk averse because we are just the opposite of that. We actually will dive, you know, feet first in when we believe in something. But the reality is, is that you must keep your head in the game. You must keep your head above water. In my analogy there about diving in feet first, you have to have some way to keep yourself objective about what you're working on and some way to evaluate it and stop yourself before it's too late.

Yeah, that analogy is a good one. Right. You need to make sure you build in a lifeboat and so you don't go down with this ship.

Right, right.

And so for sure we're talking about early exits, failing fast really is what we've said. Right. Hopefully it won' but if you don't plan for that, then you've committed everything. So you got to figure this out. I'm a huge believer, especially in this day and age when it's relatively easy and relatively okay to put a product on Amazon and test it. And you can also, I think personally some of the easiest marketing to do of a product is really getting key search terms to rank on Amazon as opposed to any other kind of marketing. I mean, Amazon is one of the biggest search engines in the world. Of course it's for all the products that they carry only. But you list something on Amazon that's a relatively easier way to test something. And if you don't want to become an expert in Amazon, there are people that already are.

Well, and you shouldn't become an expert in Amazon. Like this is the other thing is that I find so often we get caught up in the idea of like, okay, I need to know this and I'm going to have to figure this out myself and that, you know, there really isn't any time for us to do this ourselves. And you know, the reality is, is that you can't afford to do it yourself. Sometimes you've Got things in your business you have to be building. You are building a business, not just a product. And you've got to look at that broader. And, you know, I get a lot of people who say, well, I'm just going to license the thing, so all I have to do is the product. And that's really actually a mistake in today's world. And we, we talk about this. I think we may have talked about this already. If not, we will, we'll add this as a topic. But the idea of licensing, in today's world of licensing, you must prove that the dogs will eat the dog food. We've said that before, I'm pretty sure. And when you prove that the dogs will eat the dog food, then you command more money in the licensing model, you're able to close the deal faster. And we've talked with licensing experts. We have a really great guy who will bring on a hangout at some point in the future. David. And David has done this and, you know, he can license sometimes a great idea, but it's so hard and it has really low returns. When you don't have proof, when you haven't taken something through a certain level of concept phase, you can't just have an idea. So, you know, that's required today. We also talked about it last week or last month. Hangout. Last month. Yeah, last hangout. So I guess that was the end of May. Talk about the last hangout is that the seed stage has expanded. So when you're in a startup, you're not going to get significant investment to get through that proof stage.

Right.

That really is the level. So this is stuff that's critical to resolve. And this is where you should spend your money and your testing and not in the final making of it, because you're also going to learn something in that process that might make you make it differently. And that's why we don't make it until we don't prototype till the fourth step and we don't make anything till the seventh step. And so it really is critically important that we get through this idea that this thing is so precious. And I've got my blinders on and I've got my ears plugged and I don't care what anyone says.

Yeah. And you know, in this day and age, prototyping really has taken on a new reality.

Right.

Because prototype used to be okay, you're making one, you're making a proof of concept, either functionally or an appearance model or both. Now prototyping has taken on the role of first Production run, short production run. So that, you know, with additive manufacturing, there's so many more things you can do in repetition more easily.

Right.

That you can actually produce a product and get market proof, you know, in a very short run that you never used to be able to do. You couldn't justify tooling for something for a run of 100 or 300, you know.

Right. And this is the thing, is that I think that you get caught up in the idea that it has to be perfect for deciding whether or not you should do something. Perfection is not the answer to that. Just sort of a communication is the reason for making it. You need to communicate what's special about it.

Right.

And so, you know, when you look at it from that perspective, you're talking about a slightly different model. So I want to segue into talking about the event.

All right, let's talk about the event.

Because I think that this is the goal of our event. So we're having an event called the Inventor's Mastermind, and I will put a link to it within the different comment areas so that you guys can check it out. It says Los Angeles on it, but it's actually not. It's here in Irvine.

It's in Irvine, Yeah. It got moved, which is greater Los Angeles to an extent. But it's definitely. You're talking Orange County. You're going to be, you know, 35 miles south of LA, for sure. But, yeah, and it had to move because there was an issue with the hotel and construction and stuff.

Yeah, there was a big problem with that.

So you're gonna be happy unless you're commuting a long way from north of la, but you're going to be happier that this is in Irvine, you know, over the course of the event. So tell us about the Inventor's Mastermind, Tracy, and exactly what everyone can expect.

Yeah. So the idea of Inventors Mastermind is that here? I think I've got it going. So just sending it into the link.

Tracy's multitasking the link.

The idea of it is that there are so many things you don't know yet. And so here's an opportunity for us and some of the people that we've worked with and some of the people that we know. John Livesay is going to join us and he talks about pitching for startups and how you pitch your product and things like that. Deal terms that you should never have in your distribution or licensing agreement. We're going to talk about. There's talk about marketing. We're going to talk. Talk about we're going to have Jill Lublin come in and talk about PR and how you can promote your product and how you should talk about your product with the press. Talk about capital and funding and funding models for early stages. That's very different from going and seeking equity funding. And the whole real point is to come across the biggest mistakes that inventors commonly make and what to do instead. And so we really want to go through that with you guys in. It's a two day event. It runs from nine to five and it's going to be at the Hotel Irvine on June 28th. 8th and 29th.

What days of the week is that?

That's a Tuesday and a Wednesday.

Okay.

And you are going to get so much information. For those that are a part of this Mastermind group that we're tapping into to present, there actually are paid members of the Mastermind, so they pay money per year to be a part of the Mastermind group and they get to attend any of the different types of Masterminds that go on. So there's a marketing mastermind, there's a publicity mastermind going on at the same time that ours is going on. And that's why we get to have Jill Lublin come over and talk about publicity and pr. So, you know, this is, this is so great that she's there. At the same time they also have investors Mastermind, so they have like different types of them. And so when you belong into the Mastermind, you get to go to any one of their events at any time. So we are going to give basically in two days a tremendous amount of information that is going to be exactly how we launch our products, how we do this successfully, all the tips and tricks and things that we do and the considerations that we make. What will not happen during this time is we are not going to review your invention. I'm just gonna be upfront about that. We do not have time to sit there and talk about your what at that time. So.

But will people have an opportunity to arrange to consult with us?

Yeah, I think at the end of the event, if you wanted to set up one on ones or do other things like that. Yes, absolutely. The Mastermind groups themselves have access to us and I consult with them all the time. And so they have an option to choose any member of the Mastermind expertise panel, with which I'm one. But anyway, the idea is that you're going to get a tremendous amount of information about what you don't know. It's your areas of lack that are going to mess up and stop your project.

So it's your gaps, it's your gap.

Yeah. And we want to help fill the gaps with at least where to go to find more information, who to think about hiring to help fill those gaps. Like what types of people should you go out there and seek? Because we want you to have good criteria because you're launching an invention that's a very different world than someone launching a coaching project. And there's a lot of stuff out there that's about online marketing and doing all this, but it's actually not geared towards product people. And we really want to be careful and make sure that you understand the difference between that. So you're not caught into hiring a website developer that really is great at doing speaker authors and not so good at doing product based websites. And then also we have a lot of people who claim they do product based websites and look like glorified stores, which are actually really horrible for you in today's market. So we really want to talk about the differences of all those things. We want to talk about what it's like to be on Amazon. We're going to talk about a lot of the criteria for what it takes to get on the shelf. We're going to talk about pricing, the market base versus cost basis. And I know we have a video on that, but we're going to do a deeper dive into the math on that and how it works and what you need to think about to project and plan your budget for your launch. Because you're launching, I want you to think bigger. Okay. And so it's kind of counter to the should I? Because the should you do it, it still might be. No. But if you're not considering the bigger picture of what it's really going to take to launch your product to where you want it to go, to what your end goal is. Do you want to be on the target shelf? Do you want to be on Amazon? Is that simply the stopping point for you? Or do you just want to get it far enough to get someone to pay you licensing fees? So like whatever that end goal for you for your particular invention product is, what is that? And then what will I need to do? What do I need to plug in to make that happen? And our goal is to give you that big picture, the absolute right path to take to make it happen for you. If this is the right thing to do. Again, stepping back, it may still not be the right thing to do and you have to give yourself some criteria to do that. I would be just as happy if Someone walked away from our event and said, I'm not pursuing this invention. I'm going to move on to something else. I'm going to come up with a new idea that is success too. Failing is a successful outcome because we've learned what we shouldn't do, we've learned something and we're going to do something more successful next time. We talk about this all the time. What is it? The statistic on Edison, he found 100 ways not to make light.

Oh, no, no, not 100. He found about 2,000 ways. 2,000 ways to make a light bulb. But there was one way, obviously that worked and eventually morphed into, you know, several other ways going forward. But there were many, many, many failures. Talk about persistence. He was confident that he could make it happen. And you may be too. So it may not even be the invention concept is flawed. It may just be the particular embodiment of it. Right. And it needs to take a slightly different path. But.

Or it may be the market you thought you planned it for. That's the problem. And you need to go into a different market that requires a different set of marketing or a different sales channel or something like that. So there are things that you will have to sort out. And this is going to get you thinking bigger, but what it's also going to do is give you the most accelerated plan. So this is what Tom and I get all the time. How do we in seven years do 250 products with two people? And you don't do 250 products successfully with two people without a system, without criteria, without not wasting your time and money and energy. You have to do it with a different mindset. So my goal is to help you see that and shift that in two days.

And it's also going to give you, correct me if I'm wrong, Tracy, but I think it's also going to offer up some resources to these people that are available to help them with these gaps.

Yeah. You are under no obligation by coming to the event. All the information is free. I've been very, very careful with who I. That they are going to give you something valuable that they're not there to sell you. But if you want them, they are available and they are my go to sources. So I'm giving you them as a part of, you know, I'm bringing them to you as part of the mastermind as well.

Yeah, because I think that's critical is a lot of times, you know, we, I think we've talked about the three feet from gold story on on this hangout before one time. And part of that story is, you know, it may be that to fill the gaps, you need to hire the right expert to help accelerate your project. And that doesn't mean, you know, everybody we've talked about it, you know, often spends too much money prototyping their product or actually tooling and manufacturing something way too early, when really those funds could have been better spent on hiring the right expert to help prove what is the right specific market for the product, what is the right specific price point for the product. Among other things.

Among other things. Like that's a really great, you know, going back to our Kickstopper example, Laura Beck and the striped shirt, which I sent everybody the link in the group messaging so you guys can click through and watch the video that's on the Facebook page. Facebook groups, yeah. And so Anyway, she spent $20,000 building a website that was at the like the gap level of shopping she could have sold it on. She sold more shirts on Amazon than on her website.

So nobody should ever be spending that much money on a website for their own invention. Even if you're building your own vertical company, do it at the early stage.

Not at the early stage.

You create a modern website through WordPress and existing plugins and it can cost. What's the average website cost to choose?

3,500 to 5,000.

5,000? Yeah, 3,500. You should be able to a good website. You're right. With Shopping Cart, it could be maybe 5,000. But still, that's the kind of money you should spend if you're ready to spend money on a website. That's it though, right?

And, and to me, that includes your branding, like in that particular case, because you don't need a high level of branding. You need enough branding to have a good strong foundation. So that should. $5,000. That's why I say five. I think it gives you good foundation for a good start brand, you know, with an idea of where you're going to go with that. But, you know, I mean, this is the thing. It's like we have this information and we can really. Right. Check it for you and make sure it's a fit and make sure it's in line with where you want to go. Remember licensing versus on the shelf versus online Amazon or, you know, Wayfair, it could be any one of those online resources. So when you look at those three places, they have a different model and different path that they take to do that. And it might be a path to get to on the shelf Might be a path through Amazon into licensing and then you're actually on a shelf under somebody else's brand. It might happen that way for you, but you have to think about that from the very beginning so that you can plan this out and you don't overspend and you don't take too much time because time in the retail market is money. If you don't get to market fast enough, you lose out in the invention world. That's the same way right now. I mean, the number of patents being filed every day is crazy.

It's increasing every month.

Yeah. So some of the other things we're going to talk about is communicating. We're going to talk a lot about ip. There's going to be a lot of discussion about the value.

You mean communicating? Yeah, communicating with your attorney is a big one and I'm going to help talk about that one. Right.

But you know, and then John Livesay will help talk about how to communicate what's special about your IP to other people, to laymen, you know, to the general. Yeah, because that communication is very different as well. So there's going to be a lot about communication, a lot about mindset. There's going to be exercises you get to do in there which can be specific to your what and what you're working on. And we will then dive into them and talk about them. But again, it's not a one on one situation. This is a group event, group class. So just want to make you aware of that, that there's not any kind of pitch opportunities. We're not doing any of that. I don't think that's useful to a lot of people. I think that that's only useful to the person being pitched to. They have an agenda they want, you know, they're hoping to seek ideas. I'm not a big fan of some of the pitch fests that don't teach you how to pitch properly first.

Sure.

So if you're interested in one of those though, let me know. Send me a message in mentors to inventors. Go. Because I know one is a very special pitch event is coming up which has a whole sort of backend workshop to it and that's coming up in Dallas in July. So I can refer you to that one as well. And that one has invitation, but it's a cost as well because they're teaching us something. But anyway, just wanted to make you guys aware of this going on. If this is well trafficked at the Irvine event and we get a high level of people like we expect then there's high likely that this will fold out to 30 cities around the US and I would like to someday take it international, but we'll see. Right now we're going to do Irvine.

I think we have. We have enough people to serve in the US that. That'll last.

Yeah, that'll last quite a while. So it'll be 30 cities over the course of a year from July to the next June, actually. And I think the next cities that are on the list of things would be Salt Lake City and Denver following this Irvine, Orange county event. So anyway, that's kind of what's going on here. We hope this is going to be helpful for you guys. We want to keep bringing you sort of exclusive little tips into workshops that might be going on, things that might be helpful for you, any kind of resources that we think are useful. That's kind of a part of what our group is about. Right. And so at this point, we won't have another call before the event.

The event is the end of June, right?

Yeah, the event is the end of June, so it would be the next call. So we'll actually be skipping the next. Next hangout, and we'll do it following the fourth of July.

After the fourth of July.

After the fourth of July. So, yeah, that Wednesday after the fourth of July, we'll put it back on the calendar.

The fourth is a Monday, isn't it?

Yeah, I think it is. So it'll be the 6th of July, I think. Yeah, we should probably look at the calendar before we get in here.

30 days in June. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it should be the sixth.

Anyway, I'm not seeing any questions from anyone, but now's the time if you want to ask some questions. And otherwise we're going to sign off a little early and. Well, anyway, guys, thank you so much for listening. Have you gotten anything, Tom?

I don't see anything on the Google page, so.

Okay. I hope you guys have fun watching that Kickstarter video. It cracks me up. It is hilarious, but it's so realistic. I can't even tell you how many people I've seen who've done stuff like this. So, yeah, it's just, you know, who have like. Well, I can say we've done that. I can remember boxes and boxes of pens all over our house. Now, granted, we were selling them, they were moving through. So we would receive these deliveries of stylus pens into our houses at cases and cases at a time, and our daughters would be like, you know, overwhelming it. So this video is very Similar.

Hold on, we're not going to go yet because we do have a question.

Okay, great.

We got a question from tridimensional. Is art 3D art? And I'm not sure exactly who this is, but anyway, at least by that name I know people have contacted us. But anyway, it says where should you prove your concept? That's the question.

It really depends on where you plan to sell it. I mean the video that we talk about, which is a couple back, I think it's probably the first one or the second one that we've talked about on this series of hangouts so far in the Mentors to Inventors Network. When we talk about Prove It, I mean that's really the thing.

Oh, it's Eduardo. It's Eduardo Martini. I didn't know that. Did he change his name? Doesn't matter. Anyway, he says if you develop a different product, where should you test it?

Yeah, so you should test it in the market you believe, you first believe is the market for it. So hopefully you've found a need and you think that you're filling a gap or of a need in the marketplace and you're going to go to find that target demographic. So where can you reach them most? So for us, a lot of times we design for women. Women are the largest shopping demographic in the U.S. in the U.S. they're a huge portion of Amazon in all retail shopping. So if I can access them in a way at which I can get into some of their groups or I can just do a get in with an influencer and ask some questions and that's really where I go to prove it first. So sometimes though, you know, we have people who have like maybe a phased version to their invention. So like you start out with the kind of, we call it like it would be like the beta version, right? Like, so it's not quite your full concept. Maybe you didn't fully tool for it. If you've got that and you can make a really small run, then we try to do something like we'll actually run it straight on Amazon. So it just really depends on where your market channel is and where you want to go. You want to test the same demographic, that's the first thing you want to test. And then you want to test the difficulty level of accessing that market in the most important channel within that market. So the most important store within that market or website, whatever that may be. So in the case of Amazon, and that's why we will do a 500 to a thousand piece run if we can in a 3D printed version or.

It doesn't even have to be that.

It doesn't have to be that big. No, you can run it smaller to just test how difficult is it to access and do that?

Okay, so follow up question is and what about selling in an informal way? Would it be valid? So I'm going to give you a good example of that one. That's a good follow up question, Eduardo. I think there are legitimate informal ways to gauge that. Now, I don't know about in Brazil that you probably have the same type of selling environments that we have here in the US I would say you could do a very low cost event type of a selling opportunity. Like we have farmer's markets here in the US where people go, yes, usually on the weekend to buy fresh produce, you know, food, vegetables, fruits, things like that. But there are other kinds of things sold there too. A lot of times there are artisans selling crafts and other types of of products and you get a real cross section of people at these things.

I mean, you have to make sure it's a fit. So make sure you're selling something that's probably a gift item or jewelry or something that fits the model of whatever that event is. So you make sure that that's the case of that and make sure that that demographic is, you know, make sure that they, you know, it's already tied at kind of an artisan mindset if they're, they're probably interested in sustainable products already because they're at a farmer's market type, buying organic fruits and vegetables. Right. So like it has a profile of the typ people that it wants to be, you know, that it wants to profile. And so if that fits your product, then it's the perfect place to test it. So yes, you can do things like that. You could also try some kind of flash sale that's an online option to do that. But I think you have to do it within a market that you're very, very sure that they trust you already to be a valid test. If you're just going out there and doing one of these like Amazon or Facebook flash sales, which I see all the time, the likelihood of somebody buying from you who isn't already a part of your group or who already knows you is difficult. And if it's somebody who already knows you, you're muddying your data. So that's where you really have to go out and say, you know, hey, is this really the right place to do it? Online is really hard to do a test in.

It is I think there are other opportunities and actual local retail, though you may be able to more independent shops if they are carrying the similar type of category of product you want to.

Test or they just have a right.

Demographic, you could probably get someone to do a local test that is on consignment, really, where they're not actually buying your product and reselling it, but they're putting it on the shelf to do it. We were talking to somebody recently about they had a product that might have appealed to people that were buying cakes, like wedding cakes. Right. And here's a good example. And we counseled this person to go get some market proof because she had product, she had physical product to be able to be sold and you know, was having trouble dialing in some price point issues and some demographic issues. And she had an opportunity to create a one off only a single retail display, sort of a pop up, you know, display to show the product and give some bullet points what it's about and the price point and put it in those bakeries. It was not a cake product, it was an accessory. Somebody who's buying a cake might also want to buy for that celebration event. Right. So that was an idea that was, you know, you want to think about what kinds of other things might the person who wants to buy your product also be buying at a similar time maybe, and then piggyback on. Piggyback on that opportunity.

Yeah. And so I want you to be careful in thinking about what your goal of the proof is, Eduardo, because that's really important. If your goal is to prove that the product has a fit, then that's a great way to go about it. But if the goal is to figure out whether or not you can get traction in marketability of something, then you really have to dive into like putting up a shop on Etsy, putting up a shop on Amazon, or putting up a shop in whatever place that you feel is best fit for your product and seeing if you can access that and drive traffic there and gain organic as well as a purposeful traffic. So you're building it directly because that may not happen. And that's really, I think, the harder part than finding out whether or not your product, I think you should already have, probably if you've gone out and done some, you know, demographic testing of it, like we've talked about, going into a nonprofit group and checking it out with them, then you may already have a good indication, you feel that the product's strong, but the marketing access and whether the marketing access is even going to pay attention to your product is really the key. It's not about a good product. It's about whether you can capture their attention and the attention of their dollar, which even if there's no competition for their product, there's always competition for that dollar. Yeah.

You got to think how you're going to make that emotional with that consumer to get them to give up their money for your product. You have to really dial into that valid reason.

Right.

And it's tricky to do. And like we said, we're not marketers. We're not the best to help you dial.

That's why we use experts and that's.

Why we hire experts to help us with it. Absolutely.

Yeah. And so anyway, this is kind of the way that it's two types of marketing, two types of testing. Rather, it's market testing and product testing. So when you're testing your product and your features, that's one thing. When you're testing your market reach, that's another. So we've talked about this before, actually, in the 3D print world, and I know you listen to the podcast that the Ring Cam. So we talked about that back around, around.

And the Ring Cam was a great product where they tested the product, where they gave that product away pretty much to a bunch of guys who were getting ready, getting ready, getting ready to propose, engage. And they got product feedback and product testing and testimonials and a lot of data and feedback on how to make it work. That was one way that they did that. And they 3D printed that at that stage and made that prototypes by hand didn't make a tremendous amount.

And they learned a valuable lesson because originally they thought that they were going to sell these ring camera boxes to people that were going to propose. And that was a much more expensive proposition. They ended up finding out that that cost, that price that they were asking people to pay to buy that product was really too high and not very many people were going to do it. And they came up with the concept of renting it.

Yeah. So it didn't convert. So they came up with the idea of, where are you going to be able to capture the market the fastest? And keep in mind, these guys did not come up with this themselves. They hired a sales expert, a guy we know from, called the Buyers Group, Michael Byers, amazing guy who's had a tremendous history in creating sales traction. And he said the fastest way for us to accelerate this is for you to go and partner with the jewelry shops, because that's where all your customers are going. And it's not in competition because it's not a piece of jewelry. So they may be more happy to do that. So then they created a couple of these pop up displays, discovered that the price point was a little too high from that model and then went to a rental model from there on. And now it's just like, like got its own sales force, its own traction. They didn't have to invest in that. So that was such a smart method of doing it. But they did it because they were testing the product and then testing the market reach.

Right. And they ended up discovering that the jewelry stores could actually sell it for them. And they ever had a couple markets they could sell the products to the jewelry stores. The jewelry stores would then loan them out or rent them out depending on how they wanted to do their business. So the customer ended up not being necessarily the end consumer, although they do do that on their website. They will rent them now themselves to you from anywhere. But you could make it be sort of a branded special. Jewelry shops are a local market really in the US There are local jewelry shops everywhere and there are some.

This is not something you normally buy online. You go and pick out your engagement.

You go and look at it and you may develop a relationship with a jeweler. So they tend to trust the them. So have that same salesforce out there, help sell your product or even buy your product and they rent it out. So I mean there's lots of opportunities. They discovered different ways to reach their market and it was all through doing some initial testing, as Tracy said, with 3D printed version of their product. They refined the product and how they were going to reach the customer.

But if you had imagined that they had spent all that money diving in and creating a $20,000 sales and rental website themselves and doing like this high end thing and then discover that nobody came, you know, you had nobody buying it, that would have been a travesty of expenses. And so the reality is is that because they did this very low budget, very cost conscious and went about it very slowly and involved the experts in an area where they didn't feel comfortable. They didn't felt comfortable with the product and the tech, but they did not feel comfortable with the sales and marketing so they brought in someone who really served them well. So anyway, we hope that helps.

Already sent us a thank you on Google well before we went into the ring cam example, but I felt it was still a great example.

Yeah, it's a great example. Yeah. And I will add that link in here in the comments field so that you Guys who may not have seen that one already because you're not a part of our WTFF podcast. Although you're welcome to listen if it interests you. But it may not. And that's okay.

No, it's actually a really good. Even though it's a 3D printing podcast, that episode is. And there's a blog post related to it, you should link.

That's what I'm gonna ask.

So that's a great lesson of a business strategy. A growing business with a brand new invention product and how they went about doing it. And you know, I don't want to paint the picture that they did it right from the get go. I mean, they had, they had some successful failures and pivoted along the way. But the point is the hired experts figured out what those pivots needed to be found their proper market, found their proper sales models and now have gone into business in a significant way and they're doing a great job of it. And I like the example as well because it's not a traditional market. It's not just throwing something up on Amazon. Right, right. Which is not a bad place to test a product, but it just has to be the right product.

But if you're just going to put something up on Amazon and not not do some marketing things with it, then you're actually really not helping yourself at all.

Yeah, Amazon, you can't just put it up there and expect that Amazon's going to bring the customers. It takes work in many different areas and we have some experts that we work with to help dial that in. And you know, we've talked about that a little bit on a past hangout and we're going to be talking about that more in the Inventor's Mastermind event. And again, it just comes down to seeking out and hiring the right expert to help you with what you don't know.

Right.

So super critical, but great examples. I like where this has gone today, Tracy. Yeah, I think that's really useful information. And the Google Hangout thing seems to be working okay today.

Well, anyway, so we will be back with you guys on July 6th as we said, and we'll give you kind of a recap of how things went with the event and whether or not we're going to continue to the next level. And hopefully some of you can guys will be able to join us.

Yeah, please do reach out to us over Facebook and you know, can ask any questions. Feel free. Reach out to us if you're a serious inventor. And I mean serious inventor, not just you know, you have an idea and you want someone else to help make that idea a reality. You have to be a serious inventor, very passionate about your product.

You want to accelerate this. You want to get to market. This is for those that really want to launch. And it doesn't mean that you want to launch it all the way to, you know, might want to launch it, to licensing it. Doesn't have to be launching to being on the shelf somewhere.

Yeah, no, no. You don't have to want to create a whole vertical company around it. But you also can't be expecting someone else to do it all for you and that they'll pay to do it all for you. I mean, it just doesn't work that way in reality. You need to be serious about making it happen and maybe spending some amounts of money, but in the right ways. That's what we're really going to talk about.

Yeah. You know, we see a lot of people who come through who spent tons of money at like, Invent Help and Edison Nation and all of these other things, and guys haven't gotten anywhere. I mean, I asked. I'm always. Your patent issued. Oh, yeah, it issued two years ago and you're still trying to get this marketed. It's probably out of market by now. You know, it's. You've passed your prime waiting for it to happen. And how much money did you spend? Oh, I've spent $50,000 or 25 or whatever. It's, you know, some of them, I've met a couple of people spend 120.

So, you know, there's nothing wrong with spending 25, 50,000 or even $100,000 in the right ways to really achieve your goals. It's, it's absolutely, you know, may need to happen. But make sure you learn enough to know. To know what you don't know, that you're spending it in the right ways in the right places that is really.

Going to accelerate you and move you to where you want to go.

And that's what we're going to be detailing for you. How to make sure you're not getting taken advantage of, but are actually accelerating.

Your project forward and how you make those decisions along the way. So anyway, guys, thanks so much. Can't wait to talk to you again and have a great Fourth of July. For those of you in the US.

And for those of you that will be at the mastermind, we look forward to seeing you there.

That's right. Thanks again.

Bye.

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