Yo,
Hope you’re having a helluva Sunday. It's time for your all access pass weekly recap.
My goal is to launch 3 ventures, building them in public so people can follow along and learn how I execute. The first project was to raise a $1M+ rolling fund from investors in 4 weeks.
Now if you recall from the "Project Kickoff" template I shared, I set two goals with every project.
A "good" goal ($1M in this case) and a "f*ck yea" goal ($2.4M).
In last sunday's update, I shared how we went from $0 → $1.6M (achieving our "good goal").
This week is about how we went from $1.6M → $2.5M (nailing our f*ck yea goal).
Here's what we did this week:
- Day 5 - Going down the sales funnel and closing leads
- Day 6 - How 1 Tweet turned into $1.5m
- Day 7 - Sometimes you need to be a worker ant
- Day 8 - Brainstorming ecommerce ideas for project #3
- Day 9 - AMA & Fund Deep-Dive for the All Access Community
For those of you on the free weekly recaps, I'm unlocking day 8 for you. It's all about brainstorming ecommerce ideas. Even though ecommerce is going to be project #3, I need to kickoff the sample making process soon, because getting quotes & samples made can easily take 2 months, so I need to plan those seeds now.
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**Unlocked Post**
Day 8 - Brainstorming for project #3 - An ecommerce product
The all access pass promised launching 3 different $1M+ ventures. One was the fund, The second is a digital or information product (coming next), and the third is ecommerce.
I'm a little worried about ecommerce.
Why? I helped my wife start an ecom biz last year - and it took us 6 months to get to market. Finding a product, finding a supplier, getting samples, going back and forth with design iterations etc… this shit takes time.
So I need to start planting seeds for the ecommerce project now, so that it is ready to roll in a couple months.
So today's mission is to plant the seeds for our ecommerce project
My goal for the day is to finish with a list of 10-20 products, with at least 2-3 that I'm excited about.
OK let's start generating ideas.
For today - I want to have an open mind. I'm looking for a bunch of ideas, and not too worried about filtering out crappy ideas. I'm also OK with writing down product categories, rather than specific products. Eg. (vegan protein supplements).
Later I'll drill down deeper and think of differentiated products within each category/product I like.
My first brainstorming tactic: THE HOUSE
What do I see around the house? What products did we buy recently? What do I notice friends using? What’s my mom using?
House Stuff
- Dyson vacuum - the cordless/handheld one. Super slick, love this product
- Gorilla Tape - super strong tape for fixing stuff up around the house
- Tupperware - nice containers for leftovers
Kids Stuff
- Furniture corner protectors for the kid
- Stuffed animals for the baby
- School supplies for young kids now at home
Tech Gadgets
- Iphone holder attachment for tripod for vlogging
- Crazy USB port so I can plug like 10 things into 1 macbook port
- Camlink so I can use a DLSR camera instead of webcam when on zoom
- Airpod replacement case - I have my airpods but lost the case
- Remarkable Tablet - e-ink notepad for writing
Personal Care:
- Men's headbands - growing my hair out during covid, dealing w/ the messy middle phase
- Hair oil - related to growing my hair out. It's super dry so I bought some oil
Fitness:
- Adjustable Dumbbells - sold out everywhere, bought these marked up on craiglist
- Jump rope
- Various Resistance bands for home workouts
Nutrition
- Wife bought "apple cider vinegar gummies" - supposed to be good for you
- Branch Chain Amino Acids (BCAAs)
- Plant based protein powder
- Hot sauce - very loosely nutrition, but I put hot sauce on everything, which makes it way easier to eat healthy
My Second Brainstorming Tactic: Trendy products on Aliexpress
If you don't know - Alibaba is a giant company based in China that lets you find factories that make pretty much anything. Crazy tents. Jetpacks. Hair Curlers. Whatever you can think of - they have it.
Aliexpress is their lightweight version. On Alibaba you have to order big quantities (eg. ordering 1000 hair bows), but on Aliexpress you can buy a single unit for a little higher price (but still way cheaper than anything in the US). Only downside is that you have to wait a month for it to arrive and the quality is a complete hit or miss haha.
Anytime I see an ad for a product on instagram, I go search it on Aliexpress. Theragun? You can either pay $200 or you can go on aliexpress and find one for $60 if you're willing to wait 3 weeks.
Anyways - to get idea inspiration - I have a secret weapon.
There's a TikTok account called Wonderlife_Aliexpress that showcases the best random products. **Warning - clicking that will mean that your entire tiktok feed will be random products...their algorithm is sooo good.**
Anyways, I like this way better than browsing aliexpress - and because it's on tiktok, it's already formatted like an "ad" I would create to sell this product. It makes it really easy to imagine - would this sell? Would this pop?
I liked these 3:
- This lightweight chalkboard thing (great for covid times)
- This iPhone mouse thing (maybe for teens who want to destroy their friends at fortnite)
- This crazy space saving foldout couch/stool thing (again, great for covid times. And looks like a big thing that could ship in a small package). This tiktok vid has 10M views - that tells me that this content stands out and would perform well as an ad.
Pausing here before I spend 9 hours down the tiktok/aliexpress rabbit hole. I got about 15 ideas on the table, and the wheels in my head are turning. I don't want to decide today, I want to let that marinate overnight in my head.
When I do start to narrow down my idea, I'm going to be bucketing products into three categories:
- The $15 impulse purchase - A $15-20 product (eg. eyelash serum) that costs $1-2 to make. Someone can buy this on a whim
- The $40 repeat purchase - These products (eg. hair dye) do amazing with ecommerce. A $40-50 purchase price, with monthly/bi-monthly repeat purchase.
- The $120-$200 utility splurge - These products (eg. inflatable pools) have lower conversion, but make up for it with higher price points/high margins.
OK that's all for now. Going to let those ideas simmer, and generate more ideas tomorrow with a few other brainstorming tactics!
I'm out like a bellybutton ✌️
-shaan
