Why You Should Get in the Product Game

I recently had an eye opening experience.

A fucking epiphany.

Ok… It wasn’t that enlightening, but it did change the direction I decided to take for starting an online business.

I spent the better part of the last year and half learning digital marketing. I started putting out Instagram content building up 300,000 followers and slowly learning about sales funnels, email marketing, FB ads, etc.

So the natural course of action was to start up a marketing agency and offer these services to businesses who were 10 years behind the technology and help them make buckets full of cash, right?

Wrong.

Several reasons why this wasn’t as good of an idea as it sounded.

1. Businesses are so fucking behind the times that most of them have to be sold on digital marketing in the first place, let alone your services. It’s an uphill battle from the start.

2. There’s a very low entry barrier. Everyone and their dog is starting up a media/marketing company. When I say everyone, I mean literally everyone. People that have 1,000 followers on social media offering social media management services. People who have never ran a successful ad campaign offering Facebook ad services. All while they offer dirt cheap prices or better yet, free. They cut the legs out right from under the legitimate marketers.Number 3 is the most important one, pay attention.
3. As a digital marketer or any other service based company, YOU ARE STILL TRADING TIME FOR MONEY.  You are literally billing clients for your time. This is only scalable to a certain extent and then it is capped out.

I started to really have a shift in my mindset when I started doing arbitrage on Amazon. I could put in a day of work going and buying Nike shoes at a deep discount and then ship them out to Amazon. Once that work was done I had to do nothing else but sit back and collect cash. I could be on vacation and I would have Nike shoes selling all across the United States.

I wasn’t straight up trading my time for money.

Then I started to analyze other companies.

The biggest companies in the world aren’t service based, they sell a product.

Exxon produces oil.

Apple produces Iphones.

Microsoft produces software.

No one is screaming to the top of the Fortune 500 list by running a consultation firm or marketing agency. 

Trading time for money isn’t scalable.

So I took my analyzation down a notch.  I looked at companies who had recent success with a product based model but weren’t necessarily the Coca Cola’s of the world.

Companies like Dollar Shave Club, The Honest Company, Quest Nutrition.

All Billion dollar companies but still relatively young in their ventures.

What made these companies have such massive success at an accelerated rate?

Branding and marketing.

There’s nothing especially extraordinary about any of their products.

They’re just good products that are ran behind well oiled marketing machines.

This got my mind running.

If the product game is 100% marketing and is infinitely scalable, then why on earth would I want to go into a service based model and help other motherfuckers make money for their product when I can do the same thing myself?

To scale a marketing agency, qualified people have to be hired. Did I really want to be managing 100 employees while at the same time dealing with bitching clients?

Hell no.

This all came at a time when I was looking at attacking a low hanging fruit with one of my brands.

My first Instagram account was called “Fit and Wealthy.”

When I started the account, I had no vision for the brand, had no idea on how I would monetize it, but I enjoyed putting out content.

The audience loved the idea and message behind the name Fit and Wealthy as the account grew very quickly.  I had people asking me to make shirts but I never did it because I wasn’t yet enlightened to the possibilities of having a product.

Fast forward to now: I’m balls deep into bringing a Fit and Wealthy activewear clothing line to the market.

I think everyone should look at creating a a physical product and taking it to the market. Especially with how Ecommerce is changing the game.
The issue with creating a product is that it can be capital intensive. It doesn’t have to be, but if you are like me and want to scale fast, it’s going to take some money behind it.

Fortunately, we live in one of the most exciting times when it comes to starting a business or raising capital.

We have platforms that are dedicated to crowdfunding and getting you the money that you need to bring your product to life.

That is the route I have decided to take with Fit and Wealthy.

I want to document the entire process from start to finish so that you can learn how to run a successful crowdfunding campaign as well and start the company that you have always wanted.

I will be putting out content in video form as well as writing, showing every little step that it takes to blow the fucking doors off a Kickstarter campaign.

I hope this encourages you to take the action and make something happen for yourself.

Let’s kick some ass.

– Collin