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How to confirm hard proof of high demand (thousands of sales+) after confirmation of small demand (hundreds of sales)?

Marketing, social media, advertising

mercenariez

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Hi,

My product is somewhat niche, but has confirmed hard proof/demand in the hundreds range (it has sold ~300 units to 300 different customers, i.e. not one customer buying 300). I profit about ~$50 each sale.

A market echo I am getting is that the lead time is too slow. This is because the product itself is actually hard to make -- I currently do it all by hand. However, I am scared of investing into mass manufacturing (thousands+ capabilities) and then realizing there's not enough demand for my product after all.

The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive regarding the product. Many are referring their friends, who are then contacting me telling me they would buy instantly (double digit range for emails I receive weekly). The "target market" is technically around the million range, but to get hard proof that thousands+ are ready to put down their money NOW seems like it might be difficult, as in my experience, a lot of times people show diffusion BECAUSE they know the product isn't a "real thing" yet (i.e. not made by a multi-billion dollar company, not enough people have already bought it, etc.).

Of course the easiest answer is to do a Kickstarter of some sort. However, I have attempted a Kickstarter before (different product) and in my experience, a lot of people nowadays are hesitant to put money down for a Kickstarter product, due to the lack of stringent enforcement of liability on the campaign owner (in fact, for a similar product, this literally happened and has left a bad taste in people's mouths, making it doubly hard for me to go through with).

So, the QUESTION: Should I just start going into looking for investors/manufacturers and then just utilize the power of marketing/sales to get this product sold on a high scale even before 100% confirmed proof of demand at a high scale? OR should I only do this AFTER I have 100% confirmed hard proof exists for the thousands+ range?

Thank you for your help.
 
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Johnny boy

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Run a short fake marketing campaign that will test the demand on a larger audience and just turn off the actual payment for a bit. Internet marketers will do that for sales pages they’re running ads to. Run a couple ads that could scale up (like AdWords or Facebook ads), test conversion rates but don’t charge anything, then invest in the product and manufacturing.

or...just do it and take a risk. Try to not buy your own machines but just rent other peoples machines.
 

DayIFly

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Can you bridge the gap, like hiring someone to help you out with? Or is it too complex, requires too much time to train and/or you fear they'll steal your idea?
 

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