Motivational Video - Jordon

Whenever I am getting down I watch this video. Keeps me going!

If you have never failed, you have never lived!

Can we believe what people tell us

Long video but, Malcolm Gladwell has written multiple books. In this video, he talks about various highly successful products, that initially received very poor reviews. The main example is the Herman Miller Aeron Chair, but also talks about Coke, Pepsi and All in the Family. Be careful about being discouraged by people telling you they don't like your product. Don't let it stop you from bringing it to market, because sometimes, people won't know why they like, or dislike a product. Interesting video.


Watch Malcolm Gladwell (2004) Pop!Tech Pop!Cast - video in Educational View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

Legal docs for your website

As I get closer to bringing my product to business, I am starting to figure out what needs to be on my website. The three things in particular you need to work on, is a privacy policy, terms and conditions, and returns. Believe it or not, these are not extremely difficult to do, and most major web stores have all three for you to review.

So far I have my privacy policy complete, and am working on Terms and Conditions and Return policies. Upon completion, I will have my lawyer review and make changes. In this way you can save yourself several thousand dollars of legal fees, and use the legal work of some of the top attorney's in the nation.

I try and keep these policies pretty broad, as most people don't actually read them, they give you more flexibility and if there is a an issue, courts have recognized that having an easy to find policy on your website constitutes people agreeing to them, even if they do not read them, or "agree" to them.

Privacy tells people what and how you are tracking information on them. It talks about cookies, what the i nformation is used for, and how it is shared, whether with outside parties including law enforcement.

Terms of use talk about the terms and conditions of use of the site, including ordering policies, and the most popular, indemnity and hold harmless. You can have a return policy integrated into your terms of conditions and use and I am unsure if I will have mine seperate.

Finally, have a qualified lawyer review all your policies. Believe it or not, changing small words can make distict differences in how people and courts review it.

Going from 2 to 50 Million - Gary Vaynerchuck

For those of you who do not know Gary V, he took his parents business and made it explode. On the west coast he is a cultural icon and hosts his own vidcast on wine.

Learning Points when dealing with a contract manufacturer

I have received an initial 25 pieces of my product from the factory in China, and to my dismay, its wrong. It's one thing that was done incorrectly and it makes the entire product feel cheap. Now I have to argue with the contract manufacturer to redo the product with no cost to me. I am unsure how that conversation is going to go.

LEARNING POINT!

When you go to order your product, find out from your contract manufacturer, how to deal with mistakes in manufacturing, and in particular, labor the point, that you will not pay for product that is manufacturered incorrectly. I have a call with them tomorrow to discuss how to solve this issue.

Photographs and bartering

I picked up the proofs and CD of my images last week. They look wonderful in my opinion. The photographs I had taken include:

Photo's to show the functionality of the product
Photo's to show scale - I did this in relation to another product
Photo's to show the quality of the product up close
Mix of photo's showing in use and not in use.

When I have my site up and finished, I will be able to have thumbnails for everyone to check out as well as if I want to sell on third party sites.

My payments to him were to cover the cost of studio time, proof sheet and CD of images. As we looked at the photographs more, I realized, there was going to need to be some slight touch ups. Instead of paying him another 50 to 100 dollars, he agreed to do the touchups for one of my products. Given that I am thinking of a retail price of $25, that is a significant savings on this work.

Don't overlook bartering to make payments as well. Certain of your partners may have clients that are your target market. It is well worth exploring!