“SwitchPod” Camera Tool Raises $415,748 on Kickstarter

This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.

[Music]

Welcome to a brand new week of Side Hustle School. This is your host, Chris Guillebeau. I'm so excited because we are just 11 episodes away from hitting 1,000. Oh my gosh, you guys, I am so humbled and we'll talk a little bit more about that as it gets closer. For now, I just wanna say I'm excited about that and I'm also excited to work on this story, today's story, because it features two longtime friends of mine who have achieved an incredible success in designing and manufacturing a practical camera accessory, funding it to a massive level on Kickstarter, and they deserve all their success.

So no doubt there's a factor of mystery and luck that kind of goes into which crowdfunding campaigns really take off, just as there is in the book publishing world and lots of other industries, but that's just one factor and that's one that's outside your control. The ones that are within your control are the product itself, the campaign, hand everything you do in the weeks, months, or even years before you go to people with a product and a campaign. So that's the trifecta, the only secret formula of success that led to this vlogging accessory raising more than $400,000 on Kickstarter. I'll tell you all about it. Now, by the way, a side note, not to detract from the story at all, but in late breaking news, the Chinese trade war and the unilateral tariffs that the current administration has imposed is actually affecting them in a very real way.

So these guys are not gonna have to pay a premium for exporting a product that they have already designed and created. So it's still a huge success, but I just want to highlight the fact that these things do actually have a real impact on people's lives. So maybe I'll say more about that at some point as well, but for now, I'm excited to bring you this story. Vlogging accessory raises $415,748. Stay tuned.

That story is coming right up. [Music]

Pat Flynn runs the blog, podcast, and community known as Smart Passive Income. Caleb Wojcik owns a video production company. They've worked together for years on various projects and have built Pat's YouTube channel together. In the summer of 2017, they attended an event called VidSummit.

It was, appropriately, for video bloggers who are also known as vloggers. They noticed that a lot of people there were using a piece of equipment that wasn't meant for vlogging. It was called the GorillaPod, a flexible tripod for cameras, but not really one for video, and not ideal for handheld mode. Pat and Caleb got to talking about how the repurposed use of the pod didn't actually work that well. Vloggers tended to bend the GorillaPod into a C-curve so that they could extend their cameras out and away from them to get the best angle of themselves while keeping their arm out of the shot.

Setting the GorillaPod down is time-consuming and unsafe for the expensive gear typically attached. It was weird seeing talented people use the wrong gear just because there wasn't a good alternative. The more they talked, Pat and Caleb began to imagine what that good alternative would be. What would it look like? How would it feel?

And how would it function? This wasn't just a market they spotted for other people. It was a problem they wanted to solve for themselves. Also, both Pat and Caleb had a great deal of experience with digital products, which in a lot of ways are a lot easier than making a physical product. They saw the departure as a challenge, a learning opportunity, and their next adventure.

Half the fun was learning something new, but there was a whole lot of work to be done. They hired Product.com, that is product, not product, P-R-O-U, Product.com, to help them design, prototype, and connect with potential manufacturers. The first seven months of prototyping was done in the US using 3D printers in Utah and eventually transitioned to China. The product team handled a lot of details, including building out the supply chain entirely. They used factories and companies they knew about before, and they eventually went to look for specific tripod manufacturers.

Until Caleb went to China recently, at the tail end of the process, he hadn't ever interacted with any of the factories or manufacturers himself. The agency handled everything. So, what's the big deal with the actual product? Well, it's called SwitchPod, and it works with any camera, from a phone to a DSLR, and it simplifies video making. Like the name implies, you can switch between handheld and tripod modes and back again in seconds.

The device is lightweight, compact, and nearly indestructible. Their promise is that it will save you time between shots so you can focus more on shooting and less on messing around with your gear. Pat and Caleb launched the SwitchPod Kickstarter campaign on January 29th, 2019, and they hit their $100,000 funding goal in less than 12 hours. All day long, they kept refreshing the page, a maze of the response. They celebrated in the evening in frugal style, eating pizza with their families.

And the pledges didn't stop at the end of the first day. By the end of the whole campaign, they had raised a total of $415,748. And then, they went back to waiting on everything to be finalized. Those seven different prototypes, then the final manufacturing where Caleb traveled to China to see the factory for himself. They delayed the launch multiple times to wait for the perfect timing, which at the time was frustrating, but now they're convinced it paid off.

Being used to the immediacy of the digital world, they also had to learn to be patient with the design and prototyping process. After all, this isn't an ebook. It's a real product that has to be manufactured in a real factory. Now, one thing they say they might be differently would be to have more prototypes on the day the campaign launched in order to have it in the hands of more YouTubers during the campaign. Also, if you want to do something similar, braving the waters of manufacturing a product based on an opportunity you identify, Caleb has some advice for you.

He says, "We would advise that you research what you're getting into heavily, just a small amount of research a lot. Make sure you're really solving someone's problem, a significant group of people's problem, in fact, not just your own. Also talk to people in your target market, ask why what they're currently using isn't serving them well. Then make a prototype or a minimum viable product and start having people use that. We started with low cost prototypes.

Our first ones were made of cardboard or just 3D printed before we had any made out of metal. Keep the project simple and don't include too many bells and whistles because anything you add complicates or possibly breaks what you've already figured out. Some good advice there. And with such a tremendous response to the campaign, they now have a large number of products to deliver. Their goal now is to finalize and ship more than 5,000 Switch Pods.

After that, they'll be working with retailers and continuing to sell them in their own store. [Music]

Well, as I said, huge, huge success here. I have so much respect for these guys. We're so excited to see how well this campaign did. And something I didn't mention in the episode, maybe I alluded to it a little bit in the beginning, but I didn't talk about it specifically.

Key to their success is that Pat and Caleb have both been building community for a long time. So in addition to nailing the concept and really taking their time with the design process, I think this is a major factor. It's a major contribution toward their big success. And you might think, okay, well, that's great. You know, you're saying that part of the way they were able to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars is because they were known.

But it's really not a catch because they earned this attention. Like nobody came along and just anointed them or anybody else in the world of online influence. Pat has made more than 1,500 podcast episodes. Like I'm coming up on 1,000 now, well, Pat has done 1,500. And both he and Caleb are really focused on giving back.

And in fact, Pat's new book, "Superfans," has been personally helpful to me in terms of being more intentional with direct reader or listener relationships. I talked about "Superfans" a while back, but in case you missed it, new book from Pat, all about maintaining these relationships. I just think it's a wonderful model. It's kind of how I built my business as well. So we'll be sure to link that up on the notes page.

But the key point, if you aren't known in the way that Pat and Caleb were, you know, you could still have a big success in this field. It might not be as big. You know, it might not be $400,000, but that's okay, because, you know, now they have to fulfill 5,000 orders, which is also no small project. So lots of lessons here, both in terms of the concept, design, the manufacturing, and also, as I said, community building. I'm not a blogger myself, but if I was, I would be checking out the switch pod.

In fact, I would have already pre-ordered. Thanks so much for listening today. I hope you enjoy this episode. Inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is better. Today's show notes, including links to everything I mentioned, Pat and Caleb, the product, et cetera, are at sidehustleschool.com/989.

That is episode 989. Still working on my 1,500, gotta catch up to Pat. The problem is, he keeps making episodes. So, you know, I don't know what can be done about that. Anyway, I'll be back again tomorrow.

I hope you'll join me again. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is "Sidusleschool." [Music]

- From the Onward Project.