Helping business owners and entrepreneurs with some tips on product creation and strategies for running a successful business.

1. How to Dominate the
Marketplace with a Great
Product & Winning Business
Strategy
Presented By Joseph Essien Los Angeles, CA
© 2016 All Rights Reserved

2. Goals of this Presentation
 Lead you down a few pointers of a successful product
development process
 Give some business and marketing strategies and pointers
 Provide FREE value to the world – if you find just one
actionable idea I’ve done my job.
 The focus for this presentation is physical products. Other
presentations will focus on Software as a Service, Information
Products, etc.
 Intended audience is entrepreneurs / business owners.

3. Step 1: Find the Customer!
 FIND THE CUSTOMER before doing anything else.
 Don’t go down the road of developing a product, then
asking potential buyers only to get the following
responses:
 “That will never work”
 “We don’t need that, we’ve been doing it [the old way]
for years.”
 Time wasted because you didn’t ask the customer what
they wanted.

4. Market Test
 Paying for internet traffic (pay per click / PPC) is the best way to test an
idea before you go down the product development path
 You can test the majority of products with an investment < $1,000
 Remember that getting a customer to say “they’re interested” versus
getting payment from them in the form of deposit are totally different
things – fundamental shift in the mind of a person taking them from a
prospect to a customer when they have voted with their dollars (no
matter how small the amount)
 Companies like Elio Motors and Tesla take deposits both to gauge
market acceptance and fund initial production
 A basic formula: Create a CAD model of a “pre-production model” +
Press Release on LinkedIn + Lead Generation form to determine the
demand for a product. No large upfront investment needed

5. Market Test (continued)
 What is your MVP (Minimum Viable Product)? What is the
product at its core? How long will it take to produce?
 Focus on getting the MVP to production, and refine with 2nd
and 3rd generation products over time.
 Use caution with platforms like Kickstarter; while great to test
a market and fund initial orders they can lure you into
believing the market for your product is larger than it really is.

6. Target Market
 There are low, middle, and upper market segments, choose
the appropriate market segment!
 Ensure features and pricing are consistent with the chosen
segment.
 Don’t provide a premium product with low price point or vice
versa.
 Pricing is key, probably one of the most important decisions
with regards to positioning.

7. USP (Unique Selling Proposition)
 What makes your product unique?
 Remember if you are too unique, you can totally miss the
market.
 Going where there is no competition can mean that there is
no market there!

8. SWOT Analysis
 Give your company and product an honest analysis:
 Strengths
 Weaknesses
 Opportunities
 Threats

9. Finances
 What is the ROI of this venture?
 How will taxation affect the business? Incorporate in tax
advantaged states or countries if possible (see an Accountant
and Legal Professional)
 How does the ROI compare to passively investing in the stock
market?
 Foreign manufacturing, foreign suppliers, foreign sales open
you up to FOREX risk
 On slim margin products, small swings in FOREX without
appropriate hedging can eat up large percentages of your
profit

10. Program Management
 Distilled to its essence: Scope, Schedule, Resources.
 All three must exist in harmony, as a three legged stool for
example.
 If one is changed, the other 2 must respond in kind.
 It is very hard to have a successful development program until
you’ve defined these 3 aspects.

11. Where is your Profit Multiplying
Product?
 Apple Watch typically $350 USD, Gold Apple Watch $15-17k
USD. The buzz or “halo effect” surrounding the luxury version
drives sales of the entry level product
 Limited Edition Products may only cost a few percent more to
manufacture but command an amazing price delta
 Chevy Tahoe versus Cadillac Escalade. The first generation
Escalade was basically a Tahoe with tacky “luxury” add-ons;
now it is a separate vehicle with more differentiation.
Generates large profits for GM.
“You can’t sell it if you don’t offer it!”

12. Intellectual Property
 Your IP must be vigorously defended
 Trademarks make you unique
 Great side benefit of helping you avoid being bid-hijacked by PPC
advertisers online (but only if YOU police it!)
 Design and Utility Patents are the best way defend your
product
 Trade Secrets may be used in place of Patents
 Nondisclosure Agreements (NDAs)
 Noncircumvention Agreements
*Consult your legal counsel for appropriate advice based on your
situation.

13. What Features to Include?
 Customer feedback should be translated into a
requirements document
 Each requirement should be able to be matched up
with a feature in the product
 Make sense of conflicting priorities with:
 Pugh Matrix
 Decision Analysis (weighted ranking of possible outcomes)
 Quantify what a feature is worth to the customer and if
they would actually pay extra for it

14. FMEA (Failure Mode & Effects Analysis
 Determine the possible failure modes and their probability of
occurrence
 Rank the failures by “highest risk”
 Then edit design to address the highest risk items, systematically
 We never want a product to cause problems or poor user
experience
 Example of a software program designed to redirect 404 Errors.
Had a glitch in it that could result in the entire website going
down. That is a very poor user experience. How likely are you to
recommend that software to a friend?

15. Product Lifecycle Support
 Complex systems need maintenance! Nothing is 100% reliable so
don’t pretend that product support isn’t necessary.
 Product “Technology Refresh”
 Customer stays happy, can keep them from shopping for another product
 Be sure to plan that strategy in the product (cloud computing can make it all
possible)
 Tesla vehicle is cloud updateable- a low stance for highway cruising was deleted
from the vehicle after some risks were identified. Recently, a “Summon”
autopilot feature was added- all with the same set of hardware to a car already
fielded. Continually providing massive value for the client and discouraging
them from shopping elsewhere
 Example: Elio Motors partnered with Pep Boys as Official Service Center –
removing the “How will I service this new vehicle?” objection from customer’s
mind.

16. Manufacturing
 Ask yourself, what would the manufacturing process
need to look like if I wanted to be 10 times bigger
than I am today?
 DON’T BE AFRAID TO GROW. Those thoughts become
self reinforcing.
 Do you have inherent drag into the process?
 Manual processes
 Lean workforce
 Only one person trained to do a job
 In-house manufacturing versus contracted out

17. Manufacturing – Dual Sourcing
 Dual Sourcing is a key strategy
 Ensures your suppliers exercise “pricing discipline”- they are usually tasked
with growing their revenues faster than inflation year after year so that will
come out of YOUR bottom line. Need negotiation power.
 Gives you a back-up supply in the short term if something goes wrong.
 But remember if they rely on the same vendor for an input, dual sourcing is
of little value
 Ex: a plastic resin purchased by your vendor as a manufacturing input.
 Scheduled manufacturing shutdown runs over time, coupled with a regulatory
delay could ripple to months without product
 Starves your business, could lose placement online or on store shelves-
DISASTER

18. Where do you fit in the value chain?
 Find out what you do best and stay in your lane!
 Do you want to be in the business of:
 Manufacturing?
 Distributing?
 Shipping each and every package?
 Marketing?
 If the answer to any of the above questions is “No”, then get
out of that aspect of the business.
 Leave it to the professionals. Become an “INTEGRATOR”. The
value you provide should be in pulling together various
elements (at their peak of performance) and delivering that
product to the customer.

19. Where do you fit in the value chain?
(continued)
 “But if I outsource this process, it will cost me more money! I
want to bypass the middleman and do xyz by myself!”
 Consider that a professional will do the job cheaper than you,
any day of the week. Because they’re professional, they won’t
have as much lead time or as much waste. Adding their profit
(say 20%), you may break even outsourcing the operation.
 This strategy reduces your investment, helps you grow
smartly, etc.

20. Test and Tune for Success
 Constantly tune the product offering and user experience via
A-B tests
 Doing this consistently and implementing the changes will
give you incremental increases in conversion and lifetime
customer value
 This can add up to massive increases in revenues and profits,
and a leg up on the competition.
 Continuous Improvement is a way of life. In this world, if
you’re not growing, you are retracting.

21. I Built it, and They Didn’t Come
 Some times that happens if you missed the market. You could be before
your time, or even late to the party.
 Maybe you need a small shift, tinkering with product iterations.
 Bigger product changes and a relaunch?
 Maybe you need to take your product to a different audience.
 Either way be honest with yourself and don’t be afraid to move on.

22. Sales
 Find out what each sale means to you in profit so you know how to
compensate / incentivize sales people.
 This also translates to how much you can afford to pay for search engine
marketing PPC.
 What is that number? Critical to know. Once you hit a winning formula you
become unstoppable, with cashflow your only limiter.
 Marketing is not an expense that should be slashed, it is an investment.
How much did your firm spend on marketing and sales activities last year?

23. Reproduction / Survival Mechanisms
 Everything you see in nature today, is here because it has a method to
reproduce and survive in adverse conditions
 Affiliate marketing, is a very powerful sales tool because it is like a
“Reproduction Mechanism” for your product. The domino effect/chain
reaction it creates is very powerful.
 Sales and marketing with the right Affiliate offer can take an average
product and make it an all-star. If you want something to really grow, leave
enough margin for your Affiliates.
 This includes leaving enough margin for distributors, wholesalers, and
retailers along the way. Keep them happy!

24. Thanks for Reading!
Hope you’ve found at least one insight that you can put to use.
Please do me the small favor of:
 Connecting with me on LinkedIn
 Sharing this presentation
 Letting me know how I can help with your project!
- Joe Essien
© 2016 All Rights Reserved