Product Startup Podcast Episode 123: Sell Products Through B2B Platforms

00:00:00 Kevin Mako: Hello, product innovators. Today we learn from the founder of a major product marketplace on what it takes to successfully sell your product in online BDB platforms.

00:00:11 Narrator: You're listening to the Product Startup Podcast, the show that helps bring your product idea to life by chatting with successful inventors,

00:00:21 Narrator: product developers, manufacturers, and hardware industry professionals. Our goal here is to get to the bottom of what makes a product successful, from initial

00:00:29 Narrator: idea to getting your product on store shelves. We're taking you. step by step to build a functional product and scale your product business.

00:00:38 Narrator: Hosted by Kevin Mako, one of North America's leading experts on hardware development for small

00:00:44 Kevin Mako: product businesses. Now, onto the show. Welcome back, everyone. Today I'm very excited to introduce Gil Bar-Lev to the show.

00:00:52 Kevin Mako: Gil is the founder of Home Roots, a North American business-to-business product marketplace that connects new innovative furniture products with furniture stores,

00:00:58 Kevin Mako: distributors, and buyers. Earlier in his career, he was the one who brought together and Amazon and Toys R Us back in 2002. Today, Gil is going to share some valuable knowledge

00:01:08 Kevin Mako: in how inventors, startups, and small manufacturers can successfully build a hardware product business, then how to start and scale selling through B2B marketplaces online.

00:01:16 Kevin Mako: Now, on to the episode. There you go. Welcome to the show. Thank you very much for hosting me, Kevin. Well, we're excited to have you on to talk about B2B selling from you.

00:01:24 Kevin Mako: Obviously, it has the big platform for doing B2B selling in North America for furniture

00:01:28 Kevin Mako: products primarily, but you've got a lot of experience in products going back many, many years. Can you kick it back to a story that happened early on in your career, your mid

00:01:36 Kevin Mako: -20s, early 2000s, you were actually the one that connected Amazon and Toys R Us to get that relationship going, get the ball rolling in the very early days of e-commerce.

00:01:46 Gil Bar-Lev: Yes, those were very challenging days at that time was post.com burst. The belief in e-commerce or internet in general was at

00:01:56 Gil Bar-Lev: lowest, as I can recall. And at that time, I was doing a project for Toys R Us. and they were looking for additional sales channels. Everybody's looking for sales channels,

00:02:04 Gil Bar-Lev: but it was not really the main thing for them. Their belief in the e-commerce world was not that big. So luckily, I was connected to some of the C-level executives at that time,

00:02:14 Gil Bar-Lev: and I made them believe that I can do it, that I can connect them with Amazon, and then we can build something together.

00:02:20 Gil Bar-Lev: And Toys R Us can expand on their marketing campaigns and sales by selling more toys, which was their main thing. It was a very simple ask of Amazon.

00:02:28 Gil Bar-Lev: Amazon was looking to expand to other campaigns, categories beyond the media. So that was a perfect match. And now we know, they are selling toys.

00:02:37 Gil Bar-Lev: That's how it all got started. It was an amazing experience, which, by the way, made me fall in love with e-commerce. And since then, love never stopped.

00:02:44 Kevin Mako: And you're always in the tech space. You're working with CTOs even before that. And then afterwards doing a lot of work, which eventually

00:02:51 Kevin Mako: this combination of using e-commerce to sell B2B, which is what kind of founded

00:02:55 Gil Bar-Lev: the concept of home routes, right? Yes. So in my background, I was a software engineer. That's how I got groomed up.

00:03:02 Gil Bar-Lev: Then into that engagement with toys or us, I fell in love with the e-commerce world. And I decided that I have two passions, right? I have two things that I really love.

00:03:11 Gil Bar-Lev: And that's one is technology and the other one is e-commerce. And I said to combine them together and marry them.

00:03:17 Gil Bar-Lev: So since then, I've gone through different iterations and helped people selling in the direct-to-consumer world.

00:03:23 Gil Bar-Lev: But I was always looking for a B-to-B solution, a B-to-B platform that can help sell for different manufacturers, different suppliers.

00:03:29 Gil Bar-Lev: And I realized there aren't many solutions out there, if at all, specifically or especially in the furniture world. It was like nothing.

00:03:36 Gil Bar-Lev: And this is very antiquated industry that hasn't changed much since I was a kid, maybe even before that.

00:03:43 Gil Bar-Lev: So that's what I accepted the idea of Home Roots. So I wanted to build up a platform, a B2B platform that really enables manufacturers from all over the globe.

00:03:52 Gil Bar-Lev: And it doesn't matter their size, right? There can be a small size, it can be a startup that really want to go, come online, sell their products,

00:03:59 Gil Bar-Lev: to a large share of the market.

00:04:03 Kevin Mako: That's what Home Roots is all about. Well, that's great. I mean, any kind of marketplace that can help connect new startups

00:04:08 Kevin Mako: and establish manufacturers with corporate buyers. Now, these are buyers. We mentioned B2B, just to clarify for those on the show that aren't familiar,

00:04:15 Kevin Mako: B2B is selling to other businesses. And what Gil is talking about here is getting your product onto a marketplace.

00:04:21 Kevin Mako: If it's a furniture product, that's Home Roots, which is what he developed, and creating something here, which is a relationship with a new prospective buyer

00:04:29 Kevin Mako: who buys in volume, which is a lot different. We've talked a lot about on the show selling direct to consumer, buy a Kickstarter, Indie GoGo or direct out Amazon or other sources.

00:04:38 Kevin Mako: But this is selling to other businesses. And what's so amazing about your experience, Gil, is that you've watched tens of thousands of these relationships form over your platform

00:04:46 Kevin Mako: and another experience that you've had. Over the years, you've been able to see what works and what doesn't. So what I want to trickle down to on this show is from your experience,

00:04:55 Kevin Mako: what was really the differentiating factors that had, especially for the startups or the small emerging companies that came on your platform,

00:05:01 Kevin Mako: what did they do well that the others didn't? And what put the winners above the rest in terms of forging those relationships

00:05:09 Gil Bar-Lev: and then getting the bigger and better sales and distributors as a result? I can start off with just saying that, like,

00:05:15 Gil Bar-Lev: I believe very much in having passion about what you really love doing. That's the most important thing. And when you're coming as a startup, it's very tough.

00:05:24 Gil Bar-Lev: It's an uphill battle. It's very hard to convince companies. to buy a product or to buy our services, but in this case, it's a product. And you have to,

00:05:34 Gil Bar-Lev: or hard. So if you're in there for the fame or for the quick money, then don't even get started.

00:05:40 Gil Bar-Lev: You're likely going to stop in the middle by burning a lot of actually money and time that no one has. So you really got to be passionate about what you love.

00:05:48 Gil Bar-Lev: So this is the first ingredient that will say. So if you develop a product, really be into like go all in. Love this thing. Talk about it. Talk about it to friends.

00:05:58 Gil Bar-Lev: about it in the media, blurb about it, find a ways to make some noise and never give up. That's the first ingredient.

00:06:04 Gil Bar-Lev: And then the second thing is that you have to realize who's your target audience? Who are you really trying to go after? What is that you bring in that is not

00:06:11 Gil Bar-Lev: already out there, but you don't want to make a mimic of something that already exists or doesn't have much of a differentiator.

00:06:17 Gil Bar-Lev: So going back to creating a differentiation between everybody else and we're making a better version of what's already out there. And by that also creating that

00:06:25 Gil Bar-Lev: differentiation. So I've seen successful companies definitely has passion,

00:06:31 Gil Bar-Lev: differentiation, and are willing to listen and learn. Because if you're stubborn about, let's say, you come up with

00:06:36 Gil Bar-Lev: some product, okay, and you decide that this is the best product ever, but your customers are telling you otherwise. You've got to learn.

00:06:43 Gil Bar-Lev: You've got to listen. You've got to know how to pivot when it's needed. You've got to be still stubborn not listening to your customers. Your head's

00:06:49 Gil Bar-Lev: going to hurt. You got to listen. This is the customers. Eventually, without customers, you're nothing. No offense.

00:06:56 Gil Bar-Lev: You can have the best idea ever, but if your customers don't like it, and they give you some feedback, and it's very hard to get feedback.

00:07:02 Kevin Mako: So when you do that feedback, do you get feedback to make good usage with it. That's a good point. It is difficult to get feedback.

00:07:08 Kevin Mako: So when you do, you should be excessively alert and aware to what that feedback is. You don't necessarily have to agree with it, but you definitely have to listen to it and

00:07:17 Kevin Mako: figure, why is it that they gave you that feedback? What is it that they saw? And then if you're still uncertain, continue to prod. ask for more information.

00:07:25 Kevin Mako: Big deep. I think that's especially powerful when you're selling B2B, business to business, because if you look at the Home Roots platform and you're starting to

00:07:32 Kevin Mako: make those connections, which are those prospective customers, listening to those people is incredibly valuable because these are potentially big buyers.

00:07:39 Kevin Mako: This isn't just one person off the street that doesn't like some certain piece of the product, very personalized, very unique feedback.

00:07:46 Kevin Mako: This is big feedback from somebody who's who is in the corporate world and is

00:07:49 Gil Bar-Lev: generally an expert at buying and selling your type of product. That feedback is even more critical. It's super critical.

00:07:56 Gil Bar-Lev: And the beauty of farm roots and compared to other platforms, a lot of people make a lot of buzz. And I'm not here to bash other marketplaces or other platforms,

00:08:03 Gil Bar-Lev: but there's a lot of buzz about selling on Amazon. But if you really combine all those together,

00:08:08 Gil Bar-Lev: and you can get a lot of an amazing feedback on Amazon, but just to put things together in contacts, in our world of furniture, Amazon doesn't even represent a 1%

00:08:17 Gil Bar-Lev: of the market. If you look at the

00:08:24 Gil Bar-Lev: sales of Amazon in this space, it's not that much, right? They're representing a single percent or maybe a little bit over, but around that number, right?

00:08:33 Gil Bar-Lev: It's still very, very small. But even with that, you can give her good feedback. Homelots give you exposures to significantly larger amount of market share.

00:08:41 Gil Bar-Lev: We have tens of thousands of stores nationwide that looks at what we offer for them to buy. So whether that's in store, whether that's in e-commerce, whether that's to

00:08:50 Gil Bar-Lev: home stagers or interior designers or property managers, different type of customers, right?

00:08:54 Gil Bar-Lev: So when we are getting the feedback from them, you can imagine there's a lot of big voice here that saying, hey, listen, this works for us. This does not.

00:09:02 Gil Bar-Lev: It's super important to listen. I'm not saying you need to act on every small little thing because you're always going to have noise. Another good

00:09:08 Gil Bar-Lev: attribute is to know when there's noise versus not. But if you have customer off to customer,

00:09:12 Gil Bar-Lev: if the customer comes again and say, they tell you this more or less the same thing, then there's

00:09:16 Gil Bar-Lev: something there. And you better listen and you better try to do something about it, because Because otherwise, you're going to become irrelevant. And I know it's tough.

00:09:24 Gil Bar-Lev: I started off with Home Roots. I had my own vision, my own idea in mind. And it came out there to the market that I believe that this is the best deal for everybody.

00:09:32 Gil Bar-Lev: But I had to pivot. I have to pivot. I have to pivot, actually, a couple times before Homewoods was formed in the way that it's formed today.

00:09:38 Gil Bar-Lev: My initial thought of Home Roots was initially something totally different. But the customers said it differently. The customer needed something else.

00:09:45 Gil Bar-Lev: And so the same thing for products. Start off with something. If it works good, good. You got lucky, but plan for pivot. And that's fine. You've got to listen. Stay passionate.

00:09:55 Gil Bar-Lev: Don't get this courage if somebody tells you something. Don't be defensive, right? Don't get offended by someone tells you, hey, you need to increase the whole size on this.

00:10:04 Gil Bar-Lev: Or how come you don't have this functionality in the product? Don't get offended.

00:10:08 Kevin Mako: Just listen in and say, thank you. Smile. Do something about it. Trust you'll go much farther if you'll go this way.

00:10:14 Kevin Mako: And there's a lot of opportunity there, too, because a lot of the feedback may not necessarily mean you need to change.

00:10:20 Kevin Mako: your existing product, but it might mean that they're giving you ideas for an expanded

00:10:24 Kevin Mako: product or a pro version or even a cheaper version or some other version. This is how you actually build a brand line. You start with one, which is great for startups.

00:10:32 Kevin Mako: Get a great version of your starter product out there. And we talk a lot on the show, smart minimum viable product,

00:10:38 Kevin Mako: get just a strip down core feature, core value ad version of your product, but do a very good

00:10:42 Kevin Mako: job at it, especially in hardware, because there is no forgiving a low quality hardware product these days, especially with the online marketplaces and world.

00:10:50 Kevin Mako: So start there and then listen to this feedback, not only to adjust your current model, which is what we talk about a bit in terms

00:10:56 Kevin Mako: of agile hardware development on the show, but also think about planning your future versions.

00:11:00 Kevin Mako: This may be different derivations of your product line or maybe different products altogether that link in with your product. This is how brands grow.

00:11:06 Kevin Mako: This is how they become. They start with one product, they become many. And the feedback is going to be one of your biggest instruments to actually guide your path on that route.

00:11:14 Kevin Mako: I also want to talk about something else that you mentioned earlier. year two, which is about the sheer scale. Now, we're talking about furniture, but this is relevant

00:11:21 Kevin Mako: in a lot of industries as well. A lot of hardware startups look at the world and because of the

00:11:25 Kevin Mako: prevalence of Kickstarter and Indiegogo, it's this direct-to-consumer idea and that platform. Keep in mind that those platforms are just the starter spark.

00:11:33 Kevin Mako: There is a much bigger corporate world out there for moving products, which is how it's been done for hundreds of years. Giant

00:11:41 Kevin Mako: companies selling to other giant companies, the difference that's happening now is it's easier and

00:11:46 Kevin Mako: easier for small startups to actually get into that pipeline, as long as you know where to look.

00:11:51 Kevin Mako: And I love that you mentioned that 99% of the business is happening outside of the limelight because think of the opportunity for hardware startups out there.

00:11:58 Kevin Mako: If you just hit the tip of the iceberg in online sales or direct to consumer sales or other sales channels, know that there's a

00:12:03 Kevin Mako: massive underlying iceberg of opportunity below with other sales channels and networks.

00:12:08 Kevin Mako: Of course, yours is one within the furniture space, but this is consistent. I've heard this in

00:12:11 Gil Bar-Lev: many, many different industries. And I think it's very amazing to hear it from you, just how prevalent that is statistically in your industry alone.

00:12:18 Gil Bar-Lev: And just touching upon the point that you mentioned, because I do want to emphasize that. I agree with you 100%. Like, you do have to start

00:12:24 Gil Bar-Lev: up with something, like the minimum viable product. And that's how we've done it also in

00:12:28 Gil Bar-Lev: homeowners, right? Even though we are in a furniture world, we did start off with some very specific

00:12:34 Gil Bar-Lev: subcategories in the space, right? Firmature has a lot of different categories in it. And then you grow, right? You expand to another category and another category.

00:12:42 Gil Bar-Lev: And slowly you become the brand. You develop your own line of products, similar in the hard doors, where you have a brand to offer. You have a line of products to offer.

00:12:52 Gil Bar-Lev: This is very, very true. I've experienced that many times through my own career, but I've seen it with others. And also, I want to touch upon something that you mentioned about

00:13:00 Gil Bar-Lev: the quality. What COVID did with many, many factors that I've seen overseas, and we have the exposure to them, because we're working with many of them.

00:13:09 Gil Bar-Lev: Something there is a resistance on a retailer side to increase prices. Nobody wants to pass. on the prices on to the consumer. You're in between the retailer and you're between

00:13:18 Gil Bar-Lev: order consumer and you're in between the manufacturers on the back end, the factory on wherever the factory located.

00:13:25 Gil Bar-Lev: And you're in between. And you've been squashed. You've got to stay competitive out there because you're so concerned about pricing, but you've got to have a good

00:13:32 Gil Bar-Lev: quality. If you're not going to have a good quality products, people are not going to buy interesting in today's world. They're going to find a way to trash your rent. And this is

00:13:39 Gil Bar-Lev: the last thing you want to have because this is like game over. It's very hard to recover from a large amount of consumers that trashing your rent.

00:13:47 Gil Bar-Lev: It's tough. You may start off as a new brand, but that's a whole new discussion. But your brand is your planet originally is a different story.

00:13:53 Gil Bar-Lev: What I've noticed is, you know, it started off with COVID and logistics issues, constrained that we're all as consumers are facing. We still do price increases and cost

00:14:02 Gil Bar-Lev: raw material keeps on increasing out there. We've seen many, many factors try to cut back on the quality in order not to increase prices.

00:14:10 Gil Bar-Lev: And that's a very slippery slope. the hill of trashing someone brands. So I encourage you guys out there trying to produce

00:14:19 Gil Bar-Lev: products. Don't always just go for the cheapest factory that offers the product. Try to vouch for

00:14:24 Gil Bar-Lev: quality, try to go through Qa testing, try to make sure that what you're getting is what you expect. Don't compromise on that. This is your brand.

00:14:32 Gil Bar-Lev: This is your line. You're trying to build a business here. So don't have the nickel and dimming on things of that sometimes ruin much larger opportunity that you have there.

00:14:40 Gil Bar-Lev: And I know I segues, I'm going to come back to your question. There's a huge opportunity out there.

00:14:45 Gil Bar-Lev: I'm telling you, those marketplaces, you just mentioned the Kickstarter and the go-go. They're really the tip of the iceberg. This is a small, small segment of the market.

00:14:53 Gil Bar-Lev: There's a significant, huge market out there. And how much really, as a company, we're offering ourselves to be the gateway to a much, much

00:15:01 Gil Bar-Lev: larger market tier than what's available in our industry in the furniture world. and you really got to go look out there and find them because I tell you what,

00:15:11 Gil Bar-Lev: this is where you got the most amount of opportunity for a breakthrough. In a small segment of the 1% or half percent here, everybody's there. They're accessible for everybody.

00:15:20 Gil Bar-Lev: Everybody's trying to launch their products there. If you're competing not just on trying to get the love of the audience, the customer, to love your products and to talk about it,

00:15:29 Gil Bar-Lev: but you're competing with so many other companies that are trying to launch products out there to the same audience. So you want to go out, you want to look for all.

00:15:36 Gil Bar-Lev: alternative sales channels. You want to look for places where people are not necessarily going.

00:15:41 Gil Bar-Lev: And yeah, it means a little bit more work and it means a little bit more time and effort. But going back to my first attribute, being passionate about what you're doing, you

00:15:51 Gil Bar-Lev: will not give up.

00:15:52 Kevin Mako: And if you will not give up, the other ones that are not going to do that, they're going to give up. Don't worry, they will give up.

00:15:57 Kevin Mako: The ones that are just looking for fame and glory and quick money, they'll give up. And you'll be the other winner.

00:16:02 Kevin Mako: That's powerful because if you stick to it, you want to be the one that lets the others give up, you out persist them.

00:16:08 Kevin Mako: In my opinion, if you've already done the hard part of the time and money that goes into design and engineering and prototyping, getting your product polish, getting to

00:16:16 Kevin Mako: production, it's not a ton of effort to start looking at all these sales channels, relatively

00:16:20 Kevin Mako: speaking. That's kind of the fun at the end of the development journey, which is so prevalent for so many startups. And I find it very interesting.

00:16:27 Kevin Mako: Once they get to that end, it seems like there's a bit of a fall off temporarily with many that just want to kind of coast or say, okay, well, I've already

00:16:34 Kevin Mako: done the product. Now let's see what happens. Just give it that extra little bit, that extra 10%

00:16:38 Kevin Mako: on the top to look out to all these different sales channels because that's a tremendous boost

00:16:42 Gil Bar-Lev: in opportunity. It could be multiple times the amount of prospective opportunity. If you just take

00:16:47 Gil Bar-Lev: a little bit of time, effort and possibly even money at the end of it, to just push on some of these levers, right?

00:16:52 Gil Bar-Lev: Yes. And I could tell you, there's first, there's nothing like the feeling of getting your first order. Nothing. That's so encouraging. So there's so much motivation that

00:17:00 Gil Bar-Lev: comes into it after that. You know, it's amazing. And that's something that you should keep. You know, once you get your first order, you fulfill it.

00:17:06 Gil Bar-Lev: You should keep it for your records because that's something you can always go back to when you feel like down or something. And you will feel down. And that's totally normal.

00:17:13 Kevin Mako: And everybody tells you that they're happy and everything is fine. No, you have down times and that's fine. You go back to your first order.

00:17:19 Kevin Mako: You remember that first time that somebody believed in you, believed in the product that you manufactured, the hardware piece that you built. And then start to leverage that.

00:17:27 Kevin Mako: That's the beauty. When somebody believes in it, you use that person's belief to get your next deal. So tell me some things tactically, especially for start.

00:17:34 Kevin Mako: startups that are coming onto your platform or similar B2B business platforms, maybe in other

00:17:39 Kevin Mako: verticals that aren't in furniture, but just anybody in general that's in hardware, what are some of the tactical things that give them an advantage?

00:17:45 Kevin Mako: For instance, one of the big ones that I can think of that I've seen very helpful in distributor deals or bigger product

00:17:52 Kevin Mako: order deals, both deals, has been showing a little bit of success on direct-to -consumer segments. Start by selling a few hundred units online.

00:17:59 Kevin Mako: Leverage that to then go to your perspective

00:18:02 Gil Bar-Lev: bigger buyers and say, look what I've done. Look how many people believe in it in just a very small scale. Obviously, that amplifies the interest of a bigger buyer.

00:18:10 Gil Bar-Lev: But, you know, that in conjunction with other things, what have you seen that really helps?

00:18:14 Gil Bar-Lev: So first thing, you've got to leverage relationships. One, you don't want to sabotage pricing out there. So you've got to be conscious of the pricing of how you price the product.

00:18:23 Gil Bar-Lev: You don't want to price it too low because then if you're going to try to go after the big guys, it's going to be tough because they need their own margins.

00:18:30 Gil Bar-Lev: But one of the most important technical thing I will say is to leverage relationships. At home routes, we have a lot of relationships with different companies,

00:18:38 Gil Bar-Lev: with different retailers, different businesses, right? And we're in a furniture space, but in the hardware space, let's say, you've got to find people that know people. It's not

00:18:45 Gil Bar-Lev: only about what you know, it's about who you know, right? And who you know or who you can get

00:18:49 Gil Bar-Lev: to, like second connection, third connection, those are the people that can open up the doors for you and just accelerate your growth. So this is super important.

00:18:56 Gil Bar-Lev: Don't try to do everything by yourself. It's going to take you a lot of time and a lot of money. Sometimes you may not have that. Again, going back, leverage relationship.

00:19:04 Gil Bar-Lev: The second thing, like you said, when you do go and try to sell online directly to consumers or try to get something, get the feedback, try to get understanding from the customers.

00:19:13 Kevin Mako: What do they like about your product and brag about it? But also, if they don't like something about the product, try to encourage them to tell you offline.

00:19:22 Kevin Mako: Not necessarily the bash you online because that's really tough to recover from. So try to encourage them to tell you offline. that's the same thing.

00:19:28 Kevin Mako: That's a good one. Just to pause there, something that so many people can do, especially when you're only selling a few hundred units in the first place, if you just create a

00:19:36 Kevin Mako: channel for those people to give you feedback, that might help them not take it online. Because if you

00:19:42 Kevin Mako: provide them a poor experience and the only option they have is to go online to feel heard, then you are the one who's actually forcing them to do that.

00:19:50 Kevin Mako: If you give them another option, and if you're good to your customer, offer to fix it for them or to give them a refund or to help

00:19:56 Kevin Mako: solve the problem for them in some way or another, show that you care. And a lot of the time, what you'll find is that we see it was so, so many hardware brands that

00:20:04 Kevin Mako: this works is that that person who is upset about one feature or another, because they had such good care and

00:20:09 Kevin Mako: attention from the owner, because it was easy for the owner to give that level of care in the early days, that person turned into a raving fan and becomes a brand champion

00:20:18 Kevin Mako: for you. So make sure you at least give them an outlet to vent to you before they go onwards. And only then if you can't

00:20:26 Kevin Mako: solve their pain points, or if they're exponentially too difficult of a customer, if there's no solving the problem one way or another, sure, you have a handful of bad press

00:20:34 Gil Bar-Lev: that you can deal with. But why not at least first give them that ability? And then you as the

00:20:38 Gil Bar-Lev: owner, take the responsibility as the owner of that product and of that business to make it right with that customer. Put your best effort forward.

00:20:45 Gil Bar-Lev: Don't get upset with them, just help them out, right? That's all they're looking for. And I tell you, I've done the same thing, platform initially when we first launch, right?

00:20:52 Gil Bar-Lev: And we're still doing it, by the way, even though we're a couple of years in it, you know, we're beyond the launch stage. We still do that.

00:20:58 Gil Bar-Lev: We still reach out to random customers here and there and we're asking for their feedback. We're very much open to feedback. Some of the feedback can be very nasty at times.

00:21:06 Gil Bar-Lev: And then going back, don't be defensive about it. Don't try to take it in as if it's you. Don't take it personal. It's business. It's strict business.

00:21:13 Gil Bar-Lev: There was a financial transaction. They bought something from you. It's business. Now you're getting their feedback.

00:21:18 Gil Bar-Lev: Give them the platform to vent out and say, okay, I like those things, ABC.

00:21:23 Gil Bar-Lev: I dislike EDF, okay, and then hear them out, try to get them more feedback, listen, and try to

00:21:29 Gil Bar-Lev: to accommodate. If you'll make them feel as if their voice is being heard, even if you disagree

00:21:34 Gil Bar-Lev: with something, or you think, ah, okay, that's very edge case, that I don't think that will really happen, or that's really not my target audience, what I'm trying to go after.

00:21:43 Gil Bar-Lev: Okay, we'll talk about it. But if you hear it for more than one, then do something about it, but give them the option. And again, don't be defensive.

00:21:50 Gil Bar-Lev: It's cool. You're not the first one who's trying to launch your product out there. They need to fall in love with you. They need to fall in love

00:21:56 Gil Bar-Lev: with the company. They need to fall in love with the brand. A product is a product. Okay, the product

00:22:00 Gil Bar-Lev: starts. The product may start the journey of a brand, but the brand does not end with the product. Okay, the end of the day, it's a series of products.

00:22:07 Gil Bar-Lev: Products may come and go and you may have different iterations. iPhone started with iPhone 1. iPhone 1 is long gone. But iPhone 1 is a product

00:22:14 Gil Bar-Lev: is what made people fell in love with the brand iPhone. So the same thing. You got to apply the same

00:22:19 Gil Bar-Lev: rules. Really, honestly, there's so many good examples out there. You just need to open your your eyes or open or open up your ears and see it, right?

00:22:26 Gil Bar-Lev: And most important thing is sometimes

00:22:28 Gil Bar-Lev: sometimes there are very good ideas out there that you can implement, that you can use. You don't always have to reinvent the will, right? So if there are people out there,

00:22:37 Gil Bar-Lev: they're doing something that they can help you and you feel that it's a good match for you,

00:22:41 Kevin Mako: go for it. Don't feel like you have to do it all by yourself. Even though you're the startup,

00:22:45 Kevin Mako: you're starting everything in, you believe you need to be entrepreneur and everything is new and exciting. There are pieces in the business for creativity and

00:22:53 Kevin Mako: newness, and there are pieces to leverage what's already existing. And you've got to find this balance between the two.

00:22:59 Kevin Mako: I appreciate you mentioning that because it really comes down to the concept of asking for help, which is another form of feedback. Feedback can be a two-way street.

00:23:06 Kevin Mako: You can also ask for feedback, and that's something that a lot of companies, especially early stage hardware startups,

00:23:11 Gil Bar-Lev: might miss. Just reach out, get ahead of it and ask them what they can do. I mean, it can be done in surveys. It could be done in a direct email.

00:23:17 Gil Bar-Lev: If you really want to be fancy, send them a letter. especially for your first customers, spend some time with that first 100 to 500 customers

00:23:23 Gil Bar-Lev: because you're going to learn a tremendous amount from that coming back into all the principles we talked about on the show. And look for mentors, look for advisors.

00:23:31 Gil Bar-Lev: You don't have to promise them everything up front. And that goes to a different aspect of startup. You know, it depends on whether that's a hardware startup.

00:23:38 Gil Bar-Lev: So it's looking to bootstrap on their own or they're looking for investors to chime in

00:23:43 Kevin Mako: and help them out. But regardless of both approaches, having a mentor, having an advisor, having someone

00:23:49 Kevin Mako: that share with you their own experience and walk with you in the same lane as what you need can be a tremendous positive impact to your

00:23:58 Kevin Mako: business. And there are multiple ways to go about it.

00:24:02 Gil Bar-Lev: Gil, great insight. Great feedback here in terms of something that everyone can actually listen to and apply to their businesses, whether it's in furniture or not.

00:24:09 Gil Bar-Lev: But for those who are in the furniture business and have furniture hardware startups or our furniture buyer, whatever else that

00:24:16 Gil Bar-Lev: are listening to the show, how can they learn more about home routes? And get owned to the platform. Okay. So on Home Roots, our website is Homeroots.com. It's very simple.

00:24:24 Gil Bar-Lev: C-O. That's how it's right.

00:24:25 Kevin Mako: And for everyone who wants to sell the product through our platform to retail to B-B, they go will go to Homeroots.com for it slash seller -d-register.

00:24:35 Kevin Mako: So just repeating it one more time, it's homeroots.com, ford-slash-seller -register. That's where they will start journey with us.

00:24:44 Kevin Mako: We'll take them where they need to go. It's great. It's an easy start. Just go to the website and start working on it, right?

00:24:50 Kevin Mako: And go from there. And of course, as always, I'll put all the links into the show notes where you can find Gil on LinkedIn, as well as Homeroots .com, and as well

00:24:58 Kevin Mako: as if you are selling furniture products and want to get on to the platform and open up your buyer market, which seems like a bit of a no-brainer.

00:25:05 Kevin Mako: I'll put the links in there as well. Gil, thanks again so much for your time today. Really appreciate being on the show. Thank you, Kevin. It was a pleasure. Great. Take care.

00:25:12 Narrator: Take care. Bye-bye.

00:25:14 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

00:25:23 Narrator: and turn it into a big success. This podcast series is brought to you by Mako Design + Invent,

00:25:30 Narrator: the original and leading firm in North America to provide global caliber in -to-end physical consumer product development to startups, inventors,

00:25:39 Narrator: and small product business clients. If you're looking for product development help on your invention, head over to Mako -design.com.

00:25:46 Narrator: That's M-A-K-O Design dot com for a free consultation from one of Mako Designs for Design Studios from coast to coast.

00:25:55 Narrator: Thanks for listening and see you next time.