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Guest: Terry Lin, founder of Forever Home Blankets.
Host: Kevin Mako, founder of Product Startup and the leading expert in hardware startup consulting. A hardware entrepreneur since 1999, Kevin has advised more than 1,500 founders and built and scaled MAKO Invent through its acquisition by TriMech in 2024.
Building a Product Business Around a Cause
Terry Lin shares how volunteering at an animal rescue inspired Forever Home Blankets and a social-enterprise model customers could support. He discusses using Instagram and Kickstarter, finding manufacturers, negotiating smaller orders, and selling the deeper outcome behind the physical product.
Episode transcript
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Filip Valica: Hey, everyone. Welcome to the product startup podcast, podcast that helps bring your product idea to life by chatting with successful inventors, product designers, and other industry professionals. This podcast is run by Mako
Filip Valica: Design + Invent and hosted by Filip Valica. Our goal here is to get to the bottom of what makes a product successful, from initial idea to putting your product on the shelf. We're taking you step by step to build a functional product and scale your product business. Now onto the show.
Filip Valica: When I started this project was that, you know, my most, the important thing I'm telling is not blankets. And the sense that more than the customer wants to feel like they're helping a shelter handle. That's really what I'm giving them an opportunity, not really to buy a blanket on like a deep level too.
Filip Valica: The Product Startup, episode 24. Welcome to the Product Startup Podcast, helping you turn ideas into successful products step by step with your host,
Filip Valica: Filip Valica. Hi, everyone, and welcome to the Product Startup Podcast. In the last episode, we talked with Tamar Lucien, one of the founders of Mental Happy, Mental Happy is a service that sends a personalized cheerbox with an assortment of tools,
Filip Valica: treats, handmade crafts, and a personalized note curated for the recipient to help them feel better. So if you haven't heard that episode yet, make sure to check out episode 23.
Filip Valica: So before we get started, I wanted to highlight one reviewer on iTunes. CCY Pgnotic wrote, This is a truly interesting podcast that gets great guests that actually contribute to the topic at hand.
Filip Valica: Philip does a great job not only hosting by getting genuinely useful information from the guests and contributing his vast knowledge as well. You should definitely be listening. Hey, thanks again for leaving a comment on iTunes.
Filip Valica: Seriously appreciate everyone that writes in and sends me notes and your feedback. I hope that you notice that I use it every week to make the show better. For example, you might have noticed this week the volume on the show is a bit louder,
Filip Valica: and that's based on just a listener's comment saying that the volume of the podcast, was considerably lower than some of the other podcasts in the genre. So thanks again, everybody, for writing in. Now on to today's episode. So today I'm joined by Terry Lynn.
Filip Valica: He's the founder of Forever Home Blankets. The company sells high-quality blankets for people to use at home, the office, or on the road. And for every blanket that he sells, one is donated to an animal shelter in need.
Filip Valica: Terry raised $3,500 on Kickstarter to get the first batch of inventory in Vietnam. And today we talk about how he set up his company and went through the whole process. So let's get started. Hi, Terry, thanks for coming on the show today. Hey, thanks for having me. So you have a really interesting story.
Filip Valica: You're the founder of Forever Home Blankets, and it's kind of a similar model to Tom Shoes.
Terry Lin: So for every blanket, a customer buys, you donate a blanket to a homeless animal in need. Can you talk a little bit about how you got started with that?
Terry Lin: Sure. So this whole thing started in 2015. The idea didn't really come to reality until earlier this year. So in 2015,
Terry Lin: I've been kind of doing my own business for about one or two years. Things were doing okay, but weren't that great. And so I started volunteering on an animal rescue just to kind
Terry Lin: of get my head off the business and have some kind of recreational time that fulfilled me inside. And so after a year of volunteering, I realized that, you know what, maybe there's something we could do with this. Because, you know, I feel like a lot of things, like when you start on the internet, maybe you try to chase money,
Terry Lin: you try to chase what your friends say. And in the end, like, if you don't do something that makes you happy and that you also find fulfilling, I think it's just difficult to really play like a long ball game doing that too. So, you know, Animal Rescue is something I really care about.
Terry Lin: And so the idea came about when I was looking at items to donate, right? And so you Google anything online, you'll see like top 10 list to donate to animal shelters. And so I live in Vietnam here where Textiles is a really big industry.
Terry Lin: And so on the list, we're always like blankets, comfort items, because a lot of these animals, especially dogs, when they're dropped off at a shelter, these shelters have no budgets. They only have a concrete floor.
Terry Lin: So I don't know where you live, but imagine you're in New York, Boston during the winter sleeping on the concrete, like how much that sucks, right? And so especially for animals like these that already have some behavioral issues,
Terry Lin: you know, when they don't get enough sleep, they don't get enough rest, they can't be themselves. And basically, in some ways, it indirectly helps their adoptability, too, because when they can't. can relax.
Terry Lin: Potential adopters can see what they're actually like around other dogs, around people,
Filip Valica: and then the chances for them to get out of the shelter is a lot higher, too. And it can keep them from getting euthanized, kind of in a long ball way. That's really amazing. Not only that you're doing that for something outside of your business and you've got this
Filip Valica: nonprofit angle to it and helping out dogs, I've got dogs myself, so I could definitely relate. Yeah. Both the dogs that we've adopted came from shelters and night, so I totally understand where you're coming from. And you touched on something that we haven't really hit on.
Filip Valica: And now here on the show, I think, this concept of doing something that fulfills you in ways that maybe money can't. I've thought about that a lot more recently. You can get into the habit of doing things that are financially the right decision, but
Filip Valica: you haven't taken the time to sit down to think that, what completes you in other ways, what help fuels you? Because we haven't really discussed this that much in detail, can you kind of get into that
Terry Lin: a little bit more to say how you came across that idea, or was it just something that, you You jumped out of bed one morning and said, hey, I need to do this. Yeah, sure. So it all started probably in 2011.
Terry Lin: Back before this whole journey, I used to work at a bank on a trading floor. And basically my day would start at, I'd wake up at like six, get in the office by 6. And then you leave home like at 7 or 8, right? And so basically what you do is you just sit down on a trading floor all day.
Terry Lin: You're looking at numbers, looking at spreadsheets, and then you just collect money in your bank account. But you're not really adding any value to the world in the sense that like, you know, beyond just pushing papers, right? And so I eventually left that space and started kind of doing my own things, right?
Terry Lin: And I tried, you know, a couple of things here and there. Because, like, when I first started, it was kind of in the internet marketing space where, like, you kind of follow bloggers, listening to what they do. And you kind of just follow the train. You don't really know what you're doing. And it wasn't until, like, a year or two, and I was like, what am I doing?
Terry Lin: Like, why would I want to build something that, you know, is just either, A, another job or be something that doesn't fulfill me because that's the whole point why I left being a banker too, right? So I think there's a guy. I think, you know, Gary Vaynerchuk. He had a video actually just came out this week. That was really good.
Terry Lin: I think he was saying, like, you know, the niches that you're interested in now go wide and deep. And because you can reach everyone on the internet, you know, if you work on something that you enjoy, you'll naturally work harder, which becomes a variable of success.
Terry Lin: And because, you know, you're working on your free time, you know, you're doing it. You're always thinking about it, you know, it gives you an advantage in some ways, too. And that's how you end up making money in the end, too. And so, you know, this is still an early thing for me, but I feel like, you know, I go on the shelter walks every morning.
Terry Lin: from like 8.30 to like 10 and it's fun. I enjoy it. And then, you know, I get to meet people
Filip Valica: in the space and I can talk about what I do. And I feel like there's a lot of, you know, congruence with kind of my personal lifestyle and the business side. So, you know, this is kind of something I'm looking forward to to kind of keep building for the next year or two also.
Filip Valica: That's a great story. And I really appreciate you sharing that. It's home for me. Yeah. Recently laid off working for oil and gas about a month ago. And until now, I've always chose the right thing to do, quote, you know, the right thing for the family, the right thing for
Filip Valica: myself from a financial perspective and now that I have some free time because you know we've got some savings I can kind of take a step back I'm definitely doing some of that soul searching to say okay
Terry Lin: what do I really want to focus on so one of those things is obviously the product startup but exactly but what you know what are there some of those others and so that that's very interesting it's it's a good talking to somebody that kind of lives that now yeah I think one thing to add is
Terry Lin: that I guess like there's a lot of people that say oh if you follow your passion like you shouldn't you should or shouldn't do it but I think that within that's space, like,
Terry Lin: you should look at it, but you should also find some way to add value in a unique angle, right? So it's like the blanket side is like, yeah, it's a business, but it's not really about selling blankets. It's about, you know, helping shelter animals that are freezing at
Terry Lin: night to stay warm, right? So I think like, you know, when you think about your passions, how does it align with the business proposition that kind of solves a problem or, you know, provides entertainment for someone in like a real tangible way that you can keep building it to?
Terry Lin: Because I think a lot of like internet stuff, I guess like, you know, maybe this product side, there's kind of like internet market side where like people become like life coaches is kind of like really kind of like cheesy in some ways too sure it's like sometimes I hear this
Terry Lin: I just like want to cringe when I hear like people say they're a life coach and so I think a lot of it has to be like I think like Gary says how well do you know yourself and you know how well do you know who you wish you should be and like knowing that gap is kind of kind of you know helping you guide
Terry Lin: your direction as the compass where you should go in life too so and the thing is like you know we could talk about it here but I think everyone has to figure out on their own Like, I can say this is my story, but, you know, what I do may or may not be the right thing for someone else to do, too.
Filip Valica: And that comes down to, like, self-awareness that he's been hitting on the past year or two.
Terry Lin: That I really started to kind of take awareness up, too, because, like, I realized that, you know what, I enjoy hanging out with animals, shelter animals since I was a kid. And, you know, might as well keep doing this as a living. All very good points, very good messages. Why do you think the next step was blankets?
Terry Lin: Yeah, so the first business I started actually about two years ago was actually men's wallets. Okay. So I had five models. And I guess like the marketing and the branding wasn't that well thought out. It was like my first business. And I kind of like closed shop on it last year.
Terry Lin: And so the lessons from that I learned was that, you know, having a simpler product, especially if you're not a designer or you're just kind of getting your feet wet on this, like usually makes things easier. So usually like blankets, you know, it's a simple textiles.
Terry Lin: You have a certain dimension and sewing. And once you pick the fabric type, you have different colors. And it's fairly easy to get off the ground versus, like, say, if you want your own, you know, plastic case for GoPro,
Terry Lin: where you need, like, injection molding and, like, all this prototyping stuff to get off the ground, too.
Filip Valica: So basically just, you know, for me,
Filip Valica: it was something that shelter animals needed and kind of just easy to get off the ground. So it's kind of like a, you know, kind of win-win, I guess, to start out, too. And in Vietnam, a lot of textiles are made here. So that was just kind of a perfect scenario to start making that here, too. Great.
Terry Lin: Yeah, and we'll probably get into some of that detail in a little bit. So when you thought about your blanket, did you just go about it to say, hey, this is the business model that I want? I want to be able to give away one blanket for every blanket sold, and that kind of drove some of the decisions that you had. A little bit.
Terry Lin: Yeah, I actually read the book by Blake McCowski, the founder of Thoms. I think it's called Start Something That Matters. And at first I thought, well, it's kind of cheesy. Like, I'm just copying Tom's in some ways.
Filip Valica: But then I'm like, well, you know, this is something I really care about. And maybe it's just my own self-doubt that's kind of making me feel that way, too.
Terry Lin: So I think that it goes back to what I said earlier. Are you making something that you can really enjoy and be proud of, too? And I think this is a yes for me right now. I just got to get past some of the mental stuff as I keep building this too.
Terry Lin: That's just one of those ongoing struggles that everyone that's starting a business has, I imagine. Yeah.
Filip Valica: And I think the thing is like there's a charity angle where we're helping animals.
Terry Lin: Like, is it right to make money off? I almost feel like sometimes like guilty thinking that. But this whole thing is only like five months old. So it's still like kind of a way, you know, thing in the word. as we go along.
Terry Lin: Well, so tell me what came first, the Kickstarter or you starting to produce blankets. So the first thing I actually came first was just an Instagram account, just getting people to sign up for the mailing list.
Terry Lin: So basically, I started posting animal photos on Instagram, either some that I took at the shelter myself or kind of reposting other people and giving them credit. Just to kind of see what,
Terry Lin: to test my Instagram bio, to see what kind of the responses from the market. And so from there, I started this probably like in February of 2016. And the Kickstarter didn't launch until June. So basically with the first four months, I was just collecting emails.
Terry Lin: And then the email list probably was around 500, 600 by the time we launched. And then because what happened was with the first business I started, I made the products first. I got like the packaging, the shipping. You know, I shipped all the freight to the U.S. And then I started
Terry Lin: the marketing. And that's probably like the wrong way to start just because, you know, unless you have deep pockets and you can kind of sustain that first year to really push things through. But otherwise, it's just, you know, the work is to get the customer either way. So you might as well do what you can up front, whether that's getting, you know, pre-orders,
Terry Lin: email subscriptions that you can contact them with and just to test the ideas with them to see what the response is to, right? So what I did was after I had an Instagram account, you know, I found suppliers here, got one or two samples and just took a bunch of photos with those just to see, like, you know, were people commenting out, what were they liking?
Terry Lin: And I noticed that the signs were that, I got these emails. are like, hey, thank you for what you're doing. You know, I also volunteer at a shelter and I totally know what you're going through. Like, these animals totally need this. And those are like the early signals that I knew this thing probably had a little bit of legs.
Terry Lin: And whereas like the business before I started was like it was kind of like crickets for the first few months too.
Filip Valica: So I think the key is that like if you're designing your own product, like if you can get your prototypes out there, whether it's designs like, you know, on paper on a photo. Like you can just get some market signals to see what's coming back. And, hey, you know, to see if you're even targeting the right people.
Terry Lin: and B, what are they saying and see, you know, how can you iterate from there too, right? All very good point. And I've actually gone through the same thing with the product startup and a couple of businesses I used to work for where you're probably targeting the wrong audience because if you're getting, like
Terry Lin: you said, if you're getting crickets back, if you're not hearing anything back from your target market, then one or two things need to change either your product or your audience. Yeah, exactly.
Terry Lin: Like right now, like I know my market is like mostly women that are 30 to 45 that, you know, have a pet or do volunteer with themselves. I'm just trying to figure out what's the most efficient way to get to them, you know, as the next step.
Filip Valica: Because I know that from the emails I've gotten, you know, I take the emails, I run them through Facebook. I kind of stock them all of it just to see like what they're like because I guess those are like kind of your early adopters.
Filip Valica: And you want to see, you know, if there's any correlations with that with the first 10 people versus the next 20 people and what kind of the terminologies they're using when they're describing your product or what you do and then kind of regurgitate that as your future marketing copy too.
Filip Valica: Yeah, very good points.
Terry Lin: before we get ahead of ourselves, because I do definitely want to talk about marketing some, I wanted to kind of go through the process of you creating this blanket and selling it. So you created this prototype and you tested it through your Instagram accounts and your email list and it helped validate.
Terry Lin: Did you make any decisions on the design or how the blanket functioned during this time? Yeah. Well, I want to say Instagram validated it because I don't think anything is really validated until people are willing to pay for it in some ways. And so, like, to get to that stage, you can either do like a pre-order.
Terry Lin: family and friends or just try Kickstarter which is what I did too and so when I went in the Kickstarter I was like all right you know if I don't hit this goal of a thousand dollars just super low like really really low like then it's probably not worth doing because if you can't even
Terry Lin: raise a thousand dollars like why would I just keep you know doing this sure and I probably would have thought of something else too right so but I guess like if you're doing different products like electronics the curve to get to that point is a lot different so I think when it comes
Terry Lin: to like your product design and everything like blankets is really really easy right like there's pretty much standard sizes in the industry there's like throw size twin size king size
Filip Valica: queen size you know kind of maybe like you know 10 maximum right whereas like you look at like a coffee mug or you know even like a computer mouse you have like all these dozens and hundreds of different designs too so you know luckily like blanket that shows was relatively simple and I guess
Terry Lin: it was kind of by decision so that you know I didn't have to spend that much time on product just because it's kind of simple in its own ways and it's really about the story and spreading that message too I think in my particular case and then did you
Terry Lin: Do you have to go through any research into what type of blanket people want, like in the material that they're looking for or colors or washability or anything like that? Yeah, so the big point that I looked at was kind of like airline blankets, because you know
Terry Lin: how airplanes always give you blankets that are kind of throw – they're pretty much throw size, which is basically 50 by 60 inches. So this is a blanket that you can use on the couch. You know, if you're going camping, you're in the car at night. You know, it's cold, but it's big enough that it can keep you warm, but it's not like
Terry Lin: a bed blanket that's kind of hard to lug around.
Terry Lin: everywhere you go to. And so the material I chose was fleece, in particular, that wool just isn't really good material. And I think like some of the kind of animal, you know, welfare people
Terry Lin: are vegans and they don't like having wool. So fleece is kind of just all polyester. It's easy to wash. It's really light. And so it's easy to cut too. That was what one thing a shelter told me.
Terry Lin: Because before I started this, I actually emailed like 20 or 30 shelters, be like, hey, do you guys actually need blankets?
Terry Lin: What do you guys need the most in terms of supplies? And so they're like, yeah, definitely. And so one of them said, because fleece is easy to cut, whereas like, say,
Filip Valica: some thicker material with stuffing in it, you know, animal could tear up, they could get all the sea.
Terry Lin: Yeah, exactly. Fleece is really simple. They can cut it up for like smaller dogs or cats. Whereas like, you know, something 50 by 60 inches, you know, not every dog or cat needs something that big. So it's kind of cool how, you know, even if we give one blanket, it could help two or three or four or five, depending on.
Terry Lin: you know, the animal that could use it too.
Terry Lin: Very good tips. Good idea actually emailing all the shelters to getting their perspective because someone could just assume to say, hey, I'm giving away all this product, they'd be happy with whatever that I'm sending their way. Exactly.
Terry Lin: And it was kind of an early way to reach out to kind of build some partnerships that like,
Filip Valica: hey, you know, I'm launching this new thing. It's still very new. But down the line, would you be willing to help share it on your social? And then, you know, every sale we get, you know, if your customer enters the notes, we can, you know, direct these to you too.
Terry Lin: So in some ways, like, you know, I'm thinking about like setting up some referral program in some ways where like, you know, if they can help promote it, we can track what they're bringing in and just they have a very transparent way of benefiting from it too. Kind of like a win-win type of scenario.
Terry Lin: Yeah, so that's really interesting. If you can get people from the nonprofit to link back to your site, then you can get, give them credit for the sale and maybe they're the ones that get the blanket for the sale. Exactly, yeah.
Filip Valica: So like, say like you partner with 10 shelters, you know, each of them brings in 20 orders, like you'll know which shall, because then they'll directly benefit from promoting this, which is what I'm trying to kind of figure out too. But like the logistics of setting that
Terry Lin: up is still probably like a ways away because I'm still in the first production run and all that stuff. So I don't want to get too ahead of myself. But I'm trying to think about ways to like grow this faster as the year progresses. So on the back of my mind. I guess a really
Terry Lin: low tech way of doing that would just look at your analytics and see who your refers are. And then you could say X percent is coming from this nonprofit. And so I can donate X percent on my blankets to this nonprofit. And it won't be a one for one type relationship, but at least
Terry Lin: you'll have the rough ballpark. Exactly. Yeah. And for those that are like having websites, I think like some shopping cards have like referral programs that have like links where you can
Filip Valica: track more directly into the card. But I think, I think the technology is there is just figuring out how to execute it in a right way that actually makes sense. Because one thing is that, you know,
Filip Valica: if I have 10 shelters that sell one blanket a month, mailing them one blanket is actually kind and not efficient just because I have to pay shipping 10 times versus, you know, one shelter that brings 10 blankets, I ship them one package that's kind of more efficient that way to. So I'm trying
Terry Lin: to figure out like, you know, where's the balance there and having that makes sense. Maybe something like what Amazon does when it, if you're selling a product on Amazon, they'll hold your payment until a certain date or until they have a certain amount of money in your account. Yeah, exactly.
Terry Lin: No, interesting. Let's talk about the process of throwing up a Kickstarter. You mentioned that you threw up something with a relatively low goal and it got funded pretty quickly. Can you talk about the process of just starting one and publicizing it and, you know, any tips for people
Terry Lin: that are looking to do the same? Yeah, sure. So before this one, I actually had a failed one. I tried to do the year before for like laptop cases because I was doing wallets and I tried to do laptop cases. And my goal was like way too high. And I didn't do it into premarketing. I was asking for like
Terry Lin: 30,000 and I only ended up like 3,000 or something like that. And so what happens with crowdfunding is that it's easy to see that, oh, this guy put up a campaign and then he got like, you know, $50,000 in like a day, right?
Terry Lin: But you don't see like the six months ahead of people that are, you know, putting in the work, talking to journalists, talking to bloggers, getting samples made, you know, and just the night and grind. Because it's like a tip of the iceberg thing, right?
Terry Lin: Like the Kickstarter is a tip of the iceberg where like, you know, you already built up this momentum and that's just the event, right? It's like process for his event, Kickstarter is an event, but the process is the day and day out of the six months, you know, even up to two years beforehand. I'm actually doing that too.
Terry Lin: So I guess like more nitty-gritty stuff, basically Kickstarter, for those I don't know, is a place where people can pledge money for a creator project. So it's not really a pre-order in the sense that most projects that go on there in terms of physical products aren't in production yet.
Terry Lin: They're there to raise money to do their first run. So the creators have made a sample or a working prototype. You know, they have a video. If you pledge, you know, $100, here's what you'll get. $200, here what you'll get. They'll have different reward tiers. And basically, as a backer, you can choose what to support.
Terry Lin: And then usually after the campaign succeeds, if it succeeds,
Terry Lin: so I guess Kickstarter is all or nothing thing. I forgot to say that to you. So if you have to get 100% of your goal or more to get funded, but if you hit anything under 100, none of the money on the backers gets charged.
Terry Lin: So it's kind of like a gamification way of doing this too. So if you're funded, great Kickstarter will send you the money and then you kind of got to start production and like that. Now, obviously, that's very just gleaming over that because there's a lot of stuff that goes. and different types of production too.
Terry Lin: But generally speaking, like if you back a project on Kickstarter, it probably won't deliver until six months, if not long,
Filip Valica: just because they got to put in the order in and then put all the products to do quality control, put on a boat, you know, ship it to the U.S. or wherever, take it off the boat, take it to a truck, put it to a truck to a warehouse, and then have the orders go in the warehouse. It's just like a really, really long, complicated process.
Filip Valica: That's, you know, a lot of people say it's probably not worth the money and it's probably true, but, you know, it does help getting your first production run off the ground rather than putting your own money up front, which is what I did the first time around, too. So now it's like, you know, I have this project.
Terry Lin: I know I have, you know, my first 150 customers that I've already paid their supporters so I can just keep pushing this ball forward. To kind of touch on something you said, you mainly raised the Kickstarter to validate your idea and to make sure that maybe the market was still there.
Terry Lin: Because the relative funds that you raised, you know, the relative cost was about $3,500,
Terry Lin: which is probably not enough to get a whole production run started, or at least it's only just a fraction of a run. Can you maybe talk about a little bit about what kind of work you did up front for your Kickstarter and maybe why you chose that low of a goal?
Terry Lin: And do you recommend that for other people that have products they're looking to launch? Yeah, I would say the one mistake with Kickstarter was that it's a lot of guys on Kickstarter,
Terry Lin: whereas like Indiegogo has a lot more women. So I think with something like this where I noticed the Instagram account had a lot of women,
Terry Lin: I probably should have went with Indiegogo but I'm not entirely I mean it's hindsight 2020 right so that's an interesting point yeah so I guess I guess it depends on the product unit making but for my case my supplier was pretty flexible
Terry Lin: with the minimum order just because
Filip Valica: they're a pretty big supplier here locally and so they always have kind of fabric laying around that we can repurpose and like recut re-sow into a blanket so they weren't too strict on like the minimums
Terry Lin: starting out too so I was kind of lucky in that sense because most of the times you got to buy at least like, you know, what, a thousand just to get any decent quote. Like if you're asking 500 for any supplier, like they're going to overcharge you. And so I guess like when it comes to,
Terry Lin: you know, if you're going to do like a crowdfunding campaign, you got to think about that, you know,
Terry Lin: how realistic is this? And you got to calculate your shipping costs, your freight and fulfillment things that all add up into the project too. Absolutely. And especially for products that have an upfront cost like a mold fee or a set.
Terry Lin: up fee or something like that where you're having a huge cost so it's really interesting for you to or good on you to pick a product that was pretty easy to start like you said yeah i mean so for me basically like a blanket is around like four dollars to make for me and then we make two right so
Terry Lin: it's eight dollars in terms of like cost of good sold and then your landed cost for freight warehousing packaging fulfillment is probably like another eight-ish nine-ish and sure free shipping so you know it
Filip Valica: ends up being like 30-ish percent margin, at least right now, unless I raise the price a little bit later on the year because I might have to. But it's enough to like get the first run out the ground and then if I sell out the first round, I can buy a second round essentially. Yeah, absolutely.
Filip Valica: Yeah. Because then there's like, then that becomes like, you know, you make your first round,
Terry Lin: then how do you push the snowball? And usually like you got to reinvest your profit in inventory and that's like a whole other game depending on your product margins too, which also goes back to the price you set for your Kickstarter too, right? Because if you set, you know, a goal where
Terry Lin: you only get 10%, maybe you sell 1,000 units, that 10% of 1,000 units may or may not be enough for your second production run. And that's where, like, the casual game gets a little bit tricky. And it's kind of something, I guess, for another podcast down the line.
Filip Valica: All very good points with that. So when you were giving away, or I shouldn't say giving away, but when you, when backers pledge
Terry Lin: money to your project on Kickstarter, you typically give them something in return. So the value that you were getting from your backers was that more or less than the, cost of the blanket.
Terry Lin: That's there probably more because there are probably like 10 people who are like, you know what, don't send me my blanket, just donate mine. So there's two people that bought the 10 blanket package, which is, I think I had it at 199.
Terry Lin: They were like, I just donate all my 20 blankets and I don't want it. Wow, that's really nice. It's interesting that you can, you know, you find these people. And so, yeah, it's kind of cool, actually, though. So leading up to the Kickstarter, you said that, you know, people have to do all this outreach.
Terry Lin: Obviously, you have to talk to bloggers. and whoever to promote your Kickstarter. Can you talk a little bit about what you did? Yeah, so what I did was I went on Instagram. I looked at everyone who followed me, who they followed, and I just started making this huge list of probably five or 600 blogs
Terry Lin: slash pet accounts slash influencers. And basically every day, I would just use Thunderbird and MailMurge. So for those who don't know what MailMurge is, is if you have a list of emails and names, instead of mailing each email one by one,
Terry Lin: you can use a tool that kind of sends it for you. and it'll look personalized for everyone too So basically I was just doing 100 a day with Thunderbird It's a Mozilla tool And so what's surprising is that the response It wasn't actually that high It was kind of had me worried because I think It's pretty normal
Terry Lin: It's pretty normal, yeah exactly I guess like one to two percent response rate is pretty high And then there were some that I'm like well You know we only do paid product reviews and blah I'm like well I haven't been launched yet
Filip Valica: So let's revisit this later Sure But once in a while like I know I had probably like three or four blogs I shared it So that was kind of cool When there was one big account, I think Monty, the cat, he's a Danish cat. I think he has like 300,000 followers on Facebook.
Filip Valica: He's kind of like had some handicapped because I guess those are the most popular accounts.
Terry Lin: It would be like Lil Bub or all these different dog or cats. Like the ones that seem to be disabled are the most popular on the internet for some reason too. So basically I was looking for these accounts and five or six of them got back to me. And so that was enough to kind of push the ball.
Terry Lin: But it was definitely less than I hoped for. But I think it's especially, I guess for like an influencer, if you're just, an idea with not much traction it's kind of hard to promote too so you know maybe i'll revisit them six
Terry Lin: months down the line when i've got more traction kind of momentum with this thing too yeah so would you
Filip Valica: recommend uh you know halving that list and launching with half and then approaching the other half maybe once you have a product that's uh that's more fleshed out or was or would you just
Filip Valica: re send everything to the first list and saying hey you didn't respond to my to my initial email the back of kickstarter but now we actually have a product yeah i think i'll probably just follow me like hey here's where we were six months ago here's where we are now and just see where it goes
Filip Valica: but i think for someone starting on you should definitely just email everyone you can just because you know the risk of them saying no is pretty low and most people if they say no they just won't reply so there's really like no risk to kind of you know spread your message as far as you can
Terry Lin: too so obviously there's like you know the effort if you're a one-man show versus you know someone with a team but i think like a lot of it is like pre-kick starter is like how much you can push until the event and get funded as fast as possible. Great tips there.
Terry Lin: So you've got all these backers now and you've got some money in your account and you validated. So I use the word validated because to me validation is just testing. The product development process that I'm used to, you're just constantly validating.
Terry Lin: Every like two or three steps, you're going back to the market or going back to the customer to confirm that you're in the right track. So you're not spending money in the wrong direction. You've basically validated that people want what you're looking for.
Terry Lin: you've placed an order with the manufacturer well first let's talk about maybe even selecting the manufacturer you said that you obviously have some time in vietnam can you talk a little bit about
Filip Valica: how you went through and picked which manufacturer to go with yeah i would say the number one thing about manufacturing no matter where you are is be able to go physically and see them just because
Filip Valica: like you're not going to be able to go into ali baba and like find some random supplier you know wire them like 5k and expect something picture perfect to come up to your door so like i just doesn't happen right and so like whether it's in china you know south america
Terry Lin: asia you know north america like you know to be able to go there and see who they are what they look like you know how they treat their employees how they treat you when you go there too is a big way to see kind of how their relationship grows from there too so luckily
Terry Lin: for my supplier they were like probably like 45 minutes out the city and so i also speak Mandarin which happened to be what they spoke to so instead of speaking english where they weren't that strong we just spoke in Mandarin and kind of hash out the whole deal uh from
Terry Lin: there nice yeah there's a huge leg up and being able to meet with your manufacturer i totally agree those are one-on-one relationships that you know you can basically put trust in someone uh once you meet them
Terry Lin: face to face and they get a better feel for you and they feel that you know once you spend time with them you're investing into that relationship and they're going to do the same i guess versus if you're just sending a ton of emails and you're just a door kicker so to speak or someone that's
Terry Lin: just kind of going through and trying to get the best deal yeah and if you like imagine the sampling process like you know changing this changing that over email and then they got to mail you a sample you got to change it like i just like it just waste like six months like i had a friend who was
Terry Lin: trying to get into like the weed market like because i guess it was legalized he's trying to make
Filip Valica: like some storage thing early january and i'm like you know this chinese new year soon you better get moving he's yeah i'll get in two weeks i'm like no i'll it's gonna take you six months and like last week i check then he's like yeah i'm still sampling so wow that's what
Filip Valica: happens when you live in different countries and you know it just takes forever and i guess like a lot of
Terry Lin: times depending on your supplier like if you're just you know a guy starting out like and they're a big company like they you know why should they give you the time and that's like you know about your skills and you know kind of gets like your image in some ways and showing how serious you are
Terry Lin: and actually developing this product too I think so it's like you know if you approach them do you actually know what they do what they can do or at least have an idea of what you want you know how much of a design do you have do you have a working prototype you know do you
Terry Lin: have like a cat or whatever like how can you show that you're actually really serious about this too because that'll help you kind of when they kind of size you up to in some ways down the line yeah absolutely so that some of the manufacturers that i've used in china i came in with a really
Terry Lin: high order that was broken up into you know multiple shipments and that was one of the ways that i got people to listen to me because otherwise like you said everyone is just out there looking for a deal and people don't take you seriously with you come when yeah with a 500 unit minimum
Terry Lin: orders yeah there's my friend uh that does he's done like probably 15 kickstires and they've all been, like, funded. And so he was saying his trick is that he tells the supplier that, hey, look,
Filip Valica: I need a quote for at least 1,000, right? Because if you ask for a quote for 100, you're never going to get the real quote. So he was saying, he's like, you always ask for a quote for 1,000 just to get the real price.
Terry Lin: And then you say, look, I need to order a sample order of 200 units or 100 units for the quality control checks.
Filip Valica: And the way he says it is that, look, we're quote for 1,000, samples for 100, but it's got to, to pass by my marketing team in the US and the UK before we can
Terry Lin: put in the final order. So it looks better than saying, hey, I just want to order 100, like, what's the price? So it's the same 100, but it makes you look a little bit stronger in some way too. And it gives you out because then if you say, hey, if the 100 units suck, you just don't go through with the order too.
Terry Lin: So it's kind of interesting when I heard that.
Terry Lin: Most people think, well, you know, I don't want to be dishonest and say, you know, I can't order 1,000, but I think it's
Terry Lin: not really the best way, but it keeps you from having too much downside risk, I think, especially if you're just starting out.
Filip Valica: Bottom line is if you're looking to grow your company, you're going to have to place those large orders eventually.
Terry Lin: Exactly. And so it's not really a lie. You're just, you're prolonging, you're staggering your shipment out. Yeah, and you might as well get the real quote instead of screwing yourself, asking for a low number and getting like a super high unit cost too. Right. You've selected your
Terry Lin: manufacturer now and you have this really good relationship because you're in country with them. You've raised some funds. Did you bring some funds over from your previous job?
Terry Lin: Yeah, so part of it, so we raised 3.5, Kickstarter is wiring me about 3.2 just because they take like 8% off the top for, you know, credit cards and their fees.
Terry Lin: So I'm putting in another like 2K or so to get this off the ground. So, you know, it's better than putting in like 5K with money, but, you know, with 2K, I'm happy enough since, you know, there's already people buying on the store now a little bit. I just launched it this week.
Terry Lin: And so there's also backers that are on board also too. So, yeah. Great. Probably the next step is a much bigger marketing push once you start having some inventory.
Terry Lin: Yeah. Well, actually, the next step is right now I'm trying to figure out is packaging. I haven't figured out the side yet because apparently the way you roll a blanket, if you roll
Terry Lin: it like in a cylinder, it's more, it takes up more volume on freight and shipping. So it's a little bit more expensive because there's the dimensional weight, I guess. Whereas like if I
Terry Lin: fold it flat, like in a square, it's actually cheaper. And I'm just trying to figure out like, all right, well, if I fold it flat, how do I package you so it doesn't? doesn't get rumpled during shipping. And like that's what I'm trying to figure out right now.
Filip Valica: Do I put in a box or just a poly bag or stuff? Then they go to like, well, if you're designing like a drone, like, you know, packaging that must be a whole other, you know, another thing to figure out. It's a different project, right, with all the different parts. Yeah, yeah.
Filip Valica: And usually if you have, you know, a small order to start with, your packaging minimums are really high, right?
Terry Lin: So, example, like my first run, I'm buying probably 400 blankets, but for packaging, I'll probably need to buy like, you know, 2,000 bags or boxes. It's just because no one will sell you 400 bags because of the minimum. It doesn't make sense for them, too. They will.
Terry Lin: They'll just be triple the price, right? Exactly.
Filip Valica: Yeah, so you might as well buy $2,000 if you're going to use it down the line anyways, too. No, that's a good point. Are you going to be selling this retail at all, or is it going to be straight online sales? Straight online sales for now. The retail model is a little bit tricky because I think at this price point, it's a little bit difficult,
Filip Valica: just because if each blanket is like four and I got to donate one, it's like eight.
Terry Lin: And if I'm selling it for like 30-ish, that's like 30% of it. if I sell that wholesale for like 15 it just the math isn't going to work too so yeah retailers want to make you know typically 50% or whatever exactly off the retail price that
Terry Lin: just eats into you and and honestly the consumer that's walking by on a shelf at vidbath and beyond and they see a blanket for let's say $40 they might not go up to it and read the fine print to say oh what but wait there's this nonprofit angle to it exactly and I feel like
Terry Lin: it's just better to own the customer channel in terms of like whether it's their email on your own social account, like just having that ownership instead of relying on some retailer. And it's not to say that retailers are bad. I mean, certainly, you know, they can move a lot
Terry Lin: of volume. It's just kind of starting out. Is it the right move for you? Everyone has to kind to take a closer look at that. Sure. So you hit it as big as Tom's to where you've got a brand name and people say, hey, I want one of those blankets because I really believe in their cause.
Filip Valica: You're not going to drive people to the store. And I think that's one thing that retailers look for as well. The brick and water retailers is, is your branded product going to help bring in customers in the my store because ultimately they want to increase that traffic.
Filip Valica: Especially like new products that, you know, if they move out the door fast, it's easy.
Terry Lin: You kind of get the leverage, like, I guess like when Tom started, I think in the book, he was saying this Nordstrom guy called the Tom's office.
Terry Lin: And then, so Blake picked the right. The founder, he's like, you know, the guy's like, hey, I'm from Nordstrom. I need 100 pairs of shoes like right now. Like no exceptions. Where Nordstrom is sending out. He said, hey, we don't have any, right? He said, all right, let me talk to the sales department. So he passes to the phone to the guy next to him.
Terry Lin: which is like a 25-year-old intern. And he's like, hey, what do you need?
Filip Valica: He's like, we need 100 pairs of shoes. We're nourish them. He's like, no, sorry, we don't have any. All right, let me talk to like, you know, the accounts guy, and they passed to another intern. And the guy's like, look, the first guy you talked to was a founder. The second guy you talked to was an intern. And I'm also an intern. So, like, we just don't have any shoes.
Terry Lin: And the guys like, oh, you guys really are that small, huh? And so, like, it's kind of a funny story when I read that too. But I guess it shows that, like, you know, if your products can move, like people will knock on your door too. Yeah, no, absolutely.
Filip Valica: And the reason I ask was because as you're going through designing a package, you need to kind of keep that in mind if it's going to be sitting on a shelf or hanging
Filip Valica: from a hang tag or if you just mainly need to worry about it surviving the shipment and not being rumpled, which is obviously valid for, you know, a blanket at your price point.
Filip Valica: One thing that helps is look at what competitors are doing, I guess, or like other people in the market, like how are they packaging and kind of just seeing if you can stand up.
Terry Lin: Because if you're going to do retail, like your packaging has to stand out from everything else, right? So, you know,
Terry Lin: unboxing videos on YouTube. Like, I think, like, Dollar Shave Club is really cool unboxing. I think Harry's, too. He's kind of just, you know, go on YouTube and look at what other people are doing, get some ideas or kind of things like that. I've definitely seen some products elevated just through their packaging.
Terry Lin: Like, you can get a luxury feel to a product just by putting in a really thick cardboard box with matte finish or something that you might not see normally.
Filip Valica: Yeah, they look at like the MacBook Pro cases or anything out.
Terry Lin: It was just like a white case, but it feels awesome because they, You know how the air slides out when you kind of lift it off. Yep, yep, yep, yep. I'm sure that they designed that deliberately. I heard there's like a room where they test boxes, too, because it's like the first point of sale that everyone gets from their Apple product.
Terry Lin: Oh, there was definitely the, I know for the iPhone boxes, they tested the friction between the two halves of the box. So when you lift up the top half, it slides down at an even rate when it wants to separate. Like, it's pretty ridiculous, I'm out of detail.
Terry Lin: But, you know, at that level, you're selling millions of units, so you definitely want to test it to that. point exactly yeah and i guess the other thing too is like when you think of physical products it's like a sensory thing too right it's like you're like sight you know no smell touch like just look at
Terry Lin: how the box opens and you feel the air getting squeezed out it's like oh like it feels like a spaceship that's getting all right too so yeah so it's like you know i guess like if you're starting out you don't really think of this but i feel like as you get more experience you start to consider
Terry Lin: all different angles that go into actually like product packaging and everything too so so talk about fulfillment a little bit are you shipping these products to the states to sell in Amazon or are using some other fulfillment centers?
Terry Lin: Yeah. So I have a friend in Chicago that's going to fulfill them for me just because at 150 orders, like no third party was only to take me. So it's kind of like, you know, where like they want like say, you know,
Terry Lin: 200 units a month for them to make sense. Because they charge usually like $2 to $3 per unit. Pact fee. Right. Exactly. So when you go to 3PL, for those I don't know, it's basically a warehouse that stores the product for you, packages it for you, and mails it for you to the end customer.
Terry Lin: So you don't actually have to go rent your own warehouse.
Filip Valica: And so what they do is they'll charge you a monthly maintenance fee,
Terry Lin: maybe, you know, 40 to 70 bucks, somewhere in between. And they'll also charge you a pick and pack fee, which is basically when someone goes to the carton, picks one of your products out, you know, and then ships it to the customer, right? And there's also a lot of other things like, do you want them to do returns? Do you want them to do custom wholesale?
Terry Lin: Like, there's all these mirads of different things. Basically, they're doing it for you. And so what comes to that? fees, right?
Filip Valica: So if you're something like a $10 product and you're paying $2 in fulfillment fees, like you've got to look at kind of your margins a little bit too.
Terry Lin: And for them, you know, if they're not, if you're not doing much volume, it doesn't make sense for them to keep you as a customer because they have a maintenance cost of staff and everything that goes into it too. So I guess for me, my friend was lucky.
Filip Valica: He lives close to a USPS station and he has like a warehouse already where kind of he's in the music business.
Terry Lin: He kind of has a record that he does this for friends who where, you know, they have like some sales a month. And he just happily sends it out for them too. But it's not at the level where he's sending like, you know, 30 packages a day. And it's not overwhelming him too. And for me, you know, I'm just sorting out too. So it's nothing like that.
Filip Valica: Whereas, like, I have the flexibility to move to a real center when I'm actually at that level too. Or when he starts complaining that he doesn't want to send them for me anymore. Right. Are you having to compensate him at all? Yeah.
Terry Lin: So he doesn't charge me storage, which is cool. He doesn't charge me receiving. And so normally most warehouse, you know, when you send them a truck full of boxes, There's, they got to unpack it, catalog it. Like, this guy will just do it for me because he's a friend.
Terry Lin: And he'll just charge me like, I think, $2 per unit to send out. So it's easily a no-brainer at this stage of the, at this stage of the game. Yeah, especially the storage fees because they're based on volume, right?
Terry Lin: And so you're going to end up paying a ton of storage fees if your product doesn't move as fast as you thought it was going to. Exactly. So basically what they, yeah, basically they call that long-term storage fees. I think Amazon and most RPLs have it. It's just if you have a product that's not moving, they're going to be like, hey, we've got to charge you more.
Terry Lin: or kind of get out of here, basically is what they're saying. Right, yeah. They want the only their best customers. Have you fulfilled any orders yet? No, we're still in ship production right now. We're about to ship, I think, in mid-October. Okay.
Terry Lin: So still figure out the packaging right now,
Filip Valica: at least as of late August when we're recording this. But we're on track to ship them out by like early December is the goal. Awesome. No, that's really exciting. Congrats on getting all that going, by the way. That's a huge process to go through, but it must be very validating to,
Filip Valica: go from the beginning to end and see your quote your baby basically ready to go yeah I think part of is also like if you're going to crowdfunding around is like be realistic with how long shipping takes
Terry Lin: like to get so like I guess shipping from you know between the world there's like LCL FCL I don't want to like overrun me but basically if you can't fill a full container you got to share it with other people right right right and so what happens is sometimes the container won't be
Terry Lin: full right away you got to wait for other people to put their stuff in the container and then it goes to the port and then it's going to the boat and they got to take the boat to the other port it's got to get off the port they got to unload that open figure out whose boxes to part of a truck and they go to the warehouse like this
Terry Lin: that stuff probably takes like two months and if you get delayed it's probably even longer if you get a custom inspections like there's ways plenty of ways that you can screw it so what I see is a lot of campaigns are like hey you know
Filip Valica: we're going to raise money in June
Terry Lin: and we'll ship it in like September I mean unless you already had the money to make it or you already had pre-made it
Filip Valica: you're just doing it for PR I think usually like six six months like minimum for most things is kind of like my rule now. That's a really good point too.
Terry Lin: The products that I went in that were shipped from abroad, I ordered a 20-foot container worth precisely because of what you said, because there's so much delay in packing a container and unpacking it.
Terry Lin: And honestly, the fees that you pay when you have less than a container load are just huge. It's almost cheaper to pay for the entire container than it is to pay for less than one. Yeah, I think there's a certain level, someone said.
Terry Lin: is like if you have a hundred kilos or like some certain cubic meter like it's basically just have a half container empty and it's like the same price if not cheaper than sharing it with someone too. Right, right.
Terry Lin: Yeah, I'm going to know the exact number, but you got to like research. Like just get a couple of quotes from forwarders and then ask them how much it is to get your own container and you'll get a quick idea too. So I guess like this is why like packaging is a bit tricky because depending on your end
Terry Lin: packaging like you need to know your cubic volume to get the right estimate for the quotes. So it's like kind of like it's a whole other dimension of besides making your product.
Terry Lin: It's like getting it to and there the most efficient way as possible while having your brand aesthetics and like the retail angle and all that stuff too. Right. Yeah. How many fit on a palette. You want a thing to like make physical products.
Terry Lin: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, exactly.
Filip Valica: So as we get to the end of the show, I always ask people, do you have a tool or a book or something that's helped you along the way that you'd like to share with everybody? Oh, a book.
Filip Valica: it's a good one have a couple
Terry Lin: I would say all marketers are liars by Seth Gordon is the good one because that was the one that really taught me that when you sell like what I'm selling I sell blankets but that's not what I'm really selling if you think about it the blanket you could get a blanket anywhere right
Terry Lin: but what I'm selling is a chance for someone that loves animals to kind of validate that story in their head on a very like kind of psychological level and it kind of sounds a little wonky when I say that
Filip Valica: It's because in the book, he said, you know, everyone has certain beliefs that they're, you know, grow up with, right? So like in the U.S., you have certain beliefs all this, certain things about that, Asia, there's different cultural things.
Filip Valica: And so that basically goes into the way you see your frame in the world, how you talk to people, how you react to things.
Terry Lin: And so it's like a lot of that book talks about understanding people and knowing how they see the world and fitting your story, whether that's marketing or product into that too. And that was probably like the biggest eye opener for me when I started this project was that, you know, my most.
Filip Valica: The important thing I'm telling is not blankets in the sense that more than the customer wants to feel like they're helping a shelter handle. That's really what I'm giving them an opportunity, not really to buy a blanket. And on like a deep level too, so hope that makes sense.
Filip Valica: No, no, that's absolutely true.
Terry Lin: And sometimes people don't really look at the end goal for the consumer. Consumer doesn't want to buy a product. They want to have a problem that's solved for them or a need that's met. And the other thing too is that you look at like all the world, everything we have is like we pretty much have everything we need in the sense that like, you know,
Terry Lin: You can have basic food, rice and beans is like, you know, the bare minimum. But then it's like, well, how do you make people want something? And that's like kind of like another thing to learn also. And I think this book kind of gives a good roadmap of, you know, understanding people,
Filip Valica: groups of people, tribes of people, and like figuring out their worldview and kind of delivering a story around that, then having a product that fits into that story so that they can tell more people and kind of do all that stuff too. Great tip. So I'm going to leave a link to that in the show notes so people can check that out.
Filip Valica: one last step for you so if you were talking to your younger self or if you had a younger brother or sister that was looking to get into this what was the one tip that you'd give them to kind of take the next step or to keep going in their journey yeah I would say take some time figure out
Filip Valica: who you are really are out you know know what you're good at know what you aren't good at and be willing to put in the work it's not going to happen overnight you may hear people with stories like that but you know it's probably going to be a grind for you and most people well like
Filip Valica: you said there's just the tip of the iceberg and there's all this work that's gone into making it a success so don't lose hope yep great tips so terry if someone wanted to go and buy a blanket
Filip Valica: or to find out more about what you do where is the best place to go sure if they want to check out our website you can go to forever home blankets.com forever home blankets pretty easy to spell where you can follow us on instagram and on youtube soon because i'm actually starting a video
Terry Lin: blog where i'm documenting what it's like to be a rescue volunteer to hopefully inspire more but to kind of get involved, whether it's just one hour a week, being a foster home,
Terry Lin: donating, things like that. Because I think that's what really will help make things better. It's not just me selling blankets, but getting other people to get involved with this, too.
Terry Lin: Very good idea.
Filip Valica: That's awesome that you're doing this for other animals. So congrats again on all your success and everything and for doing the work that you do. It was a pleasure having you on the show. Thanks again for being so transparent. Again, thanks for coming, and I wish you all the best. All right, cool.
Filip Valica: Thanks for having me, and I guess I'll catch up with you again soon. And that's all I've got for today. Thanks for listening, everybody. I put all the links that we've covered under the show notes posted on the product startup.com slash episode 24.
Filip Valica: Join me next time as I speak with Robson, Splane, who created the ProRise Ced Assist. Robson is an industrial designer who has over 30 years experience in design with 70 national patents, 20 international patents to his name.
Filip Valica: And during the interview, we talk about how he developed the pro-rise seed assist allowing senior citizens, wounded veterans, and post-surgical individuals to rise from their seats independently. So again, tune in next week to hear that episode.
Filip Valica: And if you found this episode valuable and you want to see more like it or you want to see something a bit different, please don't hesitate to send me an email or leave a review on iTunes by going to theprodustartup.com slash review.
Filip Valica: Thanks again to everybody, and I will see you next week. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Product Startup Podcast. with your host, Philip Felizza. For more great content and to stay up today, visit theproduct startup.com.
Filip Valica: Your guide to getting there.
Filip Valica: Thanks for tuning into 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 series is brought to you by Mako Design + Invent, the first firm in North America
Filip Valica: to provide global caliber end-to-end physical consumer product development to startups, inventors, and small product businesses. If you're looking for product development help on your invention, head over to macawdesign.com.
Filip Valica: That's m-a-k-o-design.com for a free consultation from one of Mako-Design for design studios from coast to coast. Thanks for listening and see you next time.
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