32. Complete Inventing Blueprint from Zero-Millionaire | Cliff Part 1

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Episode Summary:
In this insightful episode of the "Invent With Me" podcast, hosts Grant and Marcus are joined by the inventive and passionate Cliff Lee, popularly known as the Turtle Guy. This episode is a deep dive into the niche world of reptile and tortoise enclosures, exploring the challenges, creative solutions, and innovative mindsets required to turn a simple idea into a marketable product.

Episode Description:
Welcome to the "Invent With Me" podcast, where we guide aspiring inventors and product creators to turn their innovative ideas into reality. Each week, we provide valuable tips, insights, and success stories from our journey in the field of inventing. Today, we are thrilled to have a very special guest in the studio, Cliff Lee, also known as the Turtle Guy. Cliff is an avid fan of our show and a fellow Los Angeles resident. We invited him to share his unique invention story and expertise in creating reptile enclosures.

Introduction:
The episode begins with a brief introduction by the hosts, Grant and Marcus. Grant, the inventor of Torque Strap, and Marcus, the inventor of Quick Tie Down Anchor, express their excitement about having Cliff on the show. They highlight the purpose of the podcast—to inspire and guide listeners through the inventing process.

Meet Cliff Lee:
Cliff Lee introduces himself and shares his background. He explains how he became interested in reptiles and tortoises and the challenges he faced in providing adequate enclosures for his pets. His journey started with a simple problem: finding suitable habitats for his reptiles that were both functional and aesthetically pleasing.

Challenges in the Reptile Hobby:
Cliff delves into the specific challenges reptile enthusiasts face when it comes to enclosures. Unlike more common pets like hamsters, reptiles require specialized environments. There is no one-size-fits-all solution, and each species has unique needs. Cliff discusses the creativity and ingenuity needed to design enclosures that meet these requirements.

Inventive Solutions:
The hosts and Cliff explore various inventive solutions for reptile enclosures. They discuss how traditional options like storage containers and stock t

The Invent With Me Podcast, where each week we help aspiring inventors and product creators to turn their innovative ideas into reality. Join us on youtube to have the ultimate show experience! www.youtube.com/@inventwithme

Transcript

0:00

and Alibaba for some reason I just thought it was a complete scam until recently and you're not changing lives

0:06

you're making reptile en closures but you can have fun with it right no no no no no you'll have to you'll have no that

0:12

never it never works that way hello guys and welcome to the invent With Me podcast where each week we guide aspiring inventors and product creators

0:19

to turn their innovative ideas into reality learn valuable tips insights and success stories from a couple guys

0:25

roughing it in the field of inventing so that you yourself can make your mark in the world we are your host my name is

0:30

Grant inventor of Tor strap and I'm Marcus inventor of quick tie down anchors and with us in the studio today

0:36

very special guest we have the turtle guy thanks guys Cliff Lee Cliff is a fan

0:42

of the show he happened to live in LA as well so we said what the heck come on down let's talk about your invention how

0:49

you doing Cliff good uh first off Marcus Grant thank you so much for having me um

0:54

love your work yeah just looking forward to being here right now you're welcome man well thank you I mean you're the real here today because Marcus and I say

1:02

the same crap over and over again every week and what we really need and by the way the theme of today's episode is an A

1:09

through Z walkthrough of the product development Journey or the inventing Journey whatever you want to call it and

1:15

you being here helps facilitate that so much because we're starting to lose

1:20

touch right we've been doing this for a couple years we're hyperfocusing on things like do I spend n Grand a month

1:27

in ad spend or 18 Grand a month in ad spend and whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa you know slow down let's pull it back let's

1:34

pull it back to the stage one I have an idea mhm so with that if you're ready

1:39

Marcus I'm ready gliff you have an idea can you summarize your product idea and

1:46

by the end of this we're going to tell you how to get to the point where you're cashing major checks for your idea but

1:54

please tell me in the hobby of tortoises and really herp culture in general which

2:00

is um basically the reptile hobby there are so many different avenues that you

2:07

can go down in terms of structures there are people that keep bearded dragons in popup Greenhouse tents that are 6 feet

2:15

by 3 feet in their garages there are people that are keeping tortoises in

2:22

storage containers Turtles are being kept in massive like 500 gallon stock

2:29

tubs right there is no concrete way of hey this is how you do something because

2:36

everything is just so inventive like and creative for anyone that's into reptiles

2:43

and I would say it's a step further than hamsters per se right hamsters you have

2:50

you know that you can get a cage and the cage will have tubes that you can connect to it'll be a food dish and a

2:55

water bowl it's not like that for reptiles everything there's such a standard for hamsters exactly you're

3:02

telling me there's not this standard for tortoises and reptiles there is not and a lot of times people uh don't really

3:11

want to invest the money in keeping uh a tortoise and keeping a reptile do you

3:18

think do you think that's because hamsters are cute and it's a it's almost like a fad you know it's like oh let's

3:24

let's get you a cute little hamster you got to have a cute little house and a cute little water bottle and things like that but it's a snake and you're like oh

3:29

it's a SN right well I don't know right a snake could live like 30 years and the hamster is living 2 years and thens the

3:38

hamster or the snake eeks the H in like the best case scenario no yeah I think

3:44

that what I am looking to do is to bridge a gap that is missing right

3:49

tortoises range in size from 2 in to 2 and a half feet okay interesting right

3:56

and there are there is just so many there is an opportunity here that nobody

4:02

has fully captured on or capitalized on uh where you could create a modular home

4:10

like a grow with me home for your reptile tortoise you could even throw

4:16

like a hamster or guinea pig rabbit in there uh it could be used as a dogghouse

4:21

but basically there is nothing that gives a customer control to say this is

4:27

what I want out of this product for my pet I want it to be an l-shape like this

4:34

table here I want it to be a 4x4 structure because I have this fat tortoise that likes to poop right in the

4:41

middle right like there is no cut and dry way for there is nothing that gives

4:50

customers uh ownership of what they are doing and people like the ownership well

4:56

and they want standardization right we love walking into Target knowing that we

5:01

can get the case for the hamster here the food for it right next to it and the water jug right next to it and they're

5:08

all made by the same manufacturer the same brand name right I also feel like people are nuts over accessories and

5:14

there's like the heating element and the Light Element and the feeder element all those dirty little side things end up

5:21

being so much more profitable than your actual product itself and that's super awesome right and to that point nobody

5:29

want nobody Heats their reptiles the same way right like I may in my tortoise

5:35

enclosure I have a radiated heater that was $20 from Walmart somebody else might

5:41

have a heat panel that is just at the top someone else may have a ceramic heat emitter like there are so many different

5:48

ways to heat an enclosure up really you're just trying to get this animal to a baseline in the middle of the winter

5:56

while you're housing them outside to 80 degrees so if you're if you're o offering each one of those separate

6:02

people an option how to mount their heater yeah that's where you're going to be killing it that's what we're doing

6:08

okay right and the and the goal here is to really do two things make sure that

6:15

this house is customizable and insulated for outdoors okay um can withstand

6:23

114° out here in Santa Clarita and you know down to or I mean if you have if

6:30

you're in anything below freezing hopefully you're taking your reptile inside but there are people that live uh

6:37

on the East Coast that do have or or the Midwest that do get close to below

6:42

freezing and the reptiles are outside so even if it's not while the reptiles in it I mean a lot of people who would put

6:49

something outside for a rabbit or a dog would leave it out there through that anyway and you want to just make sure that it's going to hold up to the

6:54

elements for a couple months or whatever it may be and you want to make sure that it's going to hold up to their elements

6:59

right right because at first I got AIS and I was just like oh this is cool it

7:06

poops like every 3 days okay but when it poops you're like oh dang all this came

7:13

out of you right and then uh tortoises specifically eat a lot of grass right

7:19

and if a tortoise is eating and excreting grass it smells like a barn

7:25

got so I also need something like in personally like we have a two a two dog

7:32

dog house I've had to line the entire thing with a liner and every now every

7:38

month or so like there's a barn smell and I know that I've got to like get everything out and clean it and that's

7:44

made out of wood what do that made out of it's made out of wood but I've lined it with like a weatherproof liner right

7:50

that is a clunky process it is a dogghouse it's not made for a smaller animal it's made for an animal that is

7:57

not going to poop where it sleeps right right and so this is something that can

8:03

easily be hosed down like within seconds something that you're not having to

8:09

worry about like urine like seeping into anything permanently um it's something

8:16

that we could have uh that can double as a really cool bed a really cool

8:23

enclosure for a dog maybe somebody in Vegas has their dog outside something

8:28

that'll keep the animal cool as well so it's supposed to be all inclusive really thinking like my train

8:36

of thought is always if I see something immediately which frustrates everyone

8:41

that I know is here is the problem right and I'm not arguing with you I'm just

8:46

telling you how we should fix it opportunity here's a question for you why and and hopefully the answer is is

8:54

logical with it is but why don't you just get something bigger to start with you may not need it right right and

9:01

you're also trying to like keep your cost down same thing with a house we could have like a five-bedroom house

9:08

that's going to need to be heated all throughout the winter on the East Coast but for one person it's like well it may

9:15

take this one person like years to even realize that they can go over here in the room right when you can just have

9:21

this one person sleep in a bedroom and heat the bedroom right right you don't want to spend the time and the money

9:27

like the like the goal with every thing is to spend the least amount of money for what you need to do and anyone in

9:35

the reptile hobby at all knows that there is an increase when it comes to your electric bill oh yeah every reptile

9:42

that comes into your house boosts your electric bill up $5 a month right and I guess another another take on that would

9:48

be that a lot of people this is going to be a fad for because you know you're like you get something you don't want to

9:53

spend $200 on the the whole big mixer you want to spend 20 $5 whatever it may

10:00

be on the small thing that fits the animal at the time and then if you're if you or your kid are like I don't really care about turtles anymore your

10:07

investment you haven't been lost a is a lot lower a lot lower and then also it's probably something cool to say hey if

10:15

you're taking this tortoise or this guinea pig or whatever it is right you

10:20

can take this accessory as well go to this website here as it grows you can

10:26

just add on to what is already what the this animal is already accustomed to yeah yeah well that's amazing well two

10:33

two big things that are important to touch on here is is it a good idea we've established that the answer is yes and

10:41

number two is is it scalable and is it a company and the answer is yes because of

10:46

everything you just mentioned the fact that you can grow with it the fact that you can sell ancillary products the fact

10:51

that somebody comes to you and they buy Six to make a cube and a year later they

10:56

buy six more to make a big rectangle right that's the most beautiful thing you can have in a product you know I I

11:03

don't want to touch on it but you mentioned um your idea about you know creating a book for another stream of

11:08

income books suck for income here's why you only buy one unless you're filling a classroom full of that book which is the

11:14

Hope but it's not going to happen off the bat you only buy one book you don't say this is such a good book I'm going

11:19

to buy it again you may look for the next book so that's the only way you get a repeating customer is to continually

11:25

work and you have to live that life and to build a brand around a book The only leverage a book has is if it's a good

11:32

book or not you don't get to say you're going to get richer and smarter and healthier from this book you know if

11:39

it's a for instance a science fiction book you're not going to get any of those things it's just pure

11:44

entertainment so the repeat aspect isn't there with your product and your business it is well and that too I think

11:52

the book so I wrote a children's book and I am in the process of working with

11:58

an illustrator now now and we're going back and forth I don't know exactly how much I want to invest into the

12:05

children's book I love it I think it's great I think the illustrator is great already went through a book editor but I

12:13

think the book was just the Catapult you know I think the biggest thing which I

12:18

have my biggest questions for you guys is all right I have all of this I have a

12:24

designer that I think is incredible um

12:29

and how do I go from there like then then then let's do this we already did

12:35

step one right you have a good idea and it's scalable what's step two I I I would think step two is like

12:44

getting it on paper in some kind of way okay definitely getting it on paper in some kind of way designing or

12:50

prototyping you can bundle all those into step two paper design and prototype now you I'm going to keep this flowing

12:57

because we have a lot to cover remember by step seven you're going to be a millionaire we only have an hour to make

13:02

that happen great step two design prototype put it on paper so you've put

13:08

it on paper uh you you and I had a conversation candidly last week about a

13:15

similar idea I turned you on to our engineer Lance and the reason I turned you on to Lance this early in the stage

13:21

Lance from freelance engineering that is is because you told me I don't want to build this prototype myself cuz Marcus

13:28

and I preach that all the time duct tape it glue it cut it out of cardboard we don't care but you didn't want to do that and that's fine so that's why I

13:36

told you then you need to go straight to an engineer and you're going to have to put up a little bit more upfront money to figure out the nuts and bolts of how

13:42

you can pimp a Chinese manufacturer into making you a sample that's why you're

13:48

working with Lance right now and Lance is incredible dude he rocks he rocks my

13:53

socks he's awesome I first off he's like equally as passionate about the product

14:00

as I am and we like we have like five or six different threads we were talking

14:06

right before I got here um it is great and we're just like feeding off of each

14:11

other's energy right now we were talking at 10:30 his time he lives in Toronto

14:17

you know and so um dude's a gangster that's what he is he is like ganger this

14:23

is what we call him a torque strap yeah he he's just like willing to listen to

14:28

like me ramble for a long time and it's not going in one ear and out the other

14:34

like he's taking it a step further like I suggest something he goes a step further well that's why he's perfect for

14:39

inventors he's not transactional in that sense um he's figured out a well it's his passion to help people solve

14:46

problems and he's been an engineer for major companies that are like hey photograph this machine the the 10,000

14:53

Parts on this machine and put them into a cad this is your six months assignment you know like he's kind of over that

14:59

stuff he he is a tinker at his heart so you're giving him the ability to do that

15:04

he found something he loves that he can make money off of it everybody wins so so step two you're you're designing this

15:12

with Lance also I would I would say just to back up to your to your step two like

15:17

going out as and building the Prototype yesterday I was like all right I'm

15:23

talking to Lance I can't wait anymore I literally went to Home Depot found two

15:28

by to uh foam core panels and in the middle of Home Depot I just like

15:35

constructed this entire thing Jimmy rigging it with like Joyce from the wood Department yeah there you go you're

15:42

getting Scrappy and you'll learn a lot surprisingly a lot and you'll also you'll look back at those moments and I

15:50

hang on to bits of information I know things about strap webbing no one should know because of the early days of just

15:56

getting my hands dirty you know customer will come in well um why don't you use stainless steel stainless steel is half

16:03

the strength right little things that normal people aren't going to know unless they're kind of getting in there and getting their hands dirty but I

16:09

digress do you feel that you and Lance will soon have something on a cad

16:15

drawing that you can send to a Chinese manufacturer or are you just going all

16:22

over the place with ideas no I think we have like he has like just like the

16:27

skeleton right now okay um and what I asked for which and he's like he's like

16:33

hey he's like I wanted to get this to you today he last night like he sent it

16:38

over I I was in love with it immediately just being able to see it and I think between that and like Home Depot I was

16:45

like a step closer to seeing this thing come to life a little bit I'm hoping that by Monday or Tuesday we have

16:52

something on paper where we could at least talk about well if he's if he's going to is he doing the cad part of it

16:58

too or is okay I mean so you'll have something that you can go 3D print and test yourself as well correct okay

17:04

that's amazing yeah and and that's the goal like I am not a person that sleeps

17:10

on anything I go through every like I go about life with so much uh um intensity

17:17

that it's frustrating for a lot of people because I am just like tunnel vision um I cannot like last night I was

17:24

dreaming about this like I just and I don't know if it's even going to be successful right but I just know that I

17:33

want so much more out of life can I ask you something yeah the pet rock was successful why would a viable tortoise

17:41

modular house not be successful I don't know you know what I have to thank you for asking that question right because I

17:48

have to keep like going back to Facebook and looking at all of the different

17:54

tortoise groups of people commenting every time somebody posts a picture of a

17:59

of a tortoise eating a raspberry right they're like tortoises shouldn't eat raspberries they should only eat like

18:06

vegetables right and there are so many people that I'm like there's a market out here why after all the Facebook

18:13

groups you've seen all the evidence you've seen your own personal experience why would you have any doubt that it's

18:18

not viable what's going on in there

18:23

um I think because when you see something and you

18:28

want something so badly and you're so and and it's something that's like so far out it there is just doubt of like

18:35

am like can I really do this right but like there are so many things that like

18:41

I've done like I wanted kids my husband and I wanted kids and we're like adopted for like that is like you know that's

18:48

like something that I never thought would happen and it's really just anxiety of like you know at this

18:56

point not wanting to fail completely at something because there are little beings that are relying on me anybody

19:04

can relate to that you know Marcus and I certain and we've been there I shared a story once about when I got a tax bill

19:09

for 1100 bucks here I was trying to better my family's financial situation

19:15

and I'm costing us money B based on silly mistakes if I got a tax bill for

19:21

$1,100 I would like pray to God thank him oh no no no I'm not talking about my

19:27

house this is different you're in a different different realm now when in the middle of July you get a tax bill

19:33

from the state of Illinois for not filing sale and use tax oh yeah and just

19:39

ask randomly you just cost your family 1,00 bucks when you're trying to build a business and a product that's when

19:46

that's the fears that people might might keep people from starting this is like

19:51

things like that happen want not to feel stupid like Is My Idea stupid does anybody give a crap about tortoises and

19:57

and plastic and closures and the truth is so many damn people give a crap about

20:03

it and like you just said you went on and you see the forums and did my tortoise ate a carrot today or whatever

20:09

it is people lose their minds over that here I am like trying to get people in love with quick tie down anchors but

20:15

there'll be 2.5 million views of of a tortoise walking three feet and and

20:20

lifting his right arm and and and the unedited version of that tortoise

20:26

walking is just like painful it's just a tortoise and I know because

20:32

I film our tortoises all the time and if there's no music and I don't speed it up slightly it's just like what excu but

20:40

people love it yes there's unlimited amounts of angles you can take to Market this just social media

20:46

alone and and never forget this your cell phone is the only tool you need to sell a lot of this product filming your

20:54

tortoise up close and voicing over him you know with different cuts and punchings on on his face and when he's

20:59

chewing when he's farting when he's doing that little and the kid who goes I like turtles yeah the turtle kid I mean

21:05

this is a treasure Trove of content but I'm getting into step five so we did one and two good product engineered it what

21:14

are you going to do next once it's engineered and you know it's a banger you know on on computer it works what are you going to do next manufacturing

21:22

that's a that's correct okay and you'll be ready and you're not going to do it

21:27

you're not going to Fumble through like Marcus and I did where we try to manufacture it ourself in our garage or

21:33

or get in the neighborhood kids to help you put nuts and bolts together or thought about it I have thought about it

21:39

yesterday please tell me what tell me your crazy idea yesterday I was I was

21:45

just like going through and I was like all right like how does this all actually work and you know Lance and I

21:53

are on Alibaba and we're looking at these you know 4x8 insulated corrugated

21:59

sheets right and they' they've got like really nice like indoor outdoor finishing guys are like setting them on

22:05

fire and I'm just like that's it and I'm like all right I gotta like can I just

22:11

get one and I'm like if I can get one or even if I can get them to like chop it

22:16

down to like 2 by two I could just sit in my garage like while I'm like working

22:22

on a zoom call and just like drill holes into it constantly um and I see shaking your

22:29

head I am just not that person no I like I am that person and it doesn't work

22:34

yeah okay you just can't you can't sustain that it's called a busy idiot yeah a busy idiot don't don't be that

22:40

well and you know for all of us out there we we I'm a pretty doit yourself guy and I'm doing all these things and

22:46

what you just realize is that's silly because you know in your case with a lance you you're paying somebody yes

22:52

it's probably more than you might he's totally reasonable but you might have been like I wasn't going to spend money

22:58

on this and and but he's going to give he's going to get you 10 times further than I got you know in two weeks with

23:05

him than I got in six months trying to do it myself and then you're already ready to pounce on that next thing and

23:12

that is the the one big you know one of the big lessons for our listeners I I've learned is spend a little bit of money

23:19

and do it right because it'll Propel you so much further so much quicker than it will if you try to just like I'm going

23:25

to save a hundred bucks and I'm going to you know punch these holes myself it it never works that way yeah

23:32

and well also too it's um what I was thinking and this is something that I I carry with me at work is that like and

23:39

even people that are working underneath you have a different perception and vision and it takes a team of people to

23:48

make an idea better and that just can't happen or originate with me right like there is maybe this is like my

23:56

Mastermind product right but really somebody like somebody who knows

24:01

how to fasten things is going to be way better at fastening than I am 100% so um

24:07

and like just working with Lance very short period of time like he I think that we started talking like maybe two

24:14

days ago like he feels like he's my brother now like um he's asking all of

24:20

these questions that like pushes me to the next level and he's also saying like

24:25

and with the you know modality of everything if you do this you can do X Y

24:31

and Z as well right so he's now like Forward Thinking um and we're really

24:36

just like in a space now where it feels good to like have somebody that is

24:41

listening to me it's like like a paid friend that is listening to me um bent

24:47

and talk about like all the things that I want it's wildly important it is and it's motivation one of the biggest

24:53

things when you're sitting in in the room by yourself it's very easy to go a week and have done anything or gotten

24:59

anywhere but in your case somebody challenges you with one question and then it gets it re excites you about it

25:05

like have you thought about this I haven't thought about this because this now I can make it in blue green and gray or I didn't think about this now I can

25:11

make it two stories or right yeah and originally I was thinking about I think when we were talking last week I was

25:17

like yeah I'm GNA find somebody on Fiverr because this is like like I know that this is what I want and it can be

25:23

done uh and for me personally like because I like my book editor was is Fiverr like the illustrator is Fiverr

25:30

like like my YouTube thumbnail creation is Fiverr so like I'm accustomed to that

25:35

it's not going to work for this process it will not you're right I'm glad you see the difference there is that defining line and anything that's going

25:43

to be manufactured you know inherently it's going to have issues so you're going to have call backs and I have

25:49

Fiverr relationships that I call back from years ago and you can still put the pieces back together usually they still

25:55

have your source files on whatever they were making for you but it's different man you need tender love and care with

26:01

your idea and we need revisions we need forward thinking you need that ratatatat

26:08

with your engineer right so this is not a designer's job this is a more of an engineer's job and I and I think too

26:17

um it has so much to do with the personality of the person that is working with you right some people like

26:25

Lance is like he's pushing oh yeah like he'll keep you honest is a

26:31

pushy guy and that's fine because I like being I like being pushed right like I like people like I think that there

26:37

should be a very like an uncomfortable fire behind everyone at all times like

26:43

just with life and what they want to do like I don't think anyone should ever sit and be comfortable um and Lance like

26:52

first thing this morning he's emailing me and I'm and I wanted to reach outout

26:58

to him but I was like let me just respect this you know we we just respect his time right and he's emailing I'm

27:06

like this guy is ready yeah well that's the value of an engineer versus the Val like the Fiverr I'm a big fan of Fiverr

27:12

I've used it plenty of times for plenty of things if you just need something cut and dry or you've already got it fleshed out and you need it in put into a 3D but

27:19

to bounce things off and to further your own idea especially if you don't have it 100% fleshed out that's the value of an

27:25

engineer right and I didn't want somebody telling like just asking me how are you going to connect it I don't know

27:31

like you're like that's your job right um you tell me how to connect this is what I it needs to connect yeah um and

27:38

that's like and just immediately he's like and Alibaba for some reason I just thought it was a complete scam until

27:45

recently sure um and you know had I known it back then I would have bought

27:50

the cassita from my backyard in my last place but um but you know we're just

27:56

like on there's just so much like like it's it's it's weird it's like anybody

28:01

at any time should have especially like in this very unknown era that we're in

28:08

now of like are we heading towards a depression are we not like there are just so many people that don't have jobs

28:16

that I don't feel like I could rely on we had a writer strike that affected sag

28:22

yeah that and I'm not even I work in non-scripted right and that is reality

28:28

TV that triple trickled over into reality TV there are so many people that

28:33

are not working MH right there's no such thing as stability in 2024 it's on you

28:39

you have to create it for yourself I want to go back to Alibaba your ca and

28:44

quality let me just quickly over do a broad Strokes overview of Alibaba for

28:50

you and for everybody uh yes it's a legitimate place to do business here's the thing about

28:56

Chinese manufacturer Ing and Alibaba Chinese are really good at making things

29:03

fast but not quality now everything good in

29:09

this country this water bottle this well this was made in Australia these tables

29:15

was made in China and it's made well because there was a strong us company

29:21

driving that manufacturer to make it well when they just private label a Cita

29:27

I'm glad you didn't buy it cuz it's going to come in wonky Poes aren't going to line up cuz it's a get it out the

29:32

door mentality good Chinese manufacturing is a matter of a good us company standing behind them and saying

29:40

let's go let's do this together do do you have a personal experience in in that with your product yeah that's just

29:46

what I've noticed is you can't just uh find a manufacturer and say Here's an engineer drawing please I want this done

29:52

really well there's a lot of factors into it so we're going to get into step I think three or four right now which is

29:58

manufacturing right so you're going to you're going to take this engineer

30:04

drawing to a manufacturer and I I say take lightly because you don't have to go to China it certainly helps and if

30:11

you're really serious it can really save you a lot of time and a lot of headache but it can be done remotely Marcus has

30:17

done it I've done it we've just paid for it you know be prepared to pay you can

30:22

pretty much count on like 80% quality if you're not going to go over there and and and Par on them you can pretty much

30:29

count on paying 30% more than you probably should if you haven't made that face to face but that's okay this is the

30:36

US you can still make good profit on a product that's not perfect yet right we can get there in chapter two so utilize

30:44

Alibaba to find manufacturers making similar things I'm thinking of like

30:49

those Igloo plastic dog houses maybe chain plastic dog houses maybe just

30:56

plastic panels for kids uh uh play areas that are also modular

31:02

you mentioned the raw material that you found that was like perfect and if you could just cut it up and make it maybe

31:07

the people selling that sheet have a guy across the street who's more than happy to take those cut pieces to your spec

31:14

and pre-assemble them pack um box them up artwork on the packaging that can all

31:20

be done and the way you establish those relationships is by hitting up these manufacturers sending them the cad

31:27

drawing you don't tell them what it is you don't put labels on it or logos or if you don't want to expose the idea

31:32

fully you send them half of the cad drawing just to understand if they can do it and if they often times they're

31:40

going to say yes no matter what that's very cultural that's their cultural norm

31:45

and that's when you challenge them well how are you going to do it well where are you going to get the hinges well where are you going to get the set

31:51

screws where are you going to get the joists right and when they start giving you the runaround and

31:58

you can kind of tell you can kind of vibe when somebody's just bsing you and just trying to take a job and so you're

32:05

you're just going to basically have a parallel conversation with three to six manufacturers at the same time I always

32:12

just do two or three but really you should do like six um and then based on who has the best English who has the

32:20

best story who has the best logic behind how they're going to do it who can do the most a toz in their facility right

32:27

you know you guys going to package this or are you going to send it somewhere else for packaging that no I'm not

32:32

asking you oh yeah this is all the above type of things that you're going to ask this manufacturer till you ultimately

32:37

come to your decision and two things are going to happen you're going to learn a buttload about your industry if you're

32:43

in Plastics sheet Metals whatever it is you're going to learn a buttload in a short amount of time they're going to say no dear we can't do that it can't be

32:50

heated because it will expand or it can't be cut at an angle because it will Fray lots of little things you're going

32:55

to learn quickly and that's why you have Lance on your team and you involve him in the conversation and he knows how to

33:03

make the necessary adjustments this is stuff you don't get with Fiverr right right but that in a shell is your

33:09

manufacturing process you can complete the communication you can agree on a price and you can order a sample uh all

33:18

on Alibaba and for that it's a beautiful place it just takes you Cliff the leader

33:24

at the helm making sure things are done right you know that is a big fear you're like this is my first manufacturer am I

33:30

going to screw this up are they going to be handle you once you feel good enough once your gut tells you or your research

33:36

tells you to go forth don't think that that has to be a forever thing and you're locked in you're going to have a minimum quantity they're going to ask

33:42

they're going to say you know what if you're going to order these panels from us we need at least 5,000 units or

33:47

whatever it may be at this price right that you know you're going to get a price break for more and all these things but I back to me saying get the

33:55

ball rolling as long as the price is doable for you and you're you're not

34:00

straight up losing money right out of the the bat that you could sell these things just know that you're going to learn so much about the process and

34:07

moving forward with that and that you can then uh you know change it up or or

34:12

maybe that second that you know you you switch to another manufacturer after because you can save x amount of money

34:18

or whatever it is so don't be afraid so afraid that you stop yourself from doing it because of those decisions like you

34:25

know I've made that mistake and once you just get going you learn everything you need to learn so fast compared to all

34:32

the wh ifs right and I'm I'm trying to like you know keep that in mind we Lance

34:39

and I were talking the very first day and uh it was just like we were just like

34:46

Ping ponging off each other for like an hour and a half and then he said one

34:51

thing uh he's like and he's like maybe you know you can just like start a Kickstarter and that just like deflated

34:58

me okay because the idea of Kick the idea of Kickstarter like kickstarters go

35:05

well for some people and they go horribly wrong for others and I feel

35:10

like I would be that person that it goes horribly wrong for it because I am not a

35:18

person that typically reaches out and asks people for any support

35:23

whatsoever I just pop out of the blue like bought a house know what I mean and

35:28

so and it and so it would just be very difficult for me personally to like do a

35:34

Kickstarter I'm always thinking that you know each week I could

35:40

just take a little bit of money when I get paid and throw it towards it throw it towards a project um I would even

35:46

take a loan before a quickstarter because I know what I could manage can I

35:52

ask you something how far do you think Bezos would be if he was delivering packages to order

35:59

door oh not very far the point is scalability and your right to leverage

36:05

things that you're entitled to now and you are entitled to other people's money now because you have a product now

36:11

something that people want so bad they'll pull out their wallet for it so if you want to do it yourself I totally

36:17

condone that but there is nothing wrong you would be doing a people a favor by starting a Kickstarter if they think

36:24

that there's a chance they could get this awesome module home for their tortoise and be the first in line and

36:31

they're going to pay for it that's your money and you earned it it even though it's speculation and so I see what

36:36

you're saying and to be open with you i' I've had a Kickstarter and it was a failed Kickstarter because I didn't know

36:42

anything about anything when I did it Grant's had two k three kickstarters two kick four total two successful okay so

36:49

the the kickstarter cost you nothing really upfront it's just your time and you're you know you're pushing and when

36:54

you say oh I don't really want to ask people or ask you're not asking your your parents or your friends immediately

37:00

sure that's a great way to to start and and to get it out there and sure those are going to be the people who they

37:06

don't give a crap about uh Turtle enclosures but they're going to be your first $5 because they're your friends

37:12

which is all great but other than that like it gets you on a platform you're going to start getting uh feedback you

37:19

know and especially something I know it sounds I keep saying this but you know my product it's pretty boring unless

37:25

you're really into what it's doing but people are mad over reptiles and kids

37:30

love tures and you can make things cute and you can have funny drawings and you can have you know there's so much

37:37

wrapped around that that I those are the ones that that kill on Kickstarter a

37:44

cute little story about a cute little tortoise who who needs to you know has a he starts as a as a bachelor or whatever

37:50

it is and then he brings in a family and needs to make a a bigger home or whatever it may be people relate to that

37:56

they love that it's cute I need to get this for my kids and they're killing it so the moral of the story is I'm in a

38:01

complete agreement you have nothing to lose by doing a Kickstarter maybe a little bit of ego if for some reason

38:08

you're not killing it as quick as you thought you were that would be the only thing and that's a silly reason to do

38:14

any of this stuff is to sorry to not do any of this stuff right nobody who cares nobody's going to look at you at the end

38:19

of this and be like oh you had a fail kickstar nobody gives a crap but if it goes It goes mad big and that could be

38:27

AB absolutely Propel you into your first x amount of thousands or whatever it is you need to get that first batch from

38:33

your manufacturer so I don't know that's my two cents I you know you guys have just like every every five minutes it's

38:41

like I'm That Emoji it's like the head exploding yeah but you're not dumping

38:47

you know 20,000 into Kickstarter and you're like oh that failed you're dumping nothing but time and and a bit

38:53

of your you know dumb down your ego for a minute kind of thing so I get my prototype first first or I get my you

39:00

got to know that your product ready to rock let's call it a sample because sample Lance is uh uh virtually

39:06

prototyped in this sense okay it's it's not a true test but at this point you can ask a manufacturer for a Bonafide

39:12

sample and that's two things it's your chance to prototype see if it works for

39:17

you and does the things you uh want it to accomplish and it's a test to the

39:23

manufacturer is this really really good because a sample they're going to do their best work right yes mass

39:29

production dumb that down by about 30% M so you get those two things accomplished

39:36

you killed two birds with one stone in that sense um and sorry can I ask um so let's

39:42

just say I have this like this sample come in it's one part right do I just

39:48

order x amount of the same one part or do I let a

39:54

manufacturer grab like the screws and nuts bolts all of it together well I I

39:59

just want to say you want to have the manufacturer do as much as you want to have them do 100% of the job okay well

40:07

well there's there's two I mean there's two stories behind that grant grant was uh he began his thing by getting all the

40:13

different components brought in and then having to to do it but assembling in house assembling in the problem with

40:19

that is now if he has somebody in Australia who goes oh I love your product I want a th000 units now he has

40:26

to get those he has to assemble them here then he has to ship them from here to there if you have allinone ready to

40:32

rock you are ready to go in any platform in any way it's already taken care of

40:37

you don't have to think outside the box now if somebody wants like let's just say it's a direct sale okay right does

40:45

that come from China and they wait you'll have you'll have no that never it never works that way they're going to

40:51

require you to have let's just say um you've ordered you're going to have a lot of modular parts so I I can't speak

40:58

specifically to a modular world but let's just say you have 20 walls 20

41:03

ceilings 20 lights 20 whatever you're going to bring that here right that's

41:08

not you putting that together that's them shipping the whatever it is that you need K and packaged K and packaged y

41:16

you are going to make two choices you're selling it on Amazon you do it f filled by Amazon you send them 20 roofs 20 uh

41:24

lights 20 whatever and then people buy them and then they just package them as you go that's the Amazon mod that's the

41:30

Amazon or you have like a Shopify uh and you are going to have a fulfillment somebody who does your fulfillment you

41:35

might think I'm going to save money and do it myself you're not you you can I mean you can but the problem with that

41:41

is you have a real job and you're working out of your garage and let's say you have a thousand units of something

41:46

and 10 people buy them you're going to have to go every day if one person buys it you're going to have to go to the

41:52

post office or the UPS every single day for that one thing and package it right

41:58

you'll figure that out but for for both he and I for both Grant and I we have a fulfillment lady who uh has like 15

42:06

products we take her all these things cents sorry 15 clients sorry yeah and

42:11

But to answer your question you're GNA you're going to bring those components the walls the whatever and on your Shopify people like oh I want two walls

42:18

I want two ceilings she's going to grab it she's going to package it and she's going to send it to those people did

42:24

that answer your question yeah people are not going to go there are there are ways that that's an option it's such a

42:30

you'll never get anywhere with that wait you just said there are ways there's an option it's such a but what were you

42:36

talking about well he said that like the Drop Shipping that's exactly right yeah let's break that down really quick um

42:43

what you described is is Drop Shipping and by no means can a legitimate company ever ship something directly from China

42:50

to someone's door it has not been quality control inspected uh it's going to take 35 days to get there and that's

42:58

what shady ass Tik Tok influencers do right pedaling products that they don't know where they came from they didn't

43:04

look at them themselves blah blah blah to start it's I know Marcus mentioned a

43:09

lot that is 100% right but it's also 100% overwhelming right you need to get a fulfillment lady and then you're going

43:15

to get and to ship pallets to Amazon but you can let's back this up to let's put

43:21

ourselves in the head space of Cliff has successfully uh gotten a manufacturer to

43:26

make his product he and Lance cuz Lance is going to help you with this cliff and Lance have decided what the perfect

43:33

quintessential kit is to that we can sell to the average consumer it's the

43:39

six panel six wall roof and a light converter kit all in a box that weighs

43:45

35 PBS with awesome artwork on it that is your uh Flagship product right now

43:51

you can order 500 and you'd be surprised 500 would only take up a quarter of your garage

43:57

and you can have those in your garage and you can ship from your home to start because you're not going to have 30 orders on day one you're going to have

44:04

one order from friends and family on day one day two you're going to have two orders

44:10

from more friends and family pastors schools whatever relationships you have

44:15

and that you're going to exhaust all those in the first couple months all those Network people who might buy or the the people on the forums those

44:22

small-minded ways of of marketing you can handle that for a month or two to get your earings and then calm your body

44:28

and then look at the money and say okay then now now I get the flow of this right and then I'll take you over to

44:35

Martha and we'll just have a conversation with her Martha do you have room for all this product would you be

44:40

happy to pick pack and ship this for $5 in order she be like that's what I do and then we'll get you going on that

44:47

right so it can be a nice slow process but the bottom line is you have to have a system of getting product here and

44:54

that can be to your personal home for the first year that's fine yeah and then a system of how do I Market this and

45:00

sell this and for me I transitioned at about 12 orders a day 12 orders a day I

45:06

was getting pretty sick of and then the days that you go viral because you're going to have a kickass social media

45:12

presence right the days you go viral you're going to sell $5,000 overnight that next day you're going to have to

45:17

call into work and say I can't come into work I'm sick meanwhile you're picking and packing orders all day long it's a

45:23

good problem to have but it's a problem nonetheless so everybody loves this idea of passive

45:30

income how do I build a business that's just happening China manufacturer ship it to Amazon I don't want to see it I

45:36

don't want to touch it I just want to make money off my good idea it doesn't really work that way now it do you don't

45:42

have to kill yourself you don't have to quit your job I certainly ran my business for two two and a half years

45:48

doing all the things I just described the garage the picking and packing and I I had two kids you've met them you know

45:55

like life went on I didn't miss out on any games I didn't miss out on any wine nights like you're not burning the

46:01

midnight oil staying up till midnight every night if you well that's why we do the podcast because I did work

46:07

ridiculous hours but I was a busy idiot like we said earlier you don't have to be and there's also a difference between

46:14

passion and like in the beginning passion and labor right you know somebody's brain somebody like you can

46:21

sit in one spot and work your hardest without doing anything sure yeah you

46:27

know so there's also a difference but if if it's something that you're passionate about then and you know that was it was

46:32

a good it was a good thing to dumb me down a little bit so that that does it brings it a little less scary and a little more realistic and that's the

46:39

time when you could get your husband or you can get the kids to help pick and pack or what you know whatever it may be

46:44

and and he is right you're going to start with a base a base product it's going to be a base six panel thing with

46:51

the light with the whatever and then you can start getting nutty with accessories and things like that but your first

46:57

order from that manufacturer should be a simple something that's one thing you don't know how many people want an extra

47:05

X Y or Z yeah do you need 10,000 of those or do you need 500 of those on hand you don't know well and I I the

47:15

plan is to start out with like packets of like a 4x4 a 2x4 a 4x4 a 2X two and a

47:24

2x4 MH right I think that that's like generic and then if somebody wants you

47:30

know a 2x6 all they have to do is add on the 2x2 right um but the thing is is

47:37

that like even with like generic reptile enclosures there are very few I think I know of one that one product where you

47:47

can buy a connector to like make it from like 4 feet to 8 ft mhm right and that's

47:53

like and I could never find the product twice like if I have to like really

47:59

Google the weirdest like reptile bavarium enclosure like connector like

48:05

it's just like it's like not out there um something something to think about I

48:11

don't know if if Grant will agree he's already not agreeing I haven't even said it yet is is uh you know shipping costs

48:17

can can vary w i i luckily have a very small product and it's easy to ship when

48:23

you get into shipping air As We call we have some buddies at City crate and they make crates and the it's a plastic

48:30

molded crate which has nothing but air inside you are paying for the shape of

48:36

it not for the density of it or or what goes into it you know if you're going to make a 4x4 panel is that going to be

48:42

obnoxious to ship but you can do two you know two 2 by one panels or whatever I don't know if that's something to look

48:48

at I I don't have that Lance will help you flat pack whatever type of situation you guys are building because Lance is a

48:54

fan of the podcast I've worked with him a lot he knows how to think two and three steps ahead for example we thought

49:01

of a little nozzle but it wasn't a high value item it was a nozzle we could maybe sell for 12 bucks it's really hard

49:08

to make profit on something that you sell for 12 bucks because it may cost your marketing maybe $5 per unit you

49:15

know half of your budget is just marketing then you got to ship it for another three or four bucks so then he

49:21

he looks at all right well then how can I build packaging that's a three pack so now we can sell it for $ 39.9

49:27

we can afford the marketing we can afford all these things that need to happen in the background passively so

49:33

you need to be The Driver again you're the captain but you know Lance once you give him that guidance like hey Lance we

49:40

got to be we got to figure out how to get this to the US efficiently that's it and then just hand that off and if it's

49:46

not good enough say try again buddy you know yeah yeah and also something I I don't know if we've ever brought this up

49:52

but uh when you get into start getting into pallets and having things shipped massively from China they won't ship to

49:58

your house you can't just have them ship these pallets straight to your garage some most of the time you have to have

50:05

you can make it happen you can make it happen but they'll want a residential I mean they'll want a um industrial

50:11

commercial address so just know that that's something to pre just wrap your head around just so it's it's not a out

50:17

of the blue question well what you do is you just make it clear to the your your

50:22

um forwarding agent which I'll give you mine when you're ready that this is going to a residence and then they'll

50:28

know don't put it on pallets put it in a Loosely in a truck and that way they can

50:33

pile it all up in front of your garage or whatever they do I've had a a guy drop off a pallet in the street in front

50:40

of my driveway he wouldn't even roll it up the driveway right because it's a pallet you can't go over bumps I said is

50:46

there any way we can get it in the garage he goes yeah $100 and I'm like don't worry about it so my product got

50:51

rained on and blah blah blah but point being you can have this stuff shipped to

50:57

your house it's a lot for people to think that I have to go commission a warehouse before I even know if this

51:04

product is going to arrive you know am I going to get scammed and now I'm paying a warehouse and the product never shows

51:10

up like I get it there's so many little fears but keep in mind this world

51:18

economics always Prevail if they were Shady they wouldn't have had four and a half stars on Alibaba if they weren't

51:25

delivering product you would hear about it they wouldn't be in business right um

51:31

people need things at their door hundreds of millions of people work from home run businesses from home this world

51:38

is designed for you to succeed in it so don't ever be scared by any of these little steps yeah yeah yeah that's and

51:47

I'm just gonna carry that with me you have to world is designed for me to

51:52

succeed yeah right it is it is designed for people of normal capacity to do just

51:58

fine if you're even a little bit above normal capacity you're going to have a good time all right so we've talked

52:05

about manufacturing uh potentially getting it to your door let me ask you this Cliff

52:12

you got 500 units in your garage how you going to sell all these

52:18

mofos my luckily my husband comes from like a very corporate world where uh

52:25

like you know he'll be able to help set up a website like he's great with SEO um there are a lot of things that

52:34

like I could lean on that kind of support for um I used to be an editor so

52:41

I that's huge I can edit a video very quickly like I edited professionally as

52:48

a career so um so easy for you it is something

52:53

that like it's it's an added skill M where if I needed to a YouTu like

52:59

Instagram video um I already know how I'm sh it so that you know 9 by 16

53:06

versus 16 you how many people listening don't even know that right so you are leagues ahead of that in that sense um

53:13

and so I think it's like you know it's re it's really a talent of mine that is

53:20

completely wasted that I don't use anymore I was actually thinking today I should like edit for someone but it it's

53:26

just you can edit this episode I would love it's really it's uh you know after a while it's like it's it's a job that I

53:36

don't really want like I don't want someone else's notes yeah right for sure no this is a really good I'm going to

53:42

interject a little bit of a a fail on my side because we like to keep everybody

53:47

and all our listeners very raw with our ups and downs and just talking about buying media ads or or like what what's

53:54

the next step it's marketing it's Facebook it's Instagram it's it's potentially paying for you know meta ads

54:00

or Google ads so um I had somebody a fan

54:07

of the product go out and start pitching my product in Portland and he did a

54:12

banging good job and he started to get some retail interest for me out of nowhere and in my mind I'm like holy

54:19

crap I need to start looking into the retail Market I should get a sales guy and this I you if you followed along

54:26

know that I was looking for a salesperson and Grant has uh you know

54:32

his sales guy he's he's so kickass because he does everything right because he's a he's a W2 employee right for me

54:39

so yeah yeah yeah he he he does anything in everything it's not just sales so I went through 50 resumés I found myself a

54:46

sales guy and this guy is all about sales he doesn't do anything else for me and I'm like this is a lot of money this

54:52

is I'm paying this guy double my mortgage so I was paying you know roughly $6,000 a month and I'm like we're going

55:00

to kill it retail he was all about retail I was not even effing close to

55:06

being ready to being ready for retail I don't have retail ready product I'm not even close to that I'm four months plus

55:13

out before I could even get what I need for that and when you say retail you're not considering Amazon not I'm

55:20

considering let's say a Home Depot or Lowe's having something that can hang on their um on their shelves or whatever it

55:27

may be I don't my product is in bags and it's great for Shopify it's great for

55:32

Amazon it is not great for a Lowe or a Home Depot what I need is is a card it shows you everything what it is you walk

55:39

up to it I have it I have it designed what I don't have is 10,000 units ready for a Home Depot whoever it is to be

55:45

like we want your product we want it now okay so I had in my head that that's

55:52

okay we'll kind of figure it out we'll do this and we we we can do a I I think we we maybe even next podcast is going

55:58

to be much more in detail about why you're not retail ready even when you think you do but I just want those

56:04

listeners to know I'm like I effed up there I I've done two months with my sales guy so that's $112,000 I spent on

56:11

him he hasn't had really anything to pre-sell he's he's a kick-ass guy he's a

56:17

kick-ass salesman this was the wrong time right and so what what he's

56:23

actually done is we have shifted what he's going to do he is he's he is awesome he's actually going to help me

56:28

in different ways he's dumbing down what I'm paying him to to take on a much different role and um we are now looking

56:36

for all those other avenues and we are brainstorming other stuff where I should have spent that money and and Grant

56:43

actually told me this in before and it was I just had it that I needed to try

56:48

it is spending that money on meta ads on a a kick-ass guy who can do ad manager

56:56

manager or kickass girl in my case it's a guy and it's um and it's just that

57:02

money would have been so much better spent $122,000 would have been better spent on

57:09

the guy plus the ads being let's even say it's a $6,000 or5 or $4,000 I would

57:15

have been killing it on my Shopify uh store because it would have been pointing all the all the stuff

57:22

there I would have been bringing in cash but instead I've blown two mon 12 Grand

57:27

and now I'm just getting into the meta ads and stuff like that so for all you for all you for all you out there all

57:34

you grandpa I know um if you think you're close to retail ready you're

57:40

probably not anywhere close yet and don't don't even don't even think or care about retail if you have your like

57:46

in your case if you have a good Shopify website and your husband knows how to do all that and you've got that going man

57:52

you got to be so damn and you know with with Grant he he's even can be ready but

57:59

what you've learned is that the money is it's just not there right like you're you're done retail F retail F retail 5

58:07

years minimum milk e-commerce for five years minimum now I'll play de Devil's

58:12

Advocate to myself because I just spoke to Craig mcmanis from episode 16 yeah and I asked him a question about his

58:18

website he he has a little magnet keychain magnet pal utilitarian thing

58:23

and I asked him about his website he goes well our website we don't we don't sell on our website it just sits there

58:29

to educate big box stores that's his whole business model he is a wizard of backend

58:37

deals and large palletized orders to Distributors and retailers that's his

58:44

thing it connects with him but the margins are low in the beginning the

58:51

barrier to entry is difficult the walls are tall

58:56

and e-commerce is just such a lwh hanging fruit the markets are so much bigger so you might be thinking yourself

59:03

I'm going to design this and I'm going to hit up every Pet Shop in Santa Clarita and have them put 10 on their shelves each you can do

59:11

that maybe you should but I'm telling you right now your time is much better

59:16

spent getting 5,000 good followers on Tik Tok 6,000 good followers on

59:24

Instagram Facebook real YouTube Shorts YouTube long form a good website that

59:31

converts building an Amazon store these all all these things can happen and this

59:36

is still 96% of my business today at the four-year Mark is Shopify and Amazon

59:44

sales which are those sales are driven by my 150,000 followers on social media

59:50

for torque strap slash a ton of money and AD spent but it

59:56

started with like three grand a month in ad spend right and even that people are saying three grand a month if three

1:00:02

grand is making you 36 Grand it's a pretty good return on investment right

1:00:08

and I even knew better and I still still the sirens you know Sirens of retail

1:00:14

we're going to buy it all and we're going to sell it like oh if if one of these stores takes 10,000 units blah

1:00:20

blah blah blah blah you know it it just it seems It's so it sounds so sexy the

1:00:25

act of it is not so I just want to reiterate to all those people out there

1:00:31

man you have so much more control and so much better chance with going the like

1:00:38

Shopify route and and you know the the Amazon route in the beginning and when you are banging in sales and you have

1:00:45

the capacity and you have the extra money because you know if a if a I'm going to just keep using Home Depot but

1:00:51

if a Home Depot wants your product they're not going to they're not going to be like hey we want 20,000 units here's here's this much money UPF front

1:00:58

and D they're going to pay you 60 to 90 days after so you have to get into this

1:01:04

such this massive floating money thing where you know you have to have money

1:01:09

that they're not going to give you and then you're going to have to keep up with your inventory so you're going to have to have other money other places

1:01:16

and it just you get into this storm so quick and with with the like Shopify

1:01:21

or Amazon it is so much more and like he said the The Meta ad ad and stuff it's

1:01:27

such a a one: one ratio you put a bit more into the ads you make a bit more money you know you can keep up with your

1:01:32

stock you know exactly how much you have how much you're going to sell sell out you can dial it so that is my gift to

1:01:39

you is my $122,000 mistake over the last two months and um should I have done it

1:01:45

different I massively should have done it different uh did it destroy my business and I'm I'm leaving it 100% not

1:01:53

uh I'm good but that sucks I would say all of that exploded my

1:01:59

brain and then put it right back in at the end well because I you know when you

1:02:05

mentioned sales manager and then when Grant right before had mentioned uh uh

1:02:11

Distributing right I don't I like didn't even think about that once I really just

1:02:17

thought I would like email something over to China hey here are the directions you package it up you should

1:02:24

also print the directions oh god there would be no

1:02:30

English on that piece of paper I tell you that right now and then ship it directly from so it was like this whole

1:02:36

thing has just been yeah super informative um that's good to hear first

1:02:43

of all that's really good to hear um it is work there's no doubt about it

1:02:50

it is not what people think it is inventing is not call up a company or email Lowe's and go pitch your product

1:02:58

and they make you a millionaire it is no one's priority in this world there's no

1:03:03

one in this world whose priority it is to make Cliff Rich only yours right L

1:03:10

doesn't want to make you rich they want to make you work and they want to make money off your work right same with

1:03:15

Amazon same with anything so uh you have to put yourself in a

1:03:20

position of power you have to think of yourself I'm the guy with the keys the more I the more keys I own the more

1:03:27

power I have therefore the more money I have the more leverage I have so on and so forth um no one else can make a

1:03:35

torque strap legally no one else can sell as many torque straps as I sell

1:03:40

because I'm I've perfected the craft of selling I wouldn't say perfected but I've obsessed over the craft of selling

1:03:47

torque strap there used to be fantasies in my

1:03:52

head and role plays in my head of talking to people bigger than me and pitching to them and having them buy out

1:03:59

my company and this that and the other and now I don't entertain those conversations

1:04:05

because by the time you get to a point where your business is worth enough to sell it's also getting to be a lot of

1:04:12

fun and you're paying yourself a good salary and you're looking at your valuation go up up and up and it's not worked because you've got the people in

1:04:19

place and you've got Place why would I sell it at the 2year Mark for

1:04:24

$200,000 when when at the seven-year mark it could be $20 million you know that's the value in it um so don't think

1:04:31

about cashing out on it don't think about think about your brand we haven't talked about that but think about what

1:04:37

you're going to name this thing and not just the name but the brand you know what I mean when people see it what do

1:04:43

they think uh how do they feel you never see we talk about it all the time Red Bull you never see somebody drinking a

1:04:49

Red Bull on a commercial you see somebody skydiving Nike you never see somebody talking about how soft the soul

1:04:55

of the shoe is you picture an athlete overcoming adversity right right that's

1:05:02

brand right sorry you were no no no I was going to give an example of your thing but let's keep going and you're

1:05:07

not changing lives you're making reptile enclosures but you can have fun with it right I I think so and and and that's

1:05:14

how I I really want to like I'm not inventing the light bulb so I don't think in my head I've never even thought

1:05:22

of it being at Home Depot or low right um I or or even like a pet store um I

1:05:32

think that you know post the pandemic I think that most people are

1:05:38

shopping the same way I do which is which is largely through Shopify um or

1:05:44

Amazon and it's Hefty research right you want to see as many videos as many

1:05:49

testimonials as you can want to go to like their Instagram page check it out

1:05:54

um I'm also so you know there are reptile and pet conventions like that

1:06:00

where I'm thinking I will spend a lot of my time like doing marketing is just

1:06:06

like showing up to these conventions and having a stand it's a good idea with the product yeah and a large tortoise you'll

1:06:13

learn more in four days than you would in four years by doing that and repping your product hearing what people have to

1:06:20

say about it you can shoot social media at that thing you could set up a GoPro in the corner and have 3 hours of

1:06:25

footage that you could chop up and just put in subtitles of all the interesting conversations you had about tortoises

1:06:31

whatever you know you can derive a ton of value from those types of things it is it's never going to be one marketing

1:06:38

Ploy it's never going to be it's going to be very holistic right everything is going to work in Synergy so never i'

1:06:45

we've had people come on that say well I'm not going to build a Shopify store because Amazon has 300 uh whatever

1:06:52

thousand active daily users in the US it's such a big Marketplace well it's also very saturated it also has 30

1:06:58

million active sellers so you're fighting tooth and nail for people's attention so you must have a good

1:07:04

Shopify or whatever you use Wix I don't care you must have a good website that

1:07:10

converts you must be on social media you must pay for meta ads eventually I

1:07:16

didn't pay for I didn't pay for marketing for years and we CU I like you I'm good at going I'm good at video I

1:07:22

was good at going viral I consider myself kind of a social engineer not in the negative type of way but anyway you

1:07:29

have all these things that you have to put equal value into and at one point

1:07:34

you're building a pyramid and it's going to come to a peak and it's going to be the strongest structure you've ever seen

1:07:40

and nothing could Amazon could close tomorrow I wouldn't lose an hour of sleep I would lose half my sales but I

1:07:47

have the systems in place to recoup those because guess what happens when Amazon crumbles everybody goes and

1:07:53

starts looking for independent websites and my website is banging and it's ready to go and they're looking for ads my ads

1:08:00

guy is ready I could say hey Pump It Up to 20,000 a month he'll pump it up and we'll make up for all that Amazon loss I

1:08:07

won't skip a beat right not trying to flex trying to tell you the reality of what this can be and you have a good

1:08:15

idea clip you do I like it thank you thank you I would we wouldn't had you over if you didn't well and it's one of

1:08:21

those I don't even say it's a sleeper idea it's just there's so many things around it that make sense with it and

1:08:26

and it's a thing like kids love the hell out of that stuff and parents love the hell out of doing something with their

1:08:32

kids about that you know and it's not just a thing you can make it a cute thing you know you want a a pink house

1:08:39

you want a blue house you want a multicolored house you can add this panel that panel and there there's so

1:08:45

many kickass varieties to that idea and and I I mean I love it and and I it is

1:08:50

the we joked about the kickstarter it's kind of like the perfect Kickstarter thing you can already picture and you're

1:08:56

in media you can already picture the the cute little house like you know it's building and it's

1:09:01

it's got these things people lose their mind over that so I gotta have this I don't even know why you know or this is

1:09:07

going to be next weekend's project yeah that kind of stuff so so I and you got

1:09:13

like once again like it's a good thing we recorded this right because you're gonna have to listen to it again and

1:09:19

again yeah and I mean like right now I'm really just like uh it is over in to

1:09:26

keep going so far and right now I just like I really want

1:09:32

to figure out like like get a few samples from a manufacturer see what's even possible I don't think that I'm ask

1:09:41

like there's no electricity involved so it should be relatively easy like I

1:09:46

could make it myself had I like you know I could make it myself right and I

1:09:53

just need somebody to say I just a manufacturer to give me one thing that

1:09:59

makes sense right yeah well even in the interim we we skipped over I think a little bit if he's going to give you the

1:10:05

cad files you're going to have that you can 3D print yourself some stuff to flesh out too you've got 10 Turtles

1:10:10

right that's what I was yeah hoping to do do 10 versions of it see if if you're like yeah this works with all animals

1:10:17

all sizes all whatever it is there's no reason why you can't do that too there's a good in between and you can be doing that while you're working on the

1:10:23

manufacturing stuff yeah so exactly yeah if you have pointed questions we

1:10:28

probably have time for one maybe two of them I guess the most important

1:10:36

thing that I keep thinking about

1:10:42

is when do I know if I've gone too far and I'm wasting

1:10:47

money in the very beginning stages right I mean in the I would say in the very

1:10:52

beginning stages you don't that that is such a hard question to ask because you just want to keep going and and it's

1:10:59

always that classic The Next Step The Next Step you have a great idea you've got somebody an engineer who doesn't

1:11:05

have to give a crap about your idea but who is is has told you he is engaged and

1:11:11

he's loving it and he's loving creating it with you those type of little micro

1:11:16

winds are already like you're spending the money in the right place you've got a good person who's helping you and and

1:11:23

you're getting on the right thing I don't think there's a wrong answer I don't think you're going to unless all of a sudden a manufacturer says we can

1:11:30

make it for $100 a unit and then you just go and be stupid with like whatever it is but there's no wrong answer even

1:11:36

if you overpay a little bit in the beginning and you may have to because you want a 100 units and you can't order 10,000 units you're going to spend more

1:11:44

than you want to you're going to think that's not right but it's not it's not a wrong decision and it's not a wrong

1:11:49

spend right so I don't I I think you're doing everything right and I don't see a place right now that you're going to

1:11:57

overspend in on the path that you're taking if that makes sense I don't know what Grant thinks but well simply put

1:12:04

and self-servingly put if you follow this podcast you're not going to waste really much money at all uh to put

1:12:12

things into perspective I've lost hundreds of thousands of dollars doing the wrong things that's why I'm

1:12:19

passionate about this and um so follow those steps but at the end

1:12:26

of the day it's kind of like uh to get philosophical probably shouldn't but it's kind of like religion right you can

1:12:32

poke holes in religion all you want oh this happened to me why did that happen and I'm not religious but why did that

1:12:39

happen to me but if you have faith eventually you come to a point where you convince yourself that you know everything is Justified and everything

1:12:46

is true and and fine so a bad idea a pet rock it can be a banger right a good

1:12:53

idea it's a little bit easier to make it a banger but it can also be a catastrophe look at the Theos story of

1:12:59

Elizabeth with her blood panel test you know is great concept no logic behind

1:13:06

how it was ever going to come together but you know your your your ISS your question about money it's very

1:13:12

legitimate and I told I shared with you my tax story and

1:13:17

um you're going to have those days where you did you made a misstep and you lost 300 bucks you lost 500 bucks you lost 3,

1:13:25

th000 bucks and do you have to file in every state no you don't have to file in every state I think one of the last

1:13:31

three episodes I talked about that but you did I didn't I talked about my experience not until you sell 100 Grand

1:13:37

in that state right so you don't have to worry about anything for a long long time you don't have to worry I am now

1:13:42

filing in probably 10 states yeah yeah no big deal uh so I could probably

1:13:50

guess the states well go ahead try Texas yes North Carolina no Georgia yes

1:13:58

Florida no North Carolina Illinois some other flyover states I don't know they

1:14:03

love my stuff I would say like Texas like you'd be just the man I mean you're the man out here in Santa Clarita right

1:14:10

because everyone has it's either you have a Tesla or like an F-150 that's true and you have a truck that has your

1:14:16

name written on the side of it so yeah yeah yeah I got recognized at Home Depot

1:14:22

once but I digress yeah uh you know you're not going to have to uh waste that much money and you you just have to

1:14:28

have a Guiding Light in a North star and I hope we gave that to you today that you do have a good product it is scalable you can have incer products two

1:14:37

packs four packs eight packs red blue green the water feeder the blah blah blah don't get too excited yeah and

1:14:43

don't get overwhelmed by you know every Everything has a skew every every new color every new piece like that make

1:14:51

your basic start with your basic start selling your basic get people and then worry about making pink blue green

1:14:58

orange yes yeah cuz all those changes cost money and you don't know if they're going to sell yeah run your Flagship

1:15:04

product for two years and then once a year you can introduce a new product

1:15:09

right and then I will ask you like any recommendations for 3D printing companies they're all the same um I know

1:15:16

Lance's 3D well he does but he's it's smaller yeah I forget what it is I I mentioned one in one episode something

1:15:23

works or like Bunch you can Google them and the prices are all standard it's not like you know you'll see for a 2 by

1:15:30

something or you know it's based on dimensions and you can put in your dimensions and it'll tell you quick enough I'm making it out of pla out of

1:15:36

plastic and it's it's it's not like you're going to get screwed out of something you'll very quickly know how

1:15:42

much it's going to cost you to print a panel it's not a problem okay yeah yeah

1:15:47

um so if you ever need inspiration there's plenty of there's not a lot of like inventing books out there but

1:15:54

there's plenty of books based around the concepts of multiplying money and I'll

1:16:00

mention Like You Know Rich Dad Poor Dad kind of got me on the Journey of realizing how I was getting boned on my taxes and you work more freelance but I

1:16:07

was a straight up nine-to-five worker getting just penalized on my taxes

1:16:12

um the Nike story is great to listen to U the Phil Knight story really long the

1:16:19

Steve Jobs story is really great to listen to uh these are great audio books just to kind of let let you know the

1:16:25

nuts and bolts they they get into the nitty-gritty you know the detail and now that you've kind of had this conversation and as you go along with it

1:16:32

you'll you'll really connect with it um beyond that yeah man just keep on

1:16:39

keeping on I'm sure we left plenty of questions unanswered we didn't even talk

1:16:44

about your pricing structure but we're going to run out of time we can do a part two certainly let's let Cliff relax

1:16:51

let's let him digest like four five months later let's see like let's see

1:16:56

like what I've done that's the of it yeah let's do it um you'll have plenty of questions reach out to us any time uh

1:17:03

email is going to be in the description of the show I'm going to wrap it up if you guys are good I'm good cool great

1:17:09

awesome well thank you guys very much for listening Cliff thanks for being here this has been episode 32 of the

1:17:15

invent With Me podcast an a toz walkr of the product development Journey if

1:17:20

you're watching on YouTube subscribe and if you're listening follow the podcast on whatever platform you may be on

1:17:27

thanks guys see you on the next one