The E-commerce Leader

Michael Veazey: today, we are talking about product strategies for ecommerce.
Jason Miles: Yes, we are.
Michael Veazey: one of the things about products that we’re going to discuss, I guess, is it is a broader church than you might think, but I think you’ve got a very nice introduction to this so I’d love you to just read that out to us.
Jason Miles: well, full disclosure, let me just say as a context for the overview. I heard Russell Brunson make a phrase one time, I’m sure he copied it from somebody, but his phrase was, you’re one funnel away. From well or from, you know, million dollars or whatever. And I like that phrasing your one. So I adapted that for this.
And I would just [00:01:00] say to everybody that you’re one product away from having a successful small business, one product away from living a new life, new lifestyle, getting out of debt. You mean all the things that you think are potentially there for you and a bright future. You’re one product away from that.
And when you break it down that way, and you just say, look, if we can get one amazing product, it’s almost like, you know, a band that forget the phrase from the movie, but it’s like one great song can change the world, you know? And, it’s almost like that for product makers or product creators or marketers, you’re one product away from real success.
And, at the end of the day, for, I think, my personal opinion at the end of the day for eCommerce selling. It’s getting simpler and simpler all the time. And the tools are getting easier. The sites are getting easier, marketplaces are sprouting up everywhere. It’s so easy in, in many ways. I mean, it, it [00:02:00] honestly is so easy.
And I know for somebody who might be struggling, it could be like, Oh yeah, right. But, it is so easy. But the hard part in it for sure is this question of product creation know, and that’s what we want to talk about. And I think that’ll be a main theme of, of this podcast.
Michael Veazey: so I want to play devil’s advocate here, and it’s very appropriate that the Americans would come up with incredibly optimistic statement, by the way, I love it. It’s, it’s really inspiring. And you a man, he’s walked the talk. I mean, you’ve been, you know, running your own eCommerce business for what, 12 years?
You’ve been helping clients for years. so you know what you’re speaking of. But for all that, I would like to say that there is a danger that looks in this one product away, which I believe is true. But what that can do for people who are new to the space, particularly I’ve experienced so often, is they are obsessed with finding the magic product.
And I would suggest that instead of obsessing about finding the product, I was reading this incredible book, which, Ashmore is I haven’t finished it, but it’s called running lean. And one of the things he says in the book is, your product is not the product. In other words.
You [00:03:00] need to create a business that has processes which are capable of finding great products. So I would just urge you, anyone listening, which ties totally in with our theme, by the way, because what we’re talking about today is framework or many, many frameworks for finding great products, right? Which is your speciality of creating great models that are clear but strategic.
and that’s what excites me about working with you. But I want to just just say right up front, don’t fall into that trap of obsessing about finding the product. What you need to do is find a system.
Jason Miles: Okay?
Michael Veazey: And a process that will find those products. Right. Would
Jason Miles: But at the end of that system, well, I would say at the end of that system, you’re back to where I started, which is your one product
Michael Veazey: It’s way. Okay. Yeah. I believe you’re right. It’s just that I’ve seen some really unhealthy kind of obsessive type behavior come from approaching that true, very true statement in the wrong way. That’s all I’m saying.
Jason Miles: For sure. No, I, I wouldn’t disagree with that. And there are many, many, many ways to fail.
Michael Veazey: Yes.
Jason Miles: and, and of course, I mean, anybody who’s tried online selling is, has failed. I’m sure. I mean, in some ways, big or small [00:04:00] with, some version of, you know, a reason why something failed and, and product, is certainly one of the categories.
It can fall apart really fast. your product can physically fall apart, which just as a funny thing there. but obviously your product strategies are central to success. Yeah.
Michael Veazey: Absolutely. And I guess you, you’ve got another little statement that you were saying to me earlier that there’s a bit more optimistic. So I haven’t done my British, you know, pouring rain on everyone’s parade now. tell, tell us about the upsides of this. You know, who’s this for is, I know you got something to say about that.
Jason Miles: Well, I think over the course of time we’re going to talk about a set of, you know, subtopics within this, this bigger issue. that will really speak to people who are starting up. And just trying to search for it. As you just mentioned, you know, those people were on that journey of trying to find their first great product.
And then we’ll also have plenty of content for people who are veteran e-commerce sellers who are trying to figure out how to escalate their product success. And [00:05:00] there’s pros and cons and benefits. And. Mistakes and doing scale, scale. And you know, the, the idea of product stacking is, when I coin a phrase, I coined, to speak to this, other people, you know, call it integrated product strategy.
Brendon Burchard uses that phrase a lot, our integrated product suite, I think for veteran e-commerce sellers. We’ll dive into those, questions and of course, other questions. You know, such as digital products and, memberships. And, and I think part of what we might want to do today is just define what we’re, what we mean by product.
Michael Veazey: absolutely.
Jason Miles: I think we have different, maybe different takes on that. Even the top level questions, like, what are you talking about when you talk about a
product?
Michael Veazey: I think defining terms is an excellent starting point. I mean, it’s a bit formal, sort of old school star, but I think it’s good. So I mean, yeah. The first question is then you’ve already flagged up the difference between physical and digital. I mean, how would you define product as distinct from the other aspects of a business?
Jason Miles: Well, I think that if you’re an eCommerce operator, any offer you make is your product. [00:06:00] And so I have a very wide net. When I would talk about product creation, it could be literally, in my parlance or my way of looking at at it, Even a service provider online, like somebody has a gig on Fiverr or a gig on Upwork or freelance or whatever.
That is their product. They’re creating a product that’s digitally displayed that someone has to say yes to. So, in terms of my way of thinking, even services delivered online is a product. of course memberships fall into that range of, concepts for me, you know, monthly recurring membership programs.
digital products of course, fall into that range of products. And even in the digital product space, there’s, Half dozen different modalities. You could say, eBooks, webinars, online courses. All of that to me is in the product space. And of course, obviously, physical product, the traditional, sell a widget.
Michael Veazey: Well, that’s good to know. To define the
term.
Jason Miles: so, I mean, that’s my, my way of thinking. Very broad. How
about you? I mean,
what’s your take on it?
Michael Veazey: well, I mean, I think for me, we were discussing this before we went live, right? I mean, one [00:07:00] of the traditional definitions of eCommerce is narrower, and it’s definitely more about physical widgets sold via an electronic advertising medium. But in the end, I personally, in way more than just physical products. I’m in the, I run a podcast for goodness sake. I’ve run in Cleveland. This one will run us into producing this one. And, I, yeah, I think the distinction is dangerous. The we’ve talked before, you came on the amazing FBA podcast a while ago and talked about.
For example, I use a metronome. I could see in a house near the the piano. We got a thing that just beeps in time. And I’ve also got an app on my phone, and whether I use the physical widget or the app, we depends on which is physically closer, sometimes somebody is that, that narrower a sort of difference between them.
And so yeah, the distinction is becoming quite artificial. So I agree with your broader definition, but I think it is very important to. So you consider that? Well, I mean, cause some people might decide that’s not the right definition for them. And I think that’s perfectly fine. But I think it’s, it’s hugely important to define for oneself what you’re going to consider as a type of product that you might even consider.
Sally.
Jason Miles: Yeah, and I think [00:08:00] for this show, for the purposes of listenership to the show, you’ll just, everybody should know. We’ll be talking about these other aspects, digital products, memberships, you know, these, these ideas that are. Beyond just a straight, you know, product selling, you know, effort, and weave it most intriguing part. That’s the that’s, that’s where the secret sauce happens, is the 11 herbs and spices,
you know, kind of, you know, that reference. That’s Kentucky
fried chicken,
Michael Veazey: I don’t, but that sounds good.
Jason Miles: you know, Kentucky fried
Michael Veazey: I have eaten Kentucky fried chicken. Yeah. Yeah.
Jason Miles: Okay. Whatever. I just use an American phrase that you hadn’t heard of the 11 herbs and spices.
It’s the secret
sauce.
Michael Veazey: Yeah. Not only that, it’s probably a copyrighted
and trademarked.
Jason Miles: I pull up probably going to get sued right now.
Michael Veazey: yeah, it’ll be an exciting Well, there you go. So there’s a different of property, right? I was speaking to a lawyer the other day and, um, for the and, um, of course, property has the word property in it.
In other words, it’s a thing you can own, in a sense, that kind of products. And that doesn’t seem [00:09:00] real until you do something like you make a royalty deal that you get 7% of. These revenue every time they sell a widget. That seems pretty wheel then. Right. So that there are broader forms of products that you can put
Jason Miles: it doesn’t seem real until you’re the creator and someone ripped you off and then you realize when you’re the ripper offer, when you’re the Steeler, you think, Oh, it doesn’t matter. That’s just an idea. But when you’re the maker of the idea and somebody knocks you off without attribution, it really hurts.
You know, like, this was my baby. I thought about this for 15 years before I
Michael Veazey: Yeah, absolutely. So, yeah, I suppose we could I think that the intellectual property piece as even though it seems abstract, um, is part of the, the product strategy, I guess on it, it falls into it anyway without getting into sort of legal rabbit holes. So what drives them that the product strategy, I mean the product strategy is part picture strategy we’ve been discussing.
Business model, strategy, profit sales channel
Jason Miles: The first question you have to ask yourself is [00:10:00] for an online venture, like what’s the beginning is the foundational piece? And I would say that the foundational piece is serving. A group of people, or even uh, with a, with a product or That’s the foundation of any venture. And, uh, so that rolls up immediately the idea of finding a niche or group of Um, that’s the underlying concept behind everything related to the effort. Your brand flows out of that product strategy, where you sell, how you do the promotional.
Everything flows out of that question of are you serving a specific group of people? A lot of people who are newbies starting out. Where they flounder is, I just go on Ali Baba, my guy, look, this is a kitchen blender. That’s cool. Oh look, here’s a garden hose. Oh look, here’s a sewing machine like that.
They’re, look, they’re looking at products without thinking about who they want Um, and so to really the underlying question in the [00:11:00] whole topic of products is, is who do you want to serve? And then, and then as soon as you nail that or get clarity on that. The products just start to flow product least.
And um, and that, so to me, the question behind the question is, you know, who’s your, who’s your niche audience
want to serve,
Michael Veazey: I couldn’t agree with more, first
that
of answers the implied question that I flagged up with my typical negative raining on the parade question, which is like you, but, but shouldn’t we be careful about obsessing with products? I think the reason why people go wrong with product strategy and obsessed about getting the right products, if they’re going directly for that, it’s particularly in the Amazon world, maybe it’s not as bad outside that.
about physical products? Maybe keywords, but what you’re not thinking about, because in Apart from anything else is the person behind the search query. If you’re putting keywords in and what their intent is. In other words, who’s the person and what’s their pain?
I’m just always, always banging on about the pap person in the pain, and I’m working with people that are trying to start up from scratch on Amazon and begging them not. Just to be [00:12:00] led by keywords and even worse, what’s available, Alibaba, as you said, so I guess that kind of kind of answers that question really.
Jason Miles: and this is a whole different topic for a different podcast, but I will just say that the different niche audiences have very, very different characteristics. And once you’re a marketer for a long time in multiple genres, I guess you could say you learn that different customer groups. Are very different, you know, as a collection of individuals, they make up a culture.
And so just, and that, that and and thinking about different groups in different ways, is really what you’ll learn over time is some groups of people you just don’t click with. You just don’t, you’re not a marketer that can serve them well. And that’s important to understand.
And so there’s a whole, there’s a whole, you know. Podcasts rolled up in that, but I just, well, an example, I was a marketer, senior VP of marketing for at a university [00:13:00] and, what I was was marketing the university and also for the university, which is cultivating major gifts.
What I’ve found over four years is I just wasn’t, that wasn’t my community of people. I wanted to, I mean, my kids are in, you know, have gone through college. I went through college. I thought, how hard could it be? It’s college. It’s a college. It was even my Alma mater. I went to the college. But what I found over time was those are just not the people that, that it’s not the cohort of people I’m interested in serving or have a passion for serving, or I’m good at serving.
And I think that’s an exploration of your own. beliefs, your, you know, your and if you products that fail, I think over time what you might you’ve, you’ve run into niches that were maybe bad niches for you. And some niches are better than others.
Some niches are highly unethical groups of people. They’ll buy all your product and return it
after they use it. And as a culture, you know what I mean? Other [00:14:00] communities are the most honest people on the planet. Who will, you know, they’ll tell you if the, if the tax didn’t calculate correctly or the shipping or the shipping was too low, that you know that there’s very, very different
groups of people.
So anyway, I apologize for rambling on about that.
Michael Veazey: none of this is fantastic. I think it’s great content because I think it’s, there’s something you don’t often hear. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone in e-commerce podcast talk about the culture of a particular niche, but I think you’re absolutely bang on. I mean, for example, is a very simple Amazon example that if you sell clothing in Amazon, Germany.
Particularly, they are famous for returning a huge percentage of stuff. And like I can understand from the consumer’s perspective why that is. Because they want to try stuff on and if it doesn’t fit, they want to send it back. I’m sure there is a logic to it, but nevertheless, if you’re selling into that market, you better know that going in.
Otherwise you won’t have made the calculations correctly. Because you’ve got to factor in returns, refunds, you know, negative feedback, whatever it is that’s gotta be part [00:15:00] of what you go into with your eyes open. So that’s just a very but. strong example. Um, another example would be just in general, Amazon, Germany, you’ll get fewer they’ll be more critical.
So you make sure your product is really on point before you send it in there compared to the UK or U
Jason Miles: There you go. So these, it gets down to really cultural differences, but also sub cultures and types of people congregate together. And, and you have to think through that when you started to work through the product creation process. So that’s a really a newbie conversation in a way, because it’s for people who don’t have their niche sorted.
but for the people who they already like, yes, I know this. I know the pros and cons of my niche. know, I know what they’re like, and they’re like, okay, give me ideas for products. Right. So,
Michael Veazey: that’s true. I mean, just one more question that comes out of what you were just saying then. I mean, quite a lot of people talk about, the question is, do you have to have a passion for your product to be successful? And maybe. That’s a worthwhile question to us, but before that, I just imply by what you were just saying.
Do you think you have to have an affinity with an [00:16:00] audience to sell a product, or does it not really matter if you’re good at
Jason Miles: What do you mean? An affinity? Like
Michael Veazey: Well, I mean, you were just talking about the fact that you just felt like somehow the people you were talking to for Northwestern university not. Northwest my bad.
they weren’t your kind of people and there wasn’t a resonance or wasn’t a fit there
you think that’s true for somebody, say, selling physical things or digital goods online as
Jason Miles: I think what you have to over time, you as a professional marketer of stuff,
Interests and enthusiasms and what you can and can’t sell emotionally yourself into an idea or concept. And then in support of the work, you know, like if you watch the shark tank, I don’t know Dragon’s Dan, what do you have
in the UK?
Do you have shark
prod strat ov Michael_V: Yeah.
Michael Veazey: Shark tank is pretty popular. We had dragon
stand, which I think is the
original. Yeah.
Jason Miles: Yeah. So you watched, you watched those shows, and you realize after watching the, just even one episode, if you’re paying attention to what’s happening, those professional, you know, entrepreneurs, the [00:17:00] sharks. Mmm. There. They’re passionate about a business they can quickly, sometimes they’ll just say, I’m out, But sometimes, you know, they’ll, they’ll have areas that they’re passionate about or can get passionate about or have, uh, the interest or enthusiasm to be passionate about. And so that, yeah, I mean, I think you, over you develop that areas of interest that, you know, either. Get yourself excited about it and, and authentically sell it, or you can, um, you really are, I mean, you really, at just sort of a personal passion level, you and no what they’re, you know, what they sell and they’ll avoid the stuff that they know is just not of interest to them.
Um. And, uh, and so I think there’s a learning piece there. And so the question is, for it? Well, to be at marketing for it. I mean, obviously, um, to be the product [00:18:00] maker. There’s two questions you can either, if you have a deep affinity for it, you can of products you know, but maybe, not technically proficient and you have to find a technical expert to make the product.
Um, but you can be a marketer for it because you’re enthusiastic about it. You know, you think of Steve jobs and Steve Wozniak, um. One was a excited marketer and competent was thinker and a genius
on the product
level
level guy.
And so, I mean, that’s the stuff you have to sort out as you think about creating product.
Michael Veazey: But it’s, it’s interesting that you say that. Some of
necessarily. I guess like a lot of this stuff that,
Again, this is probably just a thing for people who are newish to the space rather than those were more established is like, you know.
Don’t. Don’t expect your first radio to be a picnic. That’s a terrible mix of metaphors, but you know what I’m trying to say. Um, it, it may take more than one go to get good at this skill. Most crazy idea. So, so circling round to the picture then, and we’ve talked about physical versus digital.
Are there, are there other sorts of simple, big picture
divisions from there, say [00:19:00] 30,000 foot view that we could make in the product world?
Jason Miles: The bifurcation of it. Yeah, no. All, I heard this one framework one time, uh, that I liked, and it was actually Jeff Walker, who many people would be familiar with product launch formula. He his training I’m in his, I went through his course in 2010 or and then I was one of his. Um, I’m one of his case studies.
So in his annual launch, you have a video of me in my office talking yeah. And so in his training, heard him say that there are Mmm. two of products, Or else has made. You know what I mean? It’s yours or It’s Either of those is fine, big, you know, big two big buckets there and it really, I mean, it is that simple. At the highest level. It’s something you’ve created or designed or had made for you. You see your original kind of concept or it’s someone else’s. And I added in my commentary to him, I said, Jeff, you know, there’s another layer of that.
Idea that it makes a four [00:20:00] quadrant grid and that is, there are only two places to sell online as well. Your website or someone else’s website. So those, you know, that creates sort of an interesting four quadrant grid. You’ve got option to sell your product on your own website. Other people’s product on your, your website, or you’ve got the option to sell your product on other people’s website, or you’ve got the option to sell other people’s product on other people’s websites.
Um, and you get the idea. I mean, these, these are the broad level choices. And, um, and so I think it’s completely for e-commerce down that path of asking the question, effectively? tank people are
You know, they’re just saying, Hey, you got a good product. I’m a good marketer, let’s work together. Um, but sometimes people are
creators and they say, no, I’ve got an idea. I want to make something. It’s what I want it to be, my baby.
Michael Veazey: that happens with this sort of question of quasi
particularly in the Amazon sort of very [00:21:00] product centered world. On the one hand, they’re willing to give up control of the sales, marketing, and traffic channel to Amazon. On the other hand, they can get very sort of.
Snotty about the fact that they have to be the creator of their own private label products. And affiliate marketing is another thing that we’ve mentioned before. And you sort of drew breath a bit. And my experience with affiliate marketing is that done well. It can serve me and it serves my clients and, and done by a live course infamous and can, can make a lot of people unhappy.
But, um, one of the things I guess you’re implying, or that I’m taking from it is that you, if you have. Particularly if you don’t have a product yet or, or, or selection of products, and you want to transition out of that one sale, one customer, sort of Amazon or eBay kind of marketplace thing.
And you want to have an ability to have the lifetime customer value of your sales outweigh the cost of acquisition of customer to the CAC and LTV equation, um, as it’s called, I think these lovely, lovely language. Um. Then one of the [00:22:00] options for to people’s products into a several wonderful products, but other needs that your customer has and those plug
I think that’s quite an elegant model. I mean, is that something you’ve practiced or would advise people to do.
Jason Miles: Yeah, I love the topic. I think there’s a whole, that’s a whole different podcast as well. And I, I use the phrase product stacking, but, um, and so that’s the idea of, you know, once you have one good product, the question is, what another rabbit out of the hat? There’s a real chance, there’s a real debate about what to do there. And there’s lessons to be Um, already, I think I already mentioned Steve jobs and Steve is famous for coming back to Apple in a lit, all their products. And you can imagine to a massive company, but he founded.
But nonetheless, he was coming back and saying all these products, all these teams working on all these things. Yeah. All that’s over there. And you know, so the, so the question is, do you just go deep into one thing or do you stack product? And if you do, how do you do that? [00:23:00] Um, that whole, that whole range of topics is important.
Cause there’s pros and cons. I have And, uh, learned lessons there about how not to do it and how maybe how to do it. Um, that’s a key,
know, once you have one hit,
you know, or,
you
Michael Veazey: Yeah.

So how do you avoid that thing of the bands have been the one
which, by the way, I think is, if you look statistically at pop music, I mean, this is not my specialist area on mastermind because I’m a classical
guy, so I don’t really know very well, but I think there’s a lot of people that seem to have had one hit that we can all think of and the hits famous, but the band isn’t, you kind of think, Oh, who was that by again?
And then you figure it out and go, I’d never heard of them since. And then there’s other people who. The band is more famous than the hits because they’ve had so many. And, and I think, uh, obviously we want to be the latter rather than former. Right. But yes, that’s a whole question of how to again, from the sort of a big picture view, what would you say are the, the main topic
that we’ve got to cover to [00:24:00] develop a thought through product strategy?
Jason Miles: Well, I, yeah, I think there are probably five or six great, um, future episodes who we’re going to dig into. Um, I, there’s a framework I like to teach and I use called the product decision framework it’s like framework. that with And it really gives you sort of a mental for, um, going logically through, you know, the exercise of, uh.
Planning for a product, you know? Um, and so that, a great episode. I think, ah, you know, I think we should probably talk a macro level, are the. Elements of a good product and what makes a good product for e-commerce effort, I guess you could say.
Um, and there’s a list of ideas I have there. Um, I, we already mentioned, I think doing reflections on how we failed creators and product marketers. I think there’s some stories
and, uh, and there was, those are worth exploring. Failure
important, I think. Mmm. And, and what to learn.
Michael Veazey: underexplored um, yeah.
to happen is that the, the sort of leaders, [00:25:00]
myself in that category. I mean, whether I’m a thought leader or alleged is up to the listener really, I make no big claims, but I mean, a lot of people who sell courses and training and whatever else, uh, are, you know, very th there’s a survivorship bias obviously in, in the people in They’re marketing, which is logical and there’s nothing terrible about, you know, bringing up the big stuff, the good stuff, um, about something you’re selling, I guess. But I think the flip that just complain about how horrendous life is on Amazon slash eBay slash whatever platform you like the Facebook groups.
And then that middle ground of somebody with a big picture, conceptual framework who could help turn it around. But he’s willing to talk about problems. It seems to be missing. So I think that if we can provide that piece
that’s really missing out there.
Jason Miles: Yeah. I think people don’t like to talk about the, the failure. I mean, you know, especially obviously in Facebook groups and stuff like that. You want to, you want to demonstrate success and then get the applause of the big group where everybody asks you, how did you do it? [00:26:00] Well, you know, you know that.
Classic, here’s a screenshot of whatever sales, and here’s how I did it. And I mean, that’s well-worn, you know, uh, communication, you know, message, strategy, and you know, and then you get the applause of all that per se, but it’s just a, it’s done thing.
A less commonly done thing is, here’s how I totally failed. you like to ask me all the questions about it? I was like, no one asks any questions. Like,
Michael Veazey: No. But I think actually if you’ve been out there and getting some of the bruises, it could be, I mean, one of the episodes, that was one of my favorite episodes, I don’t know if it resonated well or not, was when I just gave 30 sourcing mistakes I’d made, because I just thought, you know what? If you put this into a checklist, um, and I believe I probably offered the checklist as well.
I can’t remember. But if you put these into a then
an
awful lot of people a lot of
stress and sweat and lost money.
Jason Miles: We need to go through that. Uh, we need to go through that
That sounds like a great episode. We can
recycle some of that. I’d love to
[00:27:00] speak into that,
Michael Veazey: yeah.
Sourcing areas. Mike has made. Yeah.
yeah, sure. Yeah, for sure. I, I’m happy to talk about my China’s sourcing failures. I mean, think, you know, what, failures aren’t fun and sexy, but what they do is they proof your future actions avoidable mistakes.
They’re obvious after the fact, but when you go round for the second round, you can, you know, learn from the first round. And I think that’s really. That’s the essence of iterating and making a business better. Right? I think there can be a hidden problem, not very hidden, actually, when people were, particularly back in the day when you know people are getting into Amazon, when the world was young in the Jurassic era and about 2015 you know, people would quite frequently, you’d see posted up on the Facebook group for certain Amazon training things that I’m not going to endorse for various reasons, including the fact they didn’t teach you anything about sourcing from China.
But anyway, they’re in their Facebook group. Quite often. Somebody will pop up every so often in the first few weeks, and it was 2014 to be fair, actually, and they would say, Oh, I’ve made [00:28:00] $50,000 this month from this product. And then they’re like, I’ve made a hundred thousand dollars from this product.
There’s one product, and then occasionally 200 not so common. And I was thinking, well, that’s a heck of a risky strategy because you know, now you’ve got used to the idea of a hundred thousand dollars in revenue, assuming there’s some profit in there. He’s going to be crushingly disappointing when in six months time, everyone copies you and they’d leave.
That is exactly what happened. So you could argue that not having failures set you up for failure in the future
anyway.
Jason Miles: And yeah, and I, I love the idea of exploring how to mitigate that. We’ve talked already about the seven modes of defensibility. Part of that is how to structure your product strategy. So that you become more Bulletproof, become more, um, you know, viable for the longterm. Um, think that’s critical. Absolutely critical. Uh, I mean, I if success success of your idea of your product, and you really think through potential [00:29:00] failure beforehand, like, how could this fall apart. You know, how could this go wrong? And that and that. I mean, I think that’s some forethought there is super important.
And what you just described is the cliff on the other side of the mountain. I mean, they go super great, high, high, high, high, high, and then they fall right off a cliff. That, and so it’s fun in a way mentally to learn from other people’s mistakes in that regard. And easier if you can, to learn from other people’s mistakes.
But sadly, many of us don’t learn from other people’s mistakes, but we have to do it ourselves. We have to fail ourselves. And you know, that’s the essence of experience and getting to be an old guy in the industry and that kind of
thing, you
know?
Michael Veazey: Churchill said something like this very British quote. He said something like. doesn’t last. And failure is only temporary. In other words. Um, if you think of a particular product failure as a failure in that particular project, but you the lessons that and you products strategy [00:30:00] better, for example. over you created a much business. And coming back to Ash Maurya’s quote, if you think businesses, the product rather than your product as the product, you’ve actually created a much better business. So, um, as long as it comes back from it.
And I think that’s the key, right? As long as we have resilience and mental frameworks within which to process these things, then I think it actually makes you a better entrepreneur as well.
Jason Miles: that’s a meta level idea
there. Well,
mention a thought as, as you say that, because one of the things I’ve explored. just
for a long time but never executed on is what you realize what happens in Silicon Valley. It, you know, the kids who come out of Stanford graduate school, you realize that they’re trained and oriented to have the business, be the product and the business structure be optimized for billion dollar outcomes.
And you know, you could have the same exact idea as one of those Stanford kids. And I’ve, I’ve been there, I’ve met those. Uh, uh, I’ve been to the, you know, the graduate school [00:31:00] of design and business and, and, and participated in some of their activities before, just as a participant observer. Um, I can tell you those kids aren’t that much smarter than the rest of them. very smart had the luxury of going to graduate school at Stanford. But what they’re trained to do is to think about how to make a business structured in such a way that they, of course, go through, uh. Venture backed funding and you know, for the outcome or sale, or our PO go public and it makes it mince millionaires, DECA, millionaires, billionaires, et cetera, et cetera.
I mean, that’s what it in that. And, and a lot of us have never been to what you’re describing, which is the business is your product,
Michael Veazey: Is the product. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. And what you’re describing also is the fact that by using the right thought frameworks, just kind of like to people like Charlie Munger, which is okay. He is definitely an investment genius by most people’s estimation, and certainly would be my, from what I understand in mine as well.
[00:32:00] Um, but what he’s obsessed with is those mental frameworks, right. Which I hope is what we’re. We were able to give people in exactly that in these podcasts because you’re, you’re a man of mental models for, for very specific purposes. do think what you’ve just described is putting intelligent, but not necessarily always exceptional people through an exceptional produces exceptional results.
And I’m a real believer in that. I’m not, I, I’m not saying that I’ve got that cracked. I think I’m just beginning to realize the sheer power of that. Um, I, I guess I used to come from the place of, Oh, anyone could do this. Who’s intelligent too. Maybe you need to have a knack for business and maybe that’s not me.
You know, I certainly don’t feel like a business genius at this stage and, um, the exactly what you’ve just articulated. And, um, I think it’s shift takes quite a while and, and it’s hard to do actually, and coming back again to the good product strategy.
I think that. only people get very obsessed. If you’re that person, you love physical products great product design, great experience for the consumer, and [00:33:00] miss the fact that, um, if the rest of the business structure is bad, you’re still in great trouble.
Even if it hasn’t hit you yet, you know, because just because your business is doing okay now, as you were implying earlier, I think, you know, if you the of where it can go wrong, that that’s one of the places, you know.
Jason Miles: Yeah, no, I totally agree. Um, and so,
you know, this people might not be expecting us to be talking about these things on a product focused podcast episode, but this is all the foundational element that goes underneath. These are the really the pillars underneath the creation effort. And, um, I mean, you know, you asked the question, are you going to make a product? Would you rather make a million dollar product or a a hundred million dollar product, a billion dollar product? Or would you rather make a product that you maybe make a couple hundred bucks off of? And I mean, over time, what is this is a I might as well optimize for maximum outcome as much possible,
[00:34:00] Michael Veazey: A hundred percent and yeah, the way of thinking then is quite different as well because you’re going to have to think of it in a different way. And what’s really fascinating is to see, to, to add a nuance to that. Um, how I create a product that could sell, you know, a hundred thousand dollars a month.
On a meager budget, mean you should have a mega budget. Obviously, capital is one of the facts of success, but forcing yourself through a discipline of, I’m only going to allocate $10,000 to that first six months of that product right now. How do I make it work within that framework? I think as somebody said, I think it was Ashmore.
Again, in this book, I’m really getting into that running lean book.
Jason Miles: You gotta have a link to that
get
Michael Veazey: Yeah, man, it’s, it’s really, really good. Just discovered it. It’s, it’s kind of like a very actionable version of the lean startup idea by Eric Reese, which is obviously a blend of Toyota lean manufacturing ideas and various unit and what they call an agile development the. software development world, but it’s really, really good. [00:35:00] Some of the conceptual frameworks, they’re very, very big frameworks, but I really think that, right. And I think that’s one of them. It’s like constraints force creativity, I thought, isn’t that good? You know, if you Chuck a massive budget at things, it was, not all of us have the luxury of that problem, but it’s true.
You can waste a lot of money
just because you got it there.
Jason Miles: Absolutely. And that’s really one of the concerns for the second product effort in a company. You know why? Because of the coaching clients we work with, sometimes they’ve got one good product and the effort to make a second
product, they spend all their money and all their time. , and that can be a real trap. and failures, I can in an upcoming episode. Let me just mention one of the things that I think we should and that is to get very detail oriented about. Ideas for creating a product. And there’s a framework that I love. Paul Hawkin, you, you mentioned a couple of books you like on this topic of the book.
My favorite book on this topic of all time is a book called growing a business by Paul Hawkin. it’s, I think published in 86, so it’s pre internet, but it’s so good. [00:36:00] And, you can get a copy on. Amazon for like a cause they’re all used, you know, it’s not even print anymore. so, he has a great creation. And so I definitely want to take an episode and do and do his work and his set of questions. It’s such good stuff, or how to actually think about making a product that will be successful, you know, or has a really good chance of being successful. And, so I love his framework there and I, I hope we can dig into that in an upcoming episode because you know, I, all of us who are.
Makers of product or marketers, a product gives me agonizing choices. Jimmy, you really, really labor over. Well, you know how to do this right. And he is a, a famous guy for that in a way. I mean, he was a, you might only know him in the United States if you go into target now and you look in the gardening section, and the Smith and Hawkin brand is a shelf brand at target, but that was actually his company.
Called Smith and Hawkin. That was a mail order catalog in the gardening space. And, um, [00:37:00] early days, you know, before the internet. And his journey of making that company is chronicled in that book. And, it’s worth the read completely I would say, even though it’s pre-internet.
Michael Veazey: Oh yeah. I’m a big fan of pre-internet. I mean, Perry Marshall, he or God goes another person. I’m going to kind of put all this in the show notes, by the way, folks there at the e-commerce leader.com if you want to find the show notes for that, just look into the blog thing and lots of resources we created for you as well.
But Perry Marshall to name yet another person is a big. I think a really interesting internet marketing thinker, you know, he’s been around the business for 20 years and still in business, and, he is a big fan of reading the oldest books you can get your hands on. He says that you should read something that’s at least more than 500 years old, you know, once a week, once a month.
But I think pre-internet marketing is often much more robust because the thing about books on internet marketing and not being disparaging. How about this. But by the nature of the beast, something that was true of Instagram and you know, two years ago may no longer be true. Whereas you know, things that [00:38:00] are in a slower moving environment like offline, uh, more likely to have a bit more of a shelf life
Jason Miles: Yeah,
Michael Veazey: Right. And that’s be my experience.

that sounds like an amazing book to read. That’s another one to add to my list. And Perry Marshall, else, that you should check out, I think. Wow. We’ll look this, this huge area has used, we’ve, we’ve had
rambling overview, but so fascinating, fascinating stuff.
Do you want to sort of sum this up, wrap it up in a bow for us and sort of what, what you think of the basic sort of four or five takeaways that we should have on that sort of
30,000 foot view on product strategy?
Jason Miles: Sure. I mean, I think the fundamental question is which niche audience can you serve effectively? And it’s a question about yourself and it’s also a question about the marketplace opportunities that exist, that you’re aware of. And then concepts related to finding products, either by making them yourself or having other people’s products that you can effectively market is a big, you know, two big buckets there to explore.
I think the third thing then is how do you actually make a product that is, [00:39:00] Enticing or valuable in the eyes of your ideal customer, the elements that can effective. and so you know, you’ve got within all of those. Areas. You’ve got a lot to work through and we’ll do that in the upcoming episodes.
I will just say, this is a product that we’re involved in right here called a podcast of course. And, if you’re enjoying it, I would just say as of my final thought on on this, 10 or nine or 10 or 11, something like that, in that range. And I would just say, if you’re, if you’ve gone through them now and you like them, do us a huge favor. leave a review and unsubscribe. We’re just starting out. But this is a weird podcast we realized, like Metta level, 30,000 foot view conversations about e-commerce. It’s not the latest announcement press release from Shopify press release from Amazon.
It’s not that stuff. It’s deeper water than that. And hopefully you’re enjoying it. And if you are, we’d love a review.
Michael Veazey: Absolutely. And , just to say,
thank you for your thoughts and your time as ever.
I really enjoy this stuff and I do think she has to come back to what you were just saying. trust me as [00:40:00] somebody who’s interviewed people in the sort tactical end of things in Amazon, which is pretty narrow. I perceive personally that there is a need for this. I really think that you need your tactical staff.
I’m not saying you should unsubscribe from those podcasts, but I would really urge anyone listening if they’re finding this somewhat useful to keep going with this because we have so much more to dig into. trust me, we’ve got like. 40 episodes in outline already because, there is so much to talk about, and if you get a framework of frameworks, I think off to the races.
I think that’s your competitive advantage. That doesn’t show up on any Amazon search when you Google search is built into your business. And I saw, I’m a total believer in this. I would urge anyone to keep
Jason Miles: Yeah. We’re going to go deeper into a lot of these topics and, you’re right, there’s so much to talk about, love it, man. Great conversation.
Michael Veazey: absolutely.