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Paul Jarvis is a freelance webdesigner and a writer whose work has been published in places like Forbes, Fast Company and The Next Web, and he’s also published several books, the latest one, due June 1st, is called The Good Creative. Takeaway Points It’s true: When you work from home, you really don’t have to wear pants. You don’t need a blog: Set up a one-page website with a newsletter signup form and drive traffic through guest posting. Raw visitor numbers to your website don’t mean much. What counts is engagement and interaction. When you’re publishing more than one book in the same general topic area, be sure to link from each book to your other books on the last couple of pages. If you want to make a living as an artist, you also have to be a business person. Unless you’re the Queen of England, writing “we” on your website when you’re just one person is a bit douchey. Where you can find Paul: Paul’s newsletter Paul’s blog @pjrvs The Good Creative Things mentioned on the show Drupal Pico CMS Pelican CMS Paul’s first book, Eat Awesome Be Awesome At Online Business Nick Jarvis Gary Vaynerchuk Show notes: http://thinkmakesell.com/50

Chester launched his electronics business Phidgets from a friend’s basement back in 2002. As a trained computer science guy he learned everything that goes into running a successful business simply by doing it and, sometimes, failing. Twelve years in, his company Phidgets now employs 18 people and Chester is still learning by doing. Takeaway Points In the early days of any industry, you can afford to wing it and be unprofessional. But once that industry starts to mature, you have to start at a much higher level right out of the gate. The right timing usually only becomes obvious in hindsight. You can’t really do a “beta” with hardware, but you can do small production or prototype runs and iterate a couple of dozen units at a time. If all it takes to keep you from starting a business is someone telling you you shouldn’t, you probably shouldn’t. Getting the boring stuff like bookkeeping or accounting wrong can kill your business, regardless of how great your product or customer support might be. Sometimes getting away from your business on a regular basis or just for a couple of days can be the best thing to do to get your bearings again. Where you can find Chester and Phidgets: @phidgetsinc Phidgets on Facebook Phidgets on Youtube Phidgets on LinkedIn Phidgets blog Things mentioned on the show Arduino Sparkfun CPSC Alumni Chapter presentation The Lean Startup Lean manufacturing Zappos MRP Microsoft Dynamics Show notes:

Karen is a former manufacturer’s representative who teaches a course called Retail MBA that helps small businesses, inventors and entrepreneurs get their products onto the shelves of Wal-Mart, Neiman Marcus and other retail chain stores. Takeaway Points Some retailers have local buying programs that give you the opportunity to get your product into some of their stores without the need to do the numbers necessary to get nationwide distribution. To get an idea about the type of packaging retailers want, go check out their stores, how they display products and how they are packaged. Where you can find Karen: Retail MBA @product4profit Retail MBA on Facebook Karen’s Pick SleepPhones Things mentioned on the show Chain Store Guide Ace Hardware Shark Tank Show notes: http://thinkmakesell.com/48

Simon Kreuz was born in Germany, studied business in Switzerland and then moved to San Francisco to work on Shippo, a startup that makes shipping easy and affordable for everyone. Takeaway Points Connecting small business with big businesses by aggregating their volume and passing on the discounts is a proven business model. Deliberately and continuously moving beyond your comfort zone leads to growth and new opportunities. Many US-based businesses find it hard to understand and adapt to the European market. Providing that link is a potential business model. When you’re in the early stages of starting a business, you need to do things that don’t scale, like acquire new customers one by one. Where you can find Simon: Shippo @simonkreuz Simon’s Pick Rapportive Tom’s Pick Deckset Things mentioned on the show University of St. Gallen WHU Vallendar EBS Östrich-Winkel Linksert Ventureworks WeightDoc Show notes: http://thinkmakesell.com/47

In this episode of The Maker’s Journal Austin and I talk about finding a manufacturer for a prototype run, our experiences with mass marketing sites like Fab, designer contract issues and - drumroll - the web app we’re making together. Follow Austin Follow Austin on Twitter Austin’s Bloc Apple TV stand Austin’s blog Follow Tom Follow Tom on Twitter Tom’s GroovBoard Tom’s blog Things mentioned on the show Aeropress* Brett Terpstra Daily Present Cost per action Fab Elance Marco Arment on web hosting for app developers Heroku App Engine *Affiliate link Show notes: http://thinkmakesell.com/46

Tom Moor is the co-founder of the post-it-later service Buffer and is currently part of the team working on the video collaboration service Sqwiggle. SHOWNOTES The winners of the MailMate giveaway were randomly chosen using http://www.random.org/integer-sets/ and have received their coupon codes via email. Thanks to everyone for participating and to Benny Kjær Nielsen for providing the codes! Takeaway Points Growing your business might mean you will have to move away from the work you enjoy most to a more managerial role. If you’re basing your product or service on cutting-edge technology, make sure it’s actually robust enough for your needs. Having a free plan is primarily a marketing strategy. People are much more likely to recommend a product or service that has a free plan. Your service’s API can introduce your product to the customers of other services who integrate with yours. Outsourcing software development in the early stages of a project is risky because you don’t really know yet what you’re going to build. This can lead to a lot of back-and-forth and overhead. Outsourcing works best when the requirements are set and unlikely to change during the development process. Where you can find Tom: Sqwiggle @sqwiggle Sqwiggle blog Tom Moor’s website @tommoor Tom’s Pick MyCelium Bitcoin wallet Things mentioned on the show Buffer First mention of Sqwiggle on TechCrunch TechCrunch interview with Tom Moor and co-founder Eric Bieller

Phil has a full-time job as the engineering lead at an industrial lighting company. He has years of experience with CAD, CAM and materials engineering and he’s here today to tell us more than I ever could about 3D design, manufacturing and how to approach making a physical product as a complete newbie. Show Notes Follow Phil @roadstead http://www.phillipgraham.com/ Takeaway Points SketchUp is suited more for 3D doodling than for actual product design. SketchUp has no support for things like bevels, fillets, chamfers or design intent, which lets you define relationships between the parts of your design. SketchUp is great for quick prototyping and learning the principles of 3D design. Your choice of materials and manufacturing technology will affect the design process. Each material and manufacturing technology has its own set of limitations. Being able to make something with a 3D printer doesn’t necessarily mean you can make it at scale using cost-effective manufacturing technologies. Molds or casts will introduce “draft” (a slight taper) to the final product and you need to account for that. SketchUp has no support for drafts. SketchUp has no built-in support for creating 2D manufacturing drawings. One way of approaching making a product is to ask yourself how much of an upfront investment you can tolerate. That will help you decide on manufacturing technologies and materials. Injection molding has high (five figures) upfront costs, but the ongoing unit price can be very low, especially when making thousands of units. How you make your product can be a differentiator that sets your product apart from the competition. If everyone else is using injection molding, metal extrusion or even hand-made can make your product unique. Your product’s surface finish plays a large role in how it’s perceived by customers and users. Involve potential manufacturing partners early on in the design process. That can save you from having to go back to the drawing board later on. A good place to start when looking for manufacturers is your local chamber of commerce. If you have a design school nearby, students there may b

Hans invented the Mini Museum, a set of specimens he spent decades collecting cast in resin. The Mini Museum holds up to 33 artifacts and specimens from lunar rocks to dinosaur dung and is both fun and educational. SHOWNOTES Where you can find Hans: Mini Museum Mini Museum Kickstarter campaign @hansfex Things mentioned on the show Think Geek Resin Tyrannosaurus Triceratops Canyon Diablo Neil Armstrong Michael Collins Buzz Aldrin Corinthian leather Chrysler Cordoba commercial Chelyabinsk meteor Show notes: http://thinkmakesell.com/43

Benny Kjær Nielsen is a software developer and makes MailMate, a Mac email client for power users. In this interview he talks about life as an indie software developer and how crowdfunding enabled him to keep working on the app instead of having to get a job. SHOWNOTES Takeaway Points To compete against free products, find a small segment of the market whose needs aren’t being met. Once you’re pricing your app above $20 or so, you’ve already lost the $1-$2 crowd so you might as well try $40 or $50. Taking your app off the Mac App Store doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll lose all those sales. Some customers will find your online store. Where you can find Benny: MailMate @mailmateapp Things mentioned on the show Apple Mail Thunderbird Postbox Sublime Text The Bat! Posting styles Airmail Sparrow Sparrow revenues Interview with Max Seelemann from The Soulmen MailMate’s Indiegogo campaign No Agenda Show PRWeb prMac Interview with Dan Frakes about PR Gabe Weatherhead Brett Terpstra Show notes: http://thinkmakesell.com/42

In this episode Austin tells us what he’s been up to, I give an update on the GroovBoard 2 and we talk about one of the more unpleasant realities of business: plagiarism. Follow Austin Follow Austin on Twitter Austin’s Bloc Apple TV stand Austin’s blog Follow Tom Follow Tom on Twitter Tom’s GroovBoard Tom’s blog Takeaway Points Even if you have a design patent for your product, it might still be legally “copied” by introducing minor changes to its design. Plagiarism doesn’t just happen overseas. Easy to manufacture, low-volume products can be a target for domestic copy cats. Going after plagiarists might not be worth the time and money unless you have either high margins or high volume. If your product gets ripped off, make being the original a part of your marketing. Getting a design patent is fairly inexpensive and will deter most domestic plagiarists. If you make an interesting, useful and profitable product, expect it to be copied. Things mentioned on the show Design patent (U.S.) Trade dress Proliferation of copy cats Interview with Salman Sajid Interview with Patrick Mathews from Breffo Product plagiarism article on the TMS blog Studio Neat FineGrain Interview with Eric and Levi from FineGrain

Nate is a chemical engineer turned online entrepreneur and his latest project is Draft, a web-based tool to make you a better writer. SHOWNOTES Takeaway Points Being financially contrained will have an influence on how you approach your business. Having multiple streams of revenue means it’s unlikely that all of them will die at once. Do a quick-n-dirty implementation of features when you don’t know yet if your customers will actually use them. If you’re running into problems, ask yourself if you’re overcomplicating things. Creating an overly complex solution might be a form of procrastination. Make the simplest possible solution and ship it. One-upping your competition is a race you can’t win. Instead of doing more, do something different. Reminding yourself every now and then what idea or need led to the creation of your product will help you focus on what’s important. Don’t just implement every feature request. Ask yourself what the user is trying to accomplish and if there’s a better way. Welcome every support request from your customers. They’re telling you for free how you can improve your product. Figure out what you really want your business to be FOR YOU and work towards that goal. Growing a business isn’t necessarily a worthwhile goal. If you want to stay small, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. You’re not the only one with self doubt. All those confident people you see have just figured out how to fake it. Where you can find Nate: Draft Ninjas and Robots @natekontny Things mentioned on the show Hydrofluoric acid Accenture Inkling Y Combinator Evernote git Stripe The Tim Ferriss

Dan Frakes is a senior editor for Macworld and I invited him to talk about what product developers need to know about how the media works. While Dan’s point of view is from within the world of Apple-related products, you should be able to apply his advice to your particular industry. SHOWNOTES Takeaway Points Keep in mind that larger news outlets may have a policy of not reviewing beta versions of apps. Smaller personal blogs often like to publish a review of a product on the day it launches. Be sure to contact them well in advance. Contacting the right journalists one by one will get you better results than submitting your press release to PR sites. When you send out a press release via email, make sure your subject line clearly states what the email is about. You can be witty or funny in your press releases, but don’t forget to include all the facts. Sending your press release to the right people within the right media outlets requires some research, but will pay off with better response rates. Don’t send PR email asking of the recipient wants more info. Just send them the info outright. When writing a press release, put a short summary at the top. That way the recipient can quickly decide if he or she is interested. Before sending out review units of your product, check with the recipient first if she’s interested. It will save you money and both your and the journalist’s time. If your product requires a longer time to be reviewed properly, take that into account when you plan your launch. Make sure to thoroughly test the review units before you send them out. A faulty unit or buggy app will delay the review process and possibly result in a bad rating. Don’t send out your press release around big events in your market or industry. These are the busiest times for the media and your chances of getting noticed are slim. Send out your press release well before, but not too long in advance of the launch. Something between a couple of days and 1–2 weeks. If you employ a PR professional, make sure they know your product or service well and can answer any questions that might come up. Set up a press page on your website with high-res product photos, a manual, videos and any info that might be interesting or useful for the media. Do

In this episode my co-host Austin and I talk about how our holiday sales went and the lessons we learned over the years regarding shipping and customer service. And there’s finally some progress to report on the GroovBoard 2. Follow Austin Follow Austin on Twitter Austin’s Bloc Apple TV stand Follow Tom Follow Tom on Twitter Tom’s GroovBoard Takeaway Points Create a shipping calendar for the holiday season as a rough guideline for your customers. Check your country’s legislation before using an app like AbandonApp. Contacting your customer without a double opt-in might be illegal. Every part of your product is a separate inventory stream. If making your product involves multiple manufacturers, figure out who in the manufacturing chain will do the final assembly. Make sure you know how much shipping will cost and charge your customers accordingly, especially if you ship internationally. If you ship internationally, keep in mind that you never really know how long customs processing will take. Adding estimated delivery times to your shop’s FAQ and shipping confirmation emails can help reduce customer support emails. Be sure to package your products with enough protection to survive transit. If you ship by air, check with IATA rules and regulations if your product contains any restricted materials. Make sure your product, the materials its made of and your country doesn’t have import restrictions in the countries you ship to. Set up an FAQ on your store’s site that answers the questions you get most often and add to it as needed. A tool like TextExpander can greatly reduce the time you spend on customer support emails. Even if you use text snippets, try to make emails to your customers sound personal. Anything you can do upfront to help your customers effectively helps you too. Things mentioned on the show AbandonApp

Max Seelemann is one of the founders of The Soulmen, a small software development studio in Germany that makes the writing app Ulysses for the Mac, which has been around for over 10 years, and a companion app for iOS called Daedalus Touch. SHOWNOTES Takeaway Points Freemium is basically the App Store version of a free trial. Freemium can get your app into more user’s hands, but it doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll make more money. A huge holiday sales boost may only be temporary, don’t rely on it. Creating a free or freemium iOS app that ties into your Mac app can result in new users that otherwise wouldn’t have seen it. More features won’t necessarily mean you’ll get more users. Some users are explicitly looking for a simple app. Dropping the price of your app will make you more sales, but not necessarily more money. Creative people are great customers. They value other people’s work, so they’re willing to pay a fair price. If your app costs more than a couple of bucks, consider offering a free demo or a free trial version. Localizing and translating your app makes most sense if the UI is text-heavy. For mostly graphical UIs the additional effort and cost might not pay off. Surprisingly, offering your app in other languages than English doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll get more downloads in the countries where these languages are spoken. If you offer your app in other languages than your own, make sure you know how you’ll deal with support emails in these additional languages. Press coverage will get you off to a good start, but what counts in the long run is word of mouth and getting featured in the App Store. If it makes sense for your app, try to add features for specific groups of users to get them involved and talking about your app. Not being based in the U.S. can make it harder to get coverage in relevant media. Where you can find Max & The Soulmen: The Soulmen @macguru17 Things mentioned on the show Ulysses

Drew is the founder of The Theme Foundry, a business that sells premium Wordpress themes, and Memberful, a software to easily add a paid subscription service to your website. SHOWNOTES Takeway Points Turning your passion into a business is possible, but it requires hard work and, sometimes, a leap of faith. Basing your business on an existing, quickly growing platform is a great way to get started. Freelance work can be a zero-sum game because getting paid by the hour doesn’t scale. Boostrapping is easier for a consulting or other client-based business because it usually requires less investment than a product or service business. When a market starts to get crowded, try to resist the instinct to lower your prices to compete. Try to come up with other ways of differentiating yourself first. Your product’s design can be a great differentiator, especially in markets where good design isn’t very common. Always offer a free trial of your product if at all possible. There’s no better way to get a potential customer hooked and break down the barrier to a purchase. If you can’t offer a free trial of your product for some reason, offer a generous money-back guarantee. Figure out the ongoing costs of selling a product for a one-off price and how to make it sustainable. People are increasingly willing to spend money on content, so what you write on your blog could actually be turned into a product. A solution you built to help you run your business could well be turned into a product of its own. Launching a new product into the same market you already have established a product in can give you a head start. If you’re bad at follow-through, try to get a positive feedback loop going that will motivate you. Where you can find Drew: The Theme Foundry Memberful @drewstrojny Things mentioned on the show Drew’s story up until 2010 Drew’s NFL stats

In part 2 of our chat, Austin and I talk about the challenges of product photography and video. Follow Austin Follow Austin on Twitter Austin’s Bloc Apple TV stand Follow Tom Follow Tom on Twitter Tom’s GroovBoard Takeaway Points Remember that for each variant or SKU you add, you’ll have to take photos and manage logistics. Less SKUs = less work. Getting the lighting right in your product photography can be challenging, especially when you can’t fully control your shooting environment. If you’re doing your own product photography, get a light tent and the best lighting you can afford. The lights included in most light kits are way too dim. Consider buying them separately or renting. Try to show your product in every way it can be used, both in video and photos. If you don’t have an ideal “studio” setting available, consider renting a studio or even a hotel room for your product video. Any “real” environment is going to be cheaper than renting a studio and props. Depending on where you live, you might be able to rent an apartment for your photo/video shoot. If you rent a location, make sure you can do your shoot in a single day. If you have a university or film school nearby, consider hiring film students for your product video. If you have a furtinure store nearby, the owner might be open to using it as a filming location. Home staging companies might be willing to rent their properties out for a product video or photo shoot. Expect to pay $10,000–15,000 for a professionally done, 2–3 minute product video. Every crowdfunding video has two parts: The promotional video and the pitch. When you do your product photos, keep your website design in mind: Dark background for a dark site, white background for a light site. If your photos don’t look good after the first shoot, Photoshop or a similar software can do wonders. Consider creating “retina” product photos at double resolution for users of “HiDPI” screens (

If you’ve been listening to TMS for a while you already know James from episode 9. He made the Roost Stand, a stand that elevates your laptop to eye level. When I did the first interview with James he was in the middle of his Kickstarter. Now, half a year has passed, and we talked about how he went from crowdfunding to shipping and what he learned along the way. SHOWNOTES Takeway Points Try to figure out your “tipping points”, e.g. how many units you need to sell to make buying expensive equipment make economical sense. Once a Kickstarter campaign ends, you cannot modify the campaign page anymore. So be sure to put a link to your website or store in early on. Figure out early on what you’re going to do if any of your product’s parts get delayed. Consider having backup manufacturers in place for standard parts. Never assume manufacturers will meet their delivery time estimates. Delays within one steps of your manufacturing chain will have a ripple effect on all the steps that follow. Not every one of your backers is going to be familiar with how Kickstarter works. Be prepared for negative feedback by less experienced backers and consider communicating with them separately from the others any doing some “handholding”. Figure out how you’ll deal with orders of multiple items by a single customer. Partial shipments, especially to international customers, can be a hassle. Doing the fulfillment yourself can make sense when you start out. But as your order volume grows and your focus moves from making to marketing, it’s probably more efficient to outsource. Fulfillment companies need to inventory your product, they won’t work as a “pass-through” of single shipments. It can make sense to ship SKUs with lower order numbers yourself while outsourcing your fast-moving items to a fulfillment service. Ideally, you’ll want to keep manufacturing in line with demand so you don’t build up too much inventory. A crowdfunding campaign won’t always turn a profit. It’s primary purpose is to break even on starting your business. If manual labor is part of your assembly and/or fulfillment process, be prepared to continously optimize. Instead of paying just a fixed salary to your workers, cons

ShutterCal is a calendar-based photo journal that encourages you to take a daily photo and then, once a month, sends you beautiful prints. The project started as a hobby all the way back in 2007 and has since evolved into a business with thousands of paying customers. Show Notes Takeaway Points It takes 30 days to form or break a habit. When the users of your “hobby” project start asking you to add things, you might have a business on your hands. Word of mouth by your current users or customers is free and can be a lot more powerful than advertizing. If you want to find a company that really cares, call them between Christmas and New Years. If you’re planning to ship your product internationally, make sure you do your research on the shipping costs. Integrating your product or service with existing products and services can be a great way to get new users or customers. Taking outside investment is not just about the money, it’s about the connections that let you grow your business. Where you can find Scott, Kim and ShutterCal: Scott’s ShutterCal Kim’s ShutterCal ShutterCal Things mentioned on the show Jamie Livingston American Museum of Natural History RIGuitarGod’s ShutterCal Photojojo MOO Brian Murphy Flickr Instagram Hipstamatic Betaspring Harmonix Providence Startup Map Show notes:

Today, Austin and I talk about the first GroovBoard prototype, deciding on features and what he’s currently working on. Follow Austin Follow Austin on Twitter Austin’s Bloc Apple TV stand Follow Tom Follow Tom on Twitter Tom’s GroovBoard Follow-Up First rough prototype of the GroovBoard 2 Topics We discussed different portable keyboard and case options for the iPad and alternatives to the current GroovBoard design Austin is in the process of designing a travel case for the Apple TV Takeaway Points It’s not always an easy decision whether to improve the product for your core market or to change it so it becomes interesting for new markets. Doing both isn’t always possible. It’s OK to have lots of ideas for features early in the design process. Just be prepared to drop some of them sooner or later. Figure out if your first product is also going to be your brand. It might not be a good fit for additional products, so creating a separate brand might work better. Things mentioned on the show Extrusion moulding Apple iPad Keyboard Dock* Logitech Keyboard Cover for iPad mini* Logitech Tablet Keyboard* Tablet usage survey

Ian Kent has spent the last 35 years designing and developing single- and multi-family homes and commercial projects. His passion for architecture and industrial design led him to create the NOMAD, a 10' by 10' micro home for under $30,000. While this is a very small house, it's certainly the largest product I've had on the show so far. Show notes: http://thinkmakesell.com/31