A Super Storm, Single Product Businesses & A Nod To The Hustle

The time was 4:30am. I was barely awake, just stirring and coming around slowly in subconscious anticipation of my 4:50am alarm. Then all of a sudden…

CRACK BOOOOOOM!!!

The loudest fucking thunder you’ve ever heard scared the shit out of me. Storms in Sydney are like nothing I’ve ever seen or heard before. A million times louder and more fierce than what I was used to in the UK. Seriously.

I actually hate them. The thunder is so deafening that it shakes the buildings. Let you in on something funny here…

The last storm we had, it was actually nice and clear outside and I was watching the news eating my breakfast.

The news story was something sensational about Kim Jong Un potentially launching a nuclear attack today… then all of a sudden I shit you not, right after this was announced by the news anchor, the loudest thunder I’ve ever heard in all my life shook the building.

It was still clear from where I was sitting on the sofa so I actually got up, went out on the balcony and peered over and around the edge nervously to see if Sydney city was still there or if there was nothing left but a cloud of smoke! Haha  😳

There was actually a second storm this evening and the main pic to this post is what I snapped from the balcony of the amazing sunset.

Massive shout out to the hustle

I read an article on Sumo today (you can read it here), which documented the story of a TV producer working a 9-6 job who had a vision to create her own organic, non paste toothpaste product that was sustainable and didn’t explode in your travel luggage.

This is why I’ve got massive respect for her in this:

• Had no idea what she was doing so she put in the hours and LEARNED!
  • So watched cosmetic chemistry videos on YouTube to learn
  • And found open source cosmetic chemistry classes from Universities on Reddit
• Went to the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) to look up dental studies and patents to see what other people have done to find a solution
  • She basically learned about all the existing products available, all the ingredients available
• This knowledge enabled her to choose ingredients based on their properties that she needed to create the product she visioned

She then goes on to buy machines to create the tablets and learns how to do that and will next be learning more about marketing etc to drive traffic, awareness and ultimately sales.

She doesn’t say.. I don’t have time to do all this… she gets in from her day job and hustles until the early hours as well as at weekend. If it was easy everyone would do it, yet people still get suckered in to the get rich quick schemes to try and avoid the work. You can’t  😉

Moral of the story? If you don’t know, don’t let that stop you, no matter how challenging it seems. Put in the hours and work consistently for years and eventually you’ll reap the rewards which I’m sure she will do.

Here’s her site in case you are interested:

https://bitetoothpastebits.com/

Think about your medium to long term vision for your business from outset

I’ve seen a lot of single product business models recently. Where one product is basically the entire business and brand (it’s not going to be in the above toothpaste example. She’s clearly thought about it and branded the business as ‘The Kind Lab’ – it’s just starting off with the first product front and center but it made me think about all the single product businesses starting up)

That’s fine but think carefully about the mid-long term and the direction you want to take your business. Some things to consider:

• If your brand name is the product name then your entire business might be restricted to that product unless you rebrand or create a new master brand that groups together all the single product brands
• If you are hanging your hopes on one product, make sure it’s evergreen so it won’t go out of fashion and therefore your business won’t die with your product if it goes out of fashion
• Make sure the market is big enough to provide enough of a return to make it worth your while. A small market for a single product might not yield enough ROI to make it worth your time

Our plans are to create a brand so we can launch lots of products over time and although we have a few products now with about 20 more to follow this year, we still started with one product.

There’s no right and wrong answer here, I’m just making the point of being aware of your longer term plans for your business from outset.