Product Startup Podcast Episode 061: Five Sales Channels Used to Launch an Invention

00:00:00 Kevin Mako: Hello, product innovators. Today we learn from a successful inventor mom on what it takes to sell your product to the masses.

00:00:09 Narrator: You're listening to the product startup podcast, the show that helps bring your product idea to life by chatting with successful inventors, product developers,

00:00:21 Narrator: manufacturers, and hardware industry professionals. Our goal here is to get to the bottom of what makes a product successful. From initial idea to getting your product on store shelves, we're taking you step by step to build a

00:00:33 Narrator: functional product and scale your product business, hosted by Kevin Mako, one of North America's leading experts on hardware development for small product businesses. Now, onto the show.

00:00:46 Kevin Mako: Welcome back, everyone. I'm very excited to introduce Alison Brett to the show. Alison is the inventor and founder of Clasp Magic, a consumer product to help users putting on bracelets one-handed. Alison came up with the idea, got it developed, and then hit the

00:01:00 Kevin Mako: ground running by using five different sales channels to really make sure her product succeeded. We're going to explore what those channels were and how to win in them. Class Magic is now sold all over the world. Today's episode is about how that's done from the perspective of a home

00:01:14 Alison Brett: inventor, loving wife, and mother of four.

00:01:18 Kevin Mako: Alison, welcome to the show.

00:01:20 Kevin Mako: Thanks for having me, Kevin. You know, it's great to have you have you actually formally on the product startup podcast. First and foremost,

00:01:28 Alison Brett: I heard you kicked out the whole family to do this one. Yes, I do. did. Well, that's the day and age we're in right now with online learning at home and four children

00:01:36 Kevin Mako: and, you know, broadband that can't handle all these calls. You do it. You have to, right? Yeah, yeah, great. No, I appreciate it because you sound great and you're coming across excellent. So it's always

00:01:47 Kevin Mako: good for a podcast. I appreciate you taking the extra extra effort there. Although I think this day and age, people are a bit forgiving when they hear, you know, a baby crying in the background, a plane flying overhead and we're all doing these that even the biggest podcast in the world they're doing

00:02:02 Kevin Mako: them right out of their homes right yeah that's right I've even seen some people do it out of their closets big podcasters too in their closet because the clothing creates a nice little studio

00:02:13 Kevin Mako: effect so I'm very excited to talk today about um the booming success that you've had with class

00:02:22 Alison Brett: magic uh it's very exciting but first and foremost what is class magic how does it work What's the benefits? So Class Magic is a multi-patented device that helps women with independent bracelet attachment.

00:02:36 Alison Brett: So currently, before Class Magic came to the scene, what existed were what we call the loop-end attachment holders. So they would hold the loop-end of the bracelet, which would leave the women still struggling

00:02:47 Alison Brett: with one hand to manipulate the clasp to make the closure to attach their own bracelets. So Class Magic comes onto the scene and we approach it a different way. we actually secure the clasp in an open position. So that makes it really easy for the user.

00:03:02 Alison Brett: They just place the wrist, connect the loop end into that open clasp and release. So you've taken attachment that was a struggle,

00:03:09 Kevin Mako: a frustration, you know, asking for help or giving up altogether to a device that actually is the complete solution to wearing bracelets. Yeah, I love it. And, you know, I've known Alison for a long time.

00:03:21 Kevin Mako: Our firm actually developed the class magic product, which was a lot of fun. And it was a bit of a technical challenge, too, because really, when we looked at it, it was, well, how do you create, you know, a very small device that has the ability

00:03:36 Kevin Mako: to essentially put on a bracelet, one-handed, multiple different types of clasps? That's right. So it was a lot of fun working with you. Great project. We're very happy that, you know, you got into production and now into booming success.

00:03:48 Kevin Mako: The main topic that we're talking about today is how to sell your product once you're ready to go. I think we could do a whole other episode on development and all that sort of stuff. But today we're talking about sales, which is a huge interest to our listeners,

00:04:02 Kevin Mako: especially because those who are starting out, they always are asking the question, okay, so we go through design, development, engineering, prototyping, we get to production.

00:04:11 Kevin Mako: How do we sell? So you're a great example of someone who made it happen and made it happen with Class Magic.

00:04:19 Alison Brett: One product, it's your first product, right?

00:04:24 Alison Brett: And you are somebody who wasn't in the product field, but you had a great idea. Let's just talk quickly about that. Where did the idea come from? Because it's genius. Well, it was actually a really funny story.

00:04:36 Alison Brett: I just moved internationally to teach at an international school in Zurich, Switzerland. And I was living on my own, and I literally knew no one, but I was to attend a work event. And I thought, I really want to make a great first impression. I want to wear these two tiny.

00:04:50 Alison Brett: they were actually Tiffany and co tiny little class bracelets but I'm not going to sit here struggling on my own so I went early to the event and literally found a stranger and said can you help me put my

00:05:01 Kevin Mako: bracelets on and you know here I am an independent woman I've moved to a new country to start a job and I was like I've got that but I can't attach these bracelets so in that moment just feeling so

00:05:13 Kevin Mako: childish and silly almost like a child asking to have their shoelaces tied I the idea was formulated dead in there. Love it.

00:05:22 Kevin Mako: And it is a tough challenge that really everybody who's trying to put a bracelet on themselves would face. But what's really interesting about this project too is we get into the concept of mobility.

00:05:35 Kevin Mako: So think of those who have arthritis or movement issues or other issues that make it very difficult to put on a bracelet.

00:05:45 Kevin Mako: You know, you've really looked at a market like this and we're doing a tremendous amount of design these days. things that look at everyday objects, everyday interactions with our life around us and realize that

00:05:56 Alison Brett: there are some pain points. So you identified that pain point. And then you made the call, we got it developed,

00:06:02 Alison Brett: and off we go into selling. So there's two main approaches that you have to selling. Let's start with a personal side.

00:06:13 Alison Brett: Let's start there because that was very interesting. we were talking about it before the call.

00:06:18 Alison Brett: Yes. Oh, so when wearing the brand, and I'd say being your best cheerleader,

00:06:24 Alison Brett: I wear logoed material all the time. I have my children, have the sweatshirts. I've got even a pandemic mask with my class magic on it as well.

00:06:36 Alison Brett: And, you know, just putting yourself out there on as many platforms. I mean, I'm new to Instagram and YouTube and Facebook. and Pinterest. But you know, you really do have to put yourself out on all platforms. And I was

00:06:50 Kevin Mako: thinking a really funny thing I set up when I set up my desktop computer, which was my work at home office, just my screensaver, no sensitive information being released here. So my children couldn't

00:07:03 Kevin Mako: come in and log on. I set my password as, you know, class magic is number one. So all these little things play into your daily life and how to become the brand and be your best cheerleader. Be your best cheerleader.

00:07:16 Kevin Mako: That's a big one. And I watched all of this unfold over the years. I watched you putting up the Instagram and I started to follow you on there. And then you're doing the

00:07:24 Kevin Mako: Facebook posts. And you were really doing it everywhere. You were pushing it as part of your lifestyle.

00:07:32 Kevin Mako: This was your big invention. And obviously, you were quite proud of it. Obviously, you'd come quite far in the development process. So it was really a beautiful thing to see somebody showing the passion pretty much on a day.

00:07:46 Alison Brett: basis on how to do all those things, even though you weren't comfortable with them or you're learning them, you still went out and really pushed at them. It brings me to that story, which

00:07:56 Alison Brett: which gets into the other side of the thing is what haven't used, did you actually use to sell specifically and how did those work? And the story that's so interesting to me is how you actually

00:08:06 Alison Brett: brought a couple of the class magic units into your suitcase onto a cruise ship just in case you happen to meet somebody along the way? Well, right now, Class Magic is primarily sold through e-commerce.

00:08:20 Alison Brett: So we have a Shopify website. We are also just launched on Etsy, and we also have wholesale and, yeah, distribution. And we were actually working,

00:08:32 Alison Brett: selling as vendors at trade shows before the pandemic hit. But sometimes they now have online catalogs, so we've been participating in those. But as to your story, yes,

00:08:41 Alison Brett: my husband and I actually was a work cruise he'd won a year ago and so we were off we went

00:08:48 Alison Brett: and we took our gear and class magic units and we had a stop at the Grand Cayman and we just a day trip and we took some class magics in our backpack and as we were walking back to the cruise ship

00:09:03 Alison Brett: I love walking by the stores I guess on the beachfront and we happened upon the sweetest little store the handmade came in collective and the woman there she had just opened her store and she was

00:09:16 Kevin Mako: selling mostly local artisan work and all handmade but you know she's she sells lots of class bracelets as well and she's like she loved the product and so we've just actually placed a nice

00:09:28 Kevin Mako: reorder there and hoping as the cruise ships get up and running again that there's many more reorders to come so you just never know you do really have to have it on hand because when you don't or someone

00:09:39 Alison Brett: asks you, you want to have it if you can take it if it's small enough because demonstrating your product is nothing like handing a business card or talking about it. You really need to show it.

00:09:50 Alison Brett: And you've, so you've tried, so first of all, you're being your brand yourself. And

00:09:55 Alison Brett: and then second of all, you're trying many different avenues in order to see what works. So let's unpack those a bit.

00:10:05 Alison Brett: Online sales.

00:10:06 Alison Brett: What are you doing for online sales? What do you have you tried?

00:10:10 Alison Brett: So initially we're setting up our Shopify store. And, you know, that can be quite overwhelming because, you know, you're on this big platform and you think, okay, here, I've built this website. Everyone's going to come. Well, that doesn't necessarily happen quite like that.

00:10:25 Alison Brett: You have to bring them to you. So actually, most recently, we've started, we have a contractor who's working and we're building some Facebook ads. And that's a learning process. You know, you have to

00:10:37 Alison Brett: find where your market is and how to target them and you know it's an ongoing process but it's a system that becomes intelligent as you use it and you can create look-like audiences and whatnot so you can

00:10:50 Alison Brett: really grow and then if you find what works in one country you can take that and move it to

00:10:56 Kevin Mako: another country as well as long as the shipping of course is great but yeah you just keep keep trying and bringing them in and i've recently opened up on Etsy as a designer and they run their own ad system.

00:11:10 Kevin Mako: So it's been really interesting. I actually listened to a little podcast before I set up on how the Etsy ads work.

00:11:17 Alison Brett: And you just set your own budget. And they've got a system designed to drive sales and find what works and then play on to what works to bring to more traffic. So we're starting to get some sales on that platform as well.

00:11:30 Alison Brett: So for somebody who's never started with online selling, you never had any experience before. So for our listeners out that I have no experience too,

00:11:41 Alison Brett: it is all doable. You built this yourself, right? The Etsy account, the Shopify platform, your website, et cetera. And it's very good to be in the driver's seat, even when it comes down to fulfilling

00:11:56 Kevin Mako: your first round of product as well, you know, to be in charge and see where the issues are and how can I fix them? You can later hire more staff,

00:12:09 Kevin Mako: but if you don't know how to direct them and what works, you need to know that. You need to know that yourself. And so setting it up, actually, it made it. It was really, really great to see how I built my shop with why.

00:12:20 Alison Brett: And then you keep changing and you keep adapting.

00:12:22 Kevin Mako: You add new media and whatnot. So, yeah, it's been a great learning experience. And yeah, when it's your own business, the truth is nobody loves your business like you do. So you just, you know, one thing a day.

00:12:36 Alison Brett: Yeah, and you keep pushing that. It's amazing, you know, all those things that any one of them independently don't seem overly complicated, but you start pushing them every day. You do all these things together and all of a sudden, you know, magic starts to happen.

00:12:51 Alison Brett: One of those things that I find very fascinating about your story is that you also did a very successful launch on crowdfunding, right? Right. Kickstarter, yes. Yeah, so you did your Kickstarter campaign,

00:13:06 Alison Brett: and that got some pre-sales in. But then through promoting your own brand and trying many platforms, talk to us about what started to happen internationally. Yeah, so it was right around the time when the pandemic was hitting.

00:13:20 Alison Brett: I was told, you know, my children would be at home with me, and that was a little bit hard to take. I was wondering, how is I going to keep the business going when my children are with me 24-7?

00:13:30 Alison Brett: But at that time, I was approached by a woman who owns a company and she says, you know, we're really interested in your product and can you send some samples? So we

00:13:41 Kevin Mako: sent some samples. And over the next six months, there was a lot of communication and she owns her own jewelry store as well. So she's also another female entrepreneur.

00:13:52 Kevin Mako: And she wants, she now has exclusive distribution rights open for renewal. And she's decided to launch. pre-sale crowdfunding on the Campfire platform over in Japan.

00:14:05 Kevin Mako: And that, she set a small goal, but it was hit within 30 minutes, and it succeeded that gold. And it's over now 400% funded. It ends in a couple days.

00:14:16 Alison Brett: So we'll be packing up our first shipment, which is super exciting to head over to Japan. And hopefully, there'll be many, many more.

00:14:24 Alison Brett: That's great. So now you're selling direct to stores now, also direct to stores, internationally. You've done now two successful crowdfunding campaigns, one in North America and now one in Japan, which, by the way, I saw the link to that.

00:14:39 Alison Brett: One of our project managers shot it over and said, you wouldn't believe the crowdfunding campaign. Alison said, I couldn't

00:14:45 Kevin Mako: read a thing on it. It's wild. It's full of information, but I could see the status bar and it had like blown way past 100%. And I said, well, I don't know exactly what's going on here, but it looks

00:14:57 Kevin Mako: great. So that was very exciting to see. That's the first time that's ever happened to one of our clients. It is. And you know, even more, well, that is, I mean, it blows my mind every time I think about it. And to see the fact, you know, they've got a class magic Japan. So social media accounts

00:15:11 Kevin Mako: being built. So to see someone want to take that your product on and sell it and represent it, I mean, it's still a pinch me moment to be honest. So it's very, very exciting. I'm very, we're very

00:15:25 Kevin Mako: proud and we really we love working with them and the communication is great and we hope for a long partnership. Wow, that's great. And all of this back to those two things, right? You really

00:15:36 Kevin Mako: represented your brand and you pushed it out there to many different avenues. Something that really resonates with me that, of course, is the beauty about not only building your own product,

00:15:46 Kevin Mako: but also running your own product business is that you are in the driver's seat. And I love

00:15:52 Alison Brett: how you use those words because it's allowed you to really understand both the development side, the manufacturing side, and front-facing on the sales and distribution side.

00:16:04 Alison Brett: It's very interesting how you got to really understand the metrics behind these different online platforms. And they are different, right? Shopify is different than Etsy. And even that's different to direct-to-consumer. Of course, it's different than crowdfunding.

00:16:17 Kevin Mako: You've built all of those campaigns and have been successful with all of them, but really understanding them first as you've developed them so that as you scale,

00:16:26 Kevin Mako: you'll be able to, as you said, you'll be able to hire staff and delegate those roles down. But at least you know from the customer, from the producer, all the way through the manufacturer, for your very own idea that you created

00:16:37 Alison Brett: from scratch, you understand the process end to end. And that's exactly right. And as you mentioned, when you do hire staff, you need to make sure that you're diversifying your skills. I know what I'm

00:16:48 Alison Brett: good at and I know exactly heading moving and growing where I need to hire help and where I'm not my skills are not best met. So that's really important. And you do only learn that when you've taken it on and you are in the driver's seat.

00:17:04 Alison Brett: And as a result, I mean, I've seen your reviews as a testament online. People love class magic. Like really deeply, they engage with not only the product, but with the brand. I see the comments on social media. Like people are really,

00:17:18 Alison Brett: coming around to the cause that you've created with this one product.

00:17:25 Kevin Mako: Well, and I think it probably comes from the fact that before all this, before I took on this endeavor, I was a primary school teacher. So I genuinely have a big heart. And I started because if I was struggling,

00:17:39 Alison Brett: I knew other women would be too. And I remember at the end of my last trade show, the very last customer I had, she turned to me and she said, you know, thank you so much for building and designing a product to help people.

00:17:52 Alison Brett: And, you know, it was right there from the very beginning, but, you know, she really helped me see that, yes, this product is designed to help and to make life easier. And, you know, women,

00:18:03 Kevin Mako: especially when we're mothers, we take on so much. We have so much to tackle every day. You know, we just want everyone to get those bracelets that everyone loves back on your wrist in seconds with, you know, reliable help. We don't want any struggle and frustration.

00:18:17 Kevin Mako: there. Well, I must say, you've done incredibly well. Big congratulations on all your success, all the different endeavors as well. You might as well use this opportunity for anyone who's actually interested in buying a class magic. Where do they go? Where do they get it?

00:18:31 Kevin Mako: Well, it's straight to my website, and it's just classmagic.com. We're actually offering a great Valentine's promotion, so free gift wrapping. And of course, we can send it to anyone as a

00:18:43 Kevin Mako: perfect gift. It's not the time right now to necessarily shop. And I know a lot of shops are closed. So we have safe online shopping. We'll gift wrap it and send it off to anyone. Well, we certainly love them around the office. We've given a few away as well.

00:18:57 Kevin Mako: So, Alison, very much appreciated for you taking the time to be on the show and share your wisdom for aspiring product entrepreneurs on how they can succeed with their ideas as well. Thank you for being on the show. Thanks for having me, Kevin. Take care. Bye-bye.

00:19:09 Narrator: Thanks for tuning in to this episode of the Product Startup Podcast, the show that teaches you what it really takes to bring your product to market and turn it into a big success. This podcast

00:19:21 Narrator: series is brought to you by Mako Design + Invent, the original and leading firm in North America to provide global caliber in-to-in physical consumer product development to

00:19:32 Narrator: startups, inventors, and small product business clients. If you're looking for product development help on your invention, head over to Mako-design.com. That's m-a-k-o-design.com. For a

00:19:45 Narrator: consultation from one of Mako Design's Ford Design Studios from coast to coast. Thanks for listening and see you next time.