The șÚÁÏĂĆ
Show Notes
- Passion vs. Profit
- Creating content is key here, and you want to enjoy your day when working.
- Big markets vs. Niche
- Trending products and fads
- Price and profit margin determine advertising options
- Manufacturing, Dropshipping,
Print-on-Demand, Patents
Transcript
Jesse: Whatâs going on, Richie?
Richard: Whatâs happening, Jesse? Is that day again?
Jesse: It is. And hello, everybody listening, today is a special show. Itâs the Jessie and Richie show. No guests. Just us talking with you, to you, I guess, with you. Hopefully. All right. We actually have a whole bunch of interesting info today. I hope itâs interesting; we have a whole lot of info coming your way. But we want to answer the basic question that people get to us. What to sell online? What should I sell online? We get it all the time. I actually see it in the șÚÁÏĂĆ, in the forums, and in the questions. They didnât really know what they want to sell online.
Richard: Yeah, they saw Shark Tank last night or something, got all excited. Theyâre looking up online: How do you sell online? I want to do it. Oh yeah, I got to sell something particular, what do I pick?
Jesse: I think for some people listening that wasnât a problem. The idea was bubbling around in your head, and the first thing you did is went and bought a domain, probably about five domains. And some of those, youâre probably gonna have to let go after that first year. But your dream started with a product and a domain. You had the whole idea in your head, and youâre ready to go. Some people start with the dream of I just want to sell online, but Iâm not exactly sure what I want to sell online. Or youâre in the middle, and youâre thinking: Well, Iâve got a few ideas, but I want to see what other people are doing out there cause I want to sell more online. So anyway, Rich, where youâve fallen that spectrum here.
Richard: As our listeners are gonna hear moving forward, there are arguments for both. I believe in the passion piece, but I also believe that you got to do enough due diligence in your research to know thereâs a big enough market to actually make a profit with your passion too because youâve got to create so many things. You got to do content. Content is the cost of entry to
Jesse: Yeah. Let me back up a second. Weâre talking about the difference between passion and profit. Thereâs a couple of different ways of looking at it, right? As rich mentioned, do you have a passion for this? Thatâs a really good place to start. Because youâre going to be creating all this content. Thereâre pictures, there are videos, there are blog posts, you gotta write emails, you gotta have to create a lot of content for this business. And if you like it, thatâs great. So your daughterâs probably gonna really enjoy making Luluâs tutus because she loves her dog and loves tutus.
Richard: He wonât like it probably.
Jesse: Heâs not going to appreciate this business at all. (laughing) She could be an Instagram star and sheâs probably knocking any of the profits from that.
Richard: Nicer treats.
Jesse: Okay. Extra sheets for Lulu, but otherwise, not really profiting all that much. But itâs a great passion project. You and the family will enjoy making this. So I would generally say itâs great to start with passion. So if you love it, youâre gonna have more fun. Making the contents can be a part of your life. A couple examples that weâve had on the podcast. Like Kent Rollins, I think he really wakes up in the morning and heâs super pumped about cooking over a campfire. Yeah. So passion is not an issue. Itâs hot out there cooking outside. Thereâs a passion there and it comes through in the videos and it comes through. We had Kissed by a Bee, Akila, she comes from a family growing natural, organic foods on the farm. It was like a family recipe, I believe for this cream. Thatâs a passion project. Makes it easier to bottle the things and deal with all the things you have to deal with doing business. Who else did we have on there?
Richard: We had Miller machines.
Jesse: Miller machines. Like he works in an orchestra, right? So making the little triangles and was it the finger symbol or something like that?
Richard: There was a couple of different products he had. It was mostly the specific triangle on your percussionist in an orchestra. Right. Super highly specialized. But man, heâs going on the road even, going to check out some of these orchestras while on the road. Talk about passion.
Jesse: And he works in orchestra. He gets to create content, visiting other orchestras around the world. Itâs a passion project. Heâs going to enjoy making it more often. So I always think itâs best to start with a passion, but letâs not get hung up there. The passion is great for when youâre in the grind and waking up early, staying up late. But weâre in San Diego here. People love surfing, right? So bunch of surfing bros, theyâre like Hey, I just want to surf, surf all morning, spend an hour at night working on my surfing business. And thatâs great, but youâre not the first guy that had that idea. Yes, you love surfing. Thatâs great. Hereâs what you need to go surfing. You need a wetsuit, surfboards, wax maybe. What else? Itâs pretty much it.
Richard: Some waves. If you could sell waves, that would be awesome.
Jesse: Great idea. If you can sell waves, all right, thereâs a business out there for you. I think people are actually working on it. But youâre entering a really crowded market of a bunch of people that love this particular lifestyle, have a passion for it, really tough competition. I applaud the efforts there. A lot of people making surfboards, a lot of people making wetsuits, thereâs not a huge market out there, so youâre entering a very crowded market. So be careful with that passion.
Richard: Yeah, I see your point there that would be going back and forth on not necessarily playing devilâs advocate, but maybe exceptions to the rule. So maybe if you already are a professional surfer and you have a following already, then great, youâre going to be just fine. You just need to have a product based around your following. It may be surfboard, maybe itâs some sort of a towel, you know what I mean? Itâs gotta be something thatâs unique. Where weâre ultimately going with this is âŠ
Jesse: By the way, Kelly Slater, if youâre listening, you can create a surfboard company. Got it. No problem.
Richard: Yeah, exactly. (laughing)
Jesse: șÚÁÏĂĆ is in Encinitas, thereâre a lot of surfers that live there. They have different rules. You can start a surfing company. But you already made it.
Richard: Well, and thatâs kind of where weâre going. Itâs passion. If youâre leading it by passion is cause you know life in and of itself already has enough challenges. When you start a business and you got an inventory and you got all these other things you got to do, the more passionate you can be about your product and what youâre doing is going to drive you through some of the harder hours. At the same time, if youâre going solely after profit you could end up also in a very competitive field because if thereâs profit in that field, thereâs probably going to be a bunch of people there. So thereâs going to be exceptions to the rules and both, and weâre going to go through how youâre going to find these things and what youâre going to do. But we would just wanted to set the bar with in this podcast. Thatâs the two angles weâre looking at.
Jesse: Yup. So itâs passion versus profit. And one more example on the passion side, we talked a little bit about knitting. Letâs say you love knitting. What does it cost for a thing of yarn, like five bucks. How long did knitting needles last? Probably a lifetime. Iâve heard a podcast of people make money in the knitting industry, so Iâm not going to say you canât do it, but if thatâs your passion, itâs going to be a tough one. Weâre going to switch over to the profit side. On the profit side, boy, I know a lot of people that sell insurance. Iâm not sure if anybody who has a real passion for insurance, but a lot of people need insurance. Like I brush my teeth twice a day.
Richard: If they do, theyâre the top 10%.
Jesse: Probably. If you love insurance and youâre listening, give us a shout out. Kudos. Youâre probably really good at it. Van, my insurance guy, I actually think he really loves insurance and heâs does great at it. But most people donât. Another example of toothbrushes. Almost everybody brushed their teeth at least once a day, probably twice. Dentists probably say you should do it three times. But I donât really love toothbrushes or dentists. But thereâs that new toothbrush out there. The Quip.
Richard: I got one.
Jesse: You got one? Okay. Maybe you love toothbrushes. I donât know.
Richard: I donât, but it was the simple thing of, Hey I just go until this thing stops. It beeps and it tells me to switch a quadrant. Beeps, tells me switch a quadrant, beeps. And then when it beep, beep, beep and then shuts off like, cool, Iâm done. I donât have to sing happy birthday four times or whatever the recommended amount is.
Jesse: Yeah. But thereâs a huge market for toothbrushes and in that case, itâs expensive toothbrush and the people built it. Maybe they have a passion for it. I could be wrong.
Richard: This is a good point though, because itâs why we said thereâs always going to be exceptions to the rule. They could have very, very easily said: Thatâs a crowded market, thereâs big players or the guys with a dollar shave club. So you could take something that doesnât appear, maybe it doesnât have passion in it. Itâs just a toothbrush. But these guys are fanatical about it and the people who use it, I just get it. New one comes every three months. New heads, new battery. Boom. Travels well, just sticks right on the mirror anywhere I go, so I donât have to worry about where am I putting this in the funky place when Iâm traveling somewhere. It just sticks up on the mirror. Itâs fantastic. Now Iâm passionate about my toothbrush. Iâd never go back to another one right now.
Jesse: I can tell, youâre like a salesperson for Quip. Can we get an affiliate link? Can we get an affiliate link in here? Set it up in the show somehow?
Richard: Weâve got to move those guys over to șÚÁÏĂĆ. (laughing)
Richard: Yeah, only fair. Did the founders of Quip have a passion for it? Weâre going to guess no. They might say they did or whatever, but they might have what I would call like a temporary passion. Maybe they just said they use other electric toothbrushes and theyâre like: There must be a better way. And they just dove in headfirst and, and went for it. And you can have a temporary passion. I think for another example either, actually thereâs a lot of people that do baby products that they have a problem that lasts for like six months. Kids go through phases and then get passes.
Richard: Or canât sleep and youâve got the technique, get them to sleep if your babies canât sleep.
Jesse: That is the biggest problem in the entire world at that moment.
Richard: Oh, flashback to that.
Jesse: Climate change doesnât even register because your kid will not fall asleep. Or whatever. Maybe you donât have a passion for it, like I saw this product where they get the baby, what do you call this baby wrapping thing? The baby, the method.
Richard: Iâll get it here, weâll get it. Theyâre like a little baby burritos, but thatâs not what itâs called.
Jesse: Yeah, like little baby burritos. (laughing) You donât have a passion for this, but you invented the, Iâve seen the one with us, the Velcro on it. They didnât have that when my kids were that age. Thatâs genius. And I mightâve not have had a passion for cloth or Velcro or even babies other than my own babies, of course, which are the best babies. But I could really get into that product for a good six months, a couple of years. If that was like, I think I just have a bigger, better way to solve a problem. Thatâs also a way to have a mix of passion and profit. Iâm not just doing it for the money. I donât really have a passion for this thing.
Richard: But maybe you have a passion to solve the problem which led to a product that you might not necessarily be passionate about.
Jesse: Absolutely. Yeah. I think thereâs a lot of examples of that. Now you donât necessarily even need that either. You might just say: Hey, I just want a big market. Maybe you just want to stick with something trendy. We get a lot of customers on șÚÁÏĂĆ. Theyâre just selling the latest trendiest thing. Remember a couple of years ago, the fidget spinners. Everybody had fidget spinners. It was the hottest product maybe three years ago, two years ago. Itâs crazy how big it got. Every convenience store had fidget spinners, and where can you buy a fidget spinner right now? Theyâre not even a thing anymore.
Richard: I think the only place I see them anymore is trade shows. People still have leftover when they probably got it way back then.
Jesse: For sure. Probably trade shows are a thing, cause people are wanting to get a present for the kid. But what Iâm getting at here is that fidget spinners were massive. They were huge for like maybe two years and then they dove really fast. And another example that is almost like a fifth 20 year example of the mini RC racers. Little remote control cars were about 15, 20 bucks. And they were really hot for like two Christmases.
Richard: Yeah. I flipped them at the swap meet. (laughing)
Jesse: Yeah, exactly.
Richard: Luckily I got out before I got stuck with boxes.
Jesse: You wrote that trend? Everybody wants these little things. You can buy them in China for a dollar and sell them in the US for 20 bucks.
Richard: Thatâs one of the beauties by the way of șÚÁÏĂĆ, not that weâre trying to convince you to go for trending stuff, but for how quick you can spin up a store. I flashed back, like if șÚÁÏĂĆ was around when I was growing up, I would just be like, Holy crap! I would literally try to ride almost every trend possible now. That was just my personality, like the startup phase of stuff and probably wouldnât stock a ton of inventory, but itâs just for those of you who may have already picked your product and youâre just love listening to the podcast. So you can learn a technique here and there, a strategy here and there. Thatâs definitely something worth thinking about is if somethingâs trending as long as you donât have to stock massive amounts in your warehouse and might get stuck with it. With șÚÁÏĂĆ, you can spin up a store pretty darn quick.
Jesse: You sure can. Iâm not trying to hate on trending products. Thereâs a lot of them. Generally speaking though, those are short lived businesses and youâre going to be stuck. This is like a game of musical chairs. You donât want to be the one left without a chair. By the way, this is one of our most popular blogs on șÚÁÏĂĆ.com. I believe itâs called 19 Trending Products. You can just google trending products on our șÚÁÏĂĆ blog and youâll find it. A lot of good examples there of this particular thing. We have to refresh it pretty often because things donât last all that long. Also, on the profit side as opposed to the passion side. Thereâs a lot of ways if you want to find a big market and you want to find things that sell, but you donât want to find the biggest market. You probably donât want to go into the led TV market and compete against LG and Sony and whatnot. You have to find this right sweet spot of a big enough market, but where you can find the competition and just so happens thereâs this big company out there called Amazon that has different categories. Everythingâs categorized into nice little niches where you can search by top sellers. So you can look for what things sell and the level of the competition, cause the level of competition is ranked basically right from the top. You can go look at directly at Amazon, but thereâs also a bunch of other companies out there that have access to that data and more data. They can help you choose your product. Just a couple of examples of those companies. Jungle Scout is pretty big name in that. Another one is
Richard: Trends.google.com.
Jesse: Okay, so check that out. It basically has trends. Cause itâs in the name, trends.google.com, you donât really have to explain that. But yeah, that can help you spot things. How did they do relative to the amount of search terms in previous years and things like that.
Richard: Yeah, I mean, thatâs a great point because if you think: Is this just a trend for now? But then you go back and you look, say under a year, 2015, 2012, whatever. You can go back in years too and you see that itâs still trending. There are seasonal trends too. Thereâs going to be different times. I mean thereâs so many freaking options with this.
Jesse: Google Trends isnât used just to find trendy products. You donât necessarily need to find a trend. You just want to find something really on the upswing. Whatever things that are being replaced by apps on your phone. Okay. Maybe not the best market to dive into. Or I donât know, thatâs just one example, but you just want to know what youâre walking into before you start, especially if you donât already have that product chosen. Those are a couple ideas there. But in addition to the things weâve mentioned about the passion and the profit, thereâs a lot of different attributes weâre going to dive into. But price, market, repeatable business, fanatical customers and identifiable niche. This applies to both the passion and the profit. Weâll go into them a little bit more in detail here. Rich is going to try to pick these apart and weâll just give you some ideas to think about. The price of the item and related to that, the price of the entire basket. When in doubt, my opinion is go with a higher priced item. Youâre doing all this work to sell a product. Personally, Iâd rather sell a hundred dollars product than a $10 product because one sale might as well make a little bit of money on this. The reason I mentioned the basket size is you might have a product thatâs 25, but they need to buy several other items in order for it to work. You know, like maybe they just need to add batteries to the card. That doesnât really work anymore cause every people buy batteries from regular sites. But in general, if people have to order multiple things, the price of the product isnât so important. Itâs the price of the basket.
Richard: Yeah, I mean itâs a good point. Definitely get it. People might be sitting there thinking, gosh, Iâm just getting started. If Iâm selling a $100 product now, how much is my inventory gonna cost? And there are workarounds too. Letâs go back to your total basket comment. You could always bring someone in with a
Jesse: Candle wicks. It doesnât get transcribed here.
Richard: Yeah. Candle wicks. He was under cutting all the candle wick sellers and the old school guys were saying: Oh, donât worry, heâs going to go out of business. But all he was really doing was trying to get the new customer in the front end via that cheaper price. But he knew: What the heck, itâs not going to be any good without the wax and the essential oils. But thatâs where that total basket could still be a high price for the total basket. I totally get your point and they should be paying attention to that work. It comes down to advertising.
Jesse: Before that comes down to the profit margin too. Weâre going to get into the advertising. Weâd set price, but really price is one part of it. Itâs profit, right? If itâs a hundred dollar item and you only made $10, thatâs a big difference than a hundred dollars item where you spent 90. So price and profit are very, theyâre similar. Theyâre not the same. If youâre selling cosmetics, it tends to have a high profit margin. Cause people donât know the real cost from the raw materials. If youâre selling something thatâs more of a commodity, you can only charge so much more than if people know what it costs in other stores. Price, profit, those just go together to Can you afford advertising? To me, thatâs a huge factor in choosing a new product. You can sell things that you can advertise all day long. If you have a huge Instagram following, you donât really need to advertise that. If you are willing to create a whole lot of content and get in front of the right people with your product, you can do that. $10 products, you can make a lot of money on $10 products. So I donât want to say you canât do it, itâs just youâre not going to be able to use a lot of the usual tools in eCommerce. Like Rich, Luluâs Tutus. Like whatâs a dog tutu go for these days? 15 bucks?
Richard: Yeah, I know. And how many are they going to buy? (laughing)
Jesse: I donât know what the basket size is there. Maybe you need more than one tutu. I donât know who buys just one, but at the end of the day, you could make it but youâre probably not going to be able to use dynamic retargeting or Google Shopping ads or AdWords, like the tools that we talk about on other podcasts. Those are probably closed to you. Not necessarily, but probably, just be aware of it.
Richard: You canât bet, even though we would all love, you canât place your bets on a viral video. We might be able to make a super cute video, but you canât place your bets on that.
Jesse: If your product success is dependent upon a viral video or you getting on Shark Tank, as soon as I get this into Target, you can make it. I donât wanna want to be negative here. You can make it, but that youâre setting yourself up for a lot. Itâs a very high risk venture at this point. If youâre selling something where you can advertise, start building the base, get a customer list, much more likely road to success there. Thatâs why we mentioned the advertising. Itâs not like weâre a shell for Facebook and Google, but it is the easiest and most proven way to build a business online. Rich, this is your favorite here. The next item is related to the price. Itâs not just the price of the first sale.
Richard: Yeah, there are three ways basically to get money in a business and we covered one, which is to get a customer. And then we started to get into one, but itâs really just getting them to come back. If you sold Halloween supplies, you might be able to do it. And if you can do a lot real quick, thatâs cool. But unless you also do costumes for I donât know, theater or I donât even really know. I canât really think off the top of my mind. But thatâs a
Jesse: I wish I knew, weâd get off this podcast. (laughing)
Richard: I think the food companies, the delivery, thought this was going to work. They just didnât realize how many other food companies were going to jump in and try to do it. But letâs just run with that as an example. If you were selling something that was consumable, there was 200 bucks a month and they were going to stay with you for six months, nine months, a year, 18 months. You could pay more than the $200 to acquire that customer and it wouldnât hurt you as much because you have these future,
Jesse: Absolutely. Yeah, high price, high margin, repeat purchase, all good things. You donât have to get all of them, but those are the things youâre looking for as youâre looking for new products. We talked a little bit about the size of the market. So the size of market, you want a bigger market like Miller machines. Thereâs only so many people that are buying a specific amount for a triangle for an orchestra. Now thereâs way more people that buy drums, but then the higher up you go on the market, the more people youâre also competing with. So there is a sweet spot to the size of the market. Itâs not always that the bigger the market the better because youâre just running into more competitors, but you want to get an idea of the size of the market. And the inverse of that is this is the niche. Yeah, you want a nice, itâs not really the inverse, I guess I would say itâs more, can you identify the niche, right? Like people that love whiskey, for instance, theyâre probably put it in their Twitter bio or their Facebook, or they join Facebook groups about whiskey. Thereâre ways to identify them. Earlier, you were rested on the couch, and you had some special little gel packs under your back because youâre back hurt. And thereâs a product for that. And it makes sense. But you did not join the Facebook group My back hurts. Yes, thereâs a product, and there is a niche, but itâs probably not identifiable. Itâs not identifiable; you canât market to it easily. So itâs not just a niche that youâre looking for. Youâre looking for it identifiable. And Facebook probably knows that niche. Probably they probably know that you need an ice pack, actually. But letâs not get too crazy. But you want it to be more identifiable without some crazy algorithm being able to pick that out of thin air. Competitors. It goes along with that when I mentioned the market size. So, yeah, you donât be a too big market. You also just donât want to go against these entrenched competitors so much. For clothes and things like that, thereâre always openings. Stick with the toothbrush if youâve got a great idea for an awesome electric toothbrush. Man, thereâs a lot of competitors in there. It doesnât mean it didnât work for Quip. Iâm saying both things. They were able to beat the Phillips, Waterpik, and all the other things. But now thereâs a new big dog in there. And how many millions of dollars would it take to develop the next product to beat them? Probably a lot. Take a look at your competitors out there. Iâm always surprised by people who donât just Google it or put the name of the product on Amazon, what do you see right there? If the first page of Amazon looks like, Wow, those are pretty good products, really good reviews, I donât know how they made it for that price. I canât make it for that price. Thatâs probably not a good market. Just saying. And people donât check this. And then, later on, they say: Well, I canât make it, Iâm just getting killed by Amazon. Well, you didnât check it.
Richard: Yeah, itâs interesting. Thereâs one thing I thought of as you were saying that right now. Now, because, again, weâre trying to poke holes to find thereâs always an exception. This is more of a
Jesse: For sure. Actually, thatâs a very good strategy that other people are using — to use Amazonâs data to find those right products. So first, youâre just making sure that if everybodyâs got 4.8 stars and everything looks good, then be a little bit of afraid as well. So just want to make sure that you donât start spending a lot of money in that area, and you havenât checked it on Amazon and or Google. It doesnât take long. So please, please do that and just be aware. A couple of last items here that apply to both. These arenât necessary, but do you know if people search for it? Meaning search for it like is there identifiable terms for it? Right. Electric toothbrush. OK. People do search for that. You can still have the best electric toothbrush. But if you complete creating a whole new category that people arenât searching for yet, thatâs going to be harder. It doesnât mean you donât do it. It just means people arenât searching for your product. A little bit harder. Kind of related to that. Not related, but doesnât look good in a picture. Like all the social media platforms out right now are generally visual. So if your product is going to stand out and look recognizable as people are scrolling with their thumb on a mobile phone, thatâs a big advantage. If it doesnât look that good or itâs sort of intangible or it, you just donât even know what it is when you look at it, itâs a bit of a negative in this area. So have a good example there. But just think if thereâs an influencer on Instagram that you see it in there like holding it up at the beach. Thatâs probably a good answer. If youâre like, What is this weird industrial widget here? I donât know what this is. Thatâs bad.
Richard: Itâs a good point. They talk about that. Letâs go back to Shark Tank for a minute. If you could have an amazing product that solves a problem, but unless you create amazing content. So this goes back to it. Would you sell a product thatâs not necessarily amazing to look at? As far as the product itself. But when you finish the product. Jessie sells fish also. If heâs sold by just the picture of the fillet before it was cooked. Good luck. But hereâs this product thatâs finished. Hereâs this nice looking recipe, a great picture in there that might be something that actually might sell. But where Iâm actually going with that is. If the content is the cost of entry. And you have to explain your product. If you canât make it look good in a picture, you better be making content that at least explains what you solve.
Jesse: For sure. Youâre right.
Richard: There are just so many different nuances in this. Because itâs not just one platform to look at all these different platforms. Itâs back to the passion and profit in the beginning. If you have so many different things, you need to do it. We both like passion. In addition to that, if youâre passionate about something, other people might be passionate about it. And thatâs why you brought up that. Does it look good in a picture because youâre trying to get peopleâs attention to something that somebody else is interested in?
Jesse: Yeah. If Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, Snapchat,
Richard: That was an interesting one. I think we both have mixed feelings on that one. Itâs great in that the cost of inventory, you donât have to store the inventory. You donât have to pay for everything ahead of time. But you build in someone elseâs brand, and there could be a bunch of other peopleâs selling it. We talked about this a little bit before. How long now weâve been here in 10+ years. Drop shippingâs dead. Then you get keep on seeing someone else come through and make it happen.
Jesse: Yeah. Exactly. Drop shippingâs dead. Thatâs been a blog title for so many years. And I still see business all the time making much money doing dropshipping. Iâm like: How do they make the margins? But they do it. It takes unique to unique spots. Where Iâd caution people is that if you are starting drop shipping by, youâre going to sign up with one of the big drop shippers. Thereâre a lot of people out there that do this, some that connect with șÚÁÏĂĆ. If you are choosing a handful of products that really fit your store and your niche. Great. I think you can do something with that. If you said: Iâm going to choose every single product they have and just throw it on my site and hope for the best. Boy, just hesitate a little bit. If youâre basically saying, Iâm going to make a bad look in Amazon with higher prices and not the same customer service.
Richard: Good luck.
Jesse: Yeah. Good luck. Kudos if you can make it. Iâm just sort of surprised. For me personally, dropshipping has some places where it might really make sense. Small niches or you are talking directly with the factory that theyâll drop ship on your behalf. That makes sense. I have done drop shipping in the past. It did work for a while. Dropshipping gets a lot of buzz in the market, so it can work. Just make sure to expand your mind beyond drop shipping. With that, my next example is actually drop shipping. (laughing) This is a different type of drop shipping. Itâs more
Richard: Hats,
Richard: This is a perfect one to bring upon this podcast with passion and profit. Letâs just go into that word profit for a little bit. Thatâs all relative. Some people want to completely change their life and be the next Internet millionaire. Their level of profit is going to be totally different. Then there could be someone listening to this show that if they could just make five hundred extra dollars so they could pay for a new car payment and some insurance. They would be perfectly happy. First off, we will keep in mind that. And the reason Iâm bringing that up is. What do you want to be doing all day? If youâre creative and youâre looking at this
Jesse: Also be doing a lot of printing labels and going to the post office.
Richard: Exactly. In this case, you could just stick in your passion and be creating these designs. You donât have to buy the
Jesse: Yeah, absolutely, and I think I just want to make sure people are aware of this option. Itâs a very good option if used, particularly if a question is I donât know what I want to do. I donât know what I want to sell. Well, do you have a good sane catchphrase, a brand or a logo, anything like that that you could just start selling tomorrow? Itâs a good, good option for you. All right. So the next option is probably where a lot of people would make a lot of money. This is overseas. Hey, just a little newsflash here, a lot of products are not made in your country. As for the US, a lot of products are not made here. Just a heads up. Itâs probably made in China, or itâs made in Asia. In order to tap that, thereâs a lot of ways to tap that. But the easiest one is going to Alibaba. I guess weâll call it a marketplace, but it connects Chinese manufacturers with the rest of the world. Almost any product you can think of is probably listed there. Be careful. If you go to Alibaba, do not within the
Richard: Yeah, Rob used to go there, there are quite a few people I know that go to that one.
Jesse: Yeah. So if youâre like: Man, Iâm really want to sell something. I have no idea what it is. And I have the time and the money to invest. Just go there. Itâll be overwhelming. But you will find everything under the sun at one trade fair. We mentioned all the other. Thereâre a lot of other trade fairs for specific niches all around the world. But the biggest one is the Canton Fair. All right. Last one on the list of where to make your own products.
Richard: You literally can create your own.
Jesse: You can start with a block of wood, Rich, and a knife and you can carve a statue right now. This is real. This is an old school entrepreneurship. You create your own product. Stop talking about China and all this having somebody else. Make yourself make your own product. You are going to navigate the patent process. Weâre not talking about statues. Yes, of course, you can make a statue yourself. But weâre not talking about crafts, talking about products. You can navigate the patent process, navigate the manufacturing process. We had a good podcast on this. Was that the Road Trip Potty?
Richard: Oh, yeah. So hereâs the perfect example. Some people will ask, what are some of the things that can sell online? And you never come up with it. This was a mix, a hybrid of could you profit off of something that someone was passionate about? It was Road Trip Potty. And this woman just basically got stuck in traffic. And it was bad.
Jesse: You gotta go. You gotta go.
Richard: And she was so inspired because this happened, I guess, more and more frequently than she was like: Iâve got to fix this problem. And she created literally a little urinal for women.
Jesse: Female urinal.
Richard: To do their things on the road trip. She solved the problem. But would you dream that up? She had to go through that a few times. Itâs not like: I got an idea. Iâm just gonna make this product for people. But sheâs been doing great.
Jesse: Yeah. And she went through the process of creating her own product from scratch. Youâre talking about 3D modeling. The CAD process was the thing I was missing there and go to the patent process and find local manufacturers. Thatâs probably the vision we probably shouldâve started with that because thatâs like how people think itâs always done. The other answers we just gave you are really more of shortcuts or different alternatives to I must invent a product and get it created and manufactured. Yes, you can do that. That sometimes takes a couple of years. I think her process was several years to take that from idea to product to market. And by the way, thereâs a lot of people that can help you with that process. I know she recommended the people that helped her out with the patent process specifically. We have some friends, colleagues that have used a company called Pro⊠Am I spelling that right, Rich?
Richard: I donât remember the exact spelling. Iâll look it up real quick while weâre talking about.
Jesse: Prouduct. No, actually, itâs
Richard: Just to clarify, yes, it is Prouduct.
Jesse: Dot com?
Richard: Dot com.
Jesse: All right. Hey, give them a shout out. I donât even know them personally. Rich, that was a pretty information
Richard: Actually, every time we do these podcasts, thereâs always something I want to go start to apply. I remember now just how easy șÚÁÏĂĆ really is. Iâm gonna sit here and look through Google Trends and look for some more stuff. What can I throw up here before the holidays?
Richard: Perfect. Itâs Friday. We can go have a drink here, takes ideas. What Iâm hoping, if youâve listened, I hope at this point you can not say, I donât know what product to sell online or I donât know where to find products I saw online. Thereâs a bunch of ideas. If it were that easy, everybody would already be doing it. You can have to do a little bit of legwork. But hopefully, weâve given you 10 or 15 different places to start your journey. Get out there. Start selling. Rich, any other last little questions here? Last comments?
Richard: Now, thatâs it. Iâm just literally starting to look.
Jesse: I see. Iâve already lost you again.
Richard: Iâm now signing up for another șÚÁÏĂĆ store.
Jesse: Another brainstorming session here is about to start. So, everybody, hopefully, youâre brainstorming. Think of some ideas and already turned off this podcast. If not, get out there. Make it happen.