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Why Products Designed By Women Are The Next Big Thing

This article originally appeared on our Forbes blog

An Interview with Danielle Kayembe
Danielle Kayembe is a futurist and the founder of GreyFire Advisory.

Have you heard the term coded patriarchy? According to Danielle Kayembe, founder of GreyFire Advisory and author of the white paper ‘The Silent Rise of the Female-Driven Economy’, it’s a phenomenon that impacts nearly every aspect of a woman’s waking life. Since the majority of our everyday products and systems are designed by and for men — to the exclusion of women’s unique needs, biology, and wants –our reality is in fact male-centric, says Kayembe.

Instances of patriarchal coding can be found in buildings, technology, and consumer products. For example, building doors are typically engineered for the tensile strength of men, making it difficult for some women to open them. None of the most popular health tracking apps (Apple, Fitbit, Nike)  included a way for women to track their monthly cycles at release, despite the fact that most users of these devices are women and periods are a fundamental component of women’s health. Other consequences are more sobering. When airbags were first introduced, hundreds of women and children were injured and killed because the companies who launched them had only thought to test them on the male body.

While such observations may seem negative, Kayembe posits there is a huge, untapped potential in the market for women-centered innovation (WCI): products and services that are not just marketed to women, but created by them too. Women designers and entrepreneurs have an innate ability to understand the pain points and aspirations of female consumers and thus drive new types of innovation, disruption, and brand loyalty. Or as Kayembe puts it, “Every woman, by virtue of her lived experience, is now a walking hub of multi-million dollar business ideas.”

Globally it’s estimated that women make 85% of consumer spending decisions, and when united as a market, represent the world’s second largest GDP. In the US they control roughly 50% of personal wealth ($14 trillion in assets!) and are the primary breadwinners in over 40% of households. Yet despite possessing substantial decision-making and buying power, only 2% of venture funding is given to women-led companies. According to Kayembe, this disconnect represents “the largest arbitrage opportunity in the market today.”

The tendency of today’s investors to overlook and underfund female entrepreneurs may well be changing. Kayembe predicts that as the most successful female-founded companies reach liquidity (IPO’s or acquisitions), “a new ecosystem will form.” Namely, female investors will launch their own funds, invest in companies that sell products and services they are familiar with, and actively seek out women-led companies to support. Instead of having to depend entirely on the current venture capital network, they will create their own, comprised of WCI-friendly investors and companies.

If this shift does in fact play out, other factors are likely to ignite the success of WCI. One is that women are known for sharing products they love with other women, a behavior enhanced greatly by the use of social media (which women engage in 62% more than men). The second is that millenials are buying more from smaller companies and choosing value-based brands over traditional heritage brands. The Boston Consulting Group estimates that large companies have lost $18 billion in sales to small businesses in the 5-year period ending in 2014. Both of these social trends lend themselves to the rise of female-driven products and services.

It’s easy to see the world as static, and to view people as too entrenched in their ways to create seismic change. Especially since coded patriarchy is potentially thousands of years in the making! But Kayembe sums it up best: “The darlings of the business world shifted from middle-aged men in Brooks Brothers suits, to college dropouts in hoodies — it’s about to shift again.”

Payal Singhal and The Desai Foundation Share 3 Steps For Making Products That ‘Give Back’

This article originally appeared on our Forbes blog

When leading Indian fashion designer Payal Singhal and New York-based nonprofit president Megha Desai connected at a Mumbai fashion event last year, a conversation around women’s empowerment spurred an idea: could they create beautifully designed products that would delight clients and improve the livelihoods of the women responsible for making them? The answer, it turns out, is yes.

Social entrepreneurship is a growing field that all business leaders can explore. Here we breakdown how Singhal and Desai combined forces to produce “bags for good” and how their success is giving socially-conscious product entrepreneurs (and entrepreneurial nonprofit leaders!) an inspiration to follow in the process.

Step 1: Start With A Great Idea

The Desai Foundation’s mission is to empower women and children in India and the US through various community initiatives, while the Payal Singhal brand is known for its fashion-forward dresses, sarees, and other special occasion attire. In preliminary discussions about their partnership, Singhal and Desai decided the foundation’s vocational sewing program would naturally be the focal point. Training sewers to produce produce certain Payal Singhal products would provide the women with skill-based work while adding a philanthropic component to the brand’s supply chain.

The final result is the PS x Desai Foundation collection, which includes lenghas, scarves, and tote and makeup bags in a stylish lotus print reminiscent of the nonprofit’s logo. The proceeds from the bags go directly to the Foundation (along with a portion of revenue from the rest of the line), and the sewers making them receive fair wage compensation, in fair working conditions, as well as flexible hours to meet the needs of village life.

Step 2: Build A Solid Team

To set up the supply chain, the pair traveled to one of the Desai Foundation’s sewing centers in Valsad, Gujarat with Monica Dogra, the face of the partnership. Once there, they hosted a communal event to introduce the sewers to the leadership team, brief them on the purpose and scope of the project, and explain the specific benefits they would receive by participating. “We wanted to ensure that they felt like they were a part of the process, so we had a great launch day which got the whole community excited,” said Desai.

To ensure technical expertise, the sewing team completed a 3-month preparatory program, during which an American seamstress was flown in to teach high-end cutting, sewing, and finishing techniques that would satisfy the brand’s international audience. While quality control on the products is of the utmost importance, the Desai Foundation is equally committed to ensuring a high quality of life for each worker. Maintaining open channels of communication with the women to ensure their financial, emotional and physical needs are being met is essential to their production process.

That said, the logistics of any production operation can present challenges. For example, shipping to and from the center, which is located in a rural village, can take a long time. Setting up a successful joint venture requires communicating about these potential pain points up front and ensuring both parties are on the same page. Doing so will help nurture a collaborative attitude towards challenges should they arise.

Step 3: Make It Sustainable

“Great partnerships happen when both parties have shared values and shared goals,” says Desai. The lasting power of such a partnership comes when those principles and aims are part of a self-sustaining system, which the PS x Desai collaboration executes perfectly.

By joining forces, Singhal has access to a transparent, ethical production solution (a challenge for many apparel brands) and can offer her clientele beautifully-crafted products while simultaneously making a philanthropic contribution.

The Desai Foundation’s mission is equally supported, as the union creates exactly the type of jobs women in their program need. And since the foundation receives a percentage of all PS X Desai Foundation sales, this built-in revenue stream sustains and grows the initiative.

This is social entrepreneurship at its best: a great idea, a sustainable business model, and clear benefits for all parties involved.

Why You Need To Get Out Of Your “Idea Bubble” Before Launching A Product

This article originally appeared on our Forbes blog

Most people who come up with a product idea or invention are incredibly passionate. They’ve seen a need in the marketplace – most often inspired by their own day-to-day frustrations with existing products (or a lack-thereof) – and are excited to fill the gap.

This period of excitement is what I call the “idea bubble”. During which, entrepreneurs are enthusiastically planning out their product design guided by their own unique preferences, life experiences, and gut instincts. They may share their concept with friends and family to get “objective” feedback, but loved ones are likely to be encouraging rather than brutally honest. As a result, ideas in this stage exist primarily in a bubble of subjectivity.

Bubbles are only a problem if you never leave them. As difficult as it can be to hear someone say they wouldn’t buy your product, or that your price is way too high, or the design not attractive enough, this is exactly the kind of feedback makers need to collect at the beginning stage of their business. People who get too far into product development and manufacturing without thoroughly testing their concept run the risk of investing time and money into an item that few people actually want. It might sound like common sense, but after working with hundreds of start-up brands and designers I see the idea bubble trip people up again and again!

On the flip side, sometimes feedback is irrelevant and needs to be tossed aside. A few negative reactions are not enough to shift the course of a business! So how do entrepreneurs know what’s what? The answer is volume. Makers need to poll a lot of people about their product concept in order to separate one-off opinions from the general consensus of their target market.

An NYC-based business accelerator I once interviewed requires all incoming start-ups to talk to 100 prospective customers about their business concept before receiving any further support. After carrying out this work, nearly everyone makes modifications to their original business model. Whether the change is small, like adjusting the price of a product or service, or large, like deciding to target an entirely new demographic, the effect is the same: feedback forces a positive change.

Independent makers and inventors can benefit from the same approach. Set a goal to seek out between 50 and 100 ideal customers and ask them for direct feedback about a product’s design, price, branding, etc. Connecting with this many people requires getting creative! For example, a recent client making a medical garment for chronically-ill kids posted questions in various online parent support groups, spoke to her child’s doctors and nurses, and attended a conference so she could talk directly with families and care providers familiar with her customer’s needs. The response rate was fantastic.

Methods of collecting feedback vary, and can include one-on-one phone calls or in-person discussions, online surveys and polls and focus groups. Hiring a market research company can be a pricey investment for most bootstrappers, but it’s definitely an option. Remember: the goal is to leave the bubble and listen to customers, not conduct an airtight scientific research study. Questions about a product’s overall appeal, the necessity of certain features and benefits, and the target price are important, but so is allowing for open-ended conversation. In fact, off-hand comments can yield powerful insights that may fundamentally alter the design of a product, as well as inspire ideas for new products.

In order to be useful, feedback has to be measured. Inquiries like “What would you pay for this product?” or “Do you feel there is a significant need for this product in the marketplace?” are easy to track, but evaluating more nuanced intel, like the tone of a conversation or the overall level of enthusiasm from the feedback group, requires something different. In order to harvest this type of non-data, entrepreneurs must consciously avoid the trap of “hearing what they want to hear.” Giving yourself a little mental reminder to be open and clear-eyed can be helpful before each conversation!

Collecting an adequate amount of feedback will certainly require elbow grease, and in some cases, a bit of cash too. A virtual assistant to manage the project might be helpful for people juggling a day job or a family, while participation incentives such as a $50 gift card to one lucky survey winner work well too. Whatever the investment, it’s wise to spend a little money up front, before a product design has been made in bulk. The process of developing, testing, manufacturing, packaging and shipping a physical item isn’t cheap, and once it’s done, it’s done!

A maker may wholeheartedly believe there is a need for their product exactly as they’ve designed it and hopefully, that’s the case. But exposing ideas to the outside world before too many startup investments have been made can prevent wasted time and energy. Stepping out of the idea bubble as early as possible is the best way to launch a physical product.

Maker’s Beware: 3 Product Entrepreneurs Share Their Biggest Rookie Mistakes

This article originally appeared on our Forbes blog

Launching a business with physical products comes with its own set of unique challenges. Here we chat with three product-entrepreneurs who share their most memorable rookie mistakes, along with how they corrected course and consequently, implemented permanent improvements in their businesses. Their anecdotes represent some of the most common missteps made by new makers. After working with designers and inventors for nearly a decade, I can confirm that nearly every newcomer who loses time, money, or momentum has done so because of one of these preventable errors!

Mistake #1: Assuming Everyone Understands What You Want

Learn to Make a Product | Maker's Beware: 3 Product Entrepreneurs Share Their Biggest Rookie Mistakes
Briana Borten
Briana Borten, Founder, The Dragontree

When Briana Borten was launching her holistic body care line, she, like most people bringing a product to life, was hyper-focused on the details. In her case, packaging was a central focus; she had beautiful labels designed for each product, and tweaked and retweaked the colors and copywriting and layout until they were just perfect. The first production run went off without a hitch, and she was was thrilled with the results.

Product sold quickly, and when it came time to re-up on inventory, she handed off the specs to a production manager who would oversee reordering. This is where the “a-word” reared its ugly head. Borten assumed that because she was providing a finished design to her team as well as her supply partners–one that she had outlined clearly and painstakingly–there would be zero confusion about her expectations for the finished product. She didn’t see the need to establish a system of checks and balances to ensure the specifications were met, because it just seemed obvious that they would be.

Production mistakes happen for a variety of reasons. Changes in personnel, calibration issues with machines, accidentally using the design files. Human error is present, if not prevalent, in manufacturing. All these variables make “assuming” a risky business.

In Borten’s case, her manager failed to request a new set of samples prior to production. Also a victim of assumption, she assumed the supplier would deliver exactly what had been sent on previous orders. She didn’t want to delay delivery by double-checking. As a result, a very large order arrived at her warehouse with incorrect labels.

The experience led Borten to implement systems to preserve quality instead of relying on the judgment of any one individual. She outlined a sampling procedure in writing that required two people to sign off on proofs, as well as a quality check that would catch any incorrect orders on site at their production facility.

Mistake #2: Having Design Tunnel Vision

Learn to Make a Product | Maker's Beware: 3 Product Entrepreneurs Share Their Biggest Rookie Mistakes
Ryann Scrafford, Founder, Charlie Rowan Designs

Ryann Scrafford did what many designers do when searching for manufacturing solutions: she looked for someone who could recreate her baby blanket designs exactly as she envisioned them, with no deviation from her original design. While it sounds logical to look for supply partners who can reproduce or make your product just the way you want it, the search for perfection can be a momentum-killer.

This is mainly because it can be hard to replicate precise specifications from supplier to supplier, particularly when it comes to materials such as fabric. Not only is there natural variation between “the same” material produced by different vendors, but there are also countless types of fabric out there, with varying weights, finishes, printing techniques and so forth. The sheer volume of choices makes searching for an exact match akin to finding the needle in the haystack. This phenomenon is true for many material components.

New design entrepreneurs are better served by looking for the best materials they can find, rather than embarking on an endless search for a perfect match. This is even more true for people producing at small quantities; since they don’t have the budget to customize orders like big brands do, they are limited to “stock options” (materials that are regularly stocked by suppliers). For example, a multinational sportswear brand may produce thousands of yards of custom performance fabric at a time, made exactly to their specifications; however, a small maker looking for this same material will not be able to find it because it’s not something that textile suppliers stock.

In order to speed up the sourcing process, be open to feedback from suppliers about what material option might work best for a design rather than making narrow requests. When Scrafford’s search for a specific fabric stalled out after a year of futile sourcing, she realized she needed to be open to new solutions. The result was a revised product line that was a bit different than her initial offering, but just as high-quality!

Mistake #3: Launching Without A Clear Pricing Strategy

Learn to Make a Product | Maker's Beware: 3 Product Entrepreneurs Share Their Biggest Rookie Mistakes
Markisha Velazquez, Founder of Junior Baby Hatter

Pricing a product correctly is central to a brand’s viability. Price too low and a venture becomes unable to sustain itself; price too high and customers won’t buy. Both options, sadly, can lead to business failure.

Markisha Velazquez launched a line of children’s hats with the best of intentions. She wanted to give parents stylish headwear options for their kids at an affordable price. She set her initial price point at $20; however, her manufacturing costs were nearly just as high. Without earning a profit, she was left with very little to market the brand, let alone keep the lights on.

She then tried applying a standard retail markup in which the cost of making a good is multiplied by 2.2 to set the wholesale price (the price that stores and other resellers pay), and then multiplied by 2.2 again to set the retail price (the price the end consumer pays). These hikes resulted in a massive slowdown of sales because they didn’t account for the most important aspect of pricing: what the market will bear.

After receiving guidance from a business coach,Velazquez dug deeper into her customers’ buying habits and examined what they were paying for other high-quality children’s accessories. First she identified brands with a similar target customer and “Made in the USA” focus, and tracked their pricing across a variety of channels, including boutiques, pop ups, and ecommerce stores.

Then she signed up for in-person craft markets, which, compared to trade shows and pop ups, provided her with an inexpensive way to get face time with actual customers. This proved to be the best source of intel, as she could see people’s reactions to pricing firsthand, as well as what styles were most likely to bring in traffic. As a bonus, she also received feedback on the fit of the hats, which helped her improve her design.

Armed with this data, she set a market-based price and then resourced the labor and materials required to make the hats to fit within the desired profit margin. Ultimately, she had to find a different fabric vendor and remove some non-essential components like design trims, but the end result was a product line that did not compromise on style or quality.Velazquez’s new pricing strategy now yields enough cash flow to run the business and to invest and grow.

Real World Advice For Protecting Your Product Idea

This article originally appeared on our Forbes blog

There are few things more nerve-wracking for product-entrepreneurs than the thought of being copied, especially if you have an innovative idea. This fear is most present when it comes to manufacturing partners, as they learn about your concept before it hits the marketplace and you’ve handed them detailed instructions about how to make it!

Legally protecting your intellectual property can be complicated and costly. Trademarks start at several hundred dollars (if you do it yourself), while patent and attorney fees range from $3,000 to upwards of $15,000. The generic Non-Disclosure Agreements many new entrepreneurs rely on are often too broad, or worse, not legally binding when working with a supplier in another country. Even if you do jump through all the correct legal hoops, the cost of enforcing any of the above provisions in a court of law (particularly in a foreign court) is usually prohibitive for those on start-up budgets.

Further complicating matters is the fact that many people simply aren’t eligible for a patent, the most basic way to prevent someone from replicating your design. You may have a clever idea, but if the USPTO (United States Patent and Trademark Office) doesn’t deem it an “invention” (you can read about the requirements here), patent laws aren’t helpful.

So what are new makers to do? If legal protections are available and affordable to you, then by all means, follow through with them! But for those who can’t afford protection, don’t qualify, or who want to take extra precaution when working overseas, there are some non-legal, budget-friendly best practices that can limit your exposure.

Learn to Make a Product | Real World Advice For Protecting Your Product Idea
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Use a “Dummy” When Talking to Suppliers

Searching for a manufacturing partner means having conversations about your product with lots of different people. Most makers I work with speak to between 5 and 15 suppliers before landing on their final partner. While you’ll obviously need to provide potential manufacturers with some basic design information to confirm their capabilities and interest, it’s not necessary to share the nitty-gritty about what makes your product different.

I recommend people use what is called a ‘dummy product’ when speaking about their concept during this phase. The dummy product is another item on the marketplace, similar in materials or construction to your design, minus your ‘special sauce’.

For example, if you are making a special type of jeans that accommodate the wearer’s weight fluctuations, you could show suppliers a photo of another pair of jeans (like the ones you want to make in terms of style and material), and simply make a note that the design of your waistband differs in that it would require sewn-in elastic. This is enough information to get confirmation about whether the factory has the equipment to produce your product; the more technical aspects of the design can be shared once you’ve narrowed down your list of factories based on general criteria, such as their minimum order requirements, reputation, quality control program, and ease of communication.

Be Vague About the Product’s End Use

People are often so involved with their idea they can’t imagine anyone else looking at the design and not ‘getting it’ right away. But in some cases, the product’s end use is not actually obvious unless it’s explained with detailed verbal or visual descriptions.

Take a designer making a specialized equestrian product – a saddle pad made of unique cooling fabric . When shown on a horse, the purpose of the pad is obvious, but when shown as a flat piece of quilted fabric, it’s function is not necessarily apparent. During the preliminary sourcing phase, you can take advantage of the ability to be vague with potential factories, revealing only what is necessary.

Sometimes you can’t hide what your product does, but you can still withhold what makes it unique (and enticing to copy). For example, a smart maker may opt to source the above-mentioned cooling fabric separately and simply not divulge its special properties to the final sewing facility that would be putting it all together.

Two things to note: people employing this approach will sometimes use a private email address to communicate with suppliers so as not to link to their company’s website. Further, this type of “selective sharing” doesn’t need to be a long-term strategy. Once you’ve developed a trusting relationship with your manufacturing partner, it’s okay to be more transparent.

Search for Reviews

People who get ripped off are usually pretty mad about it. Because factory searching is mainly done on sourcing platforms which allow users to leave reviews, it’s a good idea to search the major sites for negative comments about the partners you’re considering. A simple web search for ‘sourcing database’ or ‘find manufacturers’ along with the name of the country where you are producing should yield a list of sourcing platforms to search. It’s also a good idea to do a general search of the supplier’s name.

Split Production Into Multiple Locations

Breaking up production into different locations can require a bit more legwork and some added logistics costs, but for makers with high-tech or highly sensitive products, it can be worth it. Let’s say you have a design with 3 main components. Instead of having one factory do the entire job from start to finish, you hire 3 different partners to perform different processes, so that no one supplier has the specifications or materials necessary to make your entire product.

A company might give Supplier A instructions to make two of the components, hire Supplier B to make the third, and then instruct Supplier C to assemble all three pieces prior to shipping. They may also utilize a hybrid sourcing model, where overseas suppliers make certain parts and a domestic factory (under local legal jurisdiction) is tasked with final assembly. Those who are really concerned about IP might even complete the final step in their own private warehouse.

Focus on Branding

There’s no shortcut or quick tip to achieving great branding, but it’s the ultimate IP protector. Consumers buy product due to a mix of motivators; the most influential factors being compelling branding, great photography and/or copywriting, and high media visibility. And these are all things that you, the passionate, creative force behind your product, are in a unique position to excel at! A factory that specializes in machinery and quality control and logistics? Not as much.

Whether you raise outside capital or invest in hardcore sweat equity, focusing on branding is one of the most important things you can do to crowd out those who may try to copy you.

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