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A 24-year-old made $345K in 2 months by beating Kickstarters to market
- mcphage 10y agoTime is definitely huge. I've got one of the knock-off fidget cubes on my desk right now, a Christmas gift, but my kickstarter-backed one doesn't arrive until later today. I expect the real one to be higher quality, but it seriously got scooped.
- gambiting 10y agoYeah, I supported the so-called NiftyDrive(a micro-sd adapter that fits within your SD card port in a macbook) because it was such a cool idea at a time - but they had several delays, and in that time, I could just get an identical adapter off ebay, delivered next day, for 1/3 of the price.
- madebysquares 10y agoAlso, supported the nifty drive... great idea, by the time I got it, I didn't need it anymore.
- mcphage 10y agoToday's mail arrived, and yes, as expected, the KS version is nicer (except for a few things).
- Overtonwindow 10y agoWow! I can't decide if this is innovation, disruption, or something a little less than ethical. I also wonder what the IP issues about this might be.
- devmunchies 10y ago> innovation, disruption, or something a little less than ethical ¿Por qué no los tres?
- rebootthesystem 10y agoDefinitivamente los tres.
- bbctol 10y agoThose three almost always go hand in hand in hand.
- spaceflunky 10y agoSo basically this kid made money by selling cheap knockoffs before the original designers could launch a patent lawsuit? Seems like the moral of the story is that you can make some money before the slow gears of our patent system kick in. Also, links to those stupid inflatable bags on alibaba were everywhere once the kickstarter went viral. The article makes it sound like the kid magically found it.
- iaw 10y ago> selling cheap knockoffs I'm not sure how you define a cheap knockoff, but in this case it seems like he's using the same supply chain that the kickstarter campaigners did > before the original designers I fear that you reveal you didn't read the article. The first product he ordered and sold was five years old, paraphrasing the article "the only thing new was the buzz from the indiegogo campaign" > launch a patent lawsuit Woah now there skipper. You're assuming that the people creating the campaigns are the original inventors, that their inventions are patent eligible, that they have filed a patent, and that they can afford to protect them.
- raesene6 10y agoIn the case of the main example (fidget cube) that's pretty much what's happening, from what I've seen. As their kickstarter campaign went viral, several clones started being offered on aliexpress and the like. They are flat out clones, look just like the original and (AFAIK) there's not some common ancestor here that they're both copying, it's a case of Antsy labs had the original design and that got cloned. Antsy labs have been aware of the knockoffs and have actively been trying to prevent them (to little effect from what I've seen) and as it mentions in the article there is a patent pending on Fidget cube. The problem for the Kickstarter creators is that they're basically slower to market than the clones, and in many cases the consumer doesn't really recognise the difference (if you look at twitter etc you can see quite a few people angry about "bad quality" fidget cubes they've received which turn out to be knockoffs)
- iaw 10y ago
- devmunchies 10y agoI'd say lots of these entrepreneurs are designers or engineers who were passionate about an idea they had and began crowdsourcing their idea, without much business experience. They are gonna learn the hard way that time to market is a bfd. A product is absolutely useless until its in the hands of the consumer.
- koreyb 10y agoWhat wasn't said in the article/video is that Chinese mfgs are scooping kickstarter. One of many stress cube listings on Alibaba https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/Hottest-stress-cube-in-stock_60580604549.html?spm=a2700.7724838.0.0.yOaWG7 https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/Hottest-stress-cube-i...
- JoblessWonder 10y ago? Did you read the article? They literally say that and show a screenshot. "As with Cozy Bag, Chinese manufacturers on Alibaba had been offering comparable products since shortly after the Kickstarter appeared."
- koreyb 10y agoRe-read what I wrote. The 24 yr old is good at marketing..not doing anything special. The interesting aspect is that Chinese mfgs are all over Kickstarter. As others have written, makes it a more difficult proposition going forward.
- yazaddaruvala 10y agoStep 1. Launch a Kickstarter - without any plan for manufacturing. Step 2. Wait for Chinese manufacturing to copy it. Step 3. Buy as many of the product from those manufacturers. Step 4. Deliver to Kickstarter backers ahead of schedule. Zero risk, minimal effort, and happy Kickstarter backers. All Kickstarters should adopt this model.
- lawless123 10y agoOh god that might actually work..
- rtkwe 10y agoIt's at least a little risky because you're depending on the Chinese knock off coming in at the right price. Though I guess you could just sit on the Kickstarter money while you wait so you don't have to raise money if one doesn't materialize.
- ChrisBland 10y agoSo RocketInternet but with products instead of websites?
- vthallam 10y agoHaha. Actually, RocketInternet is for startups/websites like the age old knockoff's for products. This is nothing new, but he must be good at marketing.
- Cshelton 10y agoI dunno, I see this more as an Instagram marketing play than a 'knock-off' play. The fidget cube is little significance, it could have been anything. He found a trend, got supply, and marketed it on the right channels.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- ChuckMcM 10y agoThe value of execution. Being able to get something done is a powerful thing and this is one way it can be monetized. Reminds me of the German startup knockoff company that made its mark doing successful US startups in Europe.
- beaconstudios 10y agothat company is called Rocket Internet, for anyone who wants to look into this story.
- mosselman 10y agoDo I understand correctly from reading the comments here that he just found the 'knock-offs' on alibaba and ordered them? The article made it seem as if he actually created the knock-offs himself and then found a factory to make them for him. Which is it? Also, if I had an idea for a small little toy/gadget, how would I have to go about finding someone in the world who can make it for me in a factory?
- rijoja 10y agoYes, somebody other than him made the products. He didn't actually make blueprints and make a Chinese factory make them. The real genius is some forgotten guy in China. He made at least 50'000 USD which I suppose buys you a lot more status in China. I really don't like being negative but this article feels has the same feeling as the Taboola ads at the bottom of the page. This guy made a smart deal sure, but really he didn't create anything new so I'm a bit disappointed with the article since it's not about someone who managed to complete an engineering project in record time or something really cool... but just a $ sign to spark interest. If you want to manufacture something I guess that you go about basically the same way as you would if you wanted to find a company that creates a software product.
- mosselman 10y agoThank you, and the rest of the commenters for the answer, the title and article where somewhat misleading and I didn't watch the video. You are right about the article being poor, it is basically just click bait and it is annoying to have to waste brain energy on trying to decipher this incoherent story. On the plus side though, I have just learned that alibaba factories try to outpace kickstarters and the like, that is pretty interesting and quite clever, despite the sneakiness.
- Mithaldu 10y agoA good way to handle stories like this is to flag them.
- candiodari 10y ago
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- koolba 10y agoLink is dead for me. Get's a 404 on CNBC's site. Here's the Google cache of it: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:LGuJ4sNwuEIJ:www.cnbc.com/2017/01/30/a-24-year-old-made-345000-by-beating-kickstarters-to-market.html http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:LGuJ4sN...
- nodivbyzero 10y agoPage not found
- sireat 10y agoArticle is not quite clear but it appears it was $345K in sales not net. The guy's edge is marketing which has been always been the great differentiator. Of course, it could be just luck as there must be thousands of people attempting the same type of "business". Reminds of that Ipod clone kid in Australia which HN had an article about a few years ago. Made some 100K from selling iPod clones in late 200Xs.
- giarc 10y agoIt is confusing, but it appears he paid $70,000 for the product, throw in $5-10 for site, ads, marketing etc. Still doing quite well.
- StavrosK 10y agoHere's a viable business model (I want 10% of profits): * Create Kickstarter with innovative new idea, take money and fund it. * Wait for someone in China to copy it. * Order the things at a massive discount (ie their normal price). * Send them to your backers. Keep the rest of the money for making a single slick video.
- koolba 10y agoHow about this improved business model: * Create Kickstarter with innovative new idea, take money and fund it. * Wait for someone in China to copy it. * Order the things at a massive discount (ie their normal price). * Set up a new store to sell the knock offs. * Stiff your backers. You end up with all the kickstarter money and the knock off money but only have to pay for half the merchandise.
- karmakaze 10y agoOf course, once it becomes a pattern there will be the Chinese corollary, that appears to maka a knockoff, then waits for a big order.
- koolba 10y agoWas going to add a part about stiffing the chinese suppliers as well but you'd probably end up like this guy (separate article currently on HN front page): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13532856 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13532856 https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/31/world/asia/xiao-jianhua-china-hong-kong-billionaire.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/31/world/asia/xiao-jianhua-c...
- cushychicken 10y agoYou could call it "Startup LLC Jackson". https://twitter.com/StartupLJackson/status/608298575538159617 https://twitter.com/StartupLJackson/status/60829857553815961...
- Asooka 10y ago
- satysin 10y agoJust looked up the Fidget Cube. It is $22?! Yet the Stress Cube "knockoff" is under $5. It is a little plastic and vinyl cube with some switches. Not to mention the Fidget Cube is still on pre-order whereas it looks like the Stress Cube has been available since around the end of last year. Is it a kinda crappy thing to do? Yeah I think so. However how on earth are Antsy Labs not selling these things yet?
- Falling3 10y agoAlso worth mentioning that the quality of the stress cube is not great. A coworker ordered one and two of the pieces didn't work out of the box. It's very grainy looking plastic (almost seems 3-d printed) that was poorly glued together. But 5 vs 22 is a fairly big price differential.
- trizic 10y agoUsually if you ask a company for a customized product it won't happen or you have to be willing to put a lot of money in it. But if you go through the work of mocking up your imagined product on Kickstarter, China may get it to the market for you at no cost.
- HeyLaughingBoy 10y agoNow that's true innovation!
- oceanofsolaris 10y agoWhat seems weird about this is that he did very little of actual 'beating Kickstarters to the market'. If you read the article, he is just selling things that are already listed on alibaba(so it's the chinese manufacturers who are beating Kickstarters to the market). So the question is: where does the margin of the guy in the article come from? If you read the article, he bought the toys for 2.5$ or so on alibaba and sold them for 20$. That's quite a markup for...some marketing. You could at any time probably have gone to aliexpress and gotten the same thing for 4$ including shipping. I think the answer is that not enough people in China are savy in how to market their products to US+EU. And not enough people from US+EU are aware of the gadget candy-store that is Aliexpress. The overall profit is too small for a large company to swoop in, so what is left are some shady indiegogo campains (that try to sell a product that is already offered on alibaba) and the kind of company portrayed in this article.
- bambax 10y agoOrdering things on Aliexpress as a "normal" customer is not a great shopping experience because: - there are thousands of sellers selling the same thing and finding the one that isn't a scam is difficult -- not difficult as in, flying to Mars, but harder than ordering from Amazon FBA (although AMZ is getting worse by the minute in this regard) - shipping times are VERY long (3 to 5 weeks) unless you're willing to double the purchase price for express shipping (which will still take around a week) Therefore, there is opportunity for arbitrage where you order lots of gadgets and then sell them in your local market with very good shipping times (and less choice between competing, identical offers).
- cableshaft 10y agoI mean, I ordered a few of these on Amazon for $5 apiece just a couple of weeks ago, so yeah, you can definitely get them that cheap.
- drewmate 10y agoThere's an excellent documentary on the hardware/hacking ecosystem in Shenzhen on YouTube: https://youtu.be/SGJ5cZnoodY https://youtu.be/SGJ5cZnoodY . A lot of people there seem to embrace the ethos of moving fast and ignoring IP laws (both original creator and spoofer) because by the time you get a lawsuit or patent filed, the tech will have moved far beyond what you were trying to protect, and it will no longer be worth your time. Basically, move fast and try to keep up. It's crazy how fast the tech cycles are there.
- Main_ 10y agoThx, very interesting documentary.
- beautifulfreak 10y agoI wonder how a person in the West can connect with people in Shenzen to import products, or even to collaborate. There are niches I think are ripe for targeting here, if they only knew there. Can anyone recommend a meeting place online?
- angry-hacker 10y agoAlibaba?
- Eridrus 10y agoI was looking at making an IoT doodad recently that already had a pretty crowded market because everyone who is currently making the same basic idea, including US and Chinese manufacturers, sucks at software. The one US-based iteration of this product, understands what consumers want, but it's software very much looks like it was produced by hardware people. It works, but only barely. I bought it second hand yesterday and there are already two software-only features I would add that would have increased the usefulness of the product significantly. The Chinese versions are so damn cheap, I wanted to buy one, but their software (even from xiaomi) doesn't even meet my basic requirements. Part of this is probably the fact that consumers (like me) are stingy and software developers are expensive, and you have to keep paying them even after you've gotten all the money you're going to get from consumers since people hate paying for subscriptions. Maybe these knock off makers will get better with software, I don't know, but at the moment I feel like there's a big gap in what knock off makers can do.
- HeyLaughingBoy 10y agoGood for him!!! I had a similar idea years ago where I was searching through RentACoder projects for potential product ideas. I figured that there had to be a few gems in there, but never found anything worthwhile. Glad to see someone else made the same concept work!
- s369610 10y agoSaw the article mention FollowLiker http://www.followliker.com http://www.followliker.com not really sure what it does. Is it for creating a bunch of fake accounts?
- serge2k 10y agoMan makes business out of identifying market, finding supplier, ordering product, reselling at higher price. Amazing.
- candiodari 10y agoAnd all of the "I have an idea I just need a technical cofounder" (ie. management and sales and wannabees of every company) cried out in horror, tears, and injustice !