Learn to Make a Product

Expert Consulting for Product Entrepreneurs

Funding Options For Product Entrepreneurs

Most e-commerce businesses are self-funded, meaning people take out loans, draw from their savings, or use a portion of their regular income to fund a project.

Bootstrapping has a less glamorous reputation than say, getting venture capital or joining a fancy accelerator program. But if you are someone who wants to maintain complete control over your business and lifestyle, it’s entirely possible to grow a successful e-comm business on your own.

Here are three platforms that will help finance your growth (without taking any equity in your business):

  • ClearCo offers funding (between $10K and $10M) to businesses with at least 6 months of revenue history. You can use the funds to buy inventory, run ads or anything else you want to do. Funding decisions are made quickly (about 24 hours).
  • Kick Further gives you funds to pay suppliers (including factories), with repayments due after the inventory is sold. This is a good alternative to crowd-funding.
  • If you use Shopify you can apply for Shopify Capital. Approval is based on your store’s average monthly sales, which do not need to be high. The funds are deposited into the account connected to your store, and repayments are simply deducted from your sales deposits.

Best of luck!
Liz

 
None of these companies have asked us to promote their products. While some pay an affiliate commission, all of these resources are suggestions we would share with clients regardless. We hope this list helps you grow your business!

Tips For Building Your E-Commerce Store

Here are my favorite tools for building a great e-commerce store:

1. Shopify has always been my preferred platform e-comm. This is because it has excellent functionality, a ton of flexibility in terms of how your store is laid out, and connects easily with thousands of apps and tools.

2. No matter how DIY a website builder claims to be, most people need at least some custom coding to get a professional-looking store. If you need affordable, task-based developers for your Shopify store try Hey Carson and Storetasker. And check out Fiverr if you are using another platform.

3. Images are everything! Find a solution like Soona that offers stylish product photography and videos at reasonable prices.

4. Clear, persuasive messaging is also key. I recommend reading the book Building A Storybrand by Donald Miller. The “storybrand” framework is helpful when crafting your messaging. We also have an e-commerce copywriting template here you can use for inspiration.

5. Packing and shipping your own orders is fine in the beginning. It should be outsourced ASAP as your business grows though! Shipmonk, Easyship, and Deliverr are all companies who offer order fulfillment, freeing up your time to focus on other things.

6. Automated email sequences will supercharge your store. Examples include a welcome sequence to educate new customers about your brand, an abandoned checkout flow to get people to complete their purchase, and review request emails to build social proof. Klaviyo is the best software for e-commerce entrepreneurs because of it’s focus on physical products.

I hope you find this list useful!

Liz

None of these companies have asked us to promote their products. While some pay an affiliate commission, all of these resources are suggestions we would share with clients regardless. We hope this list helps you grow your business!

4 Ways To Build A Movement (Not Just A Brand)

This article originally appeared on our Forbes blog

A well-developed brand engenders feelings of affinity, belonging, and trust. It communicates a specific set of values–think quality, health, convenience, and more–so that a customer is ultimately motivated to make a purchase, preferably more than once! Many companies are great at this type of brand-building, but few take it a step further to focus on building a movement.

In simple terms, this means building a business that is capable of changing societal norms, beliefs or behaviors, while simultaneously selling products. By aligning with a movement and not just a brand identity, companies have the opportunity to inspire both purchasing and positive social change.

Mamava, a start-up that sells “nursing pods” for offices and public spaces, is an excellent example of a company building a movement on top of a brand. Their product line consists of pre-fabricated, freestanding spaces that allow women to pump or breastfeed while at work or on the go. You might find one of their colorful pods in a corporate office, a concert stadium, on a school campus, or at a trade show.

Mamava Nursing Pod in airport

While the product line provides much-needed comfort and privacy for moms (whose only option is often a cramped restroom stall!), the Mamava brand aims to be more than a practical solution to the challenge of nursing in public. Instead, their bigger goal is to “transform the culture of breastfeeding” and change collective attitudes (and policies) around the act itself. Through the growth of their business, Mamava wants to normalize breastfeeding and make the world more accommodating to nursing moms.

Here are four ways Mamava is successfully building a movement around their products, with takeaways that can be applied to any business:

Use Movement-Building Language

Mamava’s mission statement to change the culture of breastfeeding clearly communicates their vision for social change. This is not the only place the brand uses “movement-building language” however. When speaking about their inspiration for starting the company, founders Christine Dodson and Sascha Mayer regularly cite the sentiment that “nursing should be a right, not a privilege.” When you sign up for Mamava’s newsletter you’re invited to “Become a Lactivist.” Such verbiage, when used consistently across platforms, reminds customers that they are aligning with something greater than the company itself.  

What Is A Design Brief? (And Why You Need One)

When communicating with potential partners, it’s important that you are explaining your product idea clearly. This may seem like an obvious statement, but the problem is often that many new makers think they are being clear, when in fact their description is too vague, too wordy, or incomplete.

A Design Brief solves this problem by providing a clear, concise overview of the product you want to make. This simple document – often created as shared doc in Google Drive or as a PDF of a Word document –  is used to confirm if a manufacturer can help you or not, as well as the associated time and cost of doing so.

As mentioned above, it can be difficult to properly communicate your vision without an industry-standard overview that includes both a clear visual of our product idea as well as basic details like size range, materials and the available colors).

Here is checklist to help you create your brief:

  • Product Name (working title is fine) and a one-line description (optional, recommended if your product is a new invention and needs explanation)
  • Reference image of the product concept (this could be a similar product by a competitor, a photo of a sample you’ve made, or a rough sketch)
  • A short list of materials. (Ex: braided leather, silver buckle, care label, hang tag)
  • Size Range (Ex: XS – XL)
  • Desired color/print options (Ex: “5-7 solid colors” or “3 custom prints, similar to this artwork)
  • Any sort of special instructions (Ex: “Prefer vegetable tanned leather, if available”) 

The entire brief should be no more than 1-2 pages. If you are making multiple products, it’s okay to create a multi-page brief and separate it into sections.

It’s best to create your Design Brief before you start reaching out to potential factories, and reference it in your initial inquiry. For example: “We’re launching a line of women’s belts, overviewed in this document”. (You would then share the doc or attach it to the email.) As a reminder, a Design Brief is an overview, not a comprehensive set of instructions to make your product! This will be supplied at a later date, once you choose your final partner.

Save the finished file somewhere handy and make sure it’s editable, as you’ll be sending a brief to potential suppliers each time you launch a new product in your business!

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