The E-commerce Leader

[00:00:00] Chris: try some things that you actually like and see where they go. The only guarantee I can give you is if you don’t try anything, you won’t get anywhere. So I can’t guarantee you you’ll find exactly what you want right away, but I guarantee you you’ll never find it if you don’t actually start.
[00:00:11]
[00:00:33]
[00:01:03] Michael: Ladles and jealous beans. Welcome back to the call-in show of the e-commerce leader. We’ve got hot takes with our usual crew, Chris green, Carl Haimer, Jason Miles and myself and Michael VZ from various parts of the USA and across the pond in a London, England. I love London then presumably there’s a London somewhere random in America.
[00:01:21] So let’s welcome back to the show. Hot takes on creating custom physical products today. Looking forward to. How are we all doing there? Love
[00:01:28] Jason: it. Love it. Yeah. Is there a London? America? I don’t know. London, Alabama, London, London. I don’t know.
[00:01:34] Kyle: I’m sure there’s a bunch. Yeah, but only one original one original and
[00:01:40] Michael: best.
[00:01:41] Yeah. Exactly. I’m biased by let’s think so. Great. So creating custom physical products, obviously one of the classic kind of, for me that the original business model I learned about e-commerce too. And a lot of people have, and gradually emerged that there are millions of different ways of making money online in the e-commerce space, but it’s still.
[00:01:59] Very desirable. It’s a hot topic these days I would take for many, many different reasons that I’m looking forward to getting into. So, Kyle, obviously you are one of the experts around in creating custom products and that you’ve done a lot of stuff yourself. So let’s kick off with you for a hot takes on creating custom physical.
[00:02:14] Kyle: Yeah, for sure. I mean, this is sort of the I guess if you were to kind of classically think about your physical product business, this is sort of the now. Business model that most people sort of aspire to in their mind. Like I want to create a product that I own. It’s unique that I can defend. That is my own take on it.
[00:02:36] And it’s serving a customer, a good customer base, a bigger customer base. It’s making me a lot of money. It’s producing business value, something. I have an asset that I can sell in the future. Like a lot of people sort of initially when they think about selling products on Amazon, that’s. In the back of their mind, like that would be the ideal.
[00:02:53] They, they hear the stories they hear. Everyone’s like, oh, I made this product and launch this new brand and now it’s sold it for X, millions of dollars. Right. And the reality is, is that is still the case. You can still do that. It’s definitely becoming harder than it. We used to be using Amazon as a vehicle to do that because competition’s increasing.
[00:03:12] Right. And so I still think that there are absolutely opportunities to create custom products because there always will be at the core custom product development is just about the innovation. And I think it’s about deep knowledge of your customer. If you have a, you have a set of customers that you truly understand what they know and need and want, you’ll always have the ability to, well potential for creating great custom products for that, for that group of people.
[00:03:39] And I think it starts with the actual customers, not the product. So most people get it backwards. And I would say my first sort of big aha takeaway moment for this is really some Sage advice that I heard from Seth Goden, who said, don’t find customers for your products. Find products for your customers and his quote really stuck with me because it really does flip it on its head because oftentimes we get locked into a product idea that we want to create.
[00:04:07] We fall in love with the product, but there’s not good product, product market fit, and there’s not demand for it. And therefore, Try to go out in there and carve out a niche vine and create customers, but on educating them to sort of love our new product. And I think that’s a really, really difficult hill to climb.
[00:04:27] And so it’s much wiser to really understand what the clients and customers need and then build them products that they already have pent up demand for.
[00:04:41] Michael: Pent up demand for products. So a great, great phrase, and that sounds like a sort of ideal as well. Great. Interesting to hear how you perceive it as well. Like as the perception of a business model is a completely different thing from the reality of it, isn’t it. And as you say, maybe it is a sort of Everest of people.
[00:04:54] Chris, what’s your take, obviously you have a huge variety of business models. You’ve run on the Amazon space. So put it in context.
[00:05:02] Chris: Yeah, the, the variety part is, makes it kind of interesting. And you can think of custom products and lots of different ways. I mean, what Kyle was explaining to me and Kyle jump in, if I’ve got this wrong, is you’re almost trying to.
[00:05:13] A custom product as a kind of private label product. So then you’re kind of customizing something that you control, but then you’re, you’re expecting to sell a bunch of those products to a bunch of customers. And it was that right.
[00:05:25] Jason: They get it right? Yeah. Yeah, no, you’re
[00:05:27] Kyle: usually starting with a product concept or idea and you’re either iterating on it or you’re finding something that you want to add your, your sizzle to.
[00:05:36] Jason: Yeah. And
[00:05:37] Chris: I love what you, what you said about like, don’t try to make products. ’cause like, there’s things I want. And I’m like, oh my gosh, I would totally buy that. Like the one on. Right. Cause it’s, it’s too specific just to me or I’m the only one of the things that’s cool.
[00:05:48] Kyle: The market size of one is not a good business strategy.
[00:05:52] Chris: No, but it’s actually amazing that you can now serve market sizes of one where normally you couldn’t do that. And I’m not trying to completely shift the conversation over to print on demand, but print on demand, along with the ability to customize products, makes a lot of things, all of a sudden, more interesting, and you can carve out very specific.
[00:06:09] Online, you know something that like a store, like best buy or Walmart would never carry a product, but online, you can sell a product that is so customizable that, you know, the customer is like, oh my gosh, I can’t believe they have this. And it’s like, well, we don’t actually have it. We’re just gonna make it whenever you order it kind of thing.
[00:06:22] So e-commerce things that only exist because of the internet redundant. And you guys may have heard the Steve jobs quote, where he’s like, you don’t ask your customers what they want, because by the time you make it, they’re going to want something else. And he said it at a time where like lead times and production times were certainly a lot longer than they are today.
[00:06:40] But I think it still holds true in a sense. You know, when I think of custom products Amazon has a complete, an entire platform called Amazon custom. Sellers through seller central can upload products and images and say, look well, I’ll customize this product for you. We sell. And we will we’ll burn whatever name.
[00:06:58] We will carve, whatever name on there you want. Just tell us the font, tell us the name. And we will customize that specifically for you. And that kind of seems like an Etsy type thing in terms of custom products. And that’s why I say Cod, like we’re talking you don’t kind of private label custom products versus one-off or very short run custom products.
[00:07:14] But the ability to customize, I think the main point of this is that customers today, more than ever throw out. I want something specific. They want something custom. They want something made for them. They, if the thought that counts, people are really starting to figure that out. Especially you’re in gift giving season where people are like, I want to get somebody, something, they really like something that they can, they see that I really understand and know them and listen to them throughout the year and get them something that is very customized to them.
[00:07:43] It’s not about how much money you spend. It’s about how specific that product can be. And the fact that we can make all these products individualizing. Nope. Just means that there’s, there’s so many more business opportunities, not to confused, not to overwhelm people with options. But the Amazon custom platform is a great way, not just to sell, but also to test, which is how you then bridge something over to be like, Hey, I’m making a whole bunch of these, but people really seem to like this.
[00:08:05] I want to go and do more with Kyle’s doing an upgraded you know, in quantity and kind of scale this up and turn it into kind of a larger business. So many different ways that you can go custom.
[00:08:15] Michael: Hmm. Wow. That’s very interesting. I had no idea about the Amazon custom platform either. That sounds fascinating.
[00:08:20] I have to explore that, Jess, what are your takes, obviously your instinct position, but you have a lot of clients in the physical product space, but I guess you, you come from the sort of digital products and owning your own store space. So, so what’s your take on this? Well,
[00:08:32] Jason: I love the topic and I’m a huge admire.
[00:08:37] Of anybody who can create a really, really cool custom product. It’s not in my wheelhouse. I, I was in the, the, the dark decade from 1989 to 2000, 2000, sorry, 1998 to 2008. And I wanted to have a business online and I kept saying, Camping furniture. Wasn’t a good idea for a good number of years, inflatable camping furniture, but I didn’t have the skill set to make it a reality.
[00:09:04] And so that never happened, but I remember a couple of things that stand out to me now, as I look back on that time. I there’s a book called growing a business by Paul Hawkin, where he talks a lot about how to get a custom product sorted out. And then there’s a huge set of learnings there that I reflected on.
[00:09:20] And, and I’ve seen people execute on. It’s not my wheelhouse and, but I’m, I’m forever admiring people who do this. I love Russell Brunson’s quote that you’re one funnel away. And he stole that from somebody else who said, yes. I think one product away or maybe one good advertisement away from a life-changing business.
[00:09:40] And I think that’s true in this case, you, if you’re watching or listening to this or watching it, and you like the idea of making a custom product, you’re one custom product away from having a life-changing outcome in your business. And I’m in my bookie commerce power. I just did this little quote comment.
[00:09:56] Yeah. Behind every successful product, no matter how simple as an entrepreneur, that’s spent countless hours thinking, tinkering, debating, discarding, learning, eliminating problem, solving, simplifying, improving, and changing. Ultimately never giving up on the go-to market version of a product that they could make for other people.
[00:10:17] And I really, really just think that to Kyle’s point it is an obsessive. Compulsive obsession for serving people with a unique widget tool item you know and, and that’s really incredible and powerful. And so I, yeah, as sort of a coach and mentor, when I see Pope will have the skill set I’m forever impressed with it.
[00:10:40] Obviously there’s more beyond just making the product, there’s marketing a product and that’s where maybe I have other skillsets that come to. But yeah, there we go. That’s mine. A couple of thoughts.
[00:10:51] Michael: So a very, very interesting thoughts already. And I think it’s extremely healthy, especially at this stage of the development of the custom product space and the Amazon focused first and have it to have very different takes on it.
[00:11:01] Because if you just follow one way of thinking, you’re going to just copy what everyone else does and not only copy their mistakes quite probably, but end up being. Commoditized. So it takes on this, I suppose there’s so many angles to look at this thing. I would agree entirely with UCAR that you’ve got to start with the customer and end with the customer, really.
[00:11:17] And I think if you say, if you develop your product along side, your customers very deeply and then marketing. Understanding them and stay very, very, very, very close to them. You’re going to be heading the right direction. It may take time, but a lot of people start with the numbers. They use jungle scout or helium 10, and they obsess about that.
[00:11:34] And I’ve gone though. So, so many people who are new to private labeling, including established business owners, who’ve done a lot of wholesale sourcing, go run in circles for a long time that way. And I feel that’s generally speaking my experience just in a bad way of doing it for multiple reasons, starting with the person.
[00:11:48] And the problem is great. So Jason Francios is a classic example. When he and his buddy were obsessed with CrossFit and they created a weightlifting belt, which is the most generic thing you can sell in that space where they, there is the best you could have edited with had a PhD in physical therapy and physical training.
[00:12:05] And that was the difference. They truly deep dove in, into, into, but in American English. And I’m, the CrossFit is a very obsessive people and they got right into that community. And as a result, it’s taken off like a rocket. And the second person that I had to also in the physical products kind of space Mina, Les was, was really obsessed with creating the perfect supplement for his mixed martial arts stuff for about 10 years.
[00:12:27] I don’t think you have to be obsessed with a particular area to that degree, but it probably helps if you are, that your business partner is. And I think that kind of obsession about a particular need of a particular audience is also that really the key.
[00:12:39] Chris: Well, Mike, I like what you said there at the end. I think people miss that point because so many people get into this space just to make money because they need money. Are they interested in like, oh, I heard you can make a million dollars doing this stuff. But the guys who made that belt for CrossFit, they cared about CrossFit.
[00:12:53] They liked CrossFit. They were going to make it anyway. They’re going to make it for themselves and, and marketing it and telling people about it and saying, look, we got this awesome product, right? You’re like, you want to try it? Do you want to go one by one? And it’s actually a good product. Like. That’s the dream product that you would like, you want to market that part.
[00:13:09] You want to share that with everybody. If you make something that’s quality and it’s good, and you’re a part of a community, like things can really, really take off and people want stuff. That’s very specific. I want the CrossFit belt. I don’t want the regular belt. I don’t want the Walmart belt. I don’t want that.
[00:13:22] I want the one specifically made for craft. Cause I’m a cross fitter, right? It becomes part of their identity. If you can market to their identity, then it’s kind of it’s piece of cake, especially when it’s something you actually enjoy. You know, people forget that. And I think people should remind, remember that you can test so cheaply these days in a lot of times you can test without spending any money which, you know, lowers the barrier to entry.
[00:13:43] And I think it makes people think, oh, if everybody can do this, oh, there’s no, there’s no barriers. It’s like, yeah, there’s no barriers, but. There’s still people that won’t do it because they don’t believe in it. They don’t understand it. They’re not willing to fail along the way. So if you’re willing to fail and you will test custom products, you can test a hundred products without spending hardly any money you know, and see what works and see what you like and see what the market responds to.
[00:14:04] And it’s the only problem. So many options. So, you know, my advice is to try some things that you actually like and see where they go. And, you know, the only guarantee I can give you is if you don’t try anything, you won’t get anywhere. So I can’t guarantee you you’ll find exactly what you want right away, but I guarantee you you’ll never find it if you don’t actually start.
[00:14:21] Kyle: I think one of the things that Jason and I have noticed coaching clients over the years is when the best clients you’ve had the most success have leaned into where they have. Product and industry level, expertise and bad. Right. It’s when people are trying to make a shift and they’re trying to switch careers or switch interest or move on to something different and new and like, oh, I don’t want to, I don’t want to deal with that.
[00:14:46] Cause that’s what I used to do for the last 20 years. And honestly, that is the place to start is where you have the most. The industry expertise and deep knowledge and understanding because you, you basically are flushing away years and years of your life’s work and knowledge because you might be burned out or bored with it, but making that shift and not ignoring that first and leaning into that burst is really, really I think an important piece of that too, to your point, even Chrissy, you can test you in.
[00:15:19] But you need to have deep level understanding and don’t ignore your prior experiences.
[00:15:24] Michael: So I’ve got a quick response to a couple of things that come out of that. And then Jason, I know you’ve got some, some great sort of strategy level thoughts that, that come out of Paul Hawkins. Cause I, we talked about that before and that’s fascinating stuff.
[00:15:36] A couple of thoughts mean, first of all, the risk reward thing is really, really difficult for anyone coming in new, which is why I would say to the points you’ve made. Kyle, first of all, if you have a lot of industry background and expertise, you really should leave. I absolutely agree with that. And you’re right.
[00:15:49] That people team to turn their backs on it for some reason, then I’ve done the same. It’s about time. I produced a ton of books about how to teach piano, for example. It’s ridiculous that I haven’t already, and I’m sure I will because it’s the obvious thing to do. But the other thing is. That if you don’t yet have expertise in the production side or marketing of the whole business model creation thing, which is, as you said, it’s a bit of the Everest.
[00:16:08] They don’t start on Everest, go and, you know, train on some foothills. And I would suggest that if people are starting out, that they don’t go straight to the private labeling or led and custom products that they start with retail arbitrage, maybe some wholesale sources. Well, you still got enough stuff to juggle, but you’ve got stock management.
[00:16:24] You’ve got budget management and finance and measurement. You’ve got to do some marketing maybe, but the product itself has been taken care of. And I think you should approach it when you are. The flip side of that, just to lean into the opportunity side, there’s a great Jeff Bezos quote, and I’m not going to give all of it cause it’s a bit long, but he said basically outsized returns come from betting against conventional wisdom.
[00:16:43] And he said, here’s the thing. If you are going to swing for the fences in. No matter how well you connect to the baseball, the ball it’s truncated returns, the most ones you can get in for, whereas in business, every once in a mile, when you step up to the plate, you can score a thousand runs and that long tail distribution of returns is why it’s important to be bold, big winners pay for so many experiments.
[00:17:04] The only thing I would add to that extremely true point is you got to make sure you didn’t go broke on the way. So that’s my take on that. Jason, what are your thoughts in response to all this stuff? And, and particularly, I love these Paul Hawkins stuff that you’ve mentioned. So let’s, let’s get into either your thoughts or Paul Hawkin.
[00:17:19] Jason: Yeah, sure. He’s got a great list in that book. It’s called growing a business and it, his story is so inspirational. It’s my favorite business book of all time. When he talks about creating products, he has this little list of questions for us as, as entrepreneurs. And I love it. The first question is, can you enhance the commonplace.
[00:17:35] Something that’s just boring that you can make better. Second question is, can you raise the ante add more, features, more functions, you know, make it better basically for customers. Can you reveal a business within a business? So, you know, some products are trying to serve two markets or two, two types of customers.
[00:17:53] Can you just break that in half and just make a product that is awesome for just the firefighter? Not the paramedic or like, whatever, you know what I mean? Like you, you divide the product concept for people and make it more customed to Chris’s point earlier. The fourth idea is can you restore a business?
[00:18:10] That’s been lost over time and there are awesome things. If you go get the Sears and Roebuck house, Physical edition from 1905. It’s literally a massive book full of products. If you look at it, there’s a lot of really cool stuff there that no one makes anymore and I’m not even joking around. It probably is a great source book for new ideas.
[00:18:33] The first fifth question is can you be the most complete provider and not just have one product, but for the right audience, have everything that could possibly. The six question is, can you be the low cost provider, make it cheaper than anybody else? Seven questions question is, can you make it fun, turning something that’s boring or just a pedestrian thing into something that has an angle that’s fun and engaging and entertaining.
[00:18:57] The eighth question is, can you bring it online? An item? That’s all. Physical, can you make it somehow digital or with community? Are there functions that access question is mine actually, but there you go. That’s eight questions, mostly from Paul Hawkin. And I think if you think through those things, you might get a leg up on creating a unique product.
[00:19:16] So there you have it. That’s my thought.
[00:19:20] Michael: Yeah. We like those. What w I missed one of those after being the most compete provider, what was the one that I make sure I captured it?
[00:19:27] What was the most, the one after the most complete provider, I closed the book, buddy. He closed the book. Don’t worry about it. Well, I’m screwing up as a host. I’m being the host under the secretary at the same time. It never works fine, but we’ll come back on it.
[00:19:39] Jason: So right here, I got it right here, but be the most complete provider.
[00:19:43] Can you be the low cost provider? That was the other one.
[00:19:47] Michael: Great. I’m going, I’m kind of glad we left that out because everyone defaults to that bite before.
[00:19:52] Jason: Well, I guess the question there would be, can you structurally with some type of systems approach be the low cost provider, not just try to beat people on margin that all have the same cost of goods structure that you have.
[00:20:06] That’s a fool’s errand, but can you actually make something for half the cost of everybody else? That’s what Elon Musk is doing with the rockets and you know, that’s genius. So, yeah,
[00:20:16] Michael: it’s a good point. I love it. Good, good point about the cost structure. Great. Well, I think we’ve had some good hotcakes, any sort of roundups from anyone column clients come to you because obviously you specialize in this stuff.
[00:20:26] What are your, I
[00:20:27] Kyle: would say out of that list Jason pagans list is great. Awesome stuff. But one of the things that stood out to me immediately on that list was sort of looking at the market because you have to start with your market, even though you’re thinking all about the product, but really it starts with the market.
[00:20:43] And it’s core to splitting that in half essentially, what that was telling you, or asking you to do is to niche down. And I think if you’re going to get started and you want to create custom products, niche down, niche, down, niche, down niche, down, and continue to do it. And the reason why technically yes, You know, niches are great because you can get into it.
[00:21:02] And usually they’re smaller competition in smaller niches. And it does that in niches do have a two-edged sword, right? You can’t go to it to like scale out a niche. And the reason why you go small is because it’s less competition, but it also means that there’s not a massive user base, but it’s going to be big enough.
[00:21:17] But the reason why is it changes your risk profile? The, it allows you to enter into potentially a big niche with much lower competition, which does two things, I think immediately for you. One is that it is all about sort of the easier to get visibility and audience eyeballs. Right? So if there are less competitors in a niche, it’s going to easier for you to sort of enter that niche and become relevant.
[00:21:44] And then and to like it gives you some pricing power. So if there are. Competitors in a particular category or sub niche, then it gives you some pricing power. And I think that that is that’s really interesting facts. Competition in the industry is one of Michael Porter’s five forces frameworks, right?
[00:22:02] When he was identifying environment in, in business to get into, or a product or a market. And so this is one of those five forces is your, your competition. So I think niching down. Hey insulate you from that to some extent, as opposed to being the exposure to a much larger market where competitions can be much more intense and you’re going to have to have a higher level of skill.
[00:22:23] Michael: Yeah, definitely. That there is a ton of value to be had out of fair, against niches. And as you say, our lower competition is really huge, particularly for an Amazon. Like if you’re used to the crickets thing of running your own business outside of the Amazon ecosphere, then you probably think sales is important, but I would argue that profit is the missing piece on Amazon.
[00:22:43] And to your point in competition being lower means you can make profit as well. Chris, what’s your final thoughts?
[00:22:49] Chris: I, I know we’re kind of talking about a couple of. You know, specific topics when it comes to custom products. But I think there’s gonna be a lot of interest, especially if someone’s just starting out in Amazon custom.
[00:22:59] And like you said, Mike, there’s so many things that Amazon’s so big. We don’t know it, or it’s hard to keep up with all of the different platforms, but it was on custom, in my opinion is a great way to try and test things. And I think people might find it more interesting than just being a commodity seller and selling other people’s products all the time.
[00:23:16] Although there is this kind of nice little. Kind of connector between Amazon products and branded products that I I’ve not seen anybody really take as much advantage of this. I think people should. So I won’t throw those kinds of idea out there. Because with the world now, with 3d printers and laser engravers and embroidery machines and all these different products you can customize literally anything in your home and take an order off of Amazon.
[00:23:39] World’s most largest, most trusted marketplace. And you’re like, wait a minute. How do I combine those? Well, you can go to Kohl’s or Walmart and buy Disney backpacks and offer to customize them by embroidering your child’s. Onto that backpack and then sending it out. And now all of a sudden you’re selling Disney products.
[00:23:55] Now, all of a sudden, you’re not having to source wholesale with minimum buys and have licensing. You just go buy it off the shelf at Walmart, customize it with an engraving or embroidery or something else and ship it to the customer. And now the customer can get, oh my gosh, I can get this Disney frozen backpack with my daughter.
[00:24:14] Perfect. That’s what I want for a gift. And you can do all that. It’s a very specific type of Amazon custom compared or a custom product compared to some of the other things we’re talking about, but the ability to customize products and the, in my opinion, the consumer trend toward wanting more customized, like specific products, unique to them.
[00:24:34] Like it, it’s creating this perfect storm. You can create anything for anybody and you can reach them using sites like Amazon and Etsy and merch by Amazon as a single product, like one quantity of t-shirts in different apparel items and the printers that they. You can buy them yourself and put them in your garage.
[00:24:51] They’re called DTG printers direct to garment printers. And they print that all kinds of things. And you know, the other problem that comes up is there’s so many choices and so many options, and you got to pick one, but I would encourage people just like the CrossFit thing do pursue something. You have a vested interest in because it’s gonna make, it’s gonna make the whole a world of difference.
[00:25:10] And here’s the exact, you know, example like if someone here wanted to say, you know what, let’s all get together and make a weight belt for CrossFit. Good. None of us are CrossFitters, right? How are we going to enter that market? How are you can talk the talk with those customers? It’s, it’d be an uphill battle and not a battle.
[00:25:29] I think anybody could win against actual entrepreneurs who are actually CrossFitters and actually know what they want and actually make a good product. So you can find that match. You might not find it right away, but always look for that match between providing a product that you actually enjoy in order to market it.
[00:25:42] You actually. And serve that market with a quality product and it’s going to make business Acalog.
[00:25:48] Michael: Yeah, I think fun is important. I mean, I think two or three reflections and then post, and I’d love to come to your, your final takes. First of all, because it’s kind of the Everest and because people aren’t, I know people in the mastermind that I run that just recently had a seven figure exit for not very big business in terms of revenue, but my goodness, it was profitable.
[00:26:03] If that is real, but the trouble is that starts to get people to do really strange stuff. At the beginning, people are obsessed with how do I scale stuff? And they go for scale straight away, thousand dollars, you know, a thousand units of a product from China or whatever. This is a disaster. And so your point that the phrase that comes to mind is nail it, then scale it.
[00:26:19] Whoever said that. So Chris, to your point, if you have any way in custom products on Amazon, sounds amazing, but Etsy sell to your neighbor seller the country fair. I don’t care of testing market with demanding ones is teases threes. Then that’s perfect because then you can actually understand at a deep, granular level, whether customers like staff, what they like, what they dislike, you can iterate easily.
[00:26:39] You have contact with the market. You are taking minimal risk. You’re not stressed out. You’re not over committed. There’s so many things that go with it. I love, so I really liked that, that major hint and whether you’re calling it custom products or. Handmade or whatever in the end, it’s not relevant at a small scale.
[00:26:55] It only becomes relevant to that scaling question. It’s not so much a different model, maybe anyway, many things to think about there, Jason, your thoughts on this massive subject?
[00:27:04] Jason: Yeah, I would say Robert Kiyosaki got challenged one time by a reporter for his basic thesis, which was, you should start a business.
[00:27:12] The reporter said, well, eight out of 10 of those are going to. And he said, I don’t care. I would rather fail over and over until I get a business that succeeds then not have a business. And it’s kind of the same with products. I would say don’t overthink it. If you have a real passion for something and it’s in your wheelhouse, do the minimum order quantity.
[00:27:33] Do the custom version that Chris is describing. Just do it, execute on it. And if you do a half a back flip and you fail publicly, who cares? Do it again. Just, just get up, dust yourself off. Don’t do anything terminal you don’t don’t bankrupt yourself with your first product, but then just try it again, try again, try again till you get better knowledge, better insight, better understanding of how to do it.
[00:27:56] And that’s my just general sentiment is you’re not going to fail if you never give up, you just get it refined over time. So I just hope that encourages somebody. You know, don’t overthink it and don’t feel like one failure is actually anything other than. A test of your resolve for victory and you must be a Victor.
[00:28:18] You must overcome. So there you go. Now,
[00:28:22] Michael: I like that. No, I like the mentality. It’s the entrepreneurs mentality. I think the key is just that little phrase. You said don’t bankrupt yourself with your first product. So I think when you try to scale artificially early and that, by the way, anytime before product market fit is achieved, you don’t want it to be scaling it up because if people hate your product, you don’t want to get lots of it in.
[00:28:39] Hands and that happens every day of the week on Amazon. Right? You get it into everyone’s hands. They give you one star reviews. Now you have a thousand units in a warehouse that are pretty much unsellable, et cetera. They’re terrible loss. So you don’t want to scale early. And, and the reason people bankrupt themselves.
[00:28:52] And as you do see it happening is because they’re trying to scale before they got product market fit, I would say so I would say absolutely do it on a small scale. The passion thing seems to be a theme that we’re bringing through, bringing it close to the. And yeah. And as you say, Chris, that you’re, you’re amazing at knowing all the ins and outs of the Amazon platform.
[00:29:10] I’m ashamed that I didn’t even know about the Amazon customer platform. I’ve obviously got to narrow my focus, that there are so many ways that you can get into markets and the small scale these days, which is amazing. So then what you say, Jason becomes true. You can afford to fail eight times, nine times because the 10th time to Jeff Bezos’s point, we’ll knock it out of the park.
[00:29:29] Jen, this is a fantastic stuff. I think I’m going to probably wrap it up there. If, if we’re good with that. Cause it’s supposed to be hot takes. Just a quick reminder to anyone who’s following us. First of all, the calling app we are live on that every Tuesday at 10 Pacific, 11:00 AM Eastern or 4:00 PM London time or.
[00:29:45] We are also on the e-commerce leader is on all the podcasts apps out there, apple, Google podcasts, whatever it is you want. We are climbing up the charts on Spotify, very satisfyingly. The downloads are going up over time, which is fantastic. So if you want to be part of that community, don’t forget to come and find a sense scribes.
[00:30:00] And if you can give us the love on the apple podcast app with a rating at five stars, we’d love to get that as well. Thank you so much for listening to the e-commerce leader.
[00:30:08]