Last week, the Wall Street Journal published a fascinating and deeply reported article about how startups around the world are beating global consumer goods companies. In "Outfoxed by Small-Batch Upstarts, Unilever Decides to Imitate Them," Saabira Chaudhuri describes...
How to Stand Out From the Crowd and Cultivate Passionate Fans
In today's world, loyalty often seems to have gone out the door. No wonder: Online, everyone is screaming, "Listen to me!" "Watch me!" "Buy my product or service!" It's enough to send consumers running for the hills. Understandably, people (including me) who are...
How Juan Hernandez Got His Seasonal Toy Into Walmart in Under Two Years Without Breaking the Bank
If you are a product developer, I can almost guarantee you’ve dreamed of having your product sold at Walmart. For better or worse, it’s the holy grail of retail. But, for the reasons I've described before, getting a product into this biggest of box stores is no easy...
If You Have a Garage Full of Inventory You Can’t Sell, Try Licensing
Last week, I wrote about how to avoid ending up with inventory you cannot sell. But let's say that's exactly what you have: A garage stacked with boxes of product you thought consumers needed, but have had trouble getting off your hands. In my experience, this is not...
How to Avoid Ending Up With a Garage Full of Unwanted Product
Products churn in and out of the marketplace faster than ever these days. Marvelous, ambitious products whose debut we watch in videos that go viral don't seem to make it to market at all. In significant ways, it's a fantastic time to be a product developer. 3D...
Why Knowledge, Not Money, Is What You Really Need to Bring an Idea to Market
If you want to bring your idea for a new product to market, what do you really need? Knowledge--not merely capital. So many entrepreneurs think, "If only I had the money!" That if they could just get their idea in front of the right investor, they would become...
The Revolutionary New Wearable You’ll Wish You Thought Of
When Aaron Krause was young, he often stayed up late reading in bed. Krause is the inventor of Scrub Daddy, a kitchen sponge, and also Shark Tank's greatest success story. After burying himself under the covers, Krause remembers longing to be able to turn his overhead...
How ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’ Helped Me Increase My Sales by 50 Percent
I never watch movies expecting to be inspired professionally, but one scene in The Wolf of Wall Street struck me like a lightning bolt. I couldn’t stop thinking about it, and I couldn’t wait to implement what I had been reminded of: The dire importance of selling....
How Eating a Chocolate Chip Cookie Taught Me About Business Basics
Some experiences have a way of staying with you. For example, I can clearly remember an afternoon I spent with my father on a park bench in Capitola, California many, many years ago. Nothing particularly radical happened -- we simply sat in front of a cookie shop and...
Dream of Fulfilling an Order From Walmart? 3 Mistakes Stephen Key Made
When my longtime friend Rob Stefani and I started selling guitar picks, we never once thought that a big-box retailer like Walmart would want to carry them. But sure enough, a few years after we had been in business, an order from Walmart came in. Life is funny like...