Product Startup Podcast Episode 214: Affiliate Marketing for D2C

00:00:00 Kevin Mako: Hello, product innovators. Today we learn how to sell your new product via affiliate marketing from a direct-to-consumer marketing expert with over 15 years of experience in the trade.

00:00:09 Kevin Mako: This is the Product Startup Podcast, a show to learn from top leaders in hardware product development, prototyping, manufacturing, product selling, and everything in between.

00:00:18 Kevin Mako: Hosted by Kevin Mako, the leading expert on product development for hardware startups.

00:00:23 Kevin Mako: Welcome back, everyone. I'm very excited to introduce Alex Back to the show.

00:00:27 Kevin Mako: Alex is the founder of Couch.com and was the prior founder of Apt2B.

00:00:32 Kevin Mako: Both of these companies are deeply embedded in the affiliate marketing space for physical consumer product brands selling directly to end customers.

00:00:39 Kevin Mako: Today, Alex will share valuable knowledge for inventors, startups, and small manufacturers on what affiliate marketing is for hardware products, how to launch your new product through affiliate marketing, and best practices for getting early sales through this growing product sales channel.

00:00:52 Kevin Mako: Now, on to the episode.

00:00:55 Kevin Mako: This show is produced by Mako Design.

00:00:57 Kevin Mako: The original firm providing end-to-end consumer product development services tailored specifically to hardware startups,

00:01:04 Kevin Mako: small manufacturers, and inventors.

00:01:06 Kevin Mako: Take your product from idea to store shelves at MakoDesign.com.

00:01:11 Kevin Mako: Now on to the episode.

00:01:13 Kevin Mako: Hey, Alex, welcome to the show.

00:01:15 Alex Back: Why, thank you. Nice to be here.

00:01:17 Alex Back: We're very excited today to talk to you about affiliate marketing, which is really interesting

00:01:22 Alex Back: and not often talked about product strategy for new emerging hardware brands, new inventions,

00:01:28 Kevin Mako: that are coming to market, have all kinds of different avenues at their disposal in order

00:01:32 Kevin Mako: to actually sell the product. They spent all that time designing, engineering, prototyping,

00:01:36 Kevin Mako: and eventually get it to manufacture. So the question today is, what is affiliate marketing?

00:01:42 Kevin Mako: And then how do we do affiliate marketing well? And Alex is here to talk about it today.

00:01:47 Kevin Mako: So before we get into all those best practices on what affiliate marketing is and how it's really great

00:01:51 Kevin Mako: kind of low-hanging fruit, low-cost avenue for a new hardware startup to get their product to market,

00:01:57 Kevin Mako: Alex, just give us a bit of a backstory of how you became the success story that you are today.

00:02:02 Alex Back: Well, thanks. Yeah, sure. So currently I am the founder and CEO of Couch.com. We are building an innovative

00:02:08 Alex Back: new platform to help people find where to buy couches. Not too deep of a concept, but it's actually

00:02:16 Alex Back: something that people really need and no one really knows where to buy furniture. So we're sort of taking a

00:02:20 Alex Back: technological approach to matching people based on their preferences and things that they will tell us and

00:02:27 Alex Back: what they're looking for with the perfect couch or retailer that will sell them that

00:02:30 Alex Back: couch near them or online. So that's what we're doing at couch.com. But previously, I ran a

00:02:37 Alex Back: B2C furniture brand startup called Apt2B, which started back in the time when there were

00:02:44 Alex Back: really no independent retailers of furniture on the internet online. And we bootstrap the company and just

00:02:50 Alex Back: sort of grew organically and grew at a pace that was comfortable to us. And then started seeing

00:02:57 Alex Back: a lot of traction as people began getting more comfortable over the last 10 years with buying

00:03:02 Alex Back: big things online. So we stuck with it, figured out a lot of the kinks, and ended up growing it to being

00:03:07 Alex Back: a fairly successful company that we sold in 2018 to a large furniture chain. And I stayed on and

00:03:13 Alex Back: grew the company for four years past that. It was a wonderful experience. But the key is, and I think

00:03:19 Alex Back: to tie into this conversation is that I was working with my own money for a very long time. And we

00:03:26 Alex Back: didn't have outside capital. We never took on any outside funding. So for us, it was really an

00:03:32 Alex Back: exercise in figuring out what the most efficient marketing strategies are. And that's why I'm

00:03:37 Alex Back: excited to talk about affiliate marketing because I don't think people really know what it is.

00:03:41 Kevin Mako: That's great. And especially as a new hardware product coming to market with a lot of different options,

00:03:46 Kevin Mako: one of the first things that people think about is, well, how can I sell a small amount of units to

00:03:51 Kevin Mako: start in a relatively inexpensive way? You don't necessarily want to go out and blow hundreds of thousands

00:03:56 Kevin Mako: of dollars on the most craziest videos and promotional campaigns and big marketing budgets

00:04:01 Kevin Mako: before you've even validated the product in the very early stages of the hardware startup business.

00:04:06 Kevin Mako: So, of course, with that frame of mind, the question is, well, what is efficient marketing?

00:04:12 Kevin Mako: I love that you mentioned that word there because it's a very powerful word and something that

00:04:15 Kevin Mako: all hardware startups should be thinking about when they're considering their different options

00:04:19 Kevin Mako: in terms of how to actually sell a product in the beginning of their business.

00:04:23 Kevin Mako: Of course, many of these strategies can be used to scale and do scale very well,

00:04:27 Kevin Mako: but it's even more important when you've got limited funding, limited budgets, and really

00:04:31 Kevin Mako: limited experience in what your customers actually want and where your customers actually are.

00:04:37 Kevin Mako: So let's start here talking about affiliate marketing.

00:04:40 Kevin Mako: I want to just zoom it out, big picture.

00:04:42 Kevin Mako: What is the definition of affiliate marketing?

00:04:44 Kevin Mako: Then we'll get into the weeds.

00:04:46 Alex Back: Great.

00:04:46 Alex Back: So affiliate marketing is quite literally working with an affiliate or a partner to help

00:04:53 Alex Back: you sell your product. I think the broadest example is one where we're all very

00:04:59 Alex Back: familiar with and comfortable with the concept of these days, which is social influencers. We all know

00:05:04 Alex Back: that influencers influence people on social platforms to make a purchase. And they are compensated

00:05:11 Alex Back: for that exercise in various ways. But that is sort of a microcosmic, more individualistic view

00:05:20 Alex Back: of affiliate marketing. Ultimately, affiliate marketing is

00:05:23 Alex Back: quite simply compensating a partner for helping you sell your product.

00:05:29 Alex Back: Now, whether that's a commission-based or traffic-based monetization structure,

00:05:35 Alex Back: that is something that is determined between the person selling the product and the person

00:05:40 Alex Back: promoting the product.

00:05:41 Alex Back: So there are many different structures, and we can talk about that right now to sort of engage in,

00:05:46 Alex Back: but generally speaking, it is performance-based marketing.

00:05:50 Alex Back: When someone promotes a product or service for your,

00:05:53 Alex Back: your company. If they make a sale, generally speaking, they get a commissioner. They are

00:05:57 Alex Back: compensated in some way for that. It's sort of this old school idea of salesmanship being brought

00:06:03 Alex Back: to the online space.

00:06:04 Kevin Mako: That's amazing. This is so powerful because if you think about it here,

00:06:09 Kevin Mako: they're really, and typically the experts at selling products, usually in your niche or somewhere

00:06:13 Kevin Mako: close to it that they understand, which is why they're interested in your product. The person

00:06:17 Kevin Mako: listening to this, you've created that innovative new product that's a hot new seller. They're looking

00:06:22 Kevin Mako: for this very thing. They're looking for the next hot product because they're competing

00:06:26 Kevin Mako: against other sellers, other stores, other avenues, other influencers that are selling whatever

00:06:32 Kevin Mako: they're selling. And they want something new and hot so that more people go to their store as

00:06:36 Kevin Mako: opposed to the others. So if you've got a new hardware invention that is innovative, proprietary,

00:06:41 Kevin Mako: cheaper, better, whatever the way is it's some improvement onto what exists already in the market,

00:06:46 Kevin Mako: it's a great opportunity for both parties. They know how to sell. You built something amazing.

00:06:51 Kevin Mako: put those two together and creates a very powerful partnership. Let's talk about those different

00:06:56 Kevin Mako: structures. Just break down what those options are from a big picture perspective, and then we'll start

00:07:01 Alex Back: getting into some tips and tricks around this. Sure. So I think generally speaking, there are a number

00:07:07 Alex Back: different ways to monetize an affiliate relationship. So as I sort of said already, most of it is

00:07:13 Alex Back: commission based. Let's say you're selling a spatula. You have the best spatula that the world has ever

00:07:19 Alex Back: seen. A cooking influencer, or maybe even more specifically, a cookware influencer on

00:07:24 Alex Back: social media is an example of that kind of an affiliate partnership. A larger scale example would be

00:07:30 Alex Back: like, let's say, a very popular blog that has a regular user base and is sort of very

00:07:37 Alex Back: conversion focus where people will go to find information about the best spatula is to buy.

00:07:42 Alex Back: Your product is listed there. That person would send traffic to your website or actually literally

00:07:48 Alex Back: sell the product for you and they would receive a commission in return for doing so.

00:07:52 Alex Back: Then if you kind of zoom out even further, there are affiliates that may just be of more general

00:07:57 Alex Back: interest, but a lot bigger, a lot wider reach. Some of these general interest editorial sites and

00:08:03 Alex Back: the Condé Nast Hearst properties, Better Homes and Gardens is a good example of a place where you might

00:08:10 Alex Back: find an article about the top 25 spatulas to buy in in 2024. And those are all examples of

00:08:17 Alex Back: sort of small to large scale relationships and the commission structures or compensation

00:08:24 Alex Back: structures, I should say, because it's not always percentage of sales commission based. Sometimes it's

00:08:30 Alex Back: based on a CPC basis where they'll send traffic to your site. And sometimes there's like a display

00:08:36 Alex Back: ad element where they will maybe charge you for a dedicated email blast to their user base. Either

00:08:42 Alex Back: way, those are three good examples of types of affiliates that one would have.

00:08:47 Alex Back: they were selling a product like a spatula. Let's talk about the very starting points here.

00:08:52 Kevin Mako: If you're a new hardware startup, you've got your product, you're either in production or getting ready

00:08:57 Kevin Mako: for production, and you want to try an affiliate marketing. What's some of the first steps that you

00:09:02 Kevin Mako: take in order to research who might be a good affiliate marketing partner for you?

00:09:07 Alex Back: Great question. So I think the first fundamental thing to point out is that affiliate marketing

00:09:13 Alex Back: generally requires a seller, in this case,

00:09:17 Alex Back: you listening to sell the products themselves. A lot of these affiliate relationships

00:09:24 Alex Back: are built to send traffic to your website or to your store rather than selling it on their

00:09:29 Alex Back: platform like an Amazon or a marketplace type relationship. So if anyone is confused about that,

00:09:34 Alex Back: I just wanted to draw that clear line. So the first thing is being able to sell your own products

00:09:40 Alex Back: that will open the door for you immensely. So whether you're starting a Shopify store or

00:09:45 Alex Back: WooCommerce, big commerce, any of the platforms, they all integrate with these

00:09:49 Alex Back: affiliate marketing connectors, these platforms that sort of facilitate these relationships.

00:09:54 Alex Back: So just to level set, you're selling your own product. The next thing to do is to research the different

00:10:01 Alex Back: affiliate platforms that are available to you. There's not that many, so this doesn't have to be like

00:10:07 Alex Back: a lifelong endeavor. There's like three or four big ones that everybody's on. And I'll list a

00:10:13 Alex Back: couple of them in a second, but you want to sort of look at those, see which ones,

00:10:18 Alex Back: maybe you have an introductory call with them. They all have sales teams. They want to sign people up.

00:10:22 Alex Back: You know, if you're selling spatulas, one platform may be better suited for that to connect you

00:10:28 Alex Back: with people who like to talk about spatulas a lot than another one. If you're selling car parts,

00:10:33 Alex Back: that might be a different platform. So some of the big platforms out there are CJ affiliate,

00:10:39 Alex Back: formerly known as Commission Junction. Impact is an

00:10:43 Alex Back: another one that's very, very good. I highly recommend that I personally move my last company

00:10:49 Alex Back: from Commission Junction or CJ to Impact. And then there are other ones out there that are good

00:10:56 Alex Back: entry points, I think. One is called Share a Sale. So these are just examples and a quick Google will

00:11:01 Alex Back: yield the rest of the players in this space because it's not that big and it's very competitive for them.

00:11:07 Alex Back: What you would do there is literally you sign up with their platform. It's generally speaking

00:11:12 Alex Back: a fairly easy integration process, although sometimes depending on how you have your website

00:11:18 Alex Back: structured, it can be a little bit more complicated because there are different ways to monetize conversion

00:11:24 Alex Back: events. If a conversion is considered on your side, a phone call to get a consultation or something

00:11:30 Alex Back: like that, those are a little bit deeper level when it comes to the technical nuts and bolts of how

00:11:36 Alex Back: to set that up. But if we're talking about straight up, like they send you traffic and they want to

00:11:40 Alex Back: track how many purchases one makes so that they can pay your partner for you. That's a

00:11:46 Alex Back: little bit more of a simple integration. But to take a step back, essentially these are platforms

00:11:51 Alex Back: that connect to the seller with the publisher. The publisher in this case is someone who's publishing

00:11:57 Alex Back: content or influencing people to go to your website and make the purchase. These platforms, they act as

00:12:04 Alex Back: the connector piece, is sort of like third-party agnostic tracking software to use of broad

00:12:10 Alex Back: term to figure out how many clicks they sent you and how many sales that they made.

00:12:17 Kevin Mako: Super helpful and very tactful. I appreciate the step by step on that. So let's assume that we've

00:12:22 Kevin Mako: gone through that process. We've chosen our platform. We've set up our website. It's all integrated

00:12:27 Kevin Mako: properly. Now, how do we start finding those actual people, influencers, or companies to partner with to

00:12:36 Alex Back: get them to sell our product? Well, this is the part that I really like a lot because

00:12:40 Alex Back: it's not like some great discovery process or grand discovery process, I should say. It's great

00:12:46 Alex Back: in the sense that it's quick and easy because all of the platform's job is to connect. So obviously

00:12:52 Alex Back: they have tools in place to connect one party with the other. Quite simply, it's like you go into their

00:12:58 Alex Back: search for affiliates part of their website and you type in, I'm looking to sell spatulas.

00:13:04 Alex Back: Who would be a good fit for that? And with today's sort of AI integrations and things like that,

00:13:09 Alex Back: it's very easy for the computer, so to speak, to spit out great results for you. So you get

00:13:15 Alex Back: like a list of affiliates and you can sort of connect with them or message them. Typically

00:13:21 Alex Back: speaking, affiliates are looking for new products to sell and new brands to sort of connect with.

00:13:27 Alex Back: So they're also reaching out to you. This happened so much in my former business that we actually had

00:13:32 Alex Back: to hire an agency to manage our sort of inbound communications to vet certain relationships.

00:13:38 Alex Back: That being said, you can kind of just go, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, if you don't want to be

00:13:43 Alex Back: discerning and you just want to get your product out there on the internet. Ultimately, if you have a good

00:13:48 Alex Back: product that people think that they can sell, then you won't have to work that hard to make these

00:13:53 Alex Back: connections, if that makes sense. That's a great little side note here that I always like to jump in on

00:13:59 Kevin Mako: it. At the end of the day, when you're selling a physical consumer product, a great product is your

00:14:05 Kevin Mako: real starting. So stepping it all the way back to.

00:14:08 Kevin Mako: product design, development, manufacturing, etc. Step one is make sure you've got a great

00:14:14 Kevin Mako: product to sell, then get all these platforms and such set up. And as you mentioned, and as many people

00:14:20 Kevin Mako: in the sales and marketing field mentioned, no matter which avenue you choose to sell product,

00:14:25 Kevin Mako: if you have a great product, it's going to lubricate all kinds of the processes to get you from

00:14:31 Kevin Mako: your first sale to your 100,000th sale. If you've preloaded the quality into that product and aren't

00:14:37 Kevin Mako: hoping just to release something garbage and fix it later. So always start with a quality

00:14:41 Kevin Mako: product, not necessarily a feature-rich product. And we talk about that on the show,

00:14:45 Kevin Mako: especially for your first. Condense your feature creep, keep it to your first MVP version of

00:14:51 Kevin Mako: the product, but never sacrifice quality. And that's a big, important step in terms of your product

00:14:56 Kevin Mako: brand and, of course, the ability to sell to your eventual target market. So now that we've

00:15:01 Kevin Mako: got these things flushed out, we're figuring out we're on the platform, we're now reaching out

00:15:04 Kevin Mako: to individuals, what are just some of the best practices that you've seen?

00:15:07 Kevin Mako: seen over the years, whether it comes to messaging or product market fit or any of these

00:15:12 Kevin Mako: sorts of things that you think would be helpful for the listeners to know as they're getting

00:15:16 Alex Back: into the affiliate marketing space. Yes, that is a great question. What's on my mind is something

00:15:22 Alex Back: that you said earlier. And it's something that it sounds like you advise everybody that you speak with,

00:15:28 Alex Back: Kevin, like there's a structure in place in your sort of methodology or when you're coming out

00:15:33 Alex Back: with a new product wherein you want to find product market fit before you really,

00:15:38 Alex Back: like turn on the gas and you want to get your product out there. You want to get

00:15:41 Alex Back: feedback. That's an example of a goal that is a little bit different than most sellers. Like my goal

00:15:49 Alex Back: in my last company, Apt2B, was to get the word out about our couches so we would sell as many

00:15:54 Alex Back: couches as possible. Now, if my goal was different than that, it was more specific to getting my couches in the

00:16:02 Alex Back: right people's home so I get the right feedback to find product market fit or whatever else, those

00:16:07 Alex Back: two goals would be quite different. So I think the first step is to figure out what your goal

00:16:14 Alex Back: is and let all of your decisions from be informed by that moving forward. Seems simple,

00:16:20 Alex Back: but I think it's an important distinction to make. Then once you figure out, like let's say you're in

00:16:25 Alex Back: your year two, you've developed your product, you just want to get it out there, you want people talking

00:16:30 Alex Back: about it, you want to get some feedback, then I would take a very personally, a very aggressive approach

00:16:35 Alex Back: in the affiliate marketing space, right? Just to throw this out there, I don't know that

00:16:40 Alex Back: everybody knows this. Every single review of a product that you see online, whether it's consumer

00:16:46 Alex Back: reports or wirecutter or any other online outlet, top 10, this, or when every single one of those

00:16:54 Alex Back: relationships is monetized through affiliate marketing. Let me qualify that. Maybe 98% of them.

00:17:01 Alex Back: Like I have some reviews on my new sitecouch.com about brands, and we're doing that.

00:17:05 Alex Back: that for SEO purposes. So sometimes you'll see different things out there for different

00:17:11 Alex Back: reasons, but generally speaking, all of these relationships are monetized in the exact way that we're

00:17:16 Alex Back: discussing today. So one way to do this would be to do some outreach. You see the affiliates. You

00:17:23 Alex Back: request to connect with them in the platform, let's say it's CJ affiliate. You request to connect

00:17:29 Alex Back: with them and you send them a message. Hey, I have the best spatula that the world has ever seen.

00:17:33 Alex Back: I'd like to send you one so you can write a review about it.

00:17:35 Alex Back: And I will give you an aggressive commission percentage from every sale that you make.

00:17:41 Alex Back: Because I'm not interested in making money right now or being profitable. I'm interested in getting

00:17:45 Alex Back: this out there. So, for instance, and this is going to be a good aha moment, because it's not just

00:17:51 Alex Back: spatula as people do this with that they send free products to. This couch right behind me,

00:17:56 Alex Back: I got this free from a brand that is trying to get their word out there about their new couches.

00:18:02 Alex Back: they reached out to me, the CEO of Couch.com, said, hey, we would love you to review this product

00:18:08 Alex Back: and put it on your website. And me, I actually needed something for this exact space from my little

00:18:12 Alex Back: office situation. I said, yeah, absolutely. Go ahead and send it. The timing is perfect. I'm literally

00:18:17 Alex Back: looking for something this size. Do you have that? Yes, I do. It was in my house in a week. And now

00:18:23 Alex Back: I feel great about this brand. The product is actually really nice. I thank God. So I can now make

00:18:29 Alex Back: an awesome review for them. Put it on my website.

00:18:32 Alex Back: and now we are partnered. We haven't discussed the affiliate aspect of it yet, because I'm not

00:18:37 Alex Back: set up on platforms with my new company. But absolutely, if I really write a review and push traffic

00:18:42 Alex Back: to them, I'm going to want to monetize that relationship. But this is an example of them just saying,

00:18:47 Alex Back: like, okay, I'm not worried about sending a $1,700 product out the door right now because

00:18:53 Alex Back: it's worth it to me in the long run. We need to get this product out there and get people talking

00:18:57 Kevin Mako: about it. Oh, that's brilliant. And you know, the nice thing is you get your product at manufactured

00:19:01 Kevin Mako: cost. So it doesn't cost you as the inventor, the manufacturer, a lot of money to be sending

00:19:07 Kevin Mako: these samples around. And in the beginning, we talk about a lot on the show as well when you're starting

00:19:11 Kevin Mako: with your first 100 units short run and then 1,000 units, you know, your first, let's say,

00:19:15 Kevin Mako: full scale production, but still small volume. And you're working your way up. The goal isn't to make

00:19:19 Kevin Mako: money on those early phases. The goal is to get great reviews by actual customers. And now that we're

00:19:25 Kevin Mako: talking affiliate marketing, these are brand partners. So these are reputable individuals, influencers and

00:19:30 Kevin Mako: companies that if they like your product, they're going to represent you and give you

00:19:35 Kevin Mako: like even a compounding effect on their review because not only are you getting a great review

00:19:39 Kevin Mako: there, you're getting SEO value. You can then leverage that review to other platforms or other people

00:19:44 Kevin Mako: or other folks that say, hey, look, we're considered amazing here. You know, that can help you in your

00:19:48 Kevin Mako: advertising efforts. It can help you in your pitching to your investors or to your stakeholders and whatever

00:19:54 Kevin Mako: else. There's a lot of value that comes along with a brand that just gets some early reviews and early

00:19:59 Kevin Mako: traction on the web. What better way than an offer, like you said, offer really good

00:20:04 Kevin Mako: commissions for, you know, at least to get the ball rolling. And as you get to learn what your customers

00:20:09 Kevin Mako: want, and as you get to learn how these relationships work over time, as you gain volume, you can maybe

00:20:14 Kevin Mako: be a bit more conservative and a bit more profit oriented. But the value that you're creating in terms of

00:20:19 Alex Back: the equity value of your product and more importantly, your product business is massive with these

00:20:25 Alex Back: early adopters and with these early partnerships. I think that's very well.

00:20:29 Alex Back: And in my former business, we had an early, in the furniture space, there's a popular

00:20:34 Alex Back: editorial website that's big in the affiliate world as well, called apartment therapy. And my

00:20:39 Alex Back: former company was Apt2B. So you can imagine that an apartment focused furniture company would

00:20:46 Alex Back: want to really have a lot of partnership with the top editorial outlet that's focusing on apartment living

00:20:53 Alex Back: and home furnishing. So this was important for us. We got an early sort of inclusion in one of their

00:20:58 Alex Back: articles and they use those. They update them. They will refresh them. This is the content

00:21:04 Alex Back: marketer's job to keep their content fresh and relevant. We must have gotten 20,000 people from

00:21:10 Alex Back: this one, you know, one little link that we had years in the past. All I'm trying to say is it lives on.

00:21:15 Alex Back: You just said building equity. So I just wanted to provide an example of that because these relationships

00:21:20 Alex Back: sometimes really do pay dividends down the road.

00:21:23 Kevin Mako: That's powerful. It's evergreen content, right?

00:21:25 Kevin Mako: This is stuff that even if you don't get the direct ROI in year one, it lives on forever.

00:21:30 Kevin Mako: So you're building that brand equity in addition to the potential profitability that if the

00:21:35 Kevin Mako: partnership works well and sales continue to grow, well, then it's a double-edged short.

00:21:38 Kevin Mako: You're winning on both fronts. Before I let you go, just talk a bit about what you're doing

00:21:42 Kevin Mako: with Couch.com. And obviously, the website's easy enough to remember. So I'll put the links,

00:21:48 Kevin Mako: obviously, as always into the show notes below. But tell me where you're at with that business.

00:21:51 Kevin Mako: You know, you've already had one very successful build and exit.

00:21:55 Kevin Mako: within the direct consumer space. And obviously, I'm going to follow closely to see how

00:22:00 Kevin Mako: you do. I'm sure this will be another big success story with coach.com. So just to sort of get

00:22:06 Alex Back: into it from an organic conversational standpoint, I was really most excited in my last business about

00:22:12 Alex Back: the opportunities in the affiliate marketing space. I'm not just saying that because that's what

00:22:17 Alex Back: we're talking about today. It's absolutely true. It's like the wild west of opportunity. It's growing.

00:22:22 Alex Back: People are learning about it. It's just the fastest growing sort of.

00:22:25 Alex Back: of marketing outlet or marketing facet that I've been seeing people engage in. So I really

00:22:33 Alex Back: wanted to create an awesome affiliate site and I'm now on the other side of it. I'm not retailing

00:22:39 Alex Back: couches. I am talking about other people's couches. Why am I doing that? Because there are not a lot of people

00:22:46 Alex Back: talking about couches on a large scale or talking about furniture in the affiliate marketing space.

00:22:53 Alex Back: Nice. So the opportunity that I'm trying to

00:22:55 Alex Back: to fill here is the one where I can talk about all the brands of this country. You're

00:23:01 Alex Back: aware of the brick furniture chain. Nobody's writing articles about the brick. They're writing

00:23:07 Alex Back: articles about the small online retailers for which they were able to achieve easier commission and an

00:23:12 Alex Back: easier connection. Well, I'm going one step further and I'm trying to bring the brick and mortar stores

00:23:17 Alex Back: back into the fold and actually help people at the same time because the fact is 80% of the commerce in the

00:23:23 Alex Back: US and the furniture industry is done on the brick and mortar level. So I want to call a spade of

00:23:29 Alex Back: spade and say, okay, people are obviously going to the stores. Let's start driving affiliate traffic to

00:23:35 Alex Back: these actual stores and retailers and not just pretend that online's the only place to buy a couch

00:23:40 Kevin Mako: these days because it's not. That's great. I love how you're looking at all angles there and fill in that gap

00:23:46 Kevin Mako: and I'll be excited to see how it goes. Alex, thanks again for all your words of wisdom. It's amazing

00:23:50 Kevin Mako: to have you on the show to talk about affiliate marketing. When you've been on

00:23:53 Kevin Mako: on both sides of the coin. And what better person to talk about it then to figure out how a new

00:23:59 Kevin Mako: hardware startup can leverage this very powerful method of selling their new hardware invention

00:24:04 Alex Back: to the market. So, Alex, thanks again, and we'll talk to you soon. My pleasure. And if anybody has

00:24:09 Alex Back: the world's best spatulas, I'm happy to share my address because I'm definitely in the market for one.

00:24:15 Kevin Mako: Right on. Thanks, Alex. Appreciate it. Thanks for tuning in to this episode of the product startup

00:24:20 Kevin Mako: podcast. If you found some value in the show, please do us a huge favor and hit the like

00:24:25 Kevin Mako: button and subscribe. If you have any questions, guest suggestions, or anything else,

00:24:30 Kevin Mako: feel free to reach out to us anytime at our email, podcast at MakoDesign.com. This show is hosted by

00:24:37 Kevin Mako: Kevin Mako, North America's leading expert on product development for hardware startups. And the podcast

00:24:43 Kevin Mako: is produced by Mako Design, the original firm providing end-to-end consumer product development

00:24:48 Kevin Mako: services tailored specifically to hardware startups, small manufacturers, and inventors. Take

00:24:54 Kevin Mako: your product from idea to store shelves at MakoDesign.com. That's M-A-K-O-Design.com. Thanks for

00:25:01 Kevin Mako: joining and see you again soon.