Monthly Archives: December 2014

GrooveBook

Brian and Julie Whiteman founded photo sharing and printing app GrooveBook in 2012. A year later they appeared on Shark Tank, the American version of Dragons Den and in November 2014, announced a deal to sell to Shutterfly for $14.5 Million after attracting over a million subscribers. I mention it for three reasons:

1. Anyone who tells you there’s no such thing as ‘Get-Rich-Quick’ hasn’t heard the story of GrooveBook.

2. It’s a demonstration of the power of something we’re always going on about here – monthly subscription marketing.

3. It’s a great concept and a great product, delivery of which isn’t available here in the UK yet.

So something to learn from, take inspiration from and maybe even copy perhaps?

www.Groovebook.com

BOGOF Homes

We’ve all heard of ‘Buy One Get One Free’, and ‘Buy One GIVE One Free’ is a charitable spin-off from that. It’s usually applied to small things like an item of clothing – you buy a pair of shoes and the seller commits to send a pair to someone in need in Africa, for example. A Canadian company are taking it a stage further though – you buy one house, and get to give another for free!

The idea is that $3,000 from the housebuilders profit goes towards building shelter for families in the poorest areas of the world, many of them living on little more than rubbish dumps. Through the scheme, house buyers can help another family get a new home as well, and at no additional cost to them. Aside from doing a great deal of good, there’s an obvious PR advantage here for participating housebuilders, which might easily be converted into greater sales. So it looks like a win-win situation.

So the question for you is this – is there some way you could incorporate BOGOF into your business model for the benefit of all concerned?

Ethnic Shaving

When I first started shaving, several decades ago, ‘wet’ razors only had one blade. Then they went to two…then three…then, well you get the idea. I’m not sure what the current ‘record’ is, but I’ve seen razors with five blades. The thinking seems to be ‘more is better’, but apparently that isn’t true for everyone. For people with coarse and curly hair, this configuration can lead to bumps, ingrowing hairs and discomfort.

Walker and Company have developed Bevel, a 5 piece shaving kit designed for the specific requirements of black customers. The kit features a single blade razor, priming oil, a brush for lifting hairs and a hydrating restoring balm.

There are two interesting things to take from this I think:

1. Targeting your product at a specific, easily identifiable, section of your market can differentiate your product from other generic offerings in the market. Perhaps you could create a version of your product for just one part of the market like this.

2. Political correctness often makes us shy away from the fact that people of different ethnicity’s, sometimes have very different requirements from a product. There is money to be made by making sure everyone gets what is right for them.

Ideas To Steal

What good is a failed or discarded idea? Well maybe quite a lot. You see, what doesn’t work for one person – or what they simply don’t get around to trying out – might be perfect for someone else. That’s the premise behind ‘Ideas to Steal’, a website where site users post up the ideas which, for one reason or another, weren’t right for them.

Ideas To Steal is a platform for ensuring that failed or discarded ideas get a second chance. Who knows, there might be something there that’s right for you. It’s certainly worth having a look.

www.ideastosteal.today

The T Shirt Millionaires

We’ve written here in the past about Teespring, an online company that takes all the hassle out of designing, producing and marketing your own T Shirts. The company is going from strength to strength and sold 6 million shirts this year, all created by site users. According to the company, hundreds of people have made in excess of $100,000 from the T shirt trade via Teespring, and at least ten have become millionaires.

The way that it works is that Teespring handles everything including online display, payment, manufacturing and shipping. You simply supply the ideas and assist with sending potential customers to the site in return for a pre-agreed slice of the revenue.

Businesses don’t get much more simple or risk-free to set up than this. There’s very little to lose by giving it a try.

www.teespring.com