Custom Design Your Own Amazon Products Part 2

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Chris joins us as a product developer and inventor with product marketing experience and speaks to us about how to design your own Amazon products

The product is the Hibermate Sleep mask

Humble Beginnings

Chris created this sleep mask when he was working on night shifts and was struggling with sleep.
His Brother and Father were running a factory that made car parts and die-cutting so he asked for some foam and he fashioned it into a bandana that helped his sleep. This was pre-Amazon existing and he thought to himself design your own Amazon products
He went on a trip with his wife travelling for six months in South East Asia and roosters were getting up at 04:30am and he wished he’d brought his product with him.
So when he got home after 6 months away he got to commercialise his product.

Reviews on the product were not that great in 2009 and 2010
Some people were unboxing his product and giving bad unboxing reviews on YouTube

Redeveloped it in 2010 wit ha product design company in Melbourne
Lots of CAD and Prototyping
A couple of reasonably soft silicon earmuffs and got a seamstress to put it together
He went to Kickstarter to check on market and demand

Pre-2000 he was taking a sheet of foam from his Father’s factory and used it to prototype
Walked down door-to-door to find a seamstress to make the sleep mask
She helped him manufacture his first 600 units to get going
Didn’t know if the idea was going to work
He felt really proud when it was all packaged and ready to go

The design company did the design of the ear cups and silicon masks
The CAD file has continued to be iterated on as the cups are the key to the product
They are not 100% sound blocking and Chris is clear in his sales copy
They block enough noise and are quite effective but there are always some poor reviews and a 3.5 star rating on Amazon
You must educate the audience to get it sold through

Earmuffs for sleeping
Chris’ SEO background and Google Suggest helped out when you design your own Amazon products
Chris typed earmuffs into Google and you see ear muffs for kids, for shooting and for sleeping
He saw back in 2009 that there was demand as Google Suggest showed it
So that was why he went for ear muffs and not ear pads
He dominates the space and has done since 2001
People are quite desperate for this product if you can’t sleep

How did you prototype before mass production when you design your own amazon products?
The agency did a lot of that protyping
About 4 rounds and cost USD$15k
Chris has done similar since with Chinese partners and it’s a lot cheaper
Had no relationship with China at all back when he started

After the Kickstarter campaign in 2013 they delivered to the backers within about 4 months
Everything was ready to go and raised about US$110k
Everything was manufactured overseas and being imported by sea freight
They rushed the packaging to get 2000 orders out all over the world
Feedback on Kickstarter was poor saying the product was half-baked
Eternally grateful to those Kickstarter backers for supporting him and let him continue on

Was aware of being Amazon in existence
The first iteration of the Amazing Selling Machine training course for Amazon
Knew the reviews would tank based on his Kickstarter feedback
Went to a trade show in 2014 in Hong Kong and met George who was a Westerner with similar silicon products
He looked at the ear cups and they worked together for a year to fix them up and improve performance
And in 2015 he was able to launch on Amazon

The product blocks some of the noise and not ALL noise difficult to educate the customers
Danny uses eye-mask and ear plugs to optimise his sleep
Challenge is to get across to the customers that it’s not a 100% sound blocker and so ALMOST solves the problem but not 100%
Have included earplugs in the set in the past and had feedback from customers that they didn’t need the earplugs so he’s not doing that anymore
Work with the supplier and designers to try and improve the product for users
You are a lot more engaged with the product as you designed it and developed it
As a seller you get heavily involved and tied into the product

How did you go from prototype to mass manufacture
Pre-Kickstarter it was all managed by Australian companies on top of Chinese manufacture
This was very expensive in hindsight
Having spent time in China Chris has built good relationships now
His suppliers now handle everything and the quality control too

Sleep Headphones being re-engineered at the moment
New headphones on now and they are being released in the next few months
Using wires currently but looking at bluetooth and these are designed for sleeping
Shared the product with his suppliers so far
Sinking money into R&D and production is key so when funds are available
Looking at exit towards end of 2019 with more products