7 ms·

Amazon Launchpad for Startups

275 points by ankit84 10y ago

bobsky 10y ago
It's not evident what's new, but this initiative was announced a year ago, here's the article: "Amazon Takes On Product Hunt, Shopify With Launchpad, An All-In-One Marketing And Sales Portal" [1] [1]https://techcrunch.com/2015/07/28/amazon-takes-on-product-hunt-shopify-with-launchpad-an-all-in-one-marketing-and-sales-portal/ https://techcrunch.com/2015/07/28/amazon-takes-on-product-hu...
- firloop 10y ago
  That headline pitting Product Hunt and Amazon against each other is kind of funny because they eventually teamed up around Launchpad. https://medium.com/product-hunt/teaming-up-with-amazon-d7f9a05fa6a1 https://medium.com/product-hunt/teaming-up-with-amazon-d7f9a...
  - giarc 10y ago
    The amazing thing is the growth of PH from simple mailing list to important part of the startup ecosystem.
- Applejinx 10y ago
  It's for just this sort of reason that I took my DSP plugin business 'Airwindows.com' to a Patreon-only model when my 'shopify' (Kagi) went bust recently. It's getting pretty weird out there. This is very much about obliterating things like Shopify: helping startups is strictly tangential and/or temporary. It's all about the strategic moves and trying to prevent other players in the sector from growing. If they don't grow, they die, so seizing control is worth anything.
rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
I'm sure I'm not alone in having concerns about how ruthlessly centralizing Amazon is making the shopping experience for just about everything but groceries (because I will never trust anyone to pick my meats and produce for me), but if Amazon Launchpad works as well as this advertisement claims it will, then I cannot for the life of me think of a better means and marketplace to trial new products. Maybe if your product does really well they'll set you up with a Dash button.
- frabcus 10y ago
  Indeed, I recommend this blog post about Dash by Simon Wardley, to see where it is inevitably going: http://blog.gardeviance.org/2015/04/so-amazon-fired-warning-shot-at.html http://blog.gardeviance.org/2015/04/so-amazon-fired-warning-...
  - harigov 10y ago
    Although some of the points made by the blog are interesting, he is underestimating somethings. You don't need a buy button on the boxes at all, computer vision can auto-detect the brand and let Amazon offer you an option to buy it with little effort. You can do that today with barcode. Amazon already has all the infrastructure from "buying" to "shipping product to consumer". All they are doing is making buying easier - it's not revolutionary but a logical step forward. All said, retail stores should definitely be worried about this because Amazon is making it extremely easy to buy stuff now.
- lowglow 10y ago
  You could try to come over and prototype your new products with Baqqer.
- tedmiston 10y ago
  > because I will never trust anyone to pick my meats and produce for me Even the grocery store themselves? eg Kroger ClickList
  - maxerickson 10y ago
    A store I go to usually has good produce but occasionally fails to take aging stuff off the shelf. Getting the picker to follow my subjective taste as far as what is too old is a bit of a problem. Of course the solution is for the store to rotate the produce faster, but there is probably a reason they don't.
    - tedmiston 10y ago
      I know from a friend working on the project that this is a common sentiment about produce. I'm not sure if it's something they have addressed yet. For my preferences I think it could be doable: How do you want your bananas? [a scale of 5 banana pictures from bright green to spotted... pick one]
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
estefan 10y ago
Interesting. I've just been reading about using alibaba with freight forwarders and shopify to create online shops where you can sell on Amazon. This might make it even easier.
- pjc50 10y ago
  That's kind of a low-margin business though, because it's so easy to get into and you're not really adding any value as a alibaba reseller.
  - estefan 10y ago
    It depends on what you're having manufactured. I was thinking of original products. But I'd be doing it more to learn about supply chains, manufacturing, etc. and the problems people face. Plus, some of those sites support plugins and have their own ecosystems, so I might see opportunities for automation other people have missed.
jasode 10y ago
Here's my take on it and someone can chime in if I'm wrong on the details... Imagine you're a startup/inventor that manufactures a widget that you'd like to sell to the mass market, you could either (1) try to sell direct from your website (2) get on the shelves of national stores like Best Buy, Target, Walmart, etc. The "shelves" include the real ones at their brick & mortar stores and the virtual shelves on their online websites. (1) is hard to attract shoppers since nobody knows about your low-traffic website. Also, you'd have to handle the hassle of fulfillment yourself. Amazon Launchpad leverages their competency in global logistics to do this for you. (2) is difficult to get meetings with corporate retail buyers and convince them to carry your product. Sometimes, there are also "slotting fees" (sometimes aka "bribes") to get prime shelf locations (eye level vs the floor.) What Amazon is doing is opening up their "shelves" which includes the prime pixels real estate on their front page to promote startups' products. They are actively marketing your product. This is a different initiative from passively showing the 3rd-party marketplace sellers on amazon product pages. However, to filter out the low quality junk and avoid every garage warrior trying to sell their flavor of homemade barbeque sauce, the products have to come from "the approved network"[1] that includes firms such as a16z, Accel Partners, etc. If we scan that list of affiliates, we'd expect the products vetted by them to be "cutting edge" and "innovative". What's not specified in all the press releases and FAQ about Amazon Launchpad is the type of payment structure Amazon expects. Is it negiotiated on a product-by-product basis? Is it flat percentage? [1]https://www.amazon.com/gp/launchpad/network https://www.amazon.com/gp/launchpad/network [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slotting_fee https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slotting_fee
- dandare 10y ago
  I wish there was an AI bot that would summarize any marketing speak to such a useful summary like you did. Also I wonder what would such bot translate my product description to :D
  - misiti3780 10y ago
    that is a nice idea, but i think we are unfortunately years away from that. i dont have time at the moment, but take this article and run it though this state of the art algorithm and see what comes out: https://research.googleblog.com/2016/08/text-summarization-with-tensorflow.html https://research.googleblog.com/2016/08/text-summarization-w...
webtechgal 10y ago
A quick question here while I check some more: Are pure-play software (SaaS etc.) and/or digital goods startups eligible for this?
- tedmiston 10y ago
  Since that is… most of us, I'm curious to hear more from the software side too.
- trjordan 10y ago
  I can't imagine it is. The benefits appear to be: 1) Initial marketing testing through Amazon storefronts. 2) Fulfillment and logistics. 3) Promotion on the same level as other Amazon products. This doesn't seem valuable to pure-software products.
josu 10y ago
Why is their logo so degraded [1]? [1] https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/G/01/boost/landing/img/FormLogo._CB314969857_.jpg https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/G/01/boost/la...
- phonon 10y ago
  Because it's a jpeg and not a png. Jpeg will show artifacts (smudging and mosquito noise) in high contrast areas and flat fields of color. PNG is lossless, and well suited to compress repeating color values mixed with high frequency signals.
  - apetresc 10y ago
    While true, this is still well below the upper bound of quality JPG is capable of.
    - phonon 10y ago
      OK, "for a given data budget". The image in question is compressed 13:1 PNG would match that size and be lossless.
      - phonon 10y ago
        Here is a similar version and size of the jpeg logo, that I created from a clean source. It is about 40% smaller (in bits) than the jpeg. http://i.imgur.com/DlJ2uFX.png http://i.imgur.com/DlJ2uFX.png
        apetresc 10y ago
        Again, I'm not disagreeing that PNG is better. I'm saying that, even if you insist on JPG, you can still do much better than what Amazon's got going on 90% of their splash pages.
        phonon 10y ago
Negative1 10y ago
This is an interesting idea in that it basically becomes the store for post-kickstarter projects that had traction but not enough to negotiate a contract with major retailers. Great idea -- I hope it takes off (no pun intended).
- phonon 10y ago
  Yup, pretty much exactly. http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160727005323/en/ http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160727005323/en/ "Amazon Launchpad announced today the creation of a Kickstarter Collection (www.amazon.com/launchpad/kickstarter), featuring more than 300 Kickstarter products available for purchase on Amazon.com" http://www.amazon.com/launchpad/kickstarter http://www.amazon.com/launchpad/kickstarter
kdamken 10y ago
This looks like a site that someone in a foreign country who was trying to pretend to be amazon would make to trick people. Did they fire all of their designers or something?
- dansze 10y ago
  I'm not convinced they hired any in the first place, based on what their branding and internal processes.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
gortok 10y ago
Some notes: 1. Amazon Launchpad will ask for a few sample units to test. What they actually mean is that they sell these units. So, don't send Amazon units until you're ready to part with them and put them in your customer's hands. Here's Vendor Express (their vendor management system) on that topic: > We'll sometimes request a minimum sample of free units of your product so that we can evaluate the demand from our customers before placing an initial purchase order. After your product sells, we may start issuing purchase orders. So, if you're a Kickstarter or Indie-go-go project and you want to sell your product on Amazon as well, you'll likely be going through Launchpad. This can get... uncomfortable for you if you send them test units before your Kickstarter backers get theirs. 2. Amazon's ToS for Vendor Express specifically states that they can rescind/change their Purchase Order at any moment before the product physically arrives at their fulfillment center. I've heard stories of startups having their P.O. reduced by half and having to eat that cost. When you're a young startup, capital is everything. Other resources for understanding more about manufacturing costs: https://www.quora.com/How-do-I-go-about-budgeting-manufacturing-costs-for-a-startup-technology-product https://www.quora.com/How-do-I-go-about-budgeting-manufactur... http://www.andrewjdupree.com/blog/2016/8/3/how-long-does-it-take-to-manufacture-a-hardware-product http://www.andrewjdupree.com/blog/2016/8/3/how-long-does-it-...
mandeepj 10y ago
Although, amazon is saying they welcome all startups but looks like this launchpad is only for companies having a physical product. I think you can't apply if you have an app to launch.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
kristianc 10y ago
My take on this is that it sounds an awful lot like a sensing network for Amazon to discover which products are taking off and if it's viable to produce a low cost clone. At which point Amazon will not only have cloned your product, but also own your main distribution channel. Approach with caution?
- jdcarter 10y ago
  There's certainly precedent for that: http://www.geek.com/news/amazonbasics-is-copying-all-the-best-products-on-amazon-and-selling-them-for-less-1652879/ http://www.geek.com/news/amazonbasics-is-copying-all-the-bes... However it may be a risk worth taking: on the one hand, you have a distribution channel that could help you take off, but might compete with you later. On the other, you'd have to run your own distribution, and it's less likely your product would ever take off in the first place.
  - Pyxl101 10y ago
    > However it may be a risk worth taking: on the one hand, you have a distribution channel that could help you take off, but might compete with you later. If you're worried about this, then you should also worry that competitors might compete with you anyway, whether or not you use their distribution channels. The real question to consider is whether using their channel makes them more likely to compete with your or less, weighed against the other tradeoffs.
- shostack 10y ago
  I too have wondered about this as well as how AWS might also be a signaling point for an analyst to point out other services Amazon might want to get into. How different is this from store brands in the grocery store? He who owns the distribution calls the shots. The digital world was supposed to free suppliers from this with infinite shelf space but instead it just morphed into a slightly different and much more dangerous beast.
  - kristianc 10y ago
    That is the purpose of AWS and APN. APN is actually a fairly similar offer to this.
billyshih 10y ago
I've been using this for my dog toy that I launched on Kickstarter and it has worked out amazing. The only downside is you don't have control over what they price at since you're selling products wholesale to them. But for the amount of work that it takes (very little), it's a great trade off.
- egypturnash 10y ago
  Are there any costs beyond (I assume) wanting to buy your thing at a wholesale price? I've got a graphic novel I just kickstarted and am curious about this program, but they won't take any applications that aren't about a month from shipping.
vonklaus 10y ago
Stripe Atlas for retail.
blairanderson 10y ago
I used to sell hardware to amazon. Here's my take on this. This boils down to a whitelist which allows companies to skip the traditional sales/retail-contract process required for a manufacturer to become a vendor. This is not a service that Amazon will sell, essentially a loss leader to get vendors into the network. Normally for brands that are new, Amazon requires a unique product line or price or some differentiator. A well established rep can easily get them in the door. I typically recommend that brands: 1. Start selling online ASAP 2. Start selling on Amazon ASAP 3. As sales grow, become an Amazon vendor
jedicoffee 10y ago
-_- https://www.blackbox.cool/ https://www.blackbox.cool/
- govindpatel 10y ago
  well I am not sure what does this comment has to do with "Amazon Launchpad", But they have a really cool header animation.
jedicoffee 10y ago
-_- https://www.blackbox.cool/ https://www.blackbox.cool/
dmritard96 10y ago
One thing to note - they started out taking pre-orders but decided they didn't like this as they realized the startups have no control over their shipping schedule...
CodeSheikh 10y ago
A potentially decent platform for hardware products. I would like to see something similar for software products to.
threepipeproblm 10y ago
Featuring Lieutenant Wesley Crusher
Mahn 10y ago
Your product has to be absolutely extraordinary to pass such an extensive list of vetting partners [1], in which case there's a good chance you would do fine selling on your own and generating your own word of mouth buzz if you ask me. If you invent the next iPhone you are probably going to do well even if don't sell on Amazon. [1] https://www.amazon.com/gp/launchpad/network https://www.amazon.com/gp/launchpad/network
- fpgaminer 10y ago
  Doesn't seem that way to me, as a lot of the products that end up on Launchpad have a below 4-star rating, and they seem to currently have about 3,000 products listed. I also don't see how a lot of those products really deserve to be in the list.
rexreed 10y ago
This looks like it's only for physical products? I was hoping to see something for digital services built on AWS
- smcnally 10y ago
  They have the AWS Marketplace https://aws.amazon.com/marketplace https://aws.amazon.com/marketplace That along your lines?
bignis 10y ago
I'm interested in the flip side of this. How, as a consumer, can I discover cool new products from startups that Amazon thinks are noteworthy? I wish the also announced an section of the website like amazon.com/launchpadproducts where I could see a list of qualified products.
- fpgaminer 10y ago
  They've been popping on the Amazon home page for me for about a year now, and usually one of the graphics will link to a larger list of launchpad products. I like to check it out every now and then see if there is anything interesting (it's how I discovered that Amazon started carrying Soylent products). This link seems to work to cut right to the listings: https://www.amazon.com/b/ref=br_imp?node=12034488011&pf_rd_i=desktop&tag=progranism-20&_encoding=UTF8 https://www.amazon.com/b/ref=br_imp?node=12034488011&pf_rd_i... EDIT: Actually, there's a link right at the top of the OP's page titled "Shop the Store"
Animats 10y ago
Blackbox.cool [1] just got run over by a tank. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12356218 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12356218
govindpatel 10y ago
when I saw the word "amazon launchpad", I thought it has something to do with amazon web services. later, I found that both are completely different from each other.

275 points by ankit84 10y ago

It's not evident what's new, but this initiative was announced a year ago, here's the article: "Amazon Takes On Product Hunt, Shopify With Launchpad, An All-In-One Marketing And Sales Portal" [1] [1]https://techcrunch.com/2015/07/28/amazon-takes-on-product-hunt-shopify-with-launchpad-an-all-in-one-marketing-and-sales-portal/ https://techcrunch.com/2015/07/28/amazon-takes-on-product-hu...

firloop 10y ago
That headline pitting Product Hunt and Amazon against each other is kind of funny because they eventually teamed up around Launchpad. https://medium.com/product-hunt/teaming-up-with-amazon-d7f9a05fa6a1 https://medium.com/product-hunt/teaming-up-with-amazon-d7f9a...
- giarc 10y ago
  The amazing thing is the growth of PH from simple mailing list to important part of the startup ecosystem.
Applejinx 10y ago
It's for just this sort of reason that I took my DSP plugin business 'Airwindows.com' to a Patreon-only model when my 'shopify' (Kagi) went bust recently. It's getting pretty weird out there. This is very much about obliterating things like Shopify: helping startups is strictly tangential and/or temporary. It's all about the strategic moves and trying to prevent other players in the sector from growing. If they don't grow, they die, so seizing control is worth anything.

rm_-rf_slash 10y ago

I'm sure I'm not alone in having concerns about how ruthlessly centralizing Amazon is making the shopping experience for just about everything but groceries (because I will never trust anyone to pick my meats and produce for me), but if Amazon Launchpad works as well as this advertisement claims it will, then I cannot for the life of me think of a better means and marketplace to trial new products. Maybe if your product does really well they'll set you up with a Dash button.

frabcus 10y ago
Indeed, I recommend this blog post about Dash by Simon Wardley, to see where it is inevitably going: http://blog.gardeviance.org/2015/04/so-amazon-fired-warning-shot-at.html http://blog.gardeviance.org/2015/04/so-amazon-fired-warning-...
- harigov 10y ago
  Although some of the points made by the blog are interesting, he is underestimating somethings. You don't need a buy button on the boxes at all, computer vision can auto-detect the brand and let Amazon offer you an option to buy it with little effort. You can do that today with barcode. Amazon already has all the infrastructure from "buying" to "shipping product to consumer". All they are doing is making buying easier - it's not revolutionary but a logical step forward. All said, retail stores should definitely be worried about this because Amazon is making it extremely easy to buy stuff now.
lowglow 10y ago
You could try to come over and prototype your new products with Baqqer.
tedmiston 10y ago
> because I will never trust anyone to pick my meats and produce for me Even the grocery store themselves? eg Kroger ClickList
- maxerickson 10y ago
  A store I go to usually has good produce but occasionally fails to take aging stuff off the shelf. Getting the picker to follow my subjective taste as far as what is too old is a bit of a problem. Of course the solution is for the store to rotate the produce faster, but there is probably a reason they don't.
  - tedmiston 10y ago
    I know from a friend working on the project that this is a common sentiment about produce. I'm not sure if it's something they have addressed yet. For my preferences I think it could be doable: How do you want your bananas? [a scale of 5 banana pictures from bright green to spotted... pick one]

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

estefan 10y ago

Interesting. I've just been reading about using alibaba with freight forwarders and shopify to create online shops where you can sell on Amazon. This might make it even easier.

pjc50 10y ago
That's kind of a low-margin business though, because it's so easy to get into and you're not really adding any value as a alibaba reseller.
- estefan 10y ago
  It depends on what you're having manufactured. I was thinking of original products. But I'd be doing it more to learn about supply chains, manufacturing, etc. and the problems people face. Plus, some of those sites support plugins and have their own ecosystems, so I might see opportunities for automation other people have missed.

jasode 10y ago

Here's my take on it and someone can chime in if I'm wrong on the details... Imagine you're a startup/inventor that manufactures a widget that you'd like to sell to the mass market, you could either (1) try to sell direct from your website (2) get on the shelves of national stores like Best Buy, Target, Walmart, etc. The "shelves" include the real ones at their brick & mortar stores and the virtual shelves on their online websites. (1) is hard to attract shoppers since nobody knows about your low-traffic website. Also, you'd have to handle the hassle of fulfillment yourself. Amazon Launchpad leverages their competency in global logistics to do this for you. (2) is difficult to get meetings with corporate retail buyers and convince them to carry your product. Sometimes, there are also "slotting fees" (sometimes aka "bribes") to get prime shelf locations (eye level vs the floor.) What Amazon is doing is opening up their "shelves" which includes the prime pixels real estate on their front page to promote startups' products. They are actively marketing your product. This is a different initiative from passively showing the 3rd-party marketplace sellers on amazon product pages. However, to filter out the low quality junk and avoid every garage warrior trying to sell their flavor of homemade barbeque sauce, the products have to come from "the approved network"[1] that includes firms such as a16z, Accel Partners, etc. If we scan that list of affiliates, we'd expect the products vetted by them to be "cutting edge" and "innovative". What's not specified in all the press releases and FAQ about Amazon Launchpad is the type of payment structure Amazon expects. Is it negiotiated on a product-by-product basis? Is it flat percentage? [1]https://www.amazon.com/gp/launchpad/network https://www.amazon.com/gp/launchpad/network [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slotting_fee https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slotting_fee

dandare 10y ago
I wish there was an AI bot that would summarize any marketing speak to such a useful summary like you did. Also I wonder what would such bot translate my product description to :D
- misiti3780 10y ago
  that is a nice idea, but i think we are unfortunately years away from that. i dont have time at the moment, but take this article and run it though this state of the art algorithm and see what comes out: https://research.googleblog.com/2016/08/text-summarization-with-tensorflow.html https://research.googleblog.com/2016/08/text-summarization-w...

webtechgal 10y ago

A quick question here while I check some more: Are pure-play software (SaaS etc.) and/or digital goods startups eligible for this?

tedmiston 10y ago
Since that is… most of us, I'm curious to hear more from the software side too.
trjordan 10y ago
I can't imagine it is. The benefits appear to be: 1) Initial marketing testing through Amazon storefronts. 2) Fulfillment and logistics. 3) Promotion on the same level as other Amazon products. This doesn't seem valuable to pure-software products.

josu 10y ago

Why is their logo so degraded [1]? [1] https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/G/01/boost/landing/img/FormLogo._CB314969857_.jpg https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/G/01/boost/la...

phonon 10y ago
Because it's a jpeg and not a png. Jpeg will show artifacts (smudging and mosquito noise) in high contrast areas and flat fields of color. PNG is lossless, and well suited to compress repeating color values mixed with high frequency signals.
- apetresc 10y ago
  While true, this is still well below the upper bound of quality JPG is capable of.
  - phonon 10y ago
    OK, "for a given data budget". The image in question is compressed 13:1 PNG would match that size and be lossless.
    - phonon 10y ago
      Here is a similar version and size of the jpeg logo, that I created from a clean source. It is about 40% smaller (in bits) than the jpeg. http://i.imgur.com/DlJ2uFX.png http://i.imgur.com/DlJ2uFX.png
      - apetresc 10y ago
        Again, I'm not disagreeing that PNG is better. I'm saying that, even if you insist on JPG, you can still do much better than what Amazon's got going on 90% of their splash pages.
        phonon 10y ago

Negative1 10y ago

This is an interesting idea in that it basically becomes the store for post-kickstarter projects that had traction but not enough to negotiate a contract with major retailers. Great idea -- I hope it takes off (no pun intended).

phonon 10y ago
Yup, pretty much exactly. http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160727005323/en/ http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160727005323/en/ "Amazon Launchpad announced today the creation of a Kickstarter Collection (www.amazon.com/launchpad/kickstarter), featuring more than 300 Kickstarter products available for purchase on Amazon.com" http://www.amazon.com/launchpad/kickstarter http://www.amazon.com/launchpad/kickstarter

kdamken 10y ago

This looks like a site that someone in a foreign country who was trying to pretend to be amazon would make to trick people. Did they fire all of their designers or something?

dansze 10y ago
I'm not convinced they hired any in the first place, based on what their branding and internal processes.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

gortok 10y ago

Some notes: 1. Amazon Launchpad will ask for a few sample units to test. What they actually mean is that they sell these units. So, don't send Amazon units until you're ready to part with them and put them in your customer's hands. Here's Vendor Express (their vendor management system) on that topic: > We'll sometimes request a minimum sample of free units of your product so that we can evaluate the demand from our customers before placing an initial purchase order. After your product sells, we may start issuing purchase orders. So, if you're a Kickstarter or Indie-go-go project and you want to sell your product on Amazon as well, you'll likely be going through Launchpad. This can get... uncomfortable for you if you send them test units before your Kickstarter backers get theirs. 2. Amazon's ToS for Vendor Express specifically states that they can rescind/change their Purchase Order at any moment before the product physically arrives at their fulfillment center. I've heard stories of startups having their P.O. reduced by half and having to eat that cost. When you're a young startup, capital is everything. Other resources for understanding more about manufacturing costs: https://www.quora.com/How-do-I-go-about-budgeting-manufacturing-costs-for-a-startup-technology-product https://www.quora.com/How-do-I-go-about-budgeting-manufactur... http://www.andrewjdupree.com/blog/2016/8/3/how-long-does-it-take-to-manufacture-a-hardware-product http://www.andrewjdupree.com/blog/2016/8/3/how-long-does-it-...

mandeepj 10y ago

Although, amazon is saying they welcome all startups but looks like this launchpad is only for companies having a physical product. I think you can't apply if you have an app to launch.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

kristianc 10y ago

My take on this is that it sounds an awful lot like a sensing network for Amazon to discover which products are taking off and if it's viable to produce a low cost clone. At which point Amazon will not only have cloned your product, but also own your main distribution channel. Approach with caution?

jdcarter 10y ago
There's certainly precedent for that: http://www.geek.com/news/amazonbasics-is-copying-all-the-best-products-on-amazon-and-selling-them-for-less-1652879/ http://www.geek.com/news/amazonbasics-is-copying-all-the-bes... However it may be a risk worth taking: on the one hand, you have a distribution channel that could help you take off, but might compete with you later. On the other, you'd have to run your own distribution, and it's less likely your product would ever take off in the first place.
- Pyxl101 10y ago
  > However it may be a risk worth taking: on the one hand, you have a distribution channel that could help you take off, but might compete with you later. If you're worried about this, then you should also worry that competitors might compete with you anyway, whether or not you use their distribution channels. The real question to consider is whether using their channel makes them more likely to compete with your or less, weighed against the other tradeoffs.
shostack 10y ago
I too have wondered about this as well as how AWS might also be a signaling point for an analyst to point out other services Amazon might want to get into. How different is this from store brands in the grocery store? He who owns the distribution calls the shots. The digital world was supposed to free suppliers from this with infinite shelf space but instead it just morphed into a slightly different and much more dangerous beast.
- kristianc 10y ago
  That is the purpose of AWS and APN. APN is actually a fairly similar offer to this.

billyshih 10y ago

I've been using this for my dog toy that I launched on Kickstarter and it has worked out amazing. The only downside is you don't have control over what they price at since you're selling products wholesale to them. But for the amount of work that it takes (very little), it's a great trade off.

egypturnash 10y ago
Are there any costs beyond (I assume) wanting to buy your thing at a wholesale price? I've got a graphic novel I just kickstarted and am curious about this program, but they won't take any applications that aren't about a month from shipping.

vonklaus 10y ago

Stripe Atlas for retail.

blairanderson 10y ago

I used to sell hardware to amazon. Here's my take on this. This boils down to a whitelist which allows companies to skip the traditional sales/retail-contract process required for a manufacturer to become a vendor. This is not a service that Amazon will sell, essentially a loss leader to get vendors into the network. Normally for brands that are new, Amazon requires a unique product line or price or some differentiator. A well established rep can easily get them in the door. I typically recommend that brands: 1. Start selling online ASAP 2. Start selling on Amazon ASAP 3. As sales grow, become an Amazon vendor

jedicoffee 10y ago

-_- https://www.blackbox.cool/ https://www.blackbox.cool/

govindpatel 10y ago
well I am not sure what does this comment has to do with "Amazon Launchpad", But they have a really cool header animation.

jedicoffee 10y ago

-_- https://www.blackbox.cool/ https://www.blackbox.cool/

dmritard96 10y ago

One thing to note - they started out taking pre-orders but decided they didn't like this as they realized the startups have no control over their shipping schedule...

CodeSheikh 10y ago

A potentially decent platform for hardware products. I would like to see something similar for software products to.

threepipeproblm 10y ago

Featuring Lieutenant Wesley Crusher

Mahn 10y ago

Your product has to be absolutely extraordinary to pass such an extensive list of vetting partners [1], in which case there's a good chance you would do fine selling on your own and generating your own word of mouth buzz if you ask me. If you invent the next iPhone you are probably going to do well even if don't sell on Amazon. [1] https://www.amazon.com/gp/launchpad/network https://www.amazon.com/gp/launchpad/network

fpgaminer 10y ago
Doesn't seem that way to me, as a lot of the products that end up on Launchpad have a below 4-star rating, and they seem to currently have about 3,000 products listed. I also don't see how a lot of those products really deserve to be in the list.

rexreed 10y ago

This looks like it's only for physical products? I was hoping to see something for digital services built on AWS

smcnally 10y ago
They have the AWS Marketplace https://aws.amazon.com/marketplace https://aws.amazon.com/marketplace That along your lines?

bignis 10y ago

I'm interested in the flip side of this. How, as a consumer, can I discover cool new products from startups that Amazon thinks are noteworthy? I wish the also announced an section of the website like amazon.com/launchpadproducts where I could see a list of qualified products.

fpgaminer 10y ago
They've been popping on the Amazon home page for me for about a year now, and usually one of the graphics will link to a larger list of launchpad products. I like to check it out every now and then see if there is anything interesting (it's how I discovered that Amazon started carrying Soylent products). This link seems to work to cut right to the listings: https://www.amazon.com/b/ref=br_imp?node=12034488011&pf_rd_i=desktop&tag=progranism-20&_encoding=UTF8 https://www.amazon.com/b/ref=br_imp?node=12034488011&pf_rd_i... EDIT: Actually, there's a link right at the top of the OP's page titled "Shop the Store"

Animats 10y ago

Blackbox.cool [1] just got run over by a tank. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12356218 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12356218

govindpatel 10y ago

when I saw the word "amazon launchpad", I thought it has something to do with amazon web services. later, I found that both are completely different from each other.