156: The Evolution of Sales Channels for Hardware Products

With Ben Drury, Co-Founder of Yoto

Hosted by Kevin Mako of MAKO Design + Invent

Ben Drury, the creator of Yoto, a toy product for children that is connected to hardware, has achieved remarkable success with nearly 500,000 units sold worldwide in just a few years. In this discussion, Ben will share valuable insights with inventors, hardware startups, small manufacturers, and e-commerce brands on the five distinct sales channels. He will also explain how hardware startups can develop and grow through these channels, as he did with Yoto, in order to maximize sales growth.

Today you will hear us talk about:

• Crowdfunding can guide you through all the necessary elements for building a successful product business.
• A direct website provides ample information to sell your product.
• Sales through Amazon are easy to set up.
• When dealing with wholesalers/retailers, including micro, independent, and mass retailers, presenting an inferior product can severely damage your retail prospects.
• Retailers are governed by numerous regulations and requirements, and they typically want to see proven success before adding a new product to their inventory. They also operate on long-term cycles, planning years in advance, so preparation is crucial for working with them.
• Specialty channels, driven by consumer demand, provide unique partnership opportunities for purchasing your product.
• The feedback loop from customers is very active.

EPISODE LINKS

Ben Drury Links:
LinkedIn | Yoto | Facebook | Instagram | TikTok

The Product Startup Podcast Links:
https://www.ProductStartup.com/
Instagram | LinkedIn | Facebook Page | Facebook Group | Pinterest | Twitter | YouTube

PTC Links:
https://www.ptc.com/
OnShape | Creo

Mako Design Links:
https://www.makodesign.com/
YouTube | Instagram | LinkedIn | Facebook | Pinterest | Twitter

Kevin Mako Links:
Instagram | LinkedIn | Quora | Facebook | Twitter

Partner: PTC’s best-in-class software solutions Onshape: The only cloud-native product development platform that delivers full-featured computer-aided design (CAD), integrated product data management (PDM) and enterprise analytics in a single system, and Creo: 3D CAD solution that provides designers with the most innovative tools to build better products faster, such as generative design, additive manufacturing, real-time simulation, IIoT, and augmented reality.