First Muse- Exciting-> costly-> time consuming...->launching!

[bsiege]

After 4 months of development, and way to much money, mistakes, and delays...here it is www.bootstroot.com .

If you are a dude, you will probably not understand why anyone would buy the product. If you are a female you will not understand why anyone wouldn't buy the product. That is the Boot Stroot. My own invention...patent pending, so don't even think of it!

Anyway, just for some background, this is how you should not choose your first muse and go about launching it:
1. Picking a physical product
2. Picking a low priced physical product
3. Expecting to get a phyiscal product out in 2 months
4. Expecting to manufacturing and everything to only cost 1 grand
5. Choosing a very broad non niche market (ex. females who wear high boots)
6. Choosing a product that you would not use and have nothing to do with (ex. for me women's fashion...I am an unfashionable dude)

So I am a college student/was I took a leave of absence to pursue this to the end because it was a great learning experience. By the way, I have a lot riding on this product; which is also a bad idea for your first muse. I decided on this product because there were almost 0 competitors and it seemed like a great product. It was also simple and low cost.

Anyway, for the present moment I am attempting to get into retail stores besides my own website. I will see how that goes over the next few weeks. It can go a few ways:
1. It is awesome, and then my main worry is competitors/knockoffs and pumping out enough product.
2. It sucks, and I sell very little-nothing
3. Moderately well- it is an automated muse pumpin out a few 1000...or 100 a week.

So that is that, if anyone has any questions on:
Manufacturing
Website
Advertising
Legalities
Retail (virtual or physical)
etc.

on related products I will try my best to help or write a related report on it. But honestly I can't really do most of that stuff, I just have a general understanding since I outsource everything...literally. My motto- I suck at everything that is why I am the best.

Well, let me know what you think.

[JPress]

Congratulations on putting something out!

And if you want to make a muse out of the experience, you could hire somebody to write it up as a case study.

So many questions

1) How did you make your prototype?
2) How did you get your prototype made?
- what kind of questions did the end manufacturer make
3) Drop shipped? or you've got a bunch of them in your garage?
4) Did you do any pre-selling? Like build a blog? have a presence on women's boots forums?
5) Are you going to do a 10-30 second commercial in the South or West (or wherever they buy boots?)

6) Why not pink? or other bright colors?
7) Did you consider HD for the youtube spot? Maybe use Vimeo instead?
8) What was the market testing like?

After 4 months of development, and way to much money, mistakes, and delays...here it is www.bootstroot.com .

If you are a dude, you will probably not understand why anyone would buy the product. If you are a female you will not understand why anyone wouldn't buy the product. That is the Boot Stroot. My own invention...patent pending, so don't even think of it!

Anyway, just for some background, this is how you should not choose your first muse and go about launching it:
1. Picking a physical product
2. Picking a low priced physical product
3. Expecting to get a phyiscal product out in 2 months
4. Expecting to manufacturing and everything to only cost 1 grand
5. Choosing a very broad non niche market (ex. females who wear high boots)
6. Choosing a product that you would not use and have nothing to do with (ex. for me women's fashion...I am an unfashionable dude)

So I am a college student/was I took a leave of absence to pursue this to the end because it was a great learning experience. By the way, I have a lot riding on this product; which is also a bad idea for your first muse. I decided on this product because there were almost 0 competitors and it seemed like a great product. It was also simple and low cost.

Anyway, for the present moment I am attempting to get into retail stores besides my own website. I will see how that goes over the next few weeks. It can go a few ways:
1. It is awesome, and then my main worry is competitors/knockoffs and pumping out enough product.
2. It sucks, and I sell very little-nothing
3. Moderately well- it is an automated muse pumpin out a few 1000...or 100 a week.

So that is that, if anyone has any questions on:
Manufacturing
Website
Advertising
Legalities
Retail (virtual or physical)
etc.

on related products I will try my best to help or write a related report on it. But honestly I can't really do most of that stuff, I just have a general understanding since I outsource everything...literally. My motto- I suck at everything that is why I am the best.

Well, let me know what you think.

[bsiege]

Thank you JPress and it is no problem. I actually just threw the launch party, it went very well.

Anyway your questions:

1. For initial (working only) prototypes that were sort of ugly I made myself. Which consisted of 2 pieces of industrial velcro stapled to 3 cut rubber bands, lol. Very crude.
Next stage I bought pieces of similar products and sewed them together.
Last, I contacted manufacturers who made similar products and asked for a quote+samples sent over.

2. Well with the manufacturers it was a ton of back and forth. I sent them dimensions, photos, sketches, asked for different fiber counts, higher/lower elasticity, different coloring, etc. There are more details then I would ever expect.

3. I bought bulk, no dropshipping because it is a custom product; you can only dropship generic stuff. I sent them to my Shipwire wharehouse for fufillment.

4. No pre presence, besides word of mouth+facebook. I will be attacking the forums of fashion now that it has launched. I may build a blog but honestly I'm a guy that knows nothing about fashion so until I get enough money to pay a VA for it, I cannot do that.

5. I might do one for NY, locally. But I have honestly not checked into it yet. Priority 1 is get into retail stores first then go for it.

6. I thought women may want this to be a more subtle product. But I may consider that in the future, right now the most popular product is black by far. Next color I will go into is a bright one like pink. But you have to understand every product that is added is a lot of work...new packaging, more seperate inventory, new barcode, higher investment, etc. Honestly I should have just launched with 1 product rather than 3... just black.

7. I actually didn't think of that. Thank you for the suggestion.

8. Well since I had like 1 prototype, and didn't feel like building a website because I thought people would steal the idea and it would cost me 1000s for a site (just a few months ago I was a paranoid about letting anyone see my idea and ridiculously nervous to try new stuff; lol I have changed a lot). So I first asked girls I knew, they loved it (but I knew they could have just been bullshitting me). So I went to a mall and tryed to fake sell my one sample to my market, once a customer pulled out their wallet it counted. And btw I could not use CPC because it is a low cost product.

And I will think of having a case study written up, but for now it is all just starting. I have 3 months till college, so 3 months to get this thing spewing out $, automated, national->international, and block knockoffs. This is gonna be insane.

[JPress]

Totally awesome man.

Let us know how it goes.

[Augvstus]

First of all, mad props for even taking action. I know you have a lot riding on it, but even if it does tank, try and consider it an investment in your education. All you really gotta do now is create the marketing systems that will sell your product and drive income to your site. Over time, the sales can only really go up.

As far as people stealing your idea, I know I was (and sometimes continue to be) scared of that as well. Logically I know that I can't not have anyone know about my products forever, but there has to come a time where someone has to see it. I would rather have that BEFORE I waste money on a service/product and its still in the testing phase. At least I know there's money to be made in it then. Even now someone can still steal my stuff, and it'll be a lot easier for them since they have mine to work with. Emotionally tho it is scary, as it kind of paralyzes us to take action.

You also have another thing going for you in that you appear to be the first in the market. I remember eban pagen, in one of his programs I forget which one, talking about how its better to be first (into the mind) then it is to be better.

I guess my main question would be, how much did it cost exactly to get that website up and running? I currently trying to have a website made on elance so maybe if you could talk about your experiences settling on pricing and picking and choosing a contractor to make/design it.

[Augvstus]

also, I forgot to mention, I am using chrome and the upper part of the website is screwed up to me.. I see Liquid error: interning empty string errors accross the upper page under the banner. Also, when I click on the facebook/twitter/youtube links, they aren't placed exactly on the buttons. So for instance when I clicked on twitter, it linked me to the youtube page etc.

[webcomber]

Congrats -

Shows a lot of courage to take action which tells me you will succeed no matter how this venture goes. I agree you have a lot of educational equity built up that you will take with you the rest of your life.

Awesome post and very inspirational.

WB

[bsiege]

Augvstus- Thanks, and that is my next step now major marketing and sales.

And I'm still a bit nervous about the product being out there but I need to commercialize it sometime. In the future I will definately do more testing first. But as far as I know from intense searching I am basically in fresh market territory.

Costs for site:
Monthly-
Shopify $30
SEO+Article Writing+Forum Marketing/Blogging- $250
Credit Card Processing- $30 (+.15 cents per transaction+ 2% of price or somthing, Authorize.net)
Fufillment- I use shipwire, depends on how much I ship

One Time-
Theme Purchase thru shopify (like a layout of your site)-$100
Web Designing- 15 hours of work, $150
Artistic Opinion/sketchup- Free (from friend)
Photography+modeling-Free (amateur family photographer)
Content Writing- $60


For evaluating the workers I definately look at reviews and price obviously, keep in mind where they are from because of the time zones. When I had a job over the summer I specifically worked with people in different time zones to compensate. For choosing price, if I was not familiar with the work I would do an hourly contract.

Now since I sometimes could not tell if a contractor was good I would ask friends or family that did for opinions...for example I cannot tell if good from bad writing so I asked my friend who was a writer in my target market for an opinion (well I got a few opinions). Generally, new products are seen as amazing things to most people, and many will want to help.

Thanks for letting me know about those errors I will get my designer on those problems.

Good luck with your venture.

webcomber- Thanks, and that was one of my goals an educational experience (I also would like to make some $$$ too).

And it has definately been interesting not just on the technical side either. When I first told my parents, family, friends. I was considering taking a leave of absence everyone told me I was insane, throwing my life away, not paying my dues, etc. But it is funny, just like Tim said; once you make the decision people begin to accept it. Sure enough a few weeks later, and those say people are saying how smart I am, they are proud, etc. It is really weird, and it definately makes you view people and everything differently.


Anyway, best of luck to everyone. And honestly the best thing is just to go for it, make mistakes and learn along the way.

[emmy429]

I see this a great infomercial product. I think it would do really well, kind of like those silly pajama jeans that you now see in all the drug stores. A simple idea with good marketing can go far.

[Augvstus]

Interesting, thanks for the info.

How is the SEO+Article Writing+Forum Marketing/Blogging working out for you in terms of generating traffic? I don't know too much about that area, so I've always regarded it as voodoo in that there's no way to measure if the work that someones doing is actually helping you or not. I'm probably mistaken of course.

[JPress]

How did you choose Shopify over Big Cartel or any of the other turnkey e-store solutions? or even going custom.

I'd like to do a Magento e-store, but aside from 1 page check out, I couldn't really think of any benefits of doing it that way.

[bsiege]

Jpress-

This may be a dissapointing answer but I actually did not really know about those other end to end solutions. Also, I needed an end to end solution because I absolutely hate programming, it is really a horrible thing.

Also, sorry to be a diehard 4 hr wk wk fan but Tim is hosting a build a business a biz competition, grand prize 100 grand+trip to NYC to meet Tim (to bad I live on Long Island, lol). So I figured, 1st business, inspired by his book I might as well try to meet him.

Augvstus-

I just launched the site a week ago so I have a few plans:
SEO+Article Writing= outsourced to guy I know
Forum Marketing/Blogging=outsourced to BPOVIA, I am going to have them do a idea I had, if there is no question pertaining to my product on a related blog, they create 2 accounts, 1st account answers question, 2nd one pretends to be a consumer reviewing the product
It is always better to seem like you are educating buyers rather than selling to em.
I will randomly spot check them, if they are lying I will consider firing them "What's inspected is respected", quote from ultimate sales machine, great book.

emmy429-

I applyed to QVC+HSN, it takes 4-6 weeks for response so it will be a bit.

[Johngault]

Thanks for sharing so much about your experience so far. I'm rooting for you!

I hope you don't mind if I ask a few questions. How did you find your manufacture and do you have any tips? Also, if you don't mind sharing, what is your gross profit margine per unit? I'm trying to decide what I should target.

Great product and best of luck!

[Bradinator]

Best of luck to you!

Its always great to see new physical products being created. To me, they are much more interesting than the information products that are commonly pimped by aspiring 4HWWers.

[Bradinator]

And I agree that this could be a good infomercial product. I guess thats what you are going for with QVC and HSN?

[bsiege]

Bradinator-Ya I'm shooting for an infomertial type deal. But I will see, it usually takes HSN, QVC, etc 4-6 weeks for responses.

And I agree, I mean don't get me wrong info products are great because setup is easy+cheap and you can still make a lot of $$$ to set up. But to me I feel like I am scamming people, unless the info product is truly revolutinary. Otherwise it is just another how to get girls website or whatever. But everyone has their own way of getting to the 4 hour work week.

Johngault- For manufacturing I used alibaba, I contacted related manufacturers.
1. Asked for quote+info on the job based on my product description
2. Checked the legitimacy of manufacturers
3. Order Samples
4. Choose my manufacturer

My tips:
-make sure they have decent capacity so that if your business grows you can met demand
-make sure all your legalities are in check (warnings, TM, etc)
-even if you want just online retail, plan for in store retail (which means packaging+UPC barcodes)
-manufacturing is not a area to be real cheap with, getting quality is very important in this area; I deal with them everyday, and I am reliant on them being timely
-don't forget about shipping, some manufacturers have connects for lower cost shipping so ask for door to door pricing


I can't discuss gross margin per unit, however I can say this. Tim was right, you should create a $20+ retail value product because you can be more creative (spend more) in advertising, packaging, etc. And if you sell to retail stores or whatever they will expect a 2.5-3x less discount.

[mosaiclimited]

I give you a ton of credit. I really think the product will do well for you.

* Do you think it would help to have a "Place Order" or similar button running across the top of your website? You have FAQ, Testimonials, About Us, etc, but no "order" option. You need to actively scroll down to see the order option.

A very minor point, but in the HOW TO section there is a line...
C UFF W RAP S TRAP
When text is usually presented like this and the first letter of each word is underlined, it indicates its part of an acronym - with I don't think CWS is. Am I maybe missing something?

Also, can you give a bit more context about your experience getting your samples and vendor interaction. Did you ever feel you were being scammed?, how was the language barrier? Was there a lot of negotiating back and fourth? Any other things in regards to the vendor selection you would do different if you had to do it again?

Lastly - how are sales now that the launch is official?

Thanks!!!!!

Mike

[bsiege]

@ mosaiclimited- Thanks for the input. I will try to make those changes, actually if this takes off I am hoping to have a 1 page sales page which is supposed to have great conversion rates.

But for now I will definately add a order tab.

And to be honest I'm in for about 5 grand, and that is what I assigned for this project (actually quite accurately). So now it has to sink or swim on its own $$$ or get investors.



Now for me dealing with manufacturers my experience was interesting. There was a lot of back and forth. It was very annoying dealing with completly opposite time zones (I'm in NY).

And it didn't help I knew nothing about textile manufacturing, so manufacturers probably thought I was an idiot. I would advise you to look into manufacturing techniques of your product before you contact manufacturers. For a simple product like mine there are tons of different stuff to consider: silk screen vs embroidering, velcro lengths, nylon vs. polyester, etc etc.

Scams- I was nervous because I had to do direct transfers (because it was not a large order). And even though everyone says don't use Western Union it is fine, not everyone using Western Union is scamming you. Best way to check is ask for references of US companies and call them up. I also googled alibaba anti scam guides or something like that. If you feel like it you can also order a factory inspection ($500-1000); I didn't but you can if you want to.

Their english was surprisingly good and everyone was very nice to deal with. For samples it varied widely, some gave free samples, others charged shipping, and some asked for the full cost.

Remember to see their door to door pricing, they can usually get good rates on freight fowarders for you. If you use a company like DHL or something get ready to pay big time for it because they force you to do express delivery unless you do ocean freight.

Other things to consider:
-look into their production capacity
-ask for quotes on low + high quantities (so you can see economies of scale)
-contact multiple manufacturers, half didn't respond, I then eliminated on price, expertise and sample quality

What I would have done differently was probably bargain a bit more aggressively. I would have also researched the manufacturing techniques for my product before too. Also, I would have started a bit earlier, manufacturing takes a long time and so does shipping, especially ocean freight (the cheapest). Lastly, use skype- email is great but if you are sending one email a day it will take you a months to figure stuff out. And it use the texting function, it can be hard to understand some of them via video chat since their speaking skills aren't always so great.



Current state of business-
Online Sales- $500 (probably 3/4 friends+family so doesn't really count,lol)
-problem is I can't do many forms of advertising since the product is so cheap
Retail- I just got a deal with a chain of 4 big stores, countertop display space; trial run; so if that is a hit I am set, if not I am in trouble

[pav]

bsiege, wow this is cool. Congrats on your efforts so far. I love your product and I've got my fingers crossed for you that it's a hit with the retail stores.

If you are in need of an Australian distributor let me know, I reckon they would sell like hot cakes here!!