fmckinnon

I co-founded Simple Modern 11 years ago. It seemed insane to others. We would be competing with great brands like Stanley, Yeti and Hydroflask. We only had $200,000 while our competitors had hundreds of millions. But today we sell over $100,000,000 annually. I'm going to share a secret of entrepreneurship that helped us do it: Many aspiring entrepreneurs get stuck trying to invent a new product to sell. It's a trap. 99.9% of successful businesses sell an established product in a new way. "But if I sell something other people are selling I'll have competition!" My response: Competition always comes with demand. If you're launching a product that has no competition there are only two possible reasons: 1. There is great demand and fortunately you were the first person on earth to tap into it (unlikely). 2. There is not much demand for that product. The most successful companies in the world are selling an improved derivative of an already successful product: Netflix: Video + Streaming Tesla: Cars + Electric Power Apple: Phones + Apps & Internet You don't have to reinvent the wheel. You do need a different strategy than your competition. Use this process: 1. Find a product that has robust demand. 2. Examine the strategies and strengths of the existing companies. 3. Find white space. Ask: Where do your skills and abilities line up with white space? When we launched Simple Modern, we had established competitors everywhere. These companies were well run. I didn't see any way we could beat them at their own game. So instead, we considered what strategies they weren't pursuing. The companies that were leading the insulated stainless steel drinkware market had initially found success in specialty retail (places like REI). Their success in these venues had shaped their retail pricing and margin structure. They had higher retail prices and few variations. We saw our competitors had left white space opportunity by taking strategies that: 1. Products built for physical retail and not e-commerce. 2. Underutilized Amazon. We had extensive experience selling online, so we believed we could successfully compete in that white space. And we launched with lots of color and size variations. It worked! As we saw initial traction, we reinvested all our profits into online growth. Now, 11 years later we have a robust program with Amazon selling millions of drink tumblers every year. And our success with e-commerce created future opportunities with partners like Target, Walmart and Sam's Club. We are grateful for the growth, and we're grateful we found the white space to run in a crowded, high-demand category.