Product Startup Podcast Episode 220: Storytelling That Sells Products

00:00:00 Kevin Mako: Hello, product innovators. Today we learn how a hardware startup sold 1 million units using storytelling directly from the product's founder.

00:00:07 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.

00:00:17 Kevin Mako: Hosted by Kevin Mako, the leading expert on product development for hardware startups. Welcome back everyone. I'm very excited to introduce Akeem Shannon to the show. Akeem is the founder of Flipstik, a hardware startup that launched on crowdfunding, has since sold more than a million units, distributes through 3,000 resellers, and has tens of millions of views across social media.

00:00:36 Kevin Mako: Today, Akeem will share valuable knowledge for inventors, startups, and small manufacturers on why you use storytelling to sell a new product, how to leverage storytelling from both yourself as a founder and through your customers, and how you use those tools to scale your product sales growth.

00:00:48 Kevin Mako: Now, onto the episode. This show is produced by Mako Design, the original firm providing end-to-end consumer product development services tailored specifically to hardware startups, small manufacturers, and inventors. Take your product from idea to store shelves at MakoDesign.com. Now, onto the episode. Hi Akeem, welcome to the show.

00:01:09 Akeem Shannon: Hey, thanks for having me, Kev.

00:01:10 Kevin Mako: We're excited to talk to you today about the story and the importance of storyboarding for your own product. From somebody who has had tremendous success in getting your invention to literally a million plus in sales of units sold all around the world, let alone all kinds of other accomplishments. I'm very excited today to talk to you about that. Before we jump into all the good details about what a new hardware startup can do to propel their sales through storytelling, just give us a bit of a background.

00:01:37 Kevin Mako: How did you get to the big success story that you are today?

00:01:40 Akeem Shannon: Yeah. Honestly, for me, it started back in high school. I was always that kid that loved sales. I would get the most candy sales for the fundraiser. And I went off to college.

00:01:52 Akeem Shannon: I got a full scholarship to study chemical engineering, which has nothing to do with sales, right? And I lose this scholarship and I have to come home. And I was so embarrassed and ashamed.

00:02:04 Akeem Shannon: And I just felt like an absolute failure. But I made myself this promise that by the time my friends were graduating college, I wanted to be making at least as much as the average college graduate.

00:02:14 Akeem Shannon: I figured if I can't get, you know, and have a college degree, I can at least have a college paycheck. And so I start off in sales. I started off working at a Sprint store, which would now be T-Mobile stores, selling cell phones and cell phone accessories. And over the course of the next few years, I became the number one sales rep, not just at Sprint, but also I went to work for Verizon in sales, so I was the number 1 sales rep at two Fortune 500 companies. I saved up nearly

00:02:41 Akeem Shannon: $100,000, making nearly $90,000 a year. And I realized like, whoa, a few years ago, I was a failure in a college dorm that I wasn't supposed to be and not going to class, like just really feeling like there's no future for me. And I recovered from this. And so once I had that experience of like, man, you can recover from failure if you just don't give up

00:03:05 Akeem Shannon: Too soon. Like just because you fail, it doesn't make you a failure. That really propelled me in my journey and really like a journey of self-discovery because I realized like, man, if I can do that, I can doing anything. And so I ended up quitting my job and eventually realizing like, hey, I think the path for me is entrepreneurship. And that's where my journey began.

00:03:24 Kevin Mako: Amazing. Now talk a bit about the journey. I'd love to hear that, what storytelling is for a hardware startup and then getting into the weeds. But first, I want to hear the story of how you got in over 3,000 distribution channels. You're all over the world, a million plus units sold.

00:03:37 Akeem Shannon: Incredible. So, you know, when I finally quit these jobs, right, I decided to start this business and I just had a mindset of the time of like, you know, my treasure, my dreams are out there. And because I had this mindset, when I get this phone call from my uncle, who's an engineer at nasa, he was telling me about a project he was working on for the space launch system and how he was going to use this gecko-based adhesive to do this project. And since I had recently mounted my TV on the wall, I'm like, man, if I had

00:04:03 Akeem Shannon: This magic nasa that he said, I could have just stuck the TV on the wall instead of trying to figure out how to mount it. And so that is where, even though I never mounted a TV to the wall, I did figure out a way to mount a little tiny TV, a smartphone to the wall. And so we created this product called Flipstik, a little device that allows you to stick or mount your phone to virtually any flat surface. I start off on a Kickstarter campaign, a pre-order campaign.

00:04:26 Akeem Shannon: And in the first 30 days of this campaign, we sell $15,000 worth of product. And I could not believe it because this was a product that didn't even exist. I didn't have a manufacturer yet. I just had a little prototype, but people were buying this from me and it gave me this conviction to just go on this incredible journey that would take me from opening a kiosk in the mall and making $30,000 in two months to applying to Shark Tank, to not making it on the Shark Tank

00:04:51 Akeem Shannon: To having to go convince Snoop Dogg, D-O-double-G through a rap pitch to invest and give me money for my business that would ultimately land me a Shark Tank and get me millions of dollars worth of investors and into retail stores.

00:05:05 Akeem Shannon: And it was just this incredible journey that came from, honestly, just the belief in myself that I could do something that I had no experience whatsoever doing.

00:05:14 Akeem Shannon: And it also gave me some pretty awesome stories to tell along the way.

00:05:18 Kevin Mako: Wow, that is powerful. What a great journey. Now, I want to dig into some of the nuggets, especially when it comes to how you started to sell and really propel yourself above the competition, or even just to get those sales from somebody who may not have known what your brand was or what your product did, you figured out a way through storytelling to hook those customers to the point where they pulled out their credit card and they bought your product. So let's talk about storytelling, big picture,

00:05:44 Kevin Mako: And then we'll get into the weeds. At first I thought, look, the product sells itself, right?

00:05:49 Akeem Shannon: I have a product, here's the features, here's how it works, go buy it. And at a small scale, that works. When you find the right customer, that works for them. But the truth is that most people don't have big imaginations.

00:06:00 Akeem Shannon: They don't know, especially when something's new, they don't know what they're going to use it for. Why do they really need it? They've gotten away with not having it all these years. Why do they need it now? Your biggest competition when you create a new hardware item is nothing. They got away with not having anything. So you have to convince them that they need something in replace of nothing. And that's a very hard job to do.

00:06:19 Akeem Shannon: But the best way to do that is to tell them a story. Tell them a story of someone just like them who also didn't have your product, but came across it, started using it and tell them how their life changed. And when that story relates to your customer, all of a sudden now they're fully on board with what it is you're doing. And even if you're like early in the process, you don't have customers. What I learned, the

00:06:45 Akeem Shannon: Reason I didn't make it on the Shark Tank that first time is all I was going through was the features, the benefits, and the sales. What they wanted to know was, what's your story? What's the journey that you're on to build this product? And the truth is that you will have customers that will take a shot on your product, not because they need it, not because the features and benefits, but because they want to be a part of your story,

00:07:09 Akeem Shannon: They want to be a part of your journey. And then as you start to propel your business forward, now, when you tell your customer stories to new potential customers, they see, oh, wow, that item was a part of someone else's story. And what would it mean for it to be part of mine? And that was, at least for us, how I made up for all of the inadequacies I had in Facebook marketing and Instagram marketing to be able to somehow get this business off the ground.

00:07:35 Kevin Mako: That is incredible. There are so many pieces of information to unpack. If you're listening right now, you might want to rewind that a couple of minutes and take down some notes because Akeem talked about a number of very important pieces of telling a story that can really propel your product above everything else.

00:07:52 Kevin Mako: And here's the beauty. You as a founder, the story is free and the story is your own. So this is your most powerful marketing tool right there that you can do. So Akeem, I want to actually look at some of these things a bit deeper. Talk to us about Flipstik. What were some of the elements of that story? Now you gave a bit of a structure, right? You're showing somebody how they buy the product and how it changes their life. And that then convinces this new prospective customer

00:08:16 Kevin Mako: In order to buy. But let's break that down. What were you telling the customers that was really hooking them and then engaging them to the point where they actually wanted to buy it based on the story that you were telling.

00:08:27 Akeem Shannon: So one of the first like really successful stories we started to teach people was we realized that sometimes I was not the right messenger, right? Like if I'm telling my story, then yes, people buy my story. They believe it. They want it.

00:08:40 Akeem Shannon: And that worked for Shark Tank, worked for everyone who bought our product from Shark Tank. But at a certain point we hit a ceiling. And so we realized by working with an influencer that, hey, you have so many people out there. They don't really know social media. They're just getting started and they need a way to capture video for their audiences in a simplistic, inexpensive way.

00:09:00 Akeem Shannon: I wasn't the right storyteller for that story. But what we learned was that creator coaches, people that teach people how to make content, if they tell the story of how they're using our product to create their content and they teach that to their students, all of a sudden we have a winner. We ended up working with this kid, brock johnson, and we worked with a ton of these guys, but brock is one that I really remember because his was so powerful. He just, he simply

00:09:26 Akeem Shannon: Went out and he said, I just got a deal for this product Flipstik to sell it to you. And honestly, I wasn't going to sell it to you, but I went and I made a piece of content and that piece of content got 10 million views. And because of the amount of money that I made off of that content, I said, you know what? Maybe this thing is worth presenting to my audience. If you want to know

00:09:47 Akeem Shannon: The full story of how I got 10 million views using this product, dm me the word flip. This dude had hundreds, thousands of people dm him the word flip. He did, I want to say he did nearly $100,000 in sales on our website, all because he just put that hook on. He said, I know you want to know the story of how I did this. Here's the product, but you got to come to me directly for

00:10:09 Akeem Shannon: The story. And no one that we had ever worked with before had done that. And it was so successful. I was honestly just in awe, like seeing the sales come through. I'm like, what is this guy doing?

00:10:20 Akeem Shannon: But it was one of those first moments that we realized if we have the right storyteller for the right audience, that's where the connections happen. And I'll give you one other story that was really powerful. We didn't find this guy. This guy found us.

00:10:33 Akeem Shannon: He just found the product through Amazon or social media or whatever. He buys it. He signs up to be an influencer. My marketing guy pulls me aside one day. He's like, you got to see this kid. He's one of our influencers. And he just signed up on his own.

00:10:46 Akeem Shannon: This kid was deaf and he used american sign language. And I never really thought about the deaf community, how they use phones. I just assume, hey, you can't speak. You're going to send a text message.

00:10:55 Akeem Shannon: Well, turns out, no, that's not the case because they wanted to be able to express all of the same emotions that we get when you talk to somebody. And they do that through their hand movements and through their facial expressions. But there's a problem.

00:11:08 Akeem Shannon: How do you sign to someone if one of your hands is holding your phone? So he took our product and when he was out and about and wanted to call his friends and family and be able to really communicate with them with both hands and all of his emotion, he would take his phone, he would stick it to the wall and he would do these facetime calls.

00:11:26 Akeem Shannon: And he starts telling the people that followed him in his community who are also american sign language speakers like, hey, this is like the perfect item for the deaf community. Next thing I know, this kid's selling tens of thousands of dollars worth of flipstiks.

00:11:38 Akeem Shannon: He's got like 2,000 followers. I couldn't have told that story. I didn't even know the story existed. But once we saw it and we saw him tell his story, we started to amplify it. And next thing we know, people who weren't deaf, who just were inspired by the way the product affected his life, they start finding reasons in their lives why it will make sense. I had someone tell me that they were at a funeral and at their funeral, they just simply could not talk to all

00:12:05 Akeem Shannon: The people as their mother had died. They just could not bring themselves to talk to everyone. They took their phone, they stuck it to the wall and they told everyone to go and record me a message. You know, I just can't talk. I can't deal with it right now. And then they were able to look back at those messages months later about how all these experiences that these people had had with their mom that they weren't able to receive in that moment. And it was just one of those things for me where it's like I thought I was just making an item for tick tock

00:12:32 Akeem Shannon: You know for people to make tick-tock videos watch espn on a plane but it was actually having an effect in people's lives and by capturing those stories from our audiences along with my own and retelling those to other audiences man we just started to hook people in because then they realized like oh wow like this thing could even though it's just a simple little item it could

00:12:52 Kevin Mako: Make a difference when I most need it so powerful now you mentioned talking about your own stories talk a bit about that. And especially as a founder, if they're just using their own voice to amplify the messaging of the product, what's important there? What do you think really works?

00:13:08 Kevin Mako: What was working for you in telling your story behind your own product? Whether it's, I guess, to any stakeholders, whether it was investors or whether it was buyers or whether it was wholesale buyers, that be it. There is a story that was behind it. You were behind it, what makes for a great personal founder story behind their own product.

00:13:26 Akeem Shannon: Yeah, the key to it for me is authenticity, right? You know, I used to tell all only stories that were good, like, oh, look at me, I'm so great.

00:13:33 Kevin Mako: Nobody wants to hear that.

00:13:34 Akeem Shannon: You've never seen a movie that has no conflict, no bad guy, no trouble happening. No one wants to watch that, right, and so when I didn't make it on the Shark Tank the first time, I said, well, look, if I can't have a celebrity investor, I gotta go find someone else, another celebrity, and so I end up going to this event called the revolt summit. And I wrapped my way into pitching them into buying my product through

00:13:57 Akeem Shannon: A wrap, not through a pitch, a wrap. They invite me out to la and in la, I made a flip stick with Snoop Dogg's face on it. And. I was trying to ask him a question. They wouldn't let me ask a question. So instead I took my phone, I slapped it on the pillar behind him and he's watching this and he sitting in his chair and you may have to bleep some of this out because it is snoop after all. But he's like, that mofo just stuck his mofo phone on the wall. And everyone in the

00:14:24 Akeem Shannon: Crowd is like, what is snoop talking about? And he's just kept telling into the mic, like, I want to hear about the sticky phone. Bring that sticky phone up to me. And I go up to the stage, I show him the product. He sees his faces on the product, he's going nuts for this.

00:14:37 Akeem Shannon: And in the crowd that day was one of the head of sales for at&t, they were the sponsor of this event. They're just eating this up, right? And this moment goes viral online. And even though I didn't make it on the Shark Tank, having this moment, ultimately Shark Tank will find out about all this stuff that happened. But even better than that, when I would go into a meeting with like target and we're this tiny little company, we got no business being in target stores.

00:15:03 Akeem Shannon: And I tell them the story I've been on to get to this point today, to even be able to sell you a product. When I was in meetings with investors and they're like, well, your sales really aren't that strong. But I tell them what I've done to get to this point. People just look at it and they say, you know, you may not be where you're trying to get, but I think you're going to get there and I'm going to take a shot on you. And whether it was investors doing that, whether

00:15:27 Akeem Shannon: It was people like target and best buy, at&t, T-Mobile, all these retailers taking those shots on us, or whether it was even our customers going way back to when I was in the mall and I would to tell people, yeah, I'm a college dropout. I made this product and my uncle told me about it at 3 a.m. And he's a nasa engineer. They hear the story and they're like, you know what? I just want to be a part of this. So I'm going to take a shot on it. And maybe it works for me. Maybe it doesn't.

00:15:52 Akeem Shannon: I don't know. But it's just worth me being a part of the journey. It's exciting, right? It's like being able to participate in a movie. And so, you know, by telling that authentic story for me, the failures that I've had, the ups, the downs, the way I created the product, my intention for the product. The struggle that I had trying to get the product to market and produce it.

00:16:14 Akeem Shannon: Those are the things that allowed our customers and our investors to take down their walls, to expose a little bit of their vulnerability and to connect with me on a human level versus just saying, hey, does this make dollars and cents? Well, I don't know, but I like it and it makes me feel good to hear about it.

00:16:32 Akeem Shannon: And I want to see where it goes. So I want to be a part of it.

00:16:35 Kevin Mako: So powerful, great information to share. I appreciate it. We're getting to the top of the episode now. Akeem, thank you so much for all your words of wisdom. Of course, I'll put all the links below to you've got your mentorship. You've also got obviously Flipstik.

00:16:47 Kevin Mako: I'll put the links below so anyone could just click through and check this stuff out and learn more about Akeem, what he's up to the journey you're on the speaking that you're doing. And of course, the success of the product, which is really great to see. Akeem, thanks again. And we'll talk again soon.

00:16:59 Akeem Shannon: Thanks, Kev.

00:17:00 Kevin Mako: Much appreciated take care thanks for tuning in to this episode of the Product Startup Podcast if you found some value in the show please do us a huge favor and hit the like button and subscribe if you have any questions guest suggestions or anything else feel free to reach out to us anytime at our email podcast@MakoDesign.com this show is hosted by Kevin Mako

00:17:23 Kevin Mako: North America's leading expert on product development for hardware startups and the podcast is produced by Mako Design, the original firm providing end-to-end consumer product development services tailored specifically to hardware startups, small manufacturers, and inventors.

00:17:38 Kevin Mako: Take your product from idea to store shelves at MakoDesign.com. That's M-A-K-O Design dot com. Thanks for joining and see you again soon.