1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:08,900 Kevin Mako: Hello, product innovators. Today we learn how to sell and scale a new hardware product on Amazon from an emerging product company selling over $30 million per year on the platform. 2 00:00:09,120 --> 00:00:18,340 Narrator: 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. 3 00:00:18,520 --> 00:00:23,160 Narrator: Hosted by Kevin Mako, the leading expert on product development for hardware startups. 4 00:00:23,780 --> 00:00:29,900 Kevin Mako: Welcome back, everyone. Today I'm very excited to introduce Tim Angel to the show. Tim is the founder of Zugu, an Amazon 5 00:00:30,000 --> 00:00:34,960 Kevin Mako: e-commerce iPad case that sold millions of units online and continues to grow. They have been 6 00:00:34,960 --> 00:00:42,580 Kevin Mako: perfecting the craft of direct-to-consumer selling on Amazon over the past 13 years, achieving over $30 million in sales per year. 7 00:00:42,800 --> 00:00:49,320 Kevin Mako: Today, Tim is going to share some valuable knowledge for inventors, startups, and small manufacturers on the power of Amazon, how to get started in selling 8 00:00:49,320 --> 00:00:56,240 Kevin Mako: a new consumer product on Amazon and best practices for growing sales quickly and effectively soon after launch. Now, on to the episode. 9 00:00:56,420 --> 00:01:04,520 Narrator: This show is produced by Mako Design, the original firm providing end-to-end consumer product development services tailored specifically to hardware 10 00:01:04,520 --> 00:01:13,620 Narrator: startups, small manufacturers, and inventors. Take your product from idea to store shelves at MakoDesign.com. Now on to the episode. 11 00:01:15,180 --> 00:01:21,740 Kevin Mako: Hey, Tim, welcome to the show. Hey, how's it going, man? Thanks for having me on. Well, I've really appreciated you joining on the call today. Excited to talk to you 12 00:01:21,740 --> 00:01:27,720 Kevin Mako: about how to sell products on Amazon and how to do it well. How to really build a business. Now, 13 00:01:27,720 --> 00:01:35,560 Kevin Mako: You've sold millions of units of product, 30 million plus in revenue a year, across Amazon, across the platform, multiple different product lines now. 14 00:01:35,840 --> 00:01:44,480 Kevin Mako: And we want to extract those nuggets of knowledge from what got you from an early stage business to a big success story with Zugu and how to do it as 15 00:01:44,480 --> 00:01:50,040 Kevin Mako: an emerging hardware startup. We've got a lot of listeners on the show that have amazing new inventions and products. 16 00:01:50,180 --> 00:01:56,300 Kevin Mako: Amazon is obviously top of mind for many of them in terms of not only getting onto the market, but scaling and building a business. 17 00:01:56,300 --> 00:02:01,540 Kevin Mako: What better person today than you to talk about it, talking about your journey with it through Zugu. 18 00:02:01,880 --> 00:02:06,800 Kevin Mako: Before we get into all of that, just give us a bit of a backstory of how you became the big success story that you are today. 19 00:02:07,180 --> 00:02:15,960 Tim Angel: Well, it all started back in 2010 when I lost my job. I was always interested in inventing products and I felt like I had been waiting to start 20 00:02:15,960 --> 00:02:22,000 Tim Angel: my own company, my whole life. And so when I got the opportunity, I just went all in. 21 00:02:22,000 --> 00:02:28,860 Tim Angel: So I'm just going to go 100% in and burn the boats to where there's no option for failure. 22 00:02:29,060 --> 00:02:34,060 Tim Angel: And I just kept, when things didn't work, try something else. That didn't work. Try something else. Try something else. 23 00:02:34,460 --> 00:02:43,620 Tim Angel: And the only way you can fail is if you don't try anything else, if you just give up. So eventually, you know, I got my product selling decently well and a storm hit. 24 00:02:43,800 --> 00:02:50,960 Tim Angel: And I was selling on the website and, you know, things were going bad. So I had to pivot and sell direct to customers. 25 00:02:50,960 --> 00:02:55,580 Tim Angel: So that's when I really went on to Amazon and learned that system 26 00:02:55,580 --> 00:03:05,380 Kevin Mako: and kind of, you know, really was able to capitalize on it. That's amazing. What a story that you continue to add products to the portfolio and variations of it. 27 00:03:05,580 --> 00:03:14,360 Kevin Mako: And a lot of that comes down to great products in the beginning. But give us the Cole's notes of what it actually took you to get onto Amazon and start selling. 28 00:03:14,480 --> 00:03:20,940 Kevin Mako: Because a lot of people look at that as kind of a scary enterprise, especially if you haven't done it before. Obviously, you looking back, you know, it's a simple process. 29 00:03:20,960 --> 00:03:29,480 Kevin Mako: in the early phases, especially, let alone, you know, what it takes to scale is a much bigger venture. But just the act of getting onto Amazon, first of all, explain a bit of what 30 00:03:29,480 --> 00:03:38,060 Kevin Mako: Amazon is, why it's valuable to hardware startups, and then how do you actually get your product onto Amazon itself? Then we'll get into the weeds of actually how to succeed 31 00:03:38,060 --> 00:03:47,480 Tim Angel: through the Amazon platform. Well, I think Amazon is an amazing platform for really giving the best product a really good chance. 32 00:03:47,700 --> 00:03:57,280 Tim Angel: And I feel like if you're coming up with one product, it is so difficult to be successful on your own website with just one product because a lot of times 33 00:03:57,280 --> 00:04:06,160 Tim Angel: a lot of the brands, they have to spend a lot more money to get that customer initially. So if it's a product to where somebody buys it once, you're going to spend $100 to sell 34 00:04:06,160 --> 00:04:13,480 Tim Angel: a $50 product and you're not going to make any money on the back end. Whereas on Amazon, you can be successful with one product. 35 00:04:13,480 --> 00:04:20,900 Tim Angel: You just need to make a really good product and keep improving it. And then you're able to scale it up and the conversion rates are way better. 36 00:04:20,960 --> 00:04:26,100 Kevin Mako: especially when you get up to five-star ratings. I'd like to talk about those five-star reviews. 37 00:04:26,860 --> 00:04:31,440 Kevin Mako: The quality of a product is so important to any hardware startup. We talk about this all the time on the show. 38 00:04:31,740 --> 00:04:39,940 Kevin Mako: It's not necessary to have all the bells and whistles on your first version of the project. In fact, it's better to focus on really your core invention, the main value 39 00:04:39,940 --> 00:04:44,920 Kevin Mako: out of your product, and then do a really good job at executing on that. And what does that mean? 40 00:04:44,940 --> 00:04:54,920 Kevin Mako: That means designing, engineering, and manufacturing a world-class product that is reliable and fits very much the need that you were looking to address in that invention. 41 00:04:55,160 --> 00:04:59,800 Kevin Mako: So talk a bit about why that is so important, especially on the Amazon platform, especially 42 00:04:59,800 --> 00:05:09,420 Tim Angel: with the power of reviews. Yeah, I mean, I feel like it's so common on Amazon to have products that are four stars or four and a half stars. 43 00:05:09,960 --> 00:05:17,660 Tim Angel: They're all, a lot of them are very, very cheap. So if you can really focus on making the best product that you possibly can by kind of 44 00:05:17,660 --> 00:05:22,880 Tim Angel: looking out what is on Amazon already in that niche that you're looking at. 45 00:05:23,920 --> 00:05:31,180 Tim Angel: And buy, you know, maybe five to ten of the products of your competitors, maybe buy a couple of the cheapest ones that 46 00:05:31,180 --> 00:05:36,720 Tim Angel: are selling the best, maybe a couple of the more expensive ones and maybe a couple of the highest 47 00:05:36,720 --> 00:05:43,640 Tim Angel: rated. Then you can kind of bring all those together, look at them in your hands and see what they did well, what they didn't do well. 48 00:05:43,940 --> 00:05:50,280 Tim Angel: Look at all those different product reviews, and see what people love, see what people are complaining about. 49 00:05:51,140 --> 00:05:59,480 Tim Angel: And then you take all those things and put them together, you know, all the things that people have an issue with, you try to improve and, you know, come 50 00:05:59,480 --> 00:06:06,520 Tim Angel: up with a solution for them. So then you put all those things together and you can really make, you know, put your own spin on it. 51 00:06:06,760 --> 00:06:16,360 Tim Angel: And then you slowly make more and more progress each production run. And each production run, you make more and more progress, just tweak small things. 52 00:06:17,420 --> 00:06:26,100 Tim Angel: And over time, it's going to be a huge improvement. So you want to make sure for your first order that you're trying, that you place the smallest 53 00:06:26,100 --> 00:06:35,500 Kevin Mako: order possible so that you can work out the kinks on future orders. Manufacturing improvement is such a powerful part of the hardware products journey. 54 00:06:35,500 --> 00:06:45,180 Kevin Mako: And it's actually something that doesn't require massive changes or modifications in between production runs, but small tweaks and refinements based on real customer 55 00:06:45,180 --> 00:06:50,040 Kevin Mako: feedback. You basically have two feedback loops. And I love the fact that you mentioned start small with manufacturing. 56 00:06:50,280 --> 00:06:57,460 Kevin Mako: We're a big advocate of if you could do short run manufacturing, start there, get a few units out to customers, give a few units away as well. 57 00:06:57,580 --> 00:07:03,920 Kevin Mako: So you have some people paying, some people that you're giving potentially to influencers or decision makers or key stakeholders in the industry to 58 00:07:03,920 --> 00:07:12,680 Kevin Mako: then give you real world feedback in addition to, so that's your market facing feedback. But in in addition to your engineering, manufacturing, design feedback. 59 00:07:13,080 --> 00:07:19,080 Kevin Mako: So making sure that you've really tested tweaked and refine those products so that when you go into the next production run, 60 00:07:19,180 --> 00:07:27,900 Kevin Mako: if you go from short run into your first full-scale production run, you're incorporating those small little adjustments that make the product perfect, really 61 00:07:27,900 --> 00:07:37,560 Kevin Mako: make it world-class. And then even as you jump from full-scale to large-scale production, you should be considering how you're both costing down. 62 00:07:37,560 --> 00:07:43,500 Kevin Mako: So at that point, you've got economies of scale. You've got economies of scale. You've got volume, but you've also got a tremendous amount of feedback from real users. So you make 63 00:07:43,500 --> 00:07:48,560 Kevin Mako: essentially your final round of modifications and tweaks so that as you're starting to scale 64 00:07:48,560 --> 00:07:57,660 Kevin Mako: through Amazon, you make sure that you're hitting both product market fit and engineering quality, meaning the products like robust and reliable. And if you think about that as a 65 00:07:57,660 --> 00:08:04,300 Kevin Mako: progression, then that allows you to essentially somewhat miss the mark potentially on your first 66 00:08:04,300 --> 00:08:08,520 Kevin Mako: run, but have the comfort in knowing that don't worry, you'll tweak and refine it to get it in the 67 00:08:08,520 --> 00:08:12,620 Kevin Mako: place it needs to be while having only, like you mentioned, produced a small amount of units 68 00:08:12,620 --> 00:08:20,000 Kevin Mako: so that you can test the market, test the engineering, test the manufacturing, then really start to scale and grow by hitting those five-star reviews. 69 00:08:20,380 --> 00:08:25,820 Kevin Mako: I love also how you mentioned looking at potential competitors, even if you've made a completely innovative product, which you don't 70 00:08:25,820 --> 00:08:30,400 Kevin Mako: have any direct competitors, then you should be looking at the other buying options. What else can 71 00:08:30,400 --> 00:08:38,440 Kevin Mako: somebody buy that's maybe an alternative to your product or what they're currently using in replacement of your product and figure out what people like and dislike? What a great 72 00:08:39,280 --> 00:08:44,500 Kevin Mako: source of information than the public reviews that are out there. People telling you exactly why 73 00:08:44,500 --> 00:08:49,180 Kevin Mako: they're either giving it demerit points or why they're giving it a five-star review. If you can 74 00:08:49,180 --> 00:08:53,740 Kevin Mako: focus on those things really continually and progressively, which is something I love that you said 75 00:08:53,740 --> 00:08:57,940 Tim Angel: there, a very powerful part of growing and scaling the brand from your initial version of the 76 00:08:57,940 --> 00:09:03,000 Tim Angel: product in terms of, and then scaling that product bigger and bigger over time. Yeah, and I think 77 00:09:03,000 --> 00:09:09,340 Tim Angel: also an important, important thing is on Amazon, if you're competing on price, there is a lot of competition. 78 00:09:10,140 --> 00:09:18,400 Tim Angel: But if you're if you're not competing on price and you're going for a high quality product, there's very little competition. So I think that's a really important area to 79 00:09:18,400 --> 00:09:22,820 Tim Angel: focus on, you know, make a high quality product, post your story about, 80 00:09:22,900 --> 00:09:31,320 Kevin Mako: you know, your American company or European company or whatever. That gives you priority over the cheap products that are mostly manufactured overseas. 81 00:09:31,380 --> 00:09:39,520 Kevin Mako: Something we always advise is to whatever your invention is, and this works for, I would say, 90 or 95% of the time, if you've come up with some sort of 82 00:09:39,900 --> 00:09:45,860 Kevin Mako: innovation in the world, you should start with the premium version of it. Again, that doesn't mean the feature rich version. 83 00:09:46,100 --> 00:09:52,480 Kevin Mako: That means a high quality of the version. First of all, you can always bring your price down. Second of all, you don't yet have economies of scale in 84 00:09:52,480 --> 00:09:57,260 Kevin Mako: manufacturing. So to compete on cost, typically one of the variables is you need to be manufacturing 85 00:09:57,260 --> 00:10:04,820 Kevin Mako: in the tens or hundreds of thousands of units so that you're cost effective in production. Well, you don't have that luxury as a startup yet. You can get that. 86 00:10:04,840 --> 00:10:12,740 Kevin Mako: And no, you can always work your way down through all of the learnings from your higher quality version to make, let's say, a mid-quality version later. 87 00:10:13,220 --> 00:10:18,240 Kevin Mako: And you could even release a different version of your product, a different brand name or a different price point or whatever. 88 00:10:18,340 --> 00:10:26,900 Kevin Mako: There's lots of ways to do it, but you could have a cost-down version at a later date to hit a different or a larger, let's say, mass market appeal than 89 00:10:26,900 --> 00:10:33,320 Tim Angel: your original premium one. But the best thing you could do with that premium product in the beginning, though, is use that to establish your brand quality. 90 00:10:33,840 --> 00:10:38,440 Tim Angel: Better quality product, better brand perception. Yeah, exactly. And you can get people later on. 91 00:10:38,580 --> 00:10:44,000 Kevin Mako: You get more people in the door with that less expensive option and a little bit, well, this company's great. 92 00:10:44,120 --> 00:10:52,660 Kevin Mako: Let me try their, you know, put the money into buy their more expensive option. So yeah, I think that's great. What else would you suggest in terms of best practices 93 00:10:52,660 --> 00:11:01,240 Kevin Mako: just in scaling up sales on Amazon once you start gaining some early traction? Do you like working with some of the ads platforms there, offsite ads push. 94 00:11:01,560 --> 00:11:02,880 Kevin Mako: What are some of the channels that 95 00:11:02,880 --> 00:11:06,360 Kevin Mako: people can use to get more eyeballs on their product? 96 00:11:07,160 --> 00:11:13,260 Kevin Mako: Assuming, you know, they've done the work to get a great five-star product built. Now what can they do to actually scale that on the platform? 97 00:11:13,800 --> 00:11:22,900 Tim Angel: Well, yeah, first off, it's tough at the beginning. I would not do any advertising at the beginning when you don't have any reviews because it's just like throwing money away. 98 00:11:23,060 --> 00:11:32,660 Tim Angel: But, you know, at the beginning, it's hard to get reviews. You got a, I basically would give free product away. I would, you know, give it to family and friends, have them post 99 00:11:32,660 --> 00:11:38,880 Tim Angel: reviews. But now, like, you don't, you don't even need somebody to purchase the product to post a review. 100 00:11:39,140 --> 00:11:48,580 Tim Angel: So you can just give the product out and then say, hey, can you leave a review here on the product listing? But, yeah, I think that's really important. And you kind of need to 101 00:11:48,580 --> 00:11:55,200 Tim Angel: get, like, over 100 reviews, in my opinion, before you can kind of push the gas on the 102 00:11:55,200 --> 00:12:01,760 Tim Angel: advertising, but it would mainly be on Amazon where I would focus on the advertising. 103 00:12:02,340 --> 00:12:09,240 Tim Angel: You got to get the reviews up to five stars, if you can. But you know, you're not always going to be able to get there right at the beginning. 104 00:12:09,480 --> 00:12:17,320 Tim Angel: So you're just going to have to start out slow with the advertising. You got the sponsored products advertising, and then you got the banners. 105 00:12:17,580 --> 00:12:23,700 Tim Angel: For me, what I did when I did advertising with the banners, it doesn't show the prices of the 106 00:12:23,700 --> 00:12:29,260 Tim Angel: product. So you don't want people to click on it that are looking for an inexpensive product. 107 00:12:29,880 --> 00:12:34,380 Tim Angel: You know, so like for an example, we would put not cheap, but worth every penny. So anybody 108 00:12:34,380 --> 00:12:41,100 Tim Angel: looking for an inexpensive product is not going to click on it. It's not going to cost me money. It's really about focusing on improving the product. 109 00:12:41,480 --> 00:12:49,680 Tim Angel: And over time, you can scale up the advertising. But I would, I would seriously focus on learning the advertising system 110 00:12:50,340 --> 00:12:59,100 Tim Angel: yourself in Amazon, it's not that difficult to understand. I did it myself every day for years, so I got pretty good at it. 111 00:12:59,280 --> 00:13:06,100 Tim Angel: But it's also been a few years now since I've actually done it myself, since I replaced myself there. The nice thing about what you're saying here, too, 112 00:13:06,200 --> 00:13:12,120 Kevin Mako: is that the key from everything you said is these reviews. You've got to, first of all, build a great product, then get great reviews. 113 00:13:12,220 --> 00:13:18,960 Kevin Mako: The nice thing as a hardware startup is that you have the time and the effort to be able to curate those reviews. Like you said, you can be giving 114 00:13:18,960 --> 00:13:23,940 Kevin Mako: them away and then reaching out to those folks. You could be selling them. You could be selling them at a discount and then spending time. 115 00:13:24,080 --> 00:13:26,500 Kevin Mako: You even as the founder can reach out to every single buyer 116 00:13:27,180 --> 00:13:32,060 Kevin Mako: and make sure that they had a good experience. And if they had a good experience, then simply ask for that review. 117 00:13:32,520 --> 00:13:39,120 Kevin Mako: And that is a powerful way to start getting some of those earlier reviews, which then it's kind of a snowball effect, as you're saying, as you start to get more reviews, 118 00:13:39,720 --> 00:13:43,260 Kevin Mako: people better validate the product. And all of a sudden, now you've kind of tilted the needle 119 00:13:43,260 --> 00:13:47,900 Kevin Mako: where your return on ad spend becomes valuable because not only do you have a great product and 120 00:13:47,900 --> 00:13:52,140 Kevin Mako: hopefully you're advertising it or at least showcasing it correctly and properly on Amazon 121 00:13:52,140 --> 00:14:00,800 Kevin Mako: using proper formats for photos or renderings or whatever you're doing to make it at least look like a world-class product on the actual listing itself. 122 00:14:01,260 --> 00:14:06,540 Kevin Mako: And then once somebody actually comes and sees that you have a bunch of five-star reviews in addition to a great product, 123 00:14:06,920 --> 00:14:13,660 Kevin Mako: in addition to great photos and an explanation, then it gets them closer to that buy state. And then the snowball starts churning. 124 00:14:13,720 --> 00:14:20,700 Kevin Mako: The more people to buy, the more Amazon's going to feed it, the more spread it's going to have. and so on. You just continue to make the product better over time. 125 00:14:21,300 --> 00:14:28,160 Kevin Mako: And if you're focusing on all those different variables, it starts to balloon and scale. Do you sell on a bunch of other things as well? 126 00:14:28,320 --> 00:14:36,520 Kevin Mako: Obviously, you sell directly on your website. Are there other platforms that you think are important for startups to consider that are going to an Amazon style method for selling? 127 00:14:36,800 --> 00:14:46,140 Tim Angel: I think Walmart's been growing a lot lately, but I mean, Amazon's still the main one. And in my opinion, you know, I think it's really good to focus there. 128 00:14:46,260 --> 00:14:53,760 Tim Angel: And I feel like on Amazon, you're also going to want to make sure that you have a product that's not too inexpensive. 129 00:14:54,000 --> 00:15:00,520 Tim Angel: Like, if you, if you're trying to sell a product that's $10 or $20, I feel like Amazon is very 130 00:15:00,520 --> 00:15:06,160 Tim Angel: difficult because after shipping and spending money on advertising, there's like, there's like nothing left. 131 00:15:06,660 --> 00:15:14,140 Tim Angel: So, for example, our product, our competitors sell for like anywhere from $10 to $20 something. 132 00:15:14,140 --> 00:15:17,400 Tim Angel: and we're at $40 to $90. 133 00:15:18,260 --> 00:15:20,920 Tim Angel: So that's $4X, the least expensive option. 134 00:15:21,600 --> 00:15:29,820 Tim Angel: And that gives us the ability to be able to spend more money than our competitors on advertising. So we can take that real estate from them. 135 00:15:30,320 --> 00:15:37,400 Tim Angel: So that's really helped us too. I think whoever can spend more on advertising is the one that wins. And good reviews, like I've said 50 times. 136 00:15:38,660 --> 00:15:47,720 Kevin Mako: It seems like when you keep coming back around to it, like building a quality product, something that really meets the demand of the customer is the Holy 137 00:15:47,720 --> 00:15:52,020 Kevin Mako: Grail for many reasons, not just your reviews, but also the ad spend, 138 00:15:52,160 --> 00:16:01,120 Kevin Mako: the price that you're able to charge, the brand recognition. There's many different elements, especially for a hardware startup where the quality of your venture is so important. 139 00:16:01,340 --> 00:16:09,800 Kevin Mako: So I love hearing it from you and much appreciated for all your words of wisdom. Talk a bit about what you guys are doing at Zugu and how people can buy them. 140 00:16:09,820 --> 00:16:17,700 Tim Angel: Obviously, they can go to Amazon. We've been working on iPad cases for 13 years now, iPad cases and accessories, but for 13 years 141 00:16:17,700 --> 00:16:23,120 Tim Angel: perfecting the product, you know, and we're starting to branch out into other product categories, 142 00:16:23,300 --> 00:16:30,540 Tim Angel: but yeah, it's been a long road of just trying to improve constantly. We sell on our website, ZuguCase.com. 143 00:16:30,700 --> 00:16:37,080 Tim Angel: We also sell on Amazon.com and the top 100 Amazon cases for the iPad. 144 00:16:37,260 --> 00:16:45,860 Kevin Mako: There's only four that have five stars, and all four of them are us. Right on. So yeah, like I said, the reviews, it's key, it's key. Very powerful stuff. 145 00:16:46,000 --> 00:16:52,400 Kevin Mako: And it's amazing, too, that you've done millions of units in sales in a very specific niche vertical. That's the other thing. 146 00:16:52,500 --> 00:16:56,240 Kevin Mako: I think it's important for hardware startups to understand. The global marketplace is big. 147 00:16:57,040 --> 00:17:02,360 Kevin Mako: And even though you might be focused on some tiny little fragment of a market, a niche within 148 00:17:02,360 --> 00:17:10,780 Kevin Mako: a niche, let's say, it's still very powerful when you think of the global size of the market. So many people look at a new product and say, well, if I pigeonhole 149 00:17:10,800 --> 00:17:14,780 Kevin Mako: it to this particular area of the industry, you know, I'm missing out on this mass market 150 00:17:14,780 --> 00:17:18,420 Kevin Mako: appeal. Or if I make it too high quality, only a handful of people are going to be able to 151 00:17:18,420 --> 00:17:23,980 Kevin Mako: afford it. But you're selling worldwide now and with this platform, which gives you incredible 152 00:17:23,980 --> 00:17:31,540 Kevin Mako: reach. So if you build a great product, even though it's at a higher price point, even just within that bracket of people that can afford it, that bracket is massive. 153 00:17:31,620 --> 00:17:38,160 Kevin Mako: It can create a huge multi-million dollar business. You guys are doing 30 million plus now on really one type of product line, obviously 154 00:17:38,160 --> 00:17:43,480 Kevin Mako: a few verticals within it, but still within a very, very, very tight, specific niche within the 155 00:17:43,480 --> 00:17:52,320 Kevin Mako: market overall. And only now are you started to branch out into other things as you've now hit that critical mass scale infrastructure size that you can grow in that way. 156 00:17:52,820 --> 00:17:59,020 Tim Angel: Yeah, I think, you know, what really worked for us was focusing on one product because we had one product at the beginning. 157 00:17:59,180 --> 00:18:04,360 Tim Angel: Then we started to expand to different products thinking that that was the answer. But really, 158 00:18:04,360 --> 00:18:11,980 Tim Angel: we got to like 30 products and we decided this is not working. We're doing a bunch of things okay and we're doing nothing great. 159 00:18:12,200 --> 00:18:20,100 Tim Angel: So we got rid of all the products and focused on our best selling product, put all our time and energy into that, improving it 160 00:18:20,100 --> 00:18:29,160 Tim Angel: 100 times as much as we could. And that's when we just took off and things went crazy. That's amazing, Tim. Great to hear 161 00:18:29,160 --> 00:18:37,520 Kevin Mako: the success story there. As always, I'll put the show notes below to Zugu case in the show for anyone that wants to click through. Thanks again for all your words of wisdom 162 00:18:37,520 --> 00:18:42,760 Kevin Mako: and much appreciated it for you spending time today on the show. All right. Thanks, man. Appreciate it. Thanks, Tim. And take care. 163 00:18:43,460 --> 00:18:52,340 Narrator: 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. 164 00:18:52,900 --> 00:19:01,520 Narrator: If you have any questions, guest suggestions, or anything else, feel free to reach out to us anytime at our email, podcast at makodesign.com. 165 00:19:01,700 --> 00:19:08,780 Narrator: This show is hosted by Kevin Mako, America's leading expert on product development for hardware startups, and the podcast 166 00:19:08,780 --> 00:19:13,260 Narrator: is produced by Mako Design, the original firm providing end-to-end consumer 167 00:19:13,260 --> 00:19:19,040 Narrator: product development services tailored specifically to hardware startups, small manufacturers, and inventors. 168 00:19:19,340 --> 00:19:28,840 Narrator: 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.