Idea Generation To Execution: Fastlane Millionaire's Step By Step Guide

[fridge]

This is a great question, so I will think about maybe making a bigger post on this. In the meantime...

It's not a race. Things take time. If you have the mental bandwidth, stamina, and funds to test multiple things at one time. I won't be the one stopping you! But it's not something I would generally recommend, especially as a beginner. You will make alot of mistakes along the way as you go through iterations. Doing ventures sequentially allow you to make the mistake, learn from it, and prevent that mistake from happening the next time.

If you really wanted to expedite your progress, I would go more towards spreading out your ideas across many genre's versus focusing on just one. For example, if you wanted to try a bunch of things, I wouldn't recommend going from making 1 product to sell on Amazon to trying 5 different products to sell on Amazon. There is so much you will learn from putting up your first product on Amazon. 1 of those things may even be "oh boy, I really misread what Amazon customers want". It would be better for you to have 1 product in the works to sell on Amazon and then also dip your toes in your Etsy Candle making business (probably a horrible business idea, but it was just an example off the top of my head!). Or your Power washing empire. etc... Then after you learn from all these different areas, you can start leveraging what you learned in one into the other. My recent post HERE, kind of talks about this. Make sure to read @fastlane_dad post right after mine to see that there are different ways to approach this.

As you can see, this may be a long road. But there's beer and free ice cream at the end, so keep driving! This is why we usually recommend you have a good way to derive income in the meantime that allows you to continue living a decent life in the meantime. (Also known as a job)

Hey Neo,
Thanks for the thorough reply! If you do find the time to create a bigger post on this specific topic, I'd love to read it. I read your other recent post you linked - right now I'm definitely at the point in my life where I have a blend of time and money (have a good amount of money saved for my age - I'm 24) so I'm going to utilize that and test a few ideas to see what comes out on top. Sometimes with entrepreneurship it's hard to grasp that things take time to grow, I expect quick results and have so many ideas, but I'm starting to learn entrepreneurship doesn't always work like that (especially as a beginner, I've only owned a business for a year and 3 months so not much time in the space at all in the grand scheme of things). You make some really good points, and luckily for now I have a job and my property maintenance business to keep me afloat while I test a venture that is a lot more scalable out (like e-commerce). For the time being, I'll keep on moving, grow my other venture and be more patient until I can get this product received. Again, thank you for the valuable reply.

 

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[DougRMR]

Guys, I might've overestimated how accessible my supplements would be. I've been searching for about a month now and although the active ingredient is possible to obtain, it would be in raw material and not in tablets like I expected them to be. I don't know how to make tablets or capsules, I guess I could do it but it depends on how accessible it is to me.

I dunno if it's a question of not knowing where to look (@NeoDialectic helped me come up with great ideas on where to look) but I was unaware that getting these things in white label has been stupidly hard.

The reason I doubled down on this for so long was because a lot of the manufacturers I contacted told me that they had the active ingredient but they never explicitly stated that they didn't work in tablets or capsules. It didn't help that when I asked whether they worked white label, they said that they did. However, they were referring to raw materials sent from laboratory to laboratory and they put those raw materials under another manufacturer's name. It seems obvious in hindsight that I should've been very clear but I assumed that supplement manufacturers had those features included (tablets/capsules).

I already finished the copy for the product's landing page and the opt-ins for the email. Already wasted the money on the servers/domains, shit... I should've been very specific and I would've saved money and time.

I'm kinda at a crossroads here. I figured I might as well see if there is demand for the product and then figure out if it is worth investing in capsule/tablet creation on my end. But I have a gut feeling maybe I should drop and find a new idea, but one that is carefully vetted and where my investment/return is very clear from the start.

 

[Dionysos]

Man, I want to thank you (and your partner) for putting all of this out here (for free)! Way to give back to the community.

This is so detailed, and to the point that you almost have to come up with a great idea..

What I like is that you can start working immediately on the process of finding the problem. I will be using this technique to find a good idea!

 

[Two Dog]

-You'll probably get a million roadblocks before you even start. The reason it took me this long to even get halfway into the website was because the domain/servers started to get wonky for some reason, my laptop's only charger got busted up and the things I had in mind were 10 times harder than I imagined. Still, I'm glad I'm getting things done.

LOL in sympathy. It's been so long since launching a startup, I've long gotten used to everything pretty much working effortlessly month after month after month with my existing business. Something breaks every few months and I spend a few hours fixing it. The rest is completely automated on autopilot.

That experience is LIGHTYEARS away from getting the new business up and running. It feels like (a) 85% of my time is spent fixing problems caused by other people not doing something right or dropping the ball, (b) another 65% spent on constantly following up with other people to make sure it's eventually fixed, (c) 40% spending several hours learning about every single new thing that seemed dirt simple at first glance, (d) 15% making decisions about what actually we should be working on at any given time and (e) 5% successfully getting something completely done from start to finish.

Grand total: 210%. At least that's what it feels like.

No worries. It's the same crazy town for everyone who does this.

 

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[dimalicious]

boy was I glad this is a Gold thread, this was so valuable to read

 

[NeoDialectic]

Even if I don't have a product ready?

Guys, I might've overestimated how accessible my supplements would be. I've been searching for about a month now and although the active ingredient is possible to obtain, it would be in raw material and not in tablets like I expected them to be. I don't know how to make tablets or capsules, I guess I could do it but it depends on how accessible it is to me.

I dunno if it's a question of not knowing where to look (@NeoDialectic helped me come up with great ideas on where to look) but I was unaware that getting these things in white label has been stupidly hard.

The reason I doubled down on this for so long was because a lot of the manufacturers I contacted told me that they had the active ingredient but they never explicitly stated that they didn't work in tablets or capsules. It didn't help that when I asked whether they worked white label, they said that they did. However, they were referring to raw materials sent from laboratory to laboratory and they put those raw materials under another manufacturer's name. It seems obvious in hindsight that I should've been very clear but I assumed that supplement manufacturers had those features included (tablets/capsules).

I already finished the copy for the product's landing page and the opt-ins for the email. Already wasted the money on the servers/domains, shit... I should've been very specific and I would've saved money and time.

I'm kinda at a crossroads here. I figured I might as well see if there is demand for the product and then figure out if it is worth investing in capsule/tablet creation on my end. But I have a gut feeling maybe I should drop and find a new idea, but one that is carefully vetted and where my investment/return is very clear from the start.

Just got back from a 2 week Yellowstone trip, so hopefully my answer isn't too late!

Definitely create an Amazon seller account even if you don't have products yet. No reason not to but many reason to do it. It leaves one less thing to do when you are ready to list, but even more importantly it lets you iron out any kinks you may encounter. Maybe they will flag the account for one reason or another and you will need to provide further information. Things like that move at a snails pace.

I've never dealt with the exact situation you are dealing with but hopefully I can help a little based off my knowledge in the field. I just wanted to confirm that the issue is that you have found companies that will produce the ingredient and send the raw powder to you, but not do the actual capsuling and bottling. Right?

This adds hassle to everything, but as long as you believe in the product, it shouldn't actually prevent anything. You should be able to find capsuling and bottling companies. They may not necessarily just accept ingredients you send, but at the lease you can find manufacturers that are willing to source the product on your behalf once you give them your source.

If you want to save time/money and aren't afraid of getting hands on, at the very beginning you could literally capsule it yourself. There are cheap capsuling systems/machines and it is all relatively simple. I've never done it but know people do. This is obviously for the first beginning stages and then you would contract a manufacturer to do it, as described in the previous paragraph.

 

[NeoDialectic]

Man, I want to thank you (and your partner) for putting all of this out here (for free)! Way to give back to the community.

This is so detailed, and to the point that you almost have to come up with a great idea..

What I like is that you can start working immediately on the process of finding the problem. I will be using this technique to find a good idea!

Your welcome! Be sure to chime back in with your progress. Now only does it help others but it's also rewarding hearing for us to hear about the progress!

 

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[DCDeuce]

Guys, I might've overestimated how accessible my supplements would be. I've been searching for about a month now and although the active ingredient is possible to obtain, it would be in raw material and not in tablets like I expected them to be. I don't know how to make tablets or capsules, I guess I could do it but it depends on how accessible it is to me.

I dunno if it's a question of not knowing where to look (@NeoDialectic helped me come up with great ideas on where to look) but I was unaware that getting these things in white label has been stupidly hard.

The reason I doubled down on this for so long was because a lot of the manufacturers I contacted told me that they had the active ingredient but they never explicitly stated that they didn't work in tablets or capsules. It didn't help that when I asked whether they worked white label, they said that they did. However, they were referring to raw materials sent from laboratory to laboratory and they put those raw materials under another manufacturer's name. It seems obvious in hindsight that I should've been very clear but I assumed that supplement manufacturers had those features included (tablets/capsules).

I already finished the copy for the product's landing page and the opt-ins for the email. Already wasted the money on the servers/domains, shit... I should've been very specific and I would've saved money and time.

I'm kinda at a crossroads here. I figured I might as well see if there is demand for the product and then figure out if it is worth investing in capsule/tablet creation on my end. But I have a gut feeling maybe I should drop and find a new idea, but one that is carefully vetted and where my investment/return is very clear from the start.

Where are you at with this?

One of the ways I tested demand was using Helium 10 and tracking sales of competitors, I then started making a list of keywords based on competitors and tracked those as well so see where search volume was. After watching countless YT gurus I was able to understand that search volume should be over 30k searches a month and the search volume for my keywords far surpasses that. I will have heavy competition but I'm game to carve out my piece of the action as long as I can support it financially.

I'm sorry for not updating but I ended up getting my AMZ seller account, three landed samples, box/label designs, and my AMZ Brand Registry over the last two months.

My first shipment is currently being made as well. I decided to bite the bullet and run with my idea. I hired someone to put up my landing page and build out links to educate the buyer since the landing page does a good job of explaining in easy-to-understand bite-size chunks of information.

Keep pushin

 

[Maria 777]

For all the new entrepreneurs who are willing to put in the work, I have a few inconveniences that I'd pay for if you solved them. I like swimming. Hit the pool with a team and a coach a few times a week. My goggles and swim trunks get worn out quickly. Finding swimming equipment is getting harder. It's not as popular of a sport as say, running. It's a bit niche as brick and mortar stores at "the local mall" are more about chilling by the pool and not sports swimming.

1. Goggles with chlorine get foggy after some use.
2. Swim trunks shouldn't be washed in your washer with typical laundry, worse yet with a towel. Yet after pool they smell like chlorine.

So what do I end up doing?

Lucky I can afford to just keep buying new. I wash the trunks with a towel after each visit to the pool. Every 2-3 months I buy a new set of goggles and trunks.

There has to be a cheaper and better way and some opportunity for someone to capitalize on it.

Apply the model of @NeoDialectic above and good luck!

i have been on a swimming team, you must rinse everything right after swimming then hang it to dry, no need for washing it so often, my washing machine has an option for hand wash when i do wash my swimsuits. dont wear 1 swimsuit and 1 pair of goggles and 1 swim cap, have different ones to alternate. i use speedo, they have a special liquid for anti fog as well, but fogging happens anyway. try to find goggles that fit well. things deteriorate in the pool because of chemicals. sometimes in the summer its worse because everyone uses the pool. it is not only your gear but also your body that takes the toll.
it is one thing to be with your team and a very different one to have a pool at home so you have more control on what you put on it. hope it helps.

 

[DougRMR]

Where are you at with this?

One of the ways I tested demand was using Helium 10 and tracking sales of competitors, I then started making a list of keywords based on competitors and tracked those as well so see where search volume was. After watching countless YT gurus I was able to understand that search volume should be over 30k searches a month and the search volume for my keywords far surpasses that. I will have heavy competition but I'm game to carve out my piece of the action as long as I can support it financially.

I'm sorry for not updating but I ended up getting my AMZ seller account, three landed samples, box/label designs, and my AMZ Brand Registry over the last two months.

My first shipment is currently being made as well. I decided to bite the bullet and run with my idea. I hired someone to put up my landing page and build out links to educate the buyer since the landing page does a good job of explaining in easy-to-understand bite-size chunks of information.

Keep pushin

Hey man!

So it's been a while since I updated this. Basically, my original estimate was correct. I think I over estimated this product's demand. On top of that, I didn't have much capital to invest in ads but of what I could spend, I didn't get much response if at all. I had to cut expenses and basically jump ship cuz I really couldn't risk being more in the red than I was now. It hurt me because I genuinely thought this could work but that's the name of the game.

However! The positive is that I learned a lot about starting up, landing pages, ecommerce stores, web design and the formula for finding niches. Right now I'm focusing on web design so that I can acquire $$ so that I could further invest into this. I would love to make my product work but at the same time I don't wanna be so stubborn as to miss out on other opportunities. I'll keep myself posted if anything new happens. Let us know how you're doing, too!

I'm glad you got your first sale.

 

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[NeoDialectic]

However! The positive is that I learned a lot about starting up, landing pages, ecommerce stores, web design and the formula for finding niches.

Thanks for the update! Building up your repertoire of skills and experience is invaluable for any future business that you start. They are like force multipliers for anything you do. Keep at it!

 

[DougRMR]

Thanks for the update! Building up your repertoire of skills and experience is invaluable for any future business that you start. They are like force multipliers for anything you do. Keep at it!

No problem, man! This has helped me a lot so thank you. And I will keep this in the back of my mind because I love the formula you gave us to find needs

 

[Damien Boss]

It makes me happy hearing that I was able to motivate you and your GF into the right direction!

Great question too.

The answer depends on the individual and their risk tolerance. A few points.

1. All things should be done through a LLC or Corporation that you created. This creates a liability shield. So if something happens, only your company (which has near zero) can be sued. You can't squeeze juice out of a rock.
2. Google "piercing the corporate veil". It will pull up things that an owner does that allows the person suing their business, to say that the owner didn't actually treat this as a business but as an extension of their personal things and because of that he

Hello, I tried doing a landing page and getting traffic with Google ads, but my account got banned. And Google said I'm not allowed to ever advertise again. Has anyone here gone through that? is there even a way to make Google setup back the account?

 

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[NeoDialectic]

Hello, I tried doing a landing page and getting traffic with Google ads, but my account got banned. And Google said I'm not allowed to ever advertise again. Has anyone here gone through that? is there even a way to make Google setup back the account?

Were you doing something shady? What did the account get banned for?

 

[sev969]

Firstly, thank you so much for the post. I was lucky to find it after I searched for "Amazon".

I'm currently waiting for a shipment to be delivered to an Amazon warehouse in Sydney, Australia for FBA. But this is in no way a product/niche that me and friend researched like you recommend. We're "copying" a product that is selling well and we put our own logo on it. I'm somewhat confident although it's a copy paste product; with cheaper options available on the market, we can market it in fb groups etc, and try get rid of it. But after reading your posts this sounds like a pathetic attempt.

Instead, I'm going to do exactly what you mentioned.
Again, thank you for taking time and writing these posts!

Wil keep this thread going. And if anyone else is doing the same and following NeoDialectic's process, please feel to reach out to me so we can keep each other accountable

 

[Ashpet]

Amaz

After posting my general advice post here , I realized that one of the most burning questions that people struggle with is "how do I come up with an idea that isn't already done?" and "how do I test whether I can successfully sell this product without a huge investment?".

This is the first time I am writing down this process on paper, but this process in general is one of the ways my business partner and I have successfully launched multiple big products that have been in the hands of hundreds of thousands of happy customers.

Hopefully this thread will show you how to do that with a real step by step example of how to do this. I will also try to include my reasoning for decisions along the way. So this will be a long thread with multiple parts. Even though I have already went through the example all the way through posting; Writing detailed accounts take a long time. So today I am tackling the idea generation part. Depending on the response over the next week or so, I will add a post detailing how to bootstrap your way through successfully testing the product. I can also add a post detailing a few unsuccessful iterations, to showcase what failed attempts look like.

Disclaimers:

• This is FAR from the only way to do this. By providing the following steps, I am not saying that this is the best way to start a business. But these are difficult questions to answer in an actionable and generalizable fashion, so I have chosen a niche and path that I could do just that. I believe others methods have been posted before on these forums. For example like searching for everyday items on Amazon and seeing what all the 1 star reviews have in common and solve that issue.
• The best way to think of an idea is to be familiar with a product or field and try to solve an issue that you or someone you know runs into. In this exercise I am attempting to answer not just how to test a product, but also how to come up with an idea when your mind is running completely blank. The point is to show that the only thing holding you back is your willingness to put in work/time and not your experience/age/finances/etc. If you have an advantage in either of those (know a problem to solve or you have sufficient finances to fund faster experimentation) then I would recommend using that.
• You are taking a peek at my exact process that I would take to think of and test a product under these circumstances. That means I have not actually made and tested this product but I actually do believe this would be a good product to test. My bar here would be to test X amount of products and only 1 has to catch on to be a success.
• My example will be testing on Amazon as it is the most lucrative marketplace and simultaneously probably the hardest to do so as your are playing by their stringent rules. However you can apply the same methods for any other marketplace and/or search engine and you would just be dealing with less traffic but likely have more control.
• If you want to copy any part of this, you can. But please know that I only went surface level for the purpose of this exercise. I don't endorse any of the companies mentioned (I haven't necessarily worked with them) and I haven't done all the legal research and due diligence.

Prelude:

What do I need?

• An Amazon seller account
• Willingness to spend $50-$200 on product and another couple hundred on advertising. There may be cheaper ways to do this with close to zero investment and I will annotate those options, but they all come with drawbacks

The Idea Framework:

When starting to brainstorm ideas from scratch, I am thinking about the question "what scenario or group of people can I provide value to in a specific way that others haven't?" Thinking about the question this way helps me find a niche. Here is an outline of the steps that you can follow.

1. Think of attributes that separate people into groups with possible unique needs or requirements. Example: Height, age, sex,race,hair color, eye color, skin color, disability or special needs, left/right handedness, location, etc...
2. Think of questions that could expose unique needs that these people would have just as a byproduct of being in this group. You are proding for problems to solve. If you had personal experience and unsolved problems, you wouldn't need to do this step. But you have none, so here we are. Examples:
   • What ingredients are X sensitive to?
   • What ingredients should X avoid?
   • What do people with X have to be careful of?
3. Literally google the questions and read a good amount of results. Each problem that you encounter, add it to a Problems List and then see if there is a solution that is specifically marketed for this problem on Amazon. If the group itself is super niche, this may actually be enough! However this is usually not enough as most issues in the big groups have been addressed in the marketplace. You can also type that same question with the word "forum" afterward to see what people on forums have been complaining about as well. This can sometimes be gold for finding budding problems that the market hasn't caught up with yet. These base problems could also be harder to test sometimes because you may need to come up with a completely new invention or product versus repurposing other products that provide a solution.
4. If you have found that all the very general problems have been taken care of, you should move onto the next step of the niche discovery process. Put yourself in the shoes of this group and think of ways your Problems List can be affected by everyday tasks or common products. Lets call this the Interaction List. This list obviously has unlimited iterations. Just make sure it is something that would have a large enough audience.
5. Use google to see if the things on your Interaction list are actually issues or not. Example language: Does (some product or action) cause (some issue) for (group of people) . This is a good time to also see recommended solutions to these interactions. This will help you gauge whether this is something you can solve without reinventing the wheel.
6. Search Amazon to see if there is a solution for this specifically.
7. Go through steps 1-6 over and over again until you find a problem that has not been solved and that follow a majority of MJ's CENTS model. Ideally it would be something that you can creatively test without too big of investment. This isn't a requirement, but with unlimited problems to solve, why not make it easy on yourself?

OK. So those are the basic steps I recommend you follow for this method. If you are confused about any of the steps see the next part.

The Idea Example:

Here is the process I went through for this thread. I went through many FAILED iterations before coming up with this final product. However for brevity's sake, I will post a few examples in a follow-up post and not here. The steps line up to the previous chapters steps.

1. People with blonde hair.
2. Here are the two questions that made sense within the context of the group
   • "What do people with blonde hair have to be careful of?"
   • "What ingredients should blondes avoid?"
3. Here is a short list of things that made my sample Problems List. If you google my questions from #2, you will see that this list is easily made just from the first page of results.
   • Hydration
   • Heat
   • Sun
   • Fading
   • Staining
   • Using things with dye's
   • Chlorine
   • Harsh Chemicals
   • Using color-safe hair care products
4. All these issues are either things that the people in the group can just avoid, or there are solutions to the problem. So now I need to make an Interactions List. A good way to whittle down the list from unlimited is by excluding things that are directly related or unique to the specific problem. For example, it should be obvious that products designed specifically for blonde or colored hair are already solving the issue. There is no need in wasting time to see if you can make a shampoo that avoids those things (unless you have reason to believe otherwise). So I will think of things that may touch or expose blonde peoples hair to things on the Problems Listas a byproduct of normal daily activity and not specific to blonde people activity. A small list of immediate thoughts:
   • Hats
   • Scrunchies
   • Sunscreen
   • Lotions
   • Shower water
   • Going swimming
5. I start googling and cross referencing with Amazon. With many of these it becomes immediately apparent that these issues have been solved (and I would have known that if I had colored hair). However I land on jackpot with "Does sunscreen discolor blonde hair". The answer is YES. Normal sunscreen discolors colored hair. Yes there are ways to continue to use sunscreen without discoloring hair. For example, further google searches shows that common ingredients like Avebenzone and Octocrylene are what cause the discoloration and mineral sunscreens do not.
6. I search Amazon for "sunscreen for people with blonde hair", "sunscreen for people with colored hair", "sunscreen for blonde hair", and many other iterations. What I find is that there are sunscreen that you can specifically apply to colored hair to protect it, but there is no SKIN sunscreen that is advertised as being color safe. So when someone applies their generic face sunscreen, it can fade their bangs, eyebrows, mustache, etc...
7. Bingo. This is an issue that affects a large group of people, so its scaling potential is huge. Even better, it has no direct competitors. This may seem like a home run, but I wouldn't get ahead of myself. Just because this is a common and unique problem that can be solved, doesn't mean people will actually search for or care for you to solve it.

That's it folks. Thats the idea part of the process. Next is the testing phase. Research Phase and then finally comes the Testing Phase.

Follow up posts to this series:
---- The Preliminary Testing Phase
---- The Testing Phas

Am

After posting my general advice post here , I realized that one of the most burning questions that people struggle with is "how do I come up with an idea that isn't already done?" and "how do I test whether I can successfully sell this product without a huge investment?".

This is the first time I am writing down this process on paper, but this process in general is one of the ways my business partner and I have successfully launched multiple big products that have been in the hands of hundreds of thousands of happy customers.

Hopefully this thread will show you how to do that with a real step by step example of how to do this. I will also try to include my reasoning for decisions along the way. So this will be a long thread with multiple parts. Even though I have already went through the example all the way through posting; Writing detailed accounts take a long time. So today I am tackling the idea generation part. Depending on the response over the next week or so, I will add a post detailing how to bootstrap your way through successfully testing the product. I can also add a post detailing a few unsuccessful iterations, to showcase what failed attempts look like.

Disclaimers:

• This is FAR from the only way to do this. By providing the following steps, I am not saying that this is the best way to start a business. But these are difficult questions to answer in an actionable and generalizable fashion, so I have chosen a niche and path that I could do just that. I believe others methods have been posted before on these forums. For example like searching for everyday items on Amazon and seeing what all the 1 star reviews have in common and solve that issue.
• The best way to think of an idea is to be familiar with a product or field and try to solve an issue that you or someone you know runs into. In this exercise I am attempting to answer not just how to test a product, but also how to come up with an idea when your mind is running completely blank. The point is to show that the only thing holding you back is your willingness to put in work/time and not your experience/age/finances/etc. If you have an advantage in either of those (know a problem to solve or you have sufficient finances to fund faster experimentation) then I would recommend using that.
• You are taking a peek at my exact process that I would take to think of and test a product under these circumstances. That means I have not actually made and tested this product but I actually do believe this would be a good product to test. My bar here would be to test X amount of products and only 1 has to catch on to be a success.
• My example will be testing on Amazon as it is the most lucrative marketplace and simultaneously probably the hardest to do so as your are playing by their stringent rules. However you can apply the same methods for any other marketplace and/or search engine and you would just be dealing with less traffic but likely have more control.
• If you want to copy any part of this, you can. But please know that I only went surface level for the purpose of this exercise. I don't endorse any of the companies mentioned (I haven't necessarily worked with them) and I haven't done all the legal research and due diligence.

Prelude:

What do I need?

• An Amazon seller account
• Willingness to spend $50-$200 on product and another couple hundred on advertising. There may be cheaper ways to do this with close to zero investment and I will annotate those options, but they all come with drawbacks

The Idea Framework:

When starting to brainstorm ideas from scratch, I am thinking about the question "what scenario or group of people can I provide value to in a specific way that others haven't?" Thinking about the question this way helps me find a niche. Here is an outline of the steps that you can follow.

1. Think of attributes that separate people into groups with possible unique needs or requirements. Example: Height, age, sex,race,hair color, eye color, skin color, disability or special needs, left/right handedness, location, etc...
2. Think of questions that could expose unique needs that these people would have just as a byproduct of being in this group. You are proding for problems to solve. If you had personal experience and unsolved problems, you wouldn't need to do this step. But you have none, so here we are. Examples:
   • What ingredients are X sensitive to?
   • What ingredients should X avoid?
   • What do people with X have to be careful of?
3. Literally google the questions and read a good amount of results. Each problem that you encounter, add it to a Problems List and then see if there is a solution that is specifically marketed for this problem on Amazon. If the group itself is super niche, this may actually be enough! However this is usually not enough as most issues in the big groups have been addressed in the marketplace. You can also type that same question with the word "forum" afterward to see what people on forums have been complaining about as well. This can sometimes be gold for finding budding problems that the market hasn't caught up with yet. These base problems could also be harder to test sometimes because you may need to come up with a completely new invention or product versus repurposing other products that provide a solution.
4. If you have found that all the very general problems have been taken care of, you should move onto the next step of the niche discovery process. Put yourself in the shoes of this group and think of ways your Problems List can be affected by everyday tasks or common products. Lets call this the Interaction List. This list obviously has unlimited iterations. Just make sure it is something that would have a large enough audience.
5. Use google to see if the things on your Interaction list are actually issues or not. Example language: Does (some product or action) cause (some issue) for (group of people) . This is a good time to also see recommended solutions to these interactions. This will help you gauge whether this is something you can solve without reinventing the wheel.
6. Search Amazon to see if there is a solution for this specifically.
7. Go through steps 1-6 over and over again until you find a problem that has not been solved and that follow a majority of MJ's CENTS model. Ideally it would be something that you can creatively test without too big of investment. This isn't a requirement, but with unlimited problems to solve, why not make it easy on yourself?

OK. So those are the basic steps I recommend you follow for this method. If you are confused about any of the steps see the next part.

The Idea Example:

Here is the process I went through for this thread. I went through many FAILED iterations before coming up with this final product. However for brevity's sake, I will post a few examples in a follow-up post and not here. The steps line up to the previous chapters steps.

1. People with blonde hair.
2. Here are the two questions that made sense within the context of the group
   • "What do people with blonde hair have to be careful of?"
   • "What ingredients should blondes avoid?"
3. Here is a short list of things that made my sample Problems List. If you google my questions from #2, you will see that this list is easily made just from the first page of results.
   • Hydration
   • Heat
   • Sun
   • Fading
   • Staining
   • Using things with dye's
   • Chlorine
   • Harsh Chemicals
   • Using color-safe hair care products
4. All these issues are either things that the people in the group can just avoid, or there are solutions to the problem. So now I need to make an Interactions List. A good way to whittle down the list from unlimited is by excluding things that are directly related or unique to the specific problem. For example, it should be obvious that products designed specifically for blonde or colored hair are already solving the issue. There is no need in wasting time to see if you can make a shampoo that avoids those things (unless you have reason to believe otherwise). So I will think of things that may touch or expose blonde peoples hair to things on the Problems Listas a byproduct of normal daily activity and not specific to blonde people activity. A small list of immediate thoughts:
   • Hats
   • Scrunchies
   • Sunscreen
   • Lotions
   • Shower water
   • Going swimming
5. I start googling and cross referencing with Amazon. With many of these it becomes immediately apparent that these issues have been solved (and I would have known that if I had colored hair). However I land on jackpot with "Does sunscreen discolor blonde hair". The answer is YES. Normal sunscreen discolors colored hair. Yes there are ways to continue to use sunscreen without discoloring hair. For example, further google searches shows that common ingredients like Avebenzone and Octocrylene are what cause the discoloration and mineral sunscreens do not.
6. I search Amazon for "sunscreen for people with blonde hair", "sunscreen for people with colored hair", "sunscreen for blonde hair", and many other iterations. What I find is that there are sunscreen that you can specifically apply to colored hair to protect it, but there is no SKIN sunscreen that is advertised as being color safe. So when someone applies their generic face sunscreen, it can fade their bangs, eyebrows, mustache, etc...
7. Bingo. This is an issue that affects a large group of people, so its scaling potential is huge. Even better, it has no direct competitors. This may seem like a home run, but I wouldn't get ahead of myself. Just because this is a common and unique problem that can be solved, doesn't mean people will actually search for or care for you to solve it.

That's it folks. Thats the idea part of the process. Next is the testing phase. Research Phase and then finally comes the Testing Phase.

Follow up posts to this series:
---- The Preliminary Testing Phase
---- The Testing Phase

Amazing thread, thank you for putting in the time

 

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[NeoDialectic]

Firstly, thank you so much for the post. I was lucky to find it after I searched for "Amazon".

I'm currently waiting for a shipment to be delivered to an Amazon warehouse in Sydney, Australia for FBA. But this is in no way a product/niche that me and friend researched like you recommend. We're "copying" a product that is selling well and we put our own logo on it. I'm somewhat confident although it's a copy paste product; with cheaper options available on the market, we can market it in fb groups etc, and try get rid of it. But after reading your posts this sounds like a pathetic attempt.

Instead, I'm going to do exactly what you mentioned.
Again, thank you for taking time and writing these posts!

Wil keep this thread going. And if anyone else is doing the same and following NeoDialectic's process, please feel to reach out to me so we can keep each other accountable

Make sure to keep us updated on how it goes. I have sold thousands of orders to Australia but never with an Amazon FBA warehouse. I'm always very eager to hear about Amazon FBA success outside of the USA!

 

[BrazenFoxx]

Something I remember from the TMF book was to ask people who are using products regularly for their feedback. I asked my family for help with sportswear/accessories and gathering a small group of people to give feedback and within 24 hrs I have a product that they wish they had - meeting their needs and solving a problem.
Fastlane product ideas from friends, family or local groups. I haven't learnt the art of having my own ideas... yet... but thankfully there's help close to home.

 

[sev969]

I've gone through process of idea creation and have come up with something that might have some potential. It's such an obvious solution that I'm skeptical. But the market complains about this problem a lot so I'm going ahead with it. I've got a supplier and manufacturer lined up.

My question is should I ship it to Australia, where I am familiar with the market and I can access, say FB groups to create a presence. Or should I send it to the Amazon warehouses in the US in order to access a bigger market?

 

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[fastlane_dad]

I've gone through process of idea creation and have come up with something that might have some potential. It's such an obvious solution that I'm skeptical. But the market complains about this problem a lot so I'm going ahead with it. I've got a supplier and manufacturer lined up.

My question is should I ship it to Australia, where I am familiar with the market and I can access, say FB groups to create a presence. Or should I send it to the Amazon warehouses in the US in order to access a bigger market?

Why not both? Obviously won't be done overnight, but once you test your local market (and where you think you will have more initial success) you can expand elsewhere. Good luck!!

 

[sev969]

Thanks for the response! I'll be paying for my products on tuesday for it to be delivered to Australia first.

My question now is this. , I already have my "me too" product in FBA inventory which me and my business partner are working on marketing. Then, I have this new product which I'm paying for soon. While also working a 9-5. Now, I'm thinking of starting a service based business, like bathroom cleaning for example. I want to do this for cash and slowly work on replacing my 9-5. The reason why I feel like I can do this is because with the Amazon/product business, there's a bit of waiting around. I can make use of this time and get my cash up and replace my 9-5. My question is, is this going to jeopardize the product business?

 

[RisingStars]

Hey @NeoDialectic

thank you for your helpful thread and all your other valuable posts.
Let's say you've launched the sunscreen for blondes/people with died hair, how would you grow the company from there? Would you launch other products for ppl. with died hair - even if they exist in an abundance already (e.g. shampoo for died hair) or would you leave it as a "One-product-brand" and go through the framework again to launch another business?

For context, I've built 2 ecommerce businesses in the past (both exclusively on Amazon, sold the 2nd one to an aggregator).
I've used the 'review method' for the first brand, found my first successful product which I was able to improve but struggled to add additional products.
Eventually I decided on a 'niche' and added more products but they don't really go together for the same person mostly. e.g. A sattle for a woman's bicycle and brakes for high end mountain-bikes.

So I would describe that business as a cashflow-'brand' but it's hard to build something off amazon with it since I don't serve a distinct group of people.

With the second brand (the one I've sold) I had a similar problem - found a product which was doing very well in another country & brought it to Germany where it was not available. But again I was at a loss on how to grow from there since I didn't found products that made sense to add to the brand.

My goal is to build a company which can be sold for 8 figures and I've used a similar approach to the one you've described here to find ideas, but so far I've only came up with single-products that will - if successful - result in another low 6-figure profit/year brand but no plan to go from there.

So my question comes down to, how do you turn the "Golden Goose product idea" in a sustainable brand, which has authority in it's niche, isn't out of business when existing brands copy the idea & can be sold for millions?

 

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[NeoDialectic]

Hey @NeoDialectic

thank you for your helpful thread and all your other valuable posts.
Let's say you've launched the sunscreen for blondes/people with died hair, how would you grow the company from there? Would you launch other products for ppl. with died hair - even if they exist in an abundance already (e.g. shampoo for died hair) or would you leave it as a "One-product-brand" and go through the framework again to launch another business?

For context, I've built 2 ecommerce businesses in the past (both exclusively on Amazon, sold the 2nd one to an aggregator).
I've used the 'review method' for the first brand, found my first successful product which I was able to improve but struggled to add additional products.
Eventually I decided on a 'niche' and added more products but they don't really go together for the same person mostly. e.g. A sattle for a woman's bicycle and brakes for high end mountain-bikes.

So I would describe that business as a cashflow-'brand' but it's hard to build something off amazon with it since I don't serve a distinct group of people.

With the second brand (the one I've sold) I had a similar problem - found a product which was doing very well in another country & brought it to Germany where it was not available. But again I was at a loss on how to grow from there since I didn't found products that made sense to add to the brand.

My goal is to build a company which can be sold for 8 figures and I've used a similar approach to the one you've described here to find ideas, but so far I've only came up with single-products that will - if successful - result in another low 6-figure profit/year brand but no plan to go from there.

So my question comes down to, how do you turn the "Golden Goose product idea" in a sustainable brand, which has authority in it's niche, isn't out of business when existing brands copy the idea & can be sold for millions?

Really good question.

I don't think there could possibly be an answer that will be right for all types of brands and products.

The real question is if you've built a brand or not. If you haven't built a brand, then you may as well just use the framework for a new product. If you have built a brand, then I would do the following two:

1. Look for other complaints in your niche and try to solve them with new products or modify existing products to solve a complaint. The process would obviously be a modified version of the framework since you have already selected for a bunch of things.
2. Make copies of popular products your competitors make in your niche. Yea, you aren't solving new problems but if you built up a brand name, in most instances it would be lucrative to leverage that. We had many products that only putted along and never did fantastic, but 50k a year is still big money to just leave on the table! I would still recommend adding some kind of value-add to the product so you aren't just literally a copy. But the difference between #2 and #1 is that here you aren't specifically looking for untapped markets but just providing the customer with another choice that is hopefully at least a little better than competitors.

However keep in mind that the actual answer is context dependent. It really depends on your products, brands and business issues. While we could have added like 30 products to leverage our brand name, we didn't. We could only spread ourselves so thin and it would complicate the operation more than we wanted. With other business circumstances, adding too many products may dilute the brand.

So for the sunscreen example, if I hit success with my primary products, I would do the following:

1. I would probably start thinking along the lines of "Is there anything else dyed hair/blonde people use that could discolor their hair?" or "Could sunscreen that does not stain hair be used for other circumstances". First question is pretty intuitive, but an example for the second question could be made from my trip to Florida this week. The car I rented had white staining on the backs of the seats by the end of the week. I realized it was the sunscreen rubbing off me. I could see an entire market for sunscreen that doesn't leave markings on things and it would be consistent with the theme of this brand (if that's the way we took it).
2. I would also be looking at making copies of established products. For example a shampoo for people with blonde hair. As mentioned, I would try and add some kind of value that separates my shampoo from others. I would research what ingredients are good for dyed hair, find one that most my competitors don't use and add it. The difference between this and the product from #1 is that the idea wasn't market derived at all. I don't know if the market is looking for X ingredient. But it will likely still get sales just because of my brand name and there is always a chance it will hit big too!

I think your example of having a brand that sells saddles for women's bikes and adding high end brakes is a good example of a poor addition (without knowing the specifics!). You will likely have a hard time getting purchases on the second item because you aren't really leveraging your brand correctly. Let's say that you sufficiently branded your product in a such a way that the customer associated Brand X with your product (When someone asks them where they got their saddle, do they reply with saying it's brand X or for their friend just to Amazon saddles and get one that looks like it).

Taking that for granted....The first thing you should ask is something along the lines of "If someone likes my product, what will it make them think my brand is an authority on?". The more specific, the better the additional product could leverage the brand name. Off the top of my head, I would think that when they buy your woman's bike saddle and they love it, they would likely think you make great saddles or great woman specific bike products. Offer them one of those and it will get some action solely from being associated with your brand. So if you offer woman shorts. You could advertise it as designed to fit the woman's body and work in synergy with your woman's saddle to offer the most comfortable ride. See how that fits into your brand like a glove, while high performance brakes just sounds like it's a completely separate product and why would they want to buy your brand over brands that have a name in the field? Their only tie to each other is that they are bike parts. For your brand to earn the authority on something as broad as "bike parts", you would likely have to have many successful products across many bike parts.

I'll think about expanding this whole branding idea into a new thread as a few other things could probably be said about it. But hopefully this post helps push you in the right direction!

 

[sev969]

Paid the supplier for the material and the factory that will be making my product. All exciting stuff! Will update this thread in a year when my shipment arrives haha

Meanwhile, I spoke to my old man about starting a home cleaning business so I can get some tips because he runs a reasonably successful auto detailing business. Then instead of giving me tips, he pitched me on partnering with him to run his business. I took up the offer to quit my slowlane job and work with him. Time to go annoy ICK

 

[RisingStars]

Really good question.

I don't think there could possibly be an answer that will be right for all types of brands and products.

The real question is if you've built a brand or not. If you haven't built a brand, then you may as well just use the framework for a new product. If you have built a brand, then I would do the following two:

1. Look for other complaints in your niche and try to solve them with new products or modify existing products to solve a complaint. The process would obviously be a modified version of the framework since you have already selected for a bunch of things.
2. Make copies of popular products your competitors make in your niche. Yea, you aren't solving new problems but if you built up a brand name, in most instances it would be lucrative to leverage that. We had many products that only putted along and never did fantastic, but 50k a year is still big money to just leave on the table! I would still recommend adding some kind of value-add to the product so you aren't just literally a copy. But the difference between #2 and #1 is that here you aren't specifically looking for untapped markets but just providing the customer with another choice that is hopefully at least a little better than competitors.

However keep in mind that the actual answer is context dependent. It really depends on your products, brands and business issues. While we could have added like 30 products to leverage our brand name, we didn't. We could only spread ourselves so thin and it would complicate the operation more than we wanted. With other business circumstances, adding too many products may dilute the brand.

So for the sunscreen example, if I hit success with my primary products, I would do the following:

1. I would probably start thinking along the lines of "Is there anything else dyed hair/blonde people use that could discolor their hair?" or "Could sunscreen that does not stain hair be used for other circumstances". First question is pretty intuitive, but an example for the second question could be made from my trip to Florida this week. The car I rented had white staining on the backs of the seats by the end of the week. I realized it was the sunscreen rubbing off me. I could see an entire market for sunscreen that doesn't leave markings on things and it would be consistent with the theme of this brand (if that's the way we took it).
2. I would also be looking at making copies of established products. For example a shampoo for people with blonde hair. As mentioned, I would try and add some kind of value that separates my shampoo from others. I would research what ingredients are good for dyed hair, find one that most my competitors don't use and add it. The difference between this and the product from #1 is that the idea wasn't market derived at all. I don't know if the market is looking for X ingredient. But it will likely still get sales just because of my brand name and there is always a chance it will hit big too!

I think your example of having a brand that sells saddles for women's bikes and adding high end brakes is a good example of a poor addition (without knowing the specifics!). You will likely have a hard time getting purchases on the second item because you aren't really leveraging your brand correctly. Let's say that you sufficiently branded your product in a such a way that the customer associated Brand X with your product (When someone asks them where they got their saddle, do they reply with saying it's brand X or for their friend just to Amazon saddles and get one that looks like it).

Taking that for granted....The first thing you should ask is something along the lines of "If someone likes my product, what will it make them think my brand is an authority on?". The more specific, the better the additional product could leverage the brand name. Off the top of my head, I would think that when they buy your woman's bike saddle and they love it, they would likely think you make great saddles or great woman specific bike products. Offer them one of those and it will get some action solely from being associated with your brand. So if you offer woman shorts. You could advertise it as designed to fit the woman's body and work in synergy with your woman's saddle to offer the most comfortable ride. See how that fits into your brand like a glove, while high performance brakes just sounds like it's a completely separate product and why would they want to buy your brand over brands that have a name in the field? Their only tie to each other is that they are bike parts. For your brand to earn the authority on something as broad as "bike parts", you would likely have to have many successful products across many bike parts.

I'll think about expanding this whole branding idea into a new thread as a few other things could probably be said about it. But hopefully this post helps push you in the right direction!

Thank you very much for your in-depth, long reply. It really all makes sense for me and with the next brand I'll use your approach of thinking about a specific group of people first and then identifying products which could make my brand an authority for these people.

Looking back I did choose quick money over 'brand authority'. The best-selling products or products which were easy to improve in my broad field did not really fit one customer archetype. Now I'll definetely choose brand > quick bucks.

I also found your new branding specifc thread, will post a question there too. Thank you again.

 

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[NeoDialectic]

Paid the supplier for the material and the factory that will be making my product. All exciting stuff! Will update this thread in a year when my shipment arrives haha

Meanwhile, I spoke to my old man about starting a home cleaning business so I can get some tips because he runs a reasonably successful auto detailing business. Then instead of giving me tips, he pitched me on partnering with him to run his business. I took up the offer to quit my slowlane job and work with him. Time to go annoy ICK

Thats great to hear, but it sounds like you really buried the lead! You should have started with the fact that your dad owns a successful auto detailing business. In and of itself that may not be a fastlane business, but it opens SO MANY fastlane opportunities.

Off the top of my head:

1. Make your own cleaner products. You could go generic, but even better is start taking the time to experiment with all sorts of different chemicals. I'm sure auto detailing forums are a wealth of knowledge if you dig deep. Make a unique good product (even if it's not necessarily better than the best) and start using it. Start offering it to customers. Before you know it you will be making more off your products than your services.
2. Expand into more offices and cities. I know I've seen threads on here of people doing it with landscaping businesses. They may be able to give you tips.
3. Think about what unique services you may provide "while you're detailing the car". I know that is what happened with the pressure washing business. I think landscapers started offering that while they were there and next thing they know they were making a ton more doing that than landscaping!
4. Thousands of businesses across the USA run a detailing company. Which is great! You will be knee deep in a field with alot of B2B opportunity. Keep your eye open at all times for opportunities. You should always keep in mind "What could make me do this faster, better, or easier" for every single service you offer and thing you do. Experiment doing things in different ways. It may slow you down at first, but it only takes one success. That one success will improve your service provided and it will open the door to possibly even making a business out of it.

Even if you don't expand it, this will be a great opportunity to learn and pick up some skills running a business. Just keep in mind that you should try to prevent getting into a rut where you are just spinning your wheels and not expanding but also not quitting just because "atleast this is a business". Unless you just prefer the work, running a business isn't inherently any better than working a slow lane job if it isn't providing you with more benefits. Many brick and mortar businesses become brass handcuffs (like golden handcuffs but without the high income!)

 

[sev969]

Thats great to hear, but it sounds like you really buried the lead! You should have started with the fact that your dad owns a successful auto detailing business. In and of itself that may not be a fastlane business, but it opens SO MANY fastlane opportunities.

Off the top of my head:

1. Make your own cleaner products. You could go generic, but even better is start taking the time to experiment with all sorts of different chemicals. I'm sure auto detailing forums are a wealth of knowledge if you dig deep. Make a unique good product (even if it's not necessarily better than the best) and start using it. Start offering it to customers. Before you know it you will be making more off your products than your services.
2. Expand into more offices and cities. I know I've seen threads on here of people doing it with landscaping businesses. They may be able to give you tips.
3. Think about what unique services you may provide "while you're detailing the car". I know that is what happened with the pressure washing business. I think landscapers started offering that while they were there and next thing they know they were making a ton more doing that than landscaping!
4. Thousands of businesses across the USA run a detailing company. Which is great! You will be knee deep in a field with alot of B2B opportunity. Keep your eye open at all times for opportunities. You should always keep in mind "What could make me do this faster, better, or easier" for every single service you offer and thing you do. Experiment doing things in different ways. It may slow you down at first, but it only takes one success. That one success will improve your service provided and it will open the door to possibly even making a business out of it.

Even if you don't expand it, this will be a great opportunity to learn and pick up some skills running a business. Just keep in mind that you should try to prevent getting into a rut where you are just spinning your wheels and not expanding but also not quitting just because "atleast this is a business". Unless you just prefer the work, running a business isn't inherently any better than working a slow lane job if it isn't providing you with more benefits. Many brick and mortar businesses become brass handcuffs (like golden handcuffs but without the high income!)

Thank you for taking time out and writing a response and the advice. I read your post before going into work for my first trial day and I was conscious of what you said.

1. Making my own cleaning products - There's already product ideas I'm thinking about based on things that were annoying or took longer than necessary. I'm yet to pick my dad's brain about his own recipe's that have improved the process. I will keep the b2b opportunities with this in mind too.
2. Expanding - definitely part of the plan. Hire someone > get another van > etc. My current goal is to generate a consistent amount of leads. He's currently got a client that is a transport company that pays around $700(per vehicle) to prepare brand new vehicles to be delivered to customers. Takes around 4 hours, I think I can bring that down to 3 hours. This includes detailing the truck and removing plastics that the interior is wrapped in. I think this is a whole another niche within the niche of auto detailing, if anyone else wants do some research and get into - vehicle prep? . And this ties into your 3rd point too.

I'm going to try and find more companies that have similar jobs to these and there would be more of a profit margin compared to non-business customer.

Thank you again and will keep the thread updated

 

[Albert KOUADJA]

Thats great to hear, but it sounds like you really buried the lead! You should have started with the fact that your dad owns a successful auto detailing business. In and of itself that may not be a fastlane business, but it opens SO MANY fastlane opportunities.

Off the top of my head:

1. Make your own cleaner products. You could go generic, but even better is start taking the time to experiment with all sorts of different chemicals. I'm sure auto detailing forums are a wealth of knowledge if you dig deep. Make a unique good product (even if it's not necessarily better than the best) and start using it. Start offering it to customers. Before you know it you will be making more off your products than your services.
2. Expand into more offices and cities. I know I've seen threads on here of people doing it with landscaping businesses. They may be able to give you tips.
3. Think about what unique services you may provide "while you're detailing the car". I know that is what happened with the pressure washing business. I think landscapers started offering that while they were there and next thing they know they were making a ton more doing that than landscaping!
4. Thousands of businesses across the USA run a detailing company. Which is great! You will be knee deep in a field with alot of B2B opportunity. Keep your eye open at all times for opportunities. You should always keep in mind "What could make me do this faster, better, or easier" for every single service you offer and thing you do. Experiment doing things in different ways. It may slow you down at first, but it only takes one success. That one success will improve your service provided and it will open the door to possibly even making a business out of it.

Even if you don't expand it, this will be a great opportunity to learn and pick up some skills running a business. Just keep in mind that you should try to prevent getting into a rut where you are just spinning your wheels and not expanding but also not quitting just because "atleast this is a business". Unless you just prefer the work, running a business isn't inherently any better than working a slow lane job if it isn't providing you with more benefits. Many brick and mortar businesses become brass handcuffs (like golden handcuffs but without the high income!)

Thanks you @NeoDialectic Your reply is very valuable.

 

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[Goodfella999]

1 million times YES on basically everything you just said.

Your roadblock example is so true that it hurts. It's a running intra-office quip. If you asked me how long it would take me to build our last business that was selling 100s of products a day from start to finish... I would say maybe a few days of pedal to the medal action ( Or at WORST a few months if you include the time to have the product created and in hand..where most the time is just waiting on that shipment)........ Surface level it feels 100% true. But anyways, let me setup a newsletter for our products really quick. I can't imagine it taking more than 30 minutes considering there are already services that help you with this....Which turns into a back and forth of trying to get your newsletter emails to land in the customers inbox instead of spam. 10 email templates, 3 email services, 2 domain servers, and 3 weeks later you finally finished your 30 minute job. Oh, and it kind of looks like a 6th grader made it in Microsoft word with some word art..So someone should probably do something about that. Dont worry, we will get to it shortly....a.k.a.THREE YEARS LATER

It's all part of not just the struggles of making something new, but your growth as an entrepreneur. My first website took ages to make. Now, I've made new professional looking websites ready to sell/test in literally a day from start to finish. But if I wanted to add a new feature to it that I haven't dealt with before, it may realistically add days.

The websites you make, what platform do you recommend? Wix, squarespace etc

 

[wanttogofaster]

My apologies if this has been asked in this or other threads.

It is well known that Chinese manufacturers (or their middlemen) sell their own products on Amazon and other e-commerce platforms. Even Amazon has had its own products that are exact copies of products previously sold by others.

Let's say someone goes through all the steps outlined in this thread and comes up with a winning product. What keeps your Chinese (or from any other country) manufacturer from launching the same product with a different brand, etc?

I can see how big brands (Nike, Apple, you name it) can protect themselves from this. But, are there any options for a small player just starting out?

Obviously, you and others on this forum have been able to make it work.

I'm curious to know if you've had to deal with this issue, and if yes, what did you do to keep your product or products at the top and still make it to the point where you could sell your company for 8 figures?

Thanks!