The first product range – Launched in Jan’15
It’s been a little over 10 years since I have been building products. Not selling them or popularizing them. But building them. The equivalent of product prototyping, coding, beta testing in tech. Except that, for us, that “building” was creating formulations for face moisturizers, face washes, soy sauces, chili sauces, cooking sauces, seasonings, canned fish, canned meat, cordials, baby foods and finally life insurance, personal accident insurance in more recent times.
Through largely twists of fate and misplaced trust in my ability from others (shout out to Rich Kohler, Rodrigo Wickbold, Pedro Albuquerque and Andrew Yeo), I have had the privilege of making more than 50 products over 10 years, serving customers in 10 8 different countries and 3 different categories (personal care, foods, insurance).
Building products always excites me. It is the truest form of “commercial crafting”; making things that are of commercial value to the organization and in the rare, but very fulfilling case, society. While all kinds of creation are exciting, “communications”, “promotions” creations are about selling the product being made. Apple and Nike have great advertising but it’s to the service of the iPhones and the Nike Vapors, which are awesome products to begin with.
Building unique products is building the foundation on which companies are built. Every great company’s origin story is about a great product. Whether you think of Heinz, McDonald’s, Toyota, Johnnie Walker, Chanel, Levi’s, Vaseline, Dove, Pelaton or Income Insurance.
When you picture these brands; you picture a sensation – a visual one or a smell or a sense of comfort/security. Brands are built around the unique customer benefit the products deliver – “rich tomato taste” with Heinz, “natural moisturizing” for Dove, “right fit” for Levi’s, “first aid from dry skin” for Vaseline to my shameless plug for “complete illness protection” for Income Insurance.
These benefits, that over time, morph into propositions on which products extend into other variants or categories, make customer’s lives easier or more joyful, or both; they generate sustained revenue and/or profits for the company; they help the sales channels’ lives easier by creating a natural desire and they create a large barrier to entry for other competitors.
What doesn’t get spoken about often is how bloody hard it is, to make these products. How tough it really is to make a shaving cream that lathers well, but provides amazing moisturization? Or how tough it is for a sauce brand with factories that only make sauces, to manufacture dry seasonings, since it is a natural extension? How is it that a lemony fragrance is infused into a face wash, without totally dis-integrating the product’s color, texture or both? How it’s incredibly tough to make a really, really spicy chili sauce that maintains it’s taste and color over 2 years in a bottle? Or how to build an insurance plan that gives you the complete critical illness protection you need, without losing a huge chunk of your profitability? Or an insurance that promises to cover “unknown” diseases, without clinically knowing that they could be?
Right from the process of identifying a need for the company - is it meant to create a category or win share from competition? What is the right level of profitability? Then identifying a true consumer need - there are a lot of soaps, face washes, sauces, baby foods and insurance products, sometimes in the hundred's in every country. How does one truly find a need that customers have which remains unfulfilled? Most importantly, at the right price. Ensuring what's built is exciting and sale-able within the channels you operate - After all, what a mom&pop store can sell and what needs to be sold online have to be different, in size, in value, in the margins to the retailers and in the way they are displayed in the “store”. Getting the packaging right, the product design right. And finally, ensuring it can be provided - either in a factory or by a re-insurer. All products are somewhat customized but all factories and re-insurers are meant to be standardized. Finding a way around this is also a creator's mandate.
And then there is the continuous testing, at every stage of the process - Test the design. Test the prototype. Test the price....and keep building iteratively.
Building products to a creator’s vision, which is in the service of a company’s business objective, using the resources available or finding resources that are not, which excite customers for the “value” they bring, financially, functionally and sometimes, emotionally and socially, is bloody hard.
It’s an everyday exercise in discipline. And it literally takes an army. And then a few more.
But the feeling that you get you hold that product in your hand, see it on the shelf or see it out in the market on your site, is one that cannot be replicated. The high of having made it, by having made it is truly un-describe-able.
I have my fair share of battle scars in my journey of making products. But it is also the one thing that excites me tremendously every single day. The anticipation of building products through a combination of collaboration, imagination and resilience.
In the coming days, I plan to pen down my learnings, through making an example out of products that I have had the privilege of building, for over 10 years. It may help some people. It may not. It may inspire. It may not.
But the “faux pas” made with chutzpah will definitely make for entertaining reading.
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