Launch and Scale

Understanding your customers is the most critical part of any successful marketing campaign. In this video, I have the pleasure of speaking with Maneesh Sethi, founder of Pavlok, as he gives some helpful advice for startups or existing brands looking to grow their audience and tap into an additional cash flow source. Maneesh created Pavlok, a wearable device that releases a mild stimulus called a “snap” to help you reduce cravings, break bad habits, and change your life. He has used IndieGoGo and crowdfunding to not only start his brand but also to use it for subsequent product launches and use it as an inventory play. He's going to tell us everything about how he did it, and what you can do right away to start really understanding your customers too!

A press release is one of the most useful types of advertising because it allows you to attract the attention of media outlets, which can then create massive visibility for your product or service. In this interview with Norman Farrar, we discuss the importance of having a good PR strategy and some of the right ways to take advantage of this oft-overlooked form of publicity. A press release is essentially a pitch to journalists, influencers, marketers, or whoever else will push your product or service into a magazine, TV show, etc. We’ve all seen examples of product placement in magazines and TV shows. With public relations, you’re talking about pitching people who have industry contacts, who, if interested, will get your product or service in front of large audiences that would be receptive to your brand. What makes public relations one of the best types of advertising is that it allows you to gain access to targeted media outlets where you can have the most impact. However, with any good PR strategy, you ha

Sometimes, all you need to do in order to succeed is to focus on the big picture. In this video, I get to speak with Steven Lawson, creator of The Monk Manual planner, about personal and brand growth, visionary ideas, and the keys to achieving them! The Monk Manual is a quarterly planner inspired by timeless monastic principles and designed to help you live a fuller, more peaceful, life. It combines best practices in psychology, productivity, and spiritual growth. Stay tuned to discover some helpful tips and insights into how to develop your own product ideas and bring them to life! You'll understand why it's so important for you to focus on the BIG picture in order to achieve that! We'll also discuss: - how to find your niche, - build your perfect audience - how to launch a successful Kickstarter campaign for your product! Want to work personally with me to launch your next product? Go to www.khierstyn.com to learn more.

​How do you build an audience that's super-engaged and desperate to buy your product? In today's video I speak to Timothy Moser, founder of MasterOfMemory.com, who managed to do exactly that using a giveaway contest strategy. I think you'll agree, his approach was ingenious! Although Timothy gives most of his content for free via his website, he was able to launch a course that resulted in an almost unheard of 10% conversion rate (from lead to sale). This unique approach focused on a giveaway contest to nurture his leads and get them super engaged and ready to buy anything being sold! And when I say 'anything being sold', I really do mean it! In this case, a course on learning Spanish. Spanish verb conjugation, anyone? I really enjoyed my conversation with Timothy. I hope you do too! ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 5 Things You Will Learn In This Video: - Why Timothy spends hundreds of hours offering free, one-on-one teaching to people who haven’t bought yet even though he knows it is not likely that the peop

In today's video I'm speaking with Chris Prendergast, founder of Jamstack. As someone who has raised cash in the past from investors but also had a very successful crowdfunding campaign too, Chris had some great insights into the pros and cons of using crowdfunding instead of venture capital or a loan. We had a great discussion about why crowdfunding is such a great way to solve cash flow and inventory financing problems faced by so many entrepreneurs. We also dive into why even as a seven figure, established brand, Chris has decided to launch another crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo. Some of the things we discuss: - crowdfunding vs venture capital, high interest loans and other debt - how to use crowdfunding to fund tooling, engineering, inventory, branding and other assets - why money spent on inventory is a wasted cost! - additional benefits of crowdfunding (SEO, PR, and excitement) - why your second crowdfunding campaign is easier than your first - the downsides and potential pitfalls of crowdfunding ••

⭐ If you enjoy this interview with Gareth Everard please subscribe for lots more great crowdfunding content⭐ Gareth Everard ran a wildly successful crowdfunding campaign when he launched the first product that led to the founding of Rockwell Razors. He used that first Kickstarter product to launch several other successful product lines and made the transition to make it a sustainable brand. But his road to success was not an easy one. In fact, Gareth's dream soon became a nightmare when he discovered that his manufacturer had massively misled him regarding their capability for producing a quality product. In this episode, Gareth tells me about how he overcame failure in a way that allowed him to keep his backers and customers and successfully launch additional products. It wasn’t easy, but it made for a remarkable comeback story, one that I hope you'll enjoy listening to and can learn from! 

A brief summary of this episode

You've come up with a GENIUS idea for a new product. You then go take action and start putting together your plan and getting ready to launch it to the market and finally go through with it.   Shortly after your launch... Someone steals the idea from you and ends up taking all the spotlight (and success).   Or at least, that's what many of us entrepreneurs fear when launching new products. Luckily, there are measures in place to protect us from that exact scenario: trademarks and patents. 

One of the most complicated parts of planning a product launch can be calculating the costs of shipping. This might be a “make-it-or-break-it'' scenario for your overall pricing strategy.   For this reason, in the last LS episode, I’m talking about how you can set prices when you don’t know your shipping costs, so you can avoid losing your profitability due to inadequate prices.

Whether you’re launching a new product or you have an existing brand, using customer testimonials to build social proof is an excellent way to increase your visibility.   Want to learn how you can do this?

 How Dan started his company through Indiegogo crowdfunding  Crowdfunding, apparel brands, and ecommerce marketing during the pandemic. For many brands, adaptation is an absolute necessity during the current crisis. This is especially true for some industries more than others.   Take Dan, for example. He runs a travel apparel company (that he started through a successful Indiegogo campaign!), during the pandemic, travel isn't in most people's minds right now. So he has to take the marketing for his ecommerce and adapt it to the current times.   In this video, I talk with Dan about his Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign, what it takes to be successful, and how he's had to change his ecommerce marketing messages during the current crisis.   Want to personally work with Khierstyn? Go to www.workwithKR.com

An online product launch can be a great promotion strategy because it can provide you with visibility and excitement for your product. In this video, I delve more into why momentum advertising is so important to making your launch successful and how you can get the most out of your campaign.   From day one of getting your business up and running, you should be focused on creating an event out of your product. Once you get started, you need to raise money right away to have the resources necessary to fulfill your first orders.    You need to treat your promotion strategy like a lightning strike: Get press, get friends and family to talk about your product, and give people an excuse to be excited. It’s all about momentum advertising. If you simply open your store quietly, the money might trickle in, but you won’t be able to create momentum.   Think of it like a train. A stationary train has a lot of inertia. But once it gains speed it becomes unstoppable. The same principle applies to a product launch. The reas

➜ Grab Khierstyn Ross's product launch system: https://bit.ly/Launch_Guide ➜ Subscribe https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4KE... ➜ Why most people get the product launch process all wrong ➜ How to see success with your new product launch The way most people launch new products online is extremely outdated. Here's what the standard product launch plan looks like: - Create a product idea - Develop the product - Buy inventory - Launch the product - Market & advertise the product I'm oversimplifying it here, but notice how marketing is at the bottom? Here's the thing: Marketing your product shouldn't wait till after you've already finished developing and are ready to launch, you should be getting the word out there long before day one. By the time you start your Kickstarter campaign, there should be a waiting list of people ready to buy. In this video, I talk about how you can set yourself up for success from Day One by marketing your product BEFORE you launch it. *** Want to work personally with Kh

Welcome to Part 1 of my 3-part Mini-Series "How to Launch Your Product Online". This Mini-Series is designed to get you excited to take massive action toward your product launch, as well as informed on the critical steps that will make (or break) your launch. When doing a launch campaign, do you think about your target consumer? Or are you looking for whatever opportunity will allow you to sell your product? I find that there are two main types of goals that people have when they start to do a campaign and they lead to very different outcomes. There are people who, on the one hand, are testing out their product to see if they can make it into a viable business. These people haven’t completely committed to the idea that their product will be successful, so they want to do a campaign to test the waters. Then there are people who know they want to build a sustained business that reaches six or seven figures. These people have a product that they believe in and they have a target consumer who they want to reac

Are you looking to launch a Food and Beverage (FAB) Startup and want to get your product onto grocery store shelves, but can’t seem to figure out how to navigate the large corporate bureaucracy? Here’s the bad news… the large CPG brands can’t either.  But here’s the GOOD news… the large CPG brands are so slow that you can still beat them at their own game if you know what to do. Today’s guest, Ainsley Moir, is a veteran of the FAB world, working for big brands such as Coke, Campbells, Vitamin Water, and more. She has been in the boardroom meetings for these large companies with infinite bank accounts and decades-long relationships with retailers. The disturbing news is they still take 4 YEARS to launch new products. Ainsley believed that this was way too slow and so on evenings and weekends she successfully launched her own FAB. coffee startup using proven corporate marketing strategies with startup speed. In this episode, Ainsley walks you through exactly what retailers want for you to get your product in st

How do you know if you’re creating effective ads on Facebook? How can you learn from your data to improve your funnel creation ability? In this video, I talk about three of the most important metrics for measuring sales funnel success and what it means for your business. When you do a product launch, you need to have a waitlist of people built up from day one. You achieve this through what’s called a sales funnel. The idea is to show potential customers your product. When someone’s scrolling through their feed on Facebook, they’ll see a little bit about your product and a call to action. That’s the first step. You want to get customers from Facebook to your product landing page. Then, you’ll ask the visitor for their email so that you can contact them easily and move them closer to a sale. So, how do you know if you have effective ads? There are certain metrics that can allow you to determine whether or not your funnel creation went well. Click through rate is a percentage of people who are clicking the li

Would you like to get a celebrity endorsement or two to help fuel your Kickstarter launch and not have to pay them or give up any equity in your business? How about 13 endorsements?  Well, that’s exactly what Jon “Of The Chords” Ng did to raise over $300K on Kickstarter for “Lord of the Chords: The Punniest Music Theory Card Game in the World”. While doing his research on how to launch a Kickstarter Campaign, Jon noticed a pattern: A large percentage of campaigns that raised over six-figures had a celebrity endorsement. The problem was that he had no connections to anyone famous in the music industry and so had to “find another way” (as he likes to put it).  In this episode, Jon reveals the L.O.R.D. framework he developed that enabled him to get 13 celebrity endorsements. L - Locate O - Offer an amazing gift… Something unique and relevant to your project R - Record their reaction D - Don’t quit when things go wrong… and find another way!   We also cover:  Jon’s Top Strategies for Locating celebrities and h

Gabby Samkova, originally from Australia, was living and working in Bali while surfing in her spare time.  While she thought she was getting as far away from city life as possible and experiencing nature, she was constantly brought back to reality.  Even while 100 meters offshore surfing, she would encounter plastic.Plastic bottles... plastic bags... plastic particles. She even kicked a dirty diaper trying to catch a wave!Gabby was determined to figure out how she could do her part to fix the problem. After doing her research, she discovered that we can now take old plastic and upcycle it into a polyester microfibre.  Gabby realized that meant that it was now possible to take used plastic bottles and turn them into fast-drying, sand resistant, and compact beach towels! That’s when she founded SomerSide Towels and successfully launched on Kickstarter, even delivering early.In this episode, we talk about the steps Gabby took to deliver a premium fabric upcycled from plastic bottles in the ocean from diaper to

➜ Where Kickstarter fits in your product development phases ➜ Should Kickstarter be a part of your product development strategy? Kickstarter, and crowdfunding in general, is a fantastic tool available to entrepreneurs who want to launch new products. It allows people to launch their products without nearly as massive of a burden as they would've had before. BUT that doesn't mean it's an instant or easy success story; using Kickstarter the wrong way can still lead to a product launch failure. Many of these product launch failures have become the poster children for Kickstarter's sometimes less-than-stellar reputation. If you want to avoid becoming another one of those poster children, you need to know where Kickstarter fits in the product development process. As times have changed, so has the way you need to use Kickstarter (or Indiegogo). In this video, I talk about whether or not Kickstarter fits in the product development phase, and how to use it best for a product launch. If you'd like to personall

Coran Woodmass, the founder of thefbabroker.com, is a specialist ‘Fulfilment By Amazon’ or FBA Business Sales Broker who helps online founders sell their businesses. E-commerce is shifting away from selling exclusively on Amazon and investors are starting to prefer buying a brand. In this episode we’ll dive into that, as well as: The process of selling an e-commerce brand  What investors expect from your business When it’s the right time to sell your e-commerce business and its correlation with scaling Why some people shouldn’t sell     More information on Coran can be found on https://thefbabroker.com/about Resources Mentioned: Investing in DTC (Direct to Consumer) Brands, Podcast Raising Capital from VC’s and Angels, Podcast Profit First, by Mike Michaelowicz Our interview with Profit First author, Mike Michaelowicz