Well, gang, it’s been way too long since my last post! Sometimes other responsibilities can get in the way but I promise to do better going forward!

Anyway – lots and lots of stuff to update on so here goes:

Sponsorshippin’
We’re now at the point that I’ve stopped soliciting tournament directors and now they are finding the IceMule and contacting me. And what great tournaments / people! Our newest sponsorship is with Drew Gregory’s new series, the 2010 River Bassin’ Tournament Trail, which he is doing in association with Bass Pro Shops. This is going to be a dynamite series and it’s in support of finding a cure for Lou Gehrig’s Disease so go sign up!

Also – I’ve recently added a new page to IceMuleCooler.com that lists all of our sponsorships and events, complete with logos, event names, locations and dates. It’s totally cool – check it out!

Reviews
Getting serious reviews from serious pros / reporters is critical to building credibility with our target markets (in addition to the awesome reviews and testimonials from our customers!).

Lately, it’s been an embarrassment of riches – not only is Drew Gregory (see above) going to write a review for us for posting on his terrific site, but I was also contacted by Jim Sutton of the Florida Times Union, who’s working on a review for the Sunday “New Stuff” column! Plus, Nathan Ward from Quicksilver Media contacted me and is now working on a review for AllAboutRivers.com!

Retail
This is really, really early stages, but I’ve begun a few initial conversations with reps about getting into stores – stay tuned.

It’s going to be a hot summer kids!

Stay Cool,
James

If you’ve read the “About Us” section of the IceMule Cooler site, you know the basics of this story…

A few years back, my then girlfriend (now wife) and I were planning a day hike around Brown’s Island on the banks of the James River in Richmond, VA.  Since we had planned to be out most of the day, I wanted to pack some sandwiches and water for a picnic lunch, but I didn’t want to carry a cooler around all day.  So a few days before, I went looking for a cooler I could carry on my back that would use real ice (I had used that blue pack stuff before and, while it might make it great icepack for a bruise, I don’t know anyone who thinks it will actually keep drinks cold in a cooler).  Simple enough, right?  Nope.  I went to every sports / hiking / fishing / camping store I could find and then I went online.  No portable, waterproof, leak-proof, backpack coolers were to be found.  Plenty of cheap sewn coolers that I knew would leak, but nothing good.

So, on the day of our hike I grabbed my trusty daypack and two kitchen-sized garbage bags and dropped in ice, sandwiches and bottled water.  In less than two hours the bags broke, the ice had melted and the cold water ran down my back and legs.

We finished our hike but I left that experience a little obsessed.  I looked even harder for the cooler I needed but I still could not find it anywhere.  I couldn’t believe it – this was SUCH an obvious need.  My obsession to find the cooler I needed morphed into an obsession to make the cooler I needed.  I was, in fact, becoming an entrepreneur.  Unfortunately, if I had managed a little less obsession and a bit more planning, I could have saved myself a lot of trouble.  This post is about helping other folks avoid some of that trouble.

What follows is my take on what you should do once your new business obsession sets in like a virus you can’t shake…including a few tips on how to conduct concept testing, getting a prototype made and finding the right manufacturer.

Do some concept testing on your idea

It was an obvious need (to me, anyway) but this is when I made mistake #1:  I conducted zero market research.  I didn’t even bother to ask anyone if they would buy the cooler I was envisioning (other than a few friends, who will often just support your idea to be, well, supportive).

Now, I got lucky.  Turns out I guessed right.  But you don’t want to be on the wrong side of an expensive and time-consuming multi-month prototyping journey to find out that no one wants your widget.

So – test the concept.  There are several ways to do this.  Tim Ferriss gives some great tactical advice on how to use Google Adwords to test a new product concept (see 4-Hour Workweek).   There are also several reasonable omnibus online testing services – google “product concept testing” and explore the options.

Do some market research on your industry

Although I didn’t do any concept testing, I did have good idea #1:  I researched the Cooler market.  I wanted to know how many people bought coolers, what the annual sales of the cooler industry were, who the big players were, etc.  The idea was to see if there was room for my cooler and, if there was, what that room would be worth in terms of annual sales.

Turns out this was more difficult than you’d think.  The “cooler industry” isn’t as closely followed as, say, the computer industry.  You can find decent market research on the Sporting Goods industry, you can even get some numbers on “sporting goods accessories”. But coolers?  Not so much.

Rather than giving up, I hired a specialty market research firm (google “custom market research”), spent about $350, and got a fairly good report.  That, supplemented by what I could pull together from public sources told me that between $600-$900 million of coolers are sold in the U.S. each year.  Igloo and Coleman are the big players (duh) and then there is a second layer of moderately-sized companies and then a big pile (50+) of smaller companies.   I reasoned that if this market can support that many companies, there is probably room for me – and a half-a-percent of market share would be worth $3MM in annual sales (not there yet BTW!).

Time to dive in!  Next, I had to actually make the cooler of my dreams.

Build your prototype

Okay, so the first thing I’ll tell you is that, unless your product is really, really simple to make, it is much better to build prototypes of your product with a professional firm rather  than trying to do it yourself.  There are two reasons for this:

1. Unless your product is an offshoot of something you are already expert in, and you also have manufacturing expertise and the right materials & tools, you may not be able to do much more than mock up a prototype, as opposed to building one that truly works like you envision, and
2. There are a ridiculous number of firms out there that will build your prototype for you at a reasonable cost.  In many cases, OEMs (original equipment manufactures) will make your prototype for you at a reasonable cost in hopes of getting your manufacturing business.  Another avenue is using a marketing firm that will help you build a prototype and then help you find a manufacturer, typically in exchange for handling your marketing.

Of course, I did not do any of the above.  This was mistake #2.

In my case I had a good idea of what I wanted the cooler to do – how it should perform &  the attributes I knew it had to have (waterproof, leak-proof, soft-sided, able to fit into a backpack, collapsible, and with cooling properties as good as a hard cooler).  But I had no idea how to build it.  I was so clueless that I actually, in a fit of entrepreneurial madness, went out and bought a sewing machine and a few yards of plastic coated material.  Never mind that I had never so much as sewn a button back on a shirt.  Or that sewn seams would leak (duh).  Or that I had not even sketched out a proper design.  None of that mattered – I was an inventor now.  Ha.  Take my advice here, knock your self out with rudimentary mock-ups if you have to, but when you really want a working prototype that people could see themselves buying, work with a pro.

For the IceMule, I finally stumbled onto a dry-bag in a sporting goods store (dry-bags are used by paddlers to keep their gear dry) and it occurred to me that the waterproof seams in a dry bag were exactly what I needed.  It still took me a couple of months of messing around with “waterproof zippers” – which I found to be difficult to use – before I finally realized that creating an insulated dry-bag was actually the simplest, most elegant design.

If you’re anything like me, you have to go through the most difficult, complicated set of options you can imagine before you settle on the simple path that actually works.  So, when you’re knee-deep in a complex execution of your idea and your brain is aching from trying to figure out how to make it all come together, stop.  Then step back and ask your self how you would do it if it had to be so simple you could describe it to a manufacturer in one sentence.

Find the right manufacturer

To find my first manufacturer, I used the Thomas Directory of Manufacturers (now ThomasNet).  Back in the day, you had to go to the library to find this.  Now, it’s online and very easy to use.

Still, though, I made another mistake (that’s mistake #3 for those of you keeping up).  After talking with literally dozens of potential manufacturers – some even before I figured out how to make the product – I settled on a firm in Chicago that was willing to give it a go with a very limited production run (500 units).  It took us several weeks to get a working prototype and after the initial run they decided they did not want to make any  more IceMules because they were so difficult to manufacture.

Why didn’t this manufacturer work out?  Because they were not already a dry-bag manufacturer.  They were experts in radio-frequency welding and working with waterproof fabrics (the right expertise to make the IceMule), but they had no real expertise in my kind of product.  The lesson for me (and you) here is – find a manufacturer that has build something so similar to your product before that they can build it with a short learning curve, good cost estimates and a reasonable chance that they will be there for the long haul.

After so many mistakes, I was due for another good idea, and I finally had one.  That’s good idea #2 (the mistakes were still winning 3-2 for anyone keeping score).  The idea was this – get a referral from a trusted source.  This actually happened quite back accident.  I was talking with my brother-in-law about the product and he mentioned that he had a friend who ran a company that had it’s product manufactured in Asia.  I contacted his friend and was in turn introduced to a manufacturing broker in Taiwan.  Now here is the important part – my new friend trusted the broker.  After working with him now for a few years, I trust him also.  He prices fairly (and I have gotten other quotes) he provides good quality control, and he stands behind his work.  In fact, if we have too many defects in a production run (over an agreed-to percentage) he will set up a production run specifically to replace defective units, at his expense.  That’s the kind of relationship you want.  So – find someone who makes a similar product and ask for a referral to their OEM – that’s a better route than any directory can provide.

That’s it for this round, folks.  Thanks for hanging in!

Next – Start Up Notes 3: Final touches and liftoff – Protecting yourself, outsourcing your fulfillment & building a web presence

I received an email yesterday from an old friend from my consulting days.  My old buddy Greg was uncharacteristically polite and solicitous (“how are you?  the IceMule site looks great…I’m so impressed” etc etc etc.).

Now this is a guy who is much more likely to ask me how I can even get around at my age without a walker while wondering aloud how a woman as beautiful as my wife could have possibly married a schmuck like me.  The last time I saw him was when a few of us met in DC for a day of golf and spent 5 hours on the course and probably 3 off the course thinking up creative ways to get the other guy riled enough to blow any chance at the huge 50 cents we had bet on each hole.

So, as you can imagine, when Greg sent me such a, well, nice note, I knew I was being set up.  And then he hit me with the punchline: he’s been working on an idea, an idea he thinks could be a business, and he wanted to pick my brain about how I got the IceMule off the ground.

What’s interesting to me is that he didn’t need to be so cautious – of course I’ll share my experience with him.  Heck, I will (I am) sharing it with anyone reading this post.  If only to keep you from making some of the seriously dumb mistakes I made, and maybe to help you navigate some potentially dicey areas I stumbled all over.

So – here goes.  I’ll periodically write a post (for the Entrepreneur Notes section of CoolerNotes) about one aspect of starting a business using my own experience as an example.  But – caution – if I didn’t do it you won’t find it here.  There are plenty of books out there about how to start a business and they range from step-by-step instructions (many of which have great practical advice) to more inspirational tomes (many of which I read because I constantly need to maintain a good mental pump).  But I haven’t seen that many that deliver the blow-by-blow – and that’s what I’ll write here, for whatever it’s worth.

Of course, the first place to start is with product – every business has to sell something – either a product or a service.  My story relates to developing a product but having spent years marketing bank services, I can tell you that what follows is relevant to service-oriented companies as well.

I’m going to give you the Reader’s Digest version of the 6+ months it took me to get my product  out of my head and into my hands.  I’ll give a bit of advice also but feel free to disregard it – if you are anything like me, you’ll do exactly what you want to anyway.

Installment 1 next: Start Up Notes – From a cold back to a cool idea

Right now I’m on a flight back home from Las Vegas, where I spent the last few days hanging out with good friends, trying to mentally justify that perpetual last hand of the night, and indulging in a few light Buds and heavy meals.

However, I also got a chance to attend a few sessions of a great conference centered around entrepreneurship.  Two of the speakers had huge cred on this topic since each has built multi-million dollar businesses on their own.

One was Gary Vaynerchuk, who was there to speak on using social media tools (near and dear to anyone today who is trying to make a big noise on the web).  This was extremely cool for me since I didn’t realize he was going to be there until he came on stage.

The other was Mark Victor Hansen, one of the writers (along with Jack Canfield) of the Chicken Soup for the Soul book series and the most successful non-fiction author of all time.

Each delivered great insights to the audience, and each provided their roadmap of how to be a successful entrepreneur.  What was fascinating, though, was that Vaynerchuk’s and Hansen’s approaches radically conflicted in a critical ways.

The first was on how much work is involved in becoming a successful entrepreneur.

Let’s start with Vaynerchuk.  Anyone who has visited winelibrary.tv or read Crush It! knows that Gary is passionate about his belief both great content and great hustle are needed to make it.  He hit on this point over and over and over again.   In fact, he insisted that winning online is essentially an endurance test.  He who tweets, blogs and emails the most number of hours per day wins.  Period.

Of course, this flies in the face of the “work smart, not hard” mantra that those of us who have spent any time in corporate America hear all the time.  Even in corporate life, though, Gary’s points feel, well, on point.   As any vice president of almost any company can tell you, the real expectation is that you’ll work smart and hard (real hard).  As I look back over the past couple of decades as a banker, management consultant and marketing executive, I can tell you that 70-hour work weeks have been fairly common in my life.  The fact that I have to handle that kind of day job now and manage Roam-It Gear (the company behind the IceMule Cooler) and the one or two other companies I have started (or am in the process of starting) in the evenings and weekends means that Gary’s words resonate with me.  Anyone got a Verve energy drink?

Hansen, though, spent a significant amount of time talking about “doing things the smart way”.  These comments preceded a few tactical suggestions around how to get to the right level of individual you need – essentially leapfroging the legions of people who you presumably don’t need to bother with.

I have to admit that I had a bit of trouble with this line of thinking.  On the one hand, I can see how a clever email or introduction can open doors, but, on the other hand, if you are in a consumer business, aren’t all those people you avoided potential customers and advocates for your product or service?

Both of these guys agreed on one thing, though – one of an entrepreneur’s most important duties is to connect with his or her customers.  When you’re obsessed with getting a new site up, managing manufacturing issues or dealing with a budget problem, you can easily forget that one.  That’s a big “whoops”.  Connect with customers – write that down and staple it to your hand.

The second was on how and when to monetize your relationships with potential customers.

In Vaynerchuk’s view, two things in addition to out-hustling everyone else are ultra important – great content (assuming you are building an online presence) and caring.  The content has to be compelling.  But most of all – care.  If you don’t care, people’s BS meters will go off and you’re finished.  You can’t fake caring so if you don’t really, truly care about your business and your customers, get out.

Keeping this in mind, he went on to state that your job is to NOT sell – at least not for a while.  According to him, it may take dozens and dozens of non-conversion-oriented interactions to create the kind of conversion opportunity that will create not only a customer but an advocate for your business.  In this world, the company that just focuses on SEO, adsense optimization and strong landing pages with ‘buy now’ forms is doing almost exactly the wrong things.

However, Hansen was different.  Way, way, way different.  Hansen was all about the close.  Practically every sentence was a conversion opportunity for him.  During his speech, he mentioned several companies that were doing revolutionary things and then noted that he had significant ownership stakes in each of the companies cited.  This could be taken as an endorsement, but it felt more like an advertisement.  Hansen ended his talk by pitching a program of his own, complete with directing all in attendance to a table beyond the convention floor where they could sign up and make their down payment.

The difference was one of transaction vs. relationship.  What occurred to me was that whichever direction you choose, it must be aligned to your business model.  If you need to build a brand, count on repeat business and live on referrals, Vaynerchuk is your man.  If your business is oriented to a single transaction, or if your market is so huge that your main goal is pitching enough people that the small number who convert will be plenty to make your revenue forecast, Hansen’s more direct approach may be just for you.

So, I got a chance to hear two great self-made gazillionaires talk about entrepreneurship with passion and commitment.   Not a bad way to spend an afternoon.  The conference continued but I was getting hungry so I started making my way toward the door to get a jump on the dinner crowd at the nearest buffet.

As I walked toward the door, I became vaguely aware that a new person had taken stage and begun to speak.  Honestly, I have no idea who it was, I was hungry and moving and was only half-listening.  Then this guy, whose name I didn’t even get,  said something that helped me put the opposing ideologies of Vaynerchuk and Hansen into perspective:

“Get clear on who you are and why you are in business.  If your “why” is strong enough, the “how” will take care of itself.”

I like that.

Stay cool, James

So I’m at work a month or so ago and instead of doing the two hundred and twelfth version of my 2010 budget for the next board meeting, I’m taking a few minutes to goof off with a friend.  We’re talking entrepreneurship.  This is the same conversation that takes place every day in every corporate office in every city and town in America several times a day.  It’s the “Man, I’ve got the awesome idea for (fill in the blank) – I should just start a company, get rich, and blow out of this place.”  You know the conversation.

In this case, my friend was describing his idea for buying real estate while it’s cheap and selling it when the market recovers.  I didn’t quite know how to break it to him that this was not a unique and brilliant idea, so I just said “Oh yeah, absolutely. You’ll clean up”.  After waiting the appropriate time for his dream of riches to pass, I opened a new explorer tab and showed him the IceMule site (http://www.icemulecooler.com).  He read all about how the IceMule is the world’s only totally leak-proof soft cooler, reviewed the testimonials, checked out the checkout and got really, really excited.

That’s when he said it: “Dude! Why haven’t you quit your job yet?”

If you’re an entrepreneur, you may have heard this question.

It’s a reasonable question I guess.  After all, we’ve all read the books – the really good ones like 4-Hour Workweek and Crush It!, and the not so good ones that charge you a subscription to get the same information, though less well written, that you could find with a 2 minute search of Entrepreneur magazine.  They all have one thing in common: a belief that the internet is a leveling technology, a killer app that can allow you to compete with well-capitalized, multi-national corporations with huge TV budgets, multi-channel distribution networks and a highly compensated sales force.

And, in fact, you can.  But it is not easy.  And anyone who tells you it is is trying to sell you something.

The truth is that access to consumers is now much more democratic.  That’s the shift.  The web gives you access to consumers, and consumers now have access to details about you – and your competitors.

So, the plan here is to use this blog to

1. describe how I’m using (and experimenting) with the Internet to gain this access, to listen to my customers, and to build my business.  I’ll also include any other relevant experiences or tools I find in the non-web world that I think may help my fellow entrepreneurial crazies out there….and
2. connect with folks who are interested in all things outdoors – since that is part of who I am and that orientation led me to develop the IceMule in the first place.

Along the way, hopefully you’ll pick up some tips that will help you connect and build your business as well (or at least discover a great new spot for kayak fishing!).  And – and this is the really cool part – you can share back.  I certainly don’t have all of this figured out, but the Internet is a conversation, and we hope to make it a big noisy one here at Cooler Notes.

Let the conversation begin!

Oh, and as far as quitting my job, we’ve got a few more coolers to sell.

Stay cool, James