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From Idea to Mass Market Sales

Idea threads

Hong King Kong

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Alright fastlaners, I’ve been meaning to start this thread for a loong time.

This forum and its community has been a catalyst for a lot of great things that has happened in my entrepreneurial journey, and I’ve always wanted to give back by providing some valuable insights.

I’ve more or less done exactly what MJ’s book says, invent things that help people and followed the CENTS commandments diligently. My products have done over half $M last year and if it all goes as planned I should be able to retire within a couple years. *fingers crossed*

In this thread I want to share the details of the process I've been through, it goes a little something like this:

Idea Creation > Validation > Prototyping > Crowdfunding > Finalize Prototype into a real product > Mass Production > Fulfillment > Customer Service > Scaling up (I’m here now!)

Note – I will not share my product or website. I'm not claiming to be an expert of any kind, and I'm far from where I want to be. There are plenty of heavy hitters on here who can provide better advice, but I feel I'm on the right track and can share a thing or two about what it takes to make it.

Stay tuned as I write weekly (or maybe monthly) installments to the processes outlined above!
 
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Hong King Kong

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Wow time really flies, can't believe it has been 1 month since I started this thing.

My business has been hectic lately, my customer service employee has been acting up. And I'm just learning the lesson that you always need a back up guy... because if you don't, that guy is you! But I'm happy because this customer service problem showed me my systems in place suck, now I gotta make a better one.

Anyways, lets get back on point.

Starting with...

----------

Idea Creation

Now, I'm going to be a little unconventional here... This is not about "PRODUCT" or "BUSINESS IDEAS"

Because if you're on the inside... I assume you already know how to vet if a business / product idea is good or not.
(ie. Does it solve problems? is anyone else doing this? Can I do it better? Do I like it? Are the margins there?... etc)

Instead I want to talk about.... just ideas in general.

Asking questions like... Where do ideas the come from? Are they the same as hunches? Or intuitions? Are they from the same source as the dreams we have at night? Are they hints from a spiritual word? If I take LSD will I think like Steve jobs?

Look, I don't know...

All I'm trying to say is... Nobody really knows... Most people don't even know what they're doing. They just follow and live by the rules made up from other people. Other people who are just like them... except they are a little more outspoken, courageous, and just do things not fearing failure!

When you truly realize that... you start thinking differently, you think bigger, ideas come to you, you take more action to make it true... your intuition gets better, you trust it more because following through brings you success... then so on.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Next posts I'll write some boring practical information to help bring your ideas to market!

Stay tuned!
 

GoodluckChuck

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I really enjoy your insights about people. Growing up I always thought that someday I would be an adult and I would just "get it", life would make more sense. Then I grew up and realized everyone is just winging it, some are just better at it than others.

Looking forward to hearing more of your story.
 
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iizu

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How are things? Any updates? I'm really interested about how to get your product in front of the right audience before launching a crowdfunding campaign.

Also, would like to hear your take on licensing. Do you plan to license?
 

Hong King Kong

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How are things? Any updates? I'm really interested about how to get your product in front of the right audience before launching a crowdfunding campaign.

Also, would like to hear your take on licensing. Do you plan to license?

Hey, I got alot to update about but haven't really had the time. Will do a big one soon. I actually just came back from a short trip to Vietnam to meet a couple fastlaners who just blew my mind, probably increased by productivity and revenue 3x.

----------

But yea, I've launched a couple successful crowdfunding campaigns so I think I can give you some pointers.

To answer your question, I got my products in front of my audience with facebook ads and instagram.

A big mistake I made on my first campaign was that I used instagram followers to gauge my campaigns success.... followers don't mean shit nowadays. You need EMAILS!

Simply create a landing page with your product showing the benefits. Then make a fake buy button with the price, and when they click it an email capture pops up saying... "We're almost launching! Sign up to get 50% off be first to know when!"

From there drive some FB traffic to it. It helps if you know who exactly who your audience is, this helps with lowering your cost per lead with better targeting.

This way you build a list, and can validate your product. I've heard a story where some guy just used the method above, validated an idea and went straight to investors to get funding, ended up with $1M to get his business started.

But since we're talking about crowdfunding, The key here is to capture emails, building a list and getting them excited for the launch date through autoresponded emails. Ideally a series of value giving emails, making the launch seem like an event! And make sure to let them know that there are limited early birds for this event... so better mark it down on your calendars!

---------

My thoughts on crowdfunding:

These platforms aren't for the small hipsters who wanna fund their moustashe cream anymore... all the big boys are on here. Getting 6 figures funding is the STANDARD.... If you don't hit it... it means you didn't do your homework with list building, product validation and marketing.

There are some high level copycats in China who just sit around all day on Kickstarter and Indiegogo waiting to copy your shit. I'm not even joking, these guys are not bums, they're legit talented and well funded manufactures with zero creativity. If you got some world changing product... file for a patent in China, it'll cost you like 2k. Get your brand name trademarked too.... not that they do much in China, but it'll help you sleep better at night.

Again, if you're not being funded on these platforms, you didn't do your homework, you didn't listen to market response, and you'll learn the hard way. Some products aren't meant for crowdfunding though... keep that in mind, for example have you seen a really successful crowdfunded app? supplement? or diet pills? (do your homework!)

And on licensing... I'm not thinking about it right now. Gonna grow out my company so I have more leverage on when/if I do go that route... Besides, I'm having a lot fun growing my business at the moment :)
 

iizu

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Holy mother of god, what an update! Have some rep+

To answer your question, I got my products in front of my audience with facebook ads and instagram.

A big mistake I made on my first campaign was that I used instagram followers to gauge my campaigns success.... followers don't mean shit nowadays. You need EMAILS!

Thank you so much for this. I don't why I had this idea of text blogs, Pinterest and Facebook being the only place where my audience hangs out. When clearly Instagram is their preferred channel(fitness people)

These platforms aren't for the small hipsters who wanna fund their moustashe cream anymore...

Sure seems so. All the crowdfunding guides online are pretty outdated. They just talk about funding your new card game/art project.

"We're almost launching! Sign up to get 50% off be first to know when!"

I heard somebody say that this is a bad strategy to have special discounts for early backers. Because people might start complaining that your price has too much air.. But when I think about it, it was probably the hipster-mustache-cream guide to crowdfunding :D.

But that surely works as a great incentive to give your email.

It was actually this guide, that told not have special early backer prices. Definitely not trivial, since they collected 450k
https://momentlens.co/momentist/2014/04/09/how-we-raised-450k-on-kickstarter/

Or maybe you meant that the Kickstarter price is 50% off anyways.

Thanks again. Keep scaling that thing!
 
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Hong King Kong

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Sep 29, 2012
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I heard somebody say that this is a bad strategy to have special discounts for early backers. Because people might start complaining that your price has too much air.. But when I think about it, it was probably the hipster-mustache-cream guide to crowdfunding :D.

But that surely works as a great incentive to give your email.

It was actually this guide, that told not have special early backer prices. Definitely not trivial, since they collected 450k
https://momentlens.co/momentist/2014/04/09/how-we-raised-450k-on-kickstarter/

Or maybe you meant that the Kickstarter price is 50% off anyways.

It's kinda odd because if you look at their campaign... their early bird is $49, retail price $99... so they actually gave 50% discount LOL.

Take their advice with a grain of salt, that campaign was in 2014... in 2014 you'd be stuck on the first page for raising 100k+ for weeks. Getting crazy free traffic from KS. Nowadays its a whole different ball game... Raising 100k in a day might rank you up on most popular page for 1 day, and you'll have to keep bringing that traffic or you'll fall immediately.

Its worth taking a look at their first reward. "$1 for a big Thank You".... 101 backers = $101.... was that even worth it?

I always advise against these "virtual thank yous & high fives"... because that spot is PRIME real estate!!! Why use it for $101? It makes no sense to me.

Anyways. the 50% is arbitrary, but early birds should always get a discount... because why else would they fund you?
 

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