What to Sell Next: Stacking Consumer Product Growth S Curves

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.

Hey there, product launchers. Today, Tom and I are going to talk about stacking S curves. And if you've never heard that term before, it's a little bit of old school product and project management kind of terms. It's about business growth and business development. And big Fortune 100 companies pretty much use this process. And it's like a generalized practice that they learn about stacking S curves. But we're going to use it here to talk specifically about your product lines. And we really like the way that a good friend of ours, Ken Courtright and fellow podcaster of the Today's growth podcast, Ken, talks about stacking S curves in terms of sort of. I'm going to call it proofing your business for the future. So future proofing your business is the best way to describe it. But first, a quick definition on what an S curve is. So an S curve is that sort of like, shape that you might see on a graph, right? As it shows that sort of. Some people call it the hockey stick at the beginning of it, but eventually it S is at the top, and then you start to come back down again. And for many, that can be a quick plummet depending on innovation and technology or the movement in the consumer retail market. So we definitely want you guys to sort of understand that. And what we're talking about is stacking them so your growth keeps happening. So I'm gonna let Tom tell the stacking S curve stories. Ken's way.

Sure. Well, really, every product, this is about how every product has a life cycle, all right? It has a beginning, a middle, and an end. And usually the way that product works, first it starts to take off and it's slow to start. But then, really, Tracy was talking about that hockey stick. It's going up, right? And then eventually it plateaus and it falls off, right? And that's the ass, right? It's, whoa, it's hard when I'm looking at myself. But the idea is that before your product at the top starts to fall off, in fact, when you're in that hockey stick growth, when you're right here and you're climbing mid growth, mid growth, you're going, it's taking off right then While you're fat and happy and excited and everything's gone right, is exactly when you should be starting the next product to stack on top of that one. That's why it's called stacking S curve. So when the time that product takes off and it's starting to fall off, your next product is being launched and going up.

Well launched on its growth pattern. So you've gone through that early stage part already. And that's really what we're talking about, is how soon should you start those things. So, but tell Ken's story about how this came about.

So really, the story goes back to the 1950s, and one of the companies that was a staple of American manufacturing was Corning. And they were known at that time for making Pyrex bakeware. You know, those big rectangular, square round pie dishes, all sorts of different dishes. They were the manufacturer making that. And they had pretty much a lock on the business until patents expired. Other competitors see, they're having success. I mean, it's going to sound familiar to a lot of you Amazon sellers who maybe launched things and had others come and compete and start to take away some of your market share.

Maybe even some of you are making Pyrex knockoffs in a way, products of some kind.

Sure. And so they ended up, all of a sudden, they had this incredibly steady business. And one Monday morning, the CEO comes in and nobody's there, nobody's in his office. He's like, what's going on? Well, forever and ever, every Monday morning, they, you know, had a sales meeting, reported their numbers. Oh, things are doing great. Things are growing a bit. And for the first time in the company's history, they actually had a decrease in sales. And it was so significant from all this competition selling bakeware. Like they had that they're not the only guys in town anymore.

And.

And they were going to be in trouble very fast and having to lay off people. And they.

It was like a really short period of time. Like something like they had six months cash flow or something like that. It was really small for a company.

Of the size that they were what they determined. They ended up having a meeting and realized, wow, we're in trouble. This is. We can no longer rest on what we've known what's worked in the past is not going to work going forward. And they realized that, hey, they have all, all this equipment and had an executive meeting. And then they had a meeting in the warehouse floor, the factory floor with everybody, every employee, and they decided, hey, everybody's future rides on this. So let's get all the heads on this that we can and said, hey, everybody put their heads together and figure out what additional products we can make with the same materials and same equipment that we makewear out of and the same labor that we can make nights and weekends. Because we gotta keep making what we're making during, you know, the normal shift, shift during the day. But what else can we make? What other product can we make with this equipment, this material, nights and weekends that will give us a new product, a new revenue stream. And by the way, we have about 30 days to figure this out or we won't be able to get it online and selling in time before we have to start cutting back and laying people off. And so all the employees did eventually put their heads together and they came up with some ideas. And actually that idea ended up being for fiber optic cable, which is made of glass. And out of the same kind of glass that that bakeware is made of. It's just a different format of material and they could make it. And now it's one of the biggest product lines that that company makes. It far eclipses the bakeware. And so there's always some lessons in that, not to just feel that you're safe where you are and your product is going to last forever. Let me tell you something, no product lasts forever, okay? I mean, if you get a home run of a product, you might get six years out of it, you might get 10 years. Actually, we were looking at this, we were talking about this, just this recently, the last few days, Tracy, one of our daughters, got a birthday gift. She had a birthday recently, she got a birthday gift and it was the Magic 8 Ball. You know, when you ask a question, you shake it, you turn it over and it says, you know, it may be so or yes or all these different answers, realizing, wow, that product, we had that when I was a kid.

Rubik's Cube is another one.

Or the Slinky. I mean, these have become products that have been around for a very, very long time, but there are very few of those that really do last a very, very long time.

The Aeron chair, 25 years going.

But most products that you would sell on Amazon or that we might buy on Amazon products can have a very short life. It can be one year, it can be less than a year. And, you know, it's a very fast paced market and world we live in.

I think in our consumer retail market, if you get five years, you are really lucky.

I think that's a home run yeah, we do.

We know it's like platinum record. That's what we call it when you get past five years on something.

But while it is selling and doing very well, that's exactly when you need to start introducing the next product. You can't wait until you're starting to see the sales fall off. If you wait that long, you've waited too long and your entire company is in jeopardy. So that's sort of the lesson of Corning and, you know, the stacking S curves and, you know, I know that most of us here on product launch hazards are not manufacturers. I mean, Corning is an example of a manufacturer. And so say, hey, what other products can we do with the same equipment we're making things with today and all that? You don't necessarily have to do that because you may not be making it at all, but you do need to figure out what the next product is going to be that you can bring to market. And I would say the most important part is what markets do you have access to that you know, you can reach what products would sell those market.

Right, yeah. So that's where we start. So there's an exception to that, and that's if you really see it as a very unstable market. So in other words, if it's a market that's really had already been in decline and you were sort of tapping in the tail end of it and you just happened to sell a really great product on it, that's maybe not the most viable market in that place. And, you know, some examples of that might be, you know, if you were doing certain types of materials that are really not in favor right now or not on trend and things like that, where most people don't really want to put BPA into their. Into their mouths anymore. So like, if you've got products and things that are in serious decline because of a social trend that's going on or a mega trend that's going on, then really rethink that as the solution. But for the most part, what we find is it's a whole lot easier for you to go in and say, I have this channel, I have this access to a market. And if that is, I've already been launching pet products or juvenile products or all of these things. So I understand the consumer better. I have access to many of them because I've done either a direct response campaign, I have a list of people. I know how to ask them the questions that I need in market research. I know what response I can expect is good. I know how to advertise and market to them. These are things I don't have to learn new. So I'll be able to quickly assess whether or not the new product has viability and will be successful within that market. And that's really the part that we want, is that you've already taken this very, very long trail up on your products. And so if you can, the next one has a much shorter go swoop up quicker, because you don't have to learn as much about the market, you don't have to learn as much about how to market to them. You don't have to learn as much about what they like and don't like. If you can cut that, then your S curve can go faster and you can just keep kind of hockey sticking up until that product loses interest instead of the market. And so that's why we suggest that you start from there. It's the fastest path, it makes it the easiest. And then you really start thinking about, though, a little bit wider diversification. Like the example that Tom was talking about with fiber optic cable being very outside of it. So when we talk about a lot of times we get in like pet products, they're like, well, I make dog stuff, I'll just make a cat version. And some of that is okay. But then you do the research and you discover that cat products sell about, I don't know, I think it's something like 60% less than dog products do. So it's not the best idea at that point. You're not expanding your market share tremendously. Might not be a bad idea, but it might not be the best one either. And so you have to start looking at that from a broader place.

Well, another thought might be, let's say you have a supplier that is currently manufacturing one of your products from. Let's say you have a supplier, you're making something out of silicone, that's a popular material these days around the kitchen and maybe other. Other places as well. And you have one product that's selling there. Well, the other option might be if you don't think that you can come up with another product that would appeal to your same market, well, you can still get an advantage by making a product that would sell with your same supplier, maybe. Right. Even if you are forging a new market or a tangent market, because you have a supplier that's a known quantity, especially if they've performed for you on.

Time and they like you because you're success for them, so they're happy working with you and collaborating with you. So that helps too.

Maybe you have built long history with them and they've actually given you better payment terms and you have an account with them. So there may be a financial advantage to continuing to work with them. So there could be other reasons to try to determine, kind of like Corning did, what other products could we make and import from this supplier? Because that takes care of a whole lot of potential unknowns and risky factors. But still, I think Tracy was right. The access to the market is the most important thing. So.

So, and if you can combine those two same market, right? If you can combine those two things, the access to the market and a really strong supplier relationship, and you combine those two things to create something unique and new out of that, now you have a higher likelihood for a winner. So because you're not going to have the hiccups of, how do I sell this? How do I get this going? You're also not going to have the hiccups of, is this going to be a good supplier? Are they going to deliver on time? You've got all of those things. So it's going to make that hockey sticking go faster. And so that's of benefit as well. And then when you add in the uniqueness, I mean, thinking about how you come from making bakeware to fiber optic, I mean, big jump and totally different market, but completely innovative and a tradition of innovation that they had going on, they kept that. But anyway, we have these things ongoing where you really want to take these S curves and really make them go quickly, fast. But you don't want to take what I call the. And so that's kind of what I want to end with here, is that the shotgun approach is really what most people do. And so they'll go to their suppliers and they'll go, what else have you got? And they'll take anything. And like, what else is selling to this market? Like I said, the cat products. And they'll just bring them in and they won't have any analysis, they won't have any judgment calls, they won't be making any consumer product research calls on it. You can at minimum do that. Also, you need to make sure it has a brand integrity. So you've been building a brand, you have a great product in that brand. And does this meet my criteria of my brand integrity, of the value that I want to provide, of the uniqueness that I am going to be providing to my consumers? Does this deliver on all this? Or is just this another skew? And that's where they fall off the path? Because having a shotgun approach and then seeing what works distracts your business from a complexity standpoint and usually from pretty much every time I've seen it. And it doesn't matter whether it's a big brand or a small brand, we end up with the lowest profitability possible. It's not smart growth. We want to narrow in and grow on the things and stack the S curves on the things that are going to add the most value to our business. And so we need a proper assessment of that. That's why we recommend you start early. That's why as you start to go up, that some of your early money spend not on big inventory, not on any of that, but on the research and design side of things, coming up with what's new. And if that means allocate a resource to it, hire a firm, bring one person in to work on this. Make it their job, though, because we find that organizations who, who try to do what Corning did in this case, it's really, really difficult because they have so much going on in their organization that it's really, really difficult for them to not be fighting fires and to be able to concentrate on this new development and really proper evaluation of it. So you need to have someone on that research job. Otherwise it's going to be a nights and weekends kind of thing for you, and then it will start to fall off and the schedule will fall off. Any other thoughts, Tom?

Well, no, I just think the real big message and lesson, we've said it and we don't need to beat a dead horse. The reality is you cannot wait until the product that is working stops working or starts to show any signs that it is no longer going to work before you figure out what comes next. Otherwise you're going to be in and out of business very quickly. This is about your own business growth, future, even survival. You've gotta be thinking ahead and working ahead and prioritizing that, not making it an afterthought or oh my gosh, you know, because I kind of run out of money. Another way we refer to it sometimes is the marketing roller coaster, right? I mean, some people, most of you sellers, I'm sure, have a steady stream of marketing, but a lot of businesses, they'll spend money on marketing and then they get a lot of sales, they get a lot of business, and they stop marketing. And then all of a sudden, only when you are losing money do they start marketing again, right?

And it takes a lot longer to.

Recover because roller coaster and almost seesaw effect. And you can't do that. This has to be a consistent and constant thing because that's how you're going to grow. That's how you're going to build a powerful brand and a powerful company that you can sell or get acquired or somebody's going to want to license your stuff. And there's lots of options available to you as long as you have that consistent growth.

Yeah, you want to look at it also from a balance sheet perspective and from a profit and loss perspective. It's like if you're constantly growing and there isn't that big variability, you look like a. You are a better risk. I mean, you don't just look like one, you are a better risk because it means that you've got a formula that works, that is continuing to grow and you have a continual residual profitability that is of value to someone. Where you go through the up and downs, you have lots of hit and misses is how they look at it. And so you're like, maybe they're at the height, maybe they're not. I'm not sure right now. And so it makes you less viable for a buyout or a license. So these are some of the things that we are also considering as we go through and do this. The last thing I kind of want to mention, Tom, is just that, you know, as you're stacking S curves and doing all of this and thinking about the growth in your product line. Right. It is a matter of what comes next because volatile things happen in the marketplace. Wars happen, tariffs happen, terrorist attacks, 9, 11 happen in one of our businesses. So these things can also occur. And having something that is slightly diversified, factory fires have happened, like we've seen these things happen. So when you diversify too, think of it as a diversification plan. You maybe don't want to do that till you get five or six products in your category before you really diversify into another category. But, you know, be thinking about that as well as you're stacking because those things are alternative streams of income. You want to think of them. Those things are important too in terms of continuing that growth and profitability as you go on. But first you got to get a strong base in the category that you're in, in the market that you're in, in the factories that you have access to, get that going and get that strong. And then you can look at that farther out. Innovation and diversification. So get that base going first. So thanks again guys for listening. We don't have a lot of questions that were submitted on this particular topic or related to this particular topic, so we're not going to address those today, but we'll hit them in the next Office hours. And of course, you can always tune in live and ask us questions about anything. It doesn't have to be related to the topic we just talked about, so please do that and check out the next Office hours that are coming up by clicking the Office Hours tab on your Product Launch Hazards membership site. And thanks again.

Bye everyone.

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