Giving my muze a friend to play with

[Sven]

Since my muze was developed before I read the book and is way outside the price range Tim mentioned I have decided to give my muze a friend. The same kind of product but without the high cost for manufacturing. No need for a new website, just a hint of extra ppc marketing.

The first system took me 1.5 years to scetch , the new one.... 5 days. I have announced it on the website january 1st, had the first synthetic pictures up on the third, the second one today. Already 2 people have shown their interest and want to be kept informed!

So if you want another muze, first look close to home!

Sven

Update 40 mins later: 3 people interested

[ezgobag]

Sven,

Love the new product idea and the advice of expanding close to home is good. Ithink this will help quite a bit. I personally would have been all about the DIY kit- would have done it instead of waiting for the right time/long trip, etc. This seems like a good product to get in front of the trade shows/boat shows. And definitely some advertising/advertorial in Good Old Boat seems like a good kick start for this product. Wish I had my boat...

I did have one comment about the video clip- I would think about embedding the clip in the product page. I think it is kind of dangerous to navigate [no pun intended] away to a generic qt player page without your branding, etc.

Ian

Muse#1: www.ezgobag.com
Brick and Morter Muse#1: www.roguepost.com

[Sven]

Hi Ian,

Thanks for the good comment! I have most videos up on youtube and have tried to embed those. At the moment my cms does not allow the lines from youtube to be entered in to text so I went and did other stuff. I'll contact the builder to see what we can do.

Having the video's avalable for viewing will probably generate more views.
Sven

p.s. Boats can come in to your life very quickly ;-)

[Stallion]

Good to see another Muse is going good with the consumers.

The advice is great too. Stay within your range of experience and you'll find something good!

[shanerbock]

Sven,

That was a great idea to add the DIY kit... that is what you are talking about right?

I wonder if you might consider putting that up on its own website?

Also, just a suggestion if you haven't already done so, you should build a lens at http://www.Squidoo.com, maybe even more than one around your niche... get some more traffic for free... it just seems like one of those niche products that would fit well on squidoo.

How do you market your business, ehem... I mean "Muse"? I just wonder because so many times I see people create a fantastic product/service/etc... but it doesn't get the attention it deserves. I hope yours is getting the attention it deserves because your product, and now the DIY... thats great!

Make it a great day!
Shane

[Sven]

Today I put my muses new friend in the webshop. Within a few hours the first order came in! Let's see what this hold for the future.

Now I do still have to finalise the product before I can actually ship it.

[webgal]

That's great Sven. Keep us informed. The success stories are very motivating.

[Thor]

no kidding thats pretty good selling stuff so quickly!
sounds like you've made the right moves getting people to your site for a start.
ditto to keeping us informed.
cheers.

[Sven]

Thanks guys!

Now reading back the topics I think I missed Shanes questions.
Im curious about the putting the new windvane on its own website. Why would that be an advantage?

At the moment I'm setting up a community around shorthanded sailing (sailing solo or with a crew of 2) All sailors that are in to shorthanded sailing have a need for self steering. I run a blog there as can any other user. I also want to set up a open source guide to shorthanded sailing. When this gets going I will ad the sponsorship link and also adsense.

I also discovered a great way to get traffic to the websites: wikipedia. Someone had entered a few of my competitors so I added myself. And of course I also added shorthandedsailing too.

Sven

[Sven]

Yesterday, 1 day short of 3 months after getting the idea, I shipped my first new self-steering system!
It's quite a rush, having been able to do this in three monthts.

But there are quite a few reasons why it was possible to do this:

Well, actually there is only one... I only had to do 1 thing that was realy new, the design. Everything else I had done before or did not need doing.

No need for a new website, the traffic was already there
The proces of designing a system wasn't new
writing the manual wasn't new
sourcing parts was a lot easier as there were no custom parts needed, and a lot of parts from the other system could be used

So now I'm thinking really hard if there are any other systems that sailors may need that can be sold in a kit....

Thanks for the encouragement guys!
Sven

[badhank]

congratulations! post a link so we can all see what ur up to (if u want)

[Marcie]

Thanks guys!

I also discovered a great way to get traffic to the websites: wikipedia. Someone had entered a few of my competitors so I added myself. And of course I also added shorthandedsailing too.

Sven

Hm, wikipedia - interesting! I'll have to see what I can find there on my subject matter...