THE BROKEN HOVERBOARD SUPPLY CHAIN [PART 3: HOW IT TURNED SOUR] Published by Silicon.NYC

By summer 2015, it became evident that our company was in a mad-dash to stay atop the Hoverboard industry as the market leader. Everyone and their grandmother were looking for the “segway” hoverboard as cheap as possible. Demand for the product was sky-rocketing and in order to stay ahead of the pack we needed an abundance of inventory to be continuously selling.

We figured, okay well other companies are now competing with us, so all we have to do is sell more product than them. This was our second horrible decision since the company went viral, as we soon found out and learned the hard way.

Back in late 2014, we had the opportunity to personally meet the Chinese factory owners we were purchasing our units from. This factory had developed a Chinese patent around their device and so, as a reseller here in the United States, our company felt confident that we were purchasing and re-selling the highest quality Hoverboard on the market.

When we first ordered our 20–30 Hoverboard units from this factory, we experienced zero delays in shipment. In fact, ordering Hoverboard units at this time was no big deal, primarily because the world (on a mass scale) wasn’t aware that the product even existed.

This seamless ordering process changed dramatically however, by the time May 2015 came. By the end of May, millions of people had become aware of our Hoverboard product because of the massive reach celebrities like Kendall Jenner and Justin Bieber had on social media when they would promote our company. The general public was becoming mesmerized by the Hoverboard, day by day. People even started seeing an opportunity to make a quick buck by re-selling the product themselves.

Suddenly, there was a massive number of people in the States demanding Hoverboards. But these Hoverboards weren’t just being purchased for personal use but rather for re-selling. New companies each day were popping up on the internet such as Buzzwheel, Monorover, Uniwheel, Skywalker, along with so many others by the time June 2015 came around.

These companies were being started by one or two individuals who would order 10–30 units from China in order to flip them for a profit here in the States. This saturation of the Hoverboard marketplace suddenly resulted in a significant jump in demand, which then put major pressure on Chinese factories to produce and ship Hoverboards by the millions.

The Chinese factories weren’t the only ones feeling the pressure. We were feeling intense pressure of our own. We were getting hundreds of orders per week, but we didn’t have adequate inventory to fulfill the demand we were receiving.

When delays in shipment started taking place, we would contact our factory usually between 12 – 4 AM EST due to the 12 hour time zone difference, trying to find out the status of our shipment. We would get in contact with our factory having to deal with incredibly difficult language barriers and we would continuously hear some of the following responses from our factory:

1. "Sorry for the delay, we will get your shipment out tomorrow."

2. "We're finishing up production very soon, don't worry."

3. "There was a delay with the shipping company, but we're fixing the issue."

These responses from our factory were excuses. Oftentimes, they were simply lies. Our factory was clearly not in a position to ship us our Hoverboards, but they were denying this fact by coming up with various excuses for the delay in our shipment. They were so inundated with other companies ordering their Hoverboards that they couldn’t keep up with the rise in demand that had taken place.

Once our shipment would finally arrive, there would frequently be issues. Oftentimes, we would only receive partial shipments of our order to the office. For example, we would have a 500 piece order scheduled for delivery and only receive 200 pieces. Then it would take another two full weeks before we received the remaining 300 Hoverboards.

Other times, we would receive our shipment of Hoverboards, but the keys wouldn’t be in the boxes accompanying the Hoverboards. Our keys were shipped separately and our small team would have to manually match up the keys for each Hoverboard individually by serial numbers on each of the Hoverboard boxes. It was a big pain that could only be solved through sheer force of will (and manual labor).

Our company took a big hit due to these problems that we simply didn’t have the ability to fix. This lack of consistency really damaged our reputation, as our company was on a high following the viral success of not only Hoverboards, but our company as the place to go for them.

The four week delay in shipment started creating miserable experiences for our young startup. It resulted in our customers calling our office, yelling and screaming at us trying to find out why their Hoverboard, which they had just spent $1,500 on, still hadn’t arrived.

Most importantly, the problems we had with our Chinese manufacturer made the simple task of fulfilling orders very difficult. This four week delay gave consumers the impression that our company was a scam, which a young business simply can’t afford. When customers didn’t receive their Hoverboards anywhere close to when we told them they would, they logically started concluding that our company had stolen money from them. It was at this point where things started to take a massive turn for the worse. These customers started calling their credit card companies complaining, and the results of these complaints resulted in one thing, disputes!

Stay tuned for Part 4, on Why Going Viral Sucks…

Big thanks to the team over a Silicon.NYC for allowing me to begin contributing to their publication. This was my first article published on their site and you can definitely check out this story and plenty more other exciting technology oriented stories over at Silicon.NYC.

COPYCAT HOVERBOARD STARTUPS POSE MAJOR THREAT [PART 2: A CAUTIONARY TALE] Published by Silicon.NYC

With the viral explosion of the hoverboard, thanks in large part to celebrity promoters, our original hoverboard startup was on cloud nine. We continued full steam ahead with our promotional strategy, which in hindsight, was the first in a series of problems we would experience.

So when we had the opportunity to work with the famous rapper Soulja Boy, we quickly grabbed at the chance. After he rode Chris Brown’s, he realized he just had to have one.
Having just gifted Chris Brown three hoverboards a week earlier, we also decided to give three hoverboards to Soulja Boy in exchange for his promotion. We figured that we would see the return on this investment quickly, especially considering how our most recent influencer posts performed.

It was a hastily made decision that would come back to haunt us.

As we got more media coverage, we noticed a threatening problem developing: identical looking, but lower quality hoverboards started to appear on e-commerce sites like Amazon and Alibaba, selling at half the price of our’s.

These cheaper hoverboards were so shodily made that we feared they would affect our own product’s reputation, as they later would when government regulations would begin cracking down….

To thwart competition, we decided to heavily push our celebrity marketing strategy, such as collaborating with Justin Beiber and Soulja Boy.

So when a week later, our team received a notification from Soulja Boy, assuming that he came through with his social media post promoting us and our product, we clicked the notification excitedly only to discover it was thrilling in the worst possible way.

It turned out that Soulja Boy liked our hoverboard technology so much that he decided to start his own company called “Soulja BOARDS.” Just like that, Soulja Boy officially joined the ranks of the 50+ other competitors selling hoverboards at the time.

For any early-stage startup, witnessing identical companies popping up shortly after you just launched virally is debilitating to say the least. Those same companies were tail-riding on the massive wave of popularity that our company started, just at a lower price and lower quality level, adding intensive pressure to your own startup to grow.

Not only were our influencers informing the world of our product, but they also were demonstrating to the world how simple it is to start a hoverboard company. 

How do you compete under those circumstances?

The competitive landscape for hoverboards was heating up. Millions of people worldwide witnessing the opportunities available in the market were trying to get in the game. This massive saturation about to occur meant only one thing: our company had to stay equally as competitive against our hoverboard by having higher hoverboard sales.

The only way to do that was to have inventory to resell, which is where our next big problem came into play, and why ultimately, our company was suffering from the very early decision to use celebrities to go viral.

The drawbacks of going viral were about to become all too apparent. Find out how in the next article in this series, coming soon!

Stay tuned for Part 3, on Why Going Viral Sucks…

Big thanks to the team over a Silicon.NYC for allowing me to begin contributing to their publication. This was my first article published on their site and you can definitely check out this story and plenty more other exciting technology oriented stories over at Silicon.NYC.

Mental Toughness: A Few Keys To Handling Viral Growth

When you launch a company and its goes viral so many different decisions end up coming your way, and those decisions all feel like they need to be made at once. Your business is getting so much attention in such a limited amount of time that the risk of getting pulled in SO many different directions is sky high. So it begs the question. What can you do to prepare yourself mentally for launching a viral growth company?

This is an interesting question because in my opinion having rock solid mental toughness plays a major factor in launching and sustaining any successful business. Entrepreneurs are constantly faced with various circumstances and decisions that require proper mental balance and thinking in order to make as many correct decisions as you can.

Of course it’s subjective based on where you are in your company’s lifecycle, but certain questions entrepreneurs are regularly pondering, or in some cases have rattling in their heads are:

1. Is it the proper time to finally launch my company?

2. Should I meet with person “X” in order to achieve outcome “Y” or person “A” to achieve outcome “B?”

3. Is it the optimal time for my company to try raising outside funding?

4. Is person “C” the best fit to perform task “D,” or is it time to hire someone to complete this task?

All of these SUPER important decisions require an entrepreneur to be thinking properly. If not you can end up witnessing a couple weeks go by, and you can make a few bad decisions, which results in your mental judgment feeling impaired, which then leads to self doubt, and confusion.

I think there are a few important things that all entrepreneurs need to be cognizant of and mentally prepared for when launching a company, especially one that goes viral. I’ve listed them below and would love to hear reader’s thoughts and feedback on them!

1. Just because you’ve gone viral doesn’t mean you’re made: Too often when an entrepreneur and their startup experiences viral growth they think the startup game is over and they’ve won. Boys and girls at that point the game has just begun. Only then when your company, brand, or product has gone viral is EVERY single other company and person in your space now aware of what you’re doing, and trying everything possible to disrupt your growth. If mentally you decide to take a break because you think you’ve made it, and you don’t recognize the new fiercely competitive landscape you’ve created, then your business is destined for failure.

2. Top level management needs to be mental brick walls: The people who are in charge at your company need to have mental toughness like no other. There’s no room for any panic attacks from your leaders, otherwise it will trickle down to confusion, questioning, and panic from your other team-members. When viral growth is peaking and you feel like there’s a million things to do, it’s at that point you need your leaders helping you determine what are the most important things to spend your time on. When your viral growth slows down and your company is faced with questions like “What do we do next?” Your leaders must be the ones setting the tone in terms of upcoming work so that you don’t feel clueless when you enter the office.

3. Don’t let mirages cloud your head: When your business goes viral certain mirages start to become created in your head. Maybe it’s a mirage of your retirement in Hawaii due to the millions of dollars in sales that are coming in. Perhaps it’s the mirage of you maybe one day getting the chance to meet Justin Bieber because he just endorsed your product. Either way these mirages need to be deleted from your head because they’re not happening unless your team continues to stay focused and execute where it needs to be executing. Too many times with my company PhunkeeDuck I personally saw, witnessed, and experienced these mirages that ultimately never came true and as a result they mentally clouded both mine and my team’s heads and impaired our ability to execute.

4. Meditate: If you have a startup and you don’t already meditate each day I would strongly suggest you begin doing so. Meditating for 10 minutes in the morning each day can help you clear your mind. By clearing your mind before the start of your business day it allows you to stay mentally clear throughout the course of it. During my time at PhunkeeDuck I believe I was able to recognize some of the red flags we experienced because I meditated on these problems each day. I recognized many of the problems our business and Hoverboards as a whole were experiencing during these meditations, and it allowed me to remove myself from the business earlier rather than later. Although at times I experienced certain mirages I think one of the ways I was able to see clearly through some of these mirages was because of meditating. I personally would suggest mobile app’s like HeadSpace and Calm for beginners who don’t know where to begin, or simply going on Youtube and trying out a couple 10 minute guided meditations.

Keeping Up With Kendall Jenner: AKA Tips For Working With Influencers

Kendall Jenner's First Video Riding A Hoverboard

Launching products is fun but creating a movement, as I learned, is an exhilarating and invaluable experience. In 2015 I played a prominent role in introducing the world to the hoverboard giving me the opportunity to work alongside a range of celebrities, athletes, and musicians. I also had the chance to work with an emerging breed of social media influencers who are easily just as effective at producing results for companies. In fact it was predominantly a result of these different influencer promotional campaigns why our company and our Hoverboard became the number one selling holiday gift of 2015.

Influencer marketing has become a hot button topic in the world of how to conduct viral marketing campaigns. Not only does everyone want to work with influencers but the market has become flooded with people trying to become their own influencer in the space or craft they specialize in. Considering how crowded the the influencer landscape has gotten can make things quite confusing to navigate.

In my experience working with celebrities & influencers there were plenty of lessons to be learned. Below I’ll share a few tips on how your company can work with influencers effectively and gain some traction with their help.

1. Plan ahead: You and your team should have a allocation of how much product you are willing to gift to influencers. This number varies depending on a variety of factors but ultimately it comes down to how much you’re able to produce and invest in this type of marketing. It is imperative that you create an allocation plan and stick to it. Otherwise you could run the risk of running out of inventory quicker than you expected. All of a sudden Bieber’s asking you for not one hoverboard but five. And you’re retrofitting the entire Kardashian family with hoverboards.

2. Expect the unexpected: Going somewhat in tandem with number one would be making sure your company has enough inventory on hand prior to working with celebrities. Since many of the celebrities live, party, and co-exist within the same circles it's very easy to have one celebrity endorsement of your product lead to multiple others. As a result if your company isn't prepared to handle that rush of influencers asking for your product, while simultaneously fulfilling all the orders that are coming from average customers who are purchasing your device, you are doomed!

3. Negotiate your engagement: We found that one post from a celebrity with a large following is not likely going to generate a huge sales spike for your business. Of course there are exceptions to this statement such as your product being perfectly in line with this celebrities audience. Therefore establishing a partnership with depth that requires multiple posts from this celebrity will help you obtain awareness, as opposed to just one. Consistency can lead to authenticity which makes an audience more likely to become interested in the product.

4. Free product goes a long way: When you have a hot “NEED TO HAVE” product simply gifting to celebrities can oftentimes get you whatever kind of promotion you desire. With the Hoverboard it was a must have item for every celebrity. Therefore we were able to go a long way simply gifting away product in exchange for promotion as opposed to having to pay them thousands of dollars while also gifting them product.

5. Treat them like people: Although Kendall Jenner and Justin Bieber are superstars believe it or not they are more down to earth than you could imagine. They are normal humans just like you and I. They like the same activities and things that ordinary people enjoy, they just have millions more people watching them do these activities. The quicker you realize this when trying to work with influencers and as a result communicate with them in the same manner you would communicate with your own business partners and friends the more authentic you will look in their eyes and the more willing they will be to work with you.

Ultimately I'm a big proponent of working with influencers and, if it makes sense for your company, you’ll want to make it a part of your marketing plan. Hopefully some of these tips can allow your company to conduct influencer marketing in the most mutually beneficial manner for you and the influencer. 

Touch People's Hearts - One Way To Go Viral For All The Right Reasons

Travis Rudolph eating lunch with autistic middle schooler Bo Paske

Too often the corporate mass media promotes senseless stories that not only go viral but literally take up the airwaves for weeks. You know, those absurd stories that make your head want to explode like the infamous Balloon Boy and Octomom from a few years ago that you might remember? These absurd stories clog the airwaves so frequently that it’s such a relief when you finally get to see the mainstream media report on a positive, and heartwarming story that deservedly so, causes viral disruption around the world. 

This past Thursday I became inspired by one of these stories and in my opinion this story was a “When Going Viral Works” moment. This was a story that was being communicated to millions of people overnight for all the right reasons. It wasn’t just the end result of this heartfelt story that inspired me, but as some readers might be able to guess it was the different reasons why the story went viral that motivated me to write today’s post. As this story showed sometimes the reasons for virality are so subtle, simple, and literally elementary that you would never think these kind of simplistic moves could make so much positive noise in the world. However sometimes it is these characteristics of ones actions that are the most effective and influential means for creating viral disruption. 

The story I’m referring to happened last Tuesday with a collegiate athlete from Florida State University. Star football player and Wide Receiver Travis Rudolph made an autistic child’s dream come true in the most spontaneous unplanned manner possible. Travis decided to join local middle schooler named “Bo Paske” for lunch in the cafeteria after seeing first hand and learning that the autistic youngster was frequently left sitting alone with no friends by his side to talk to. 

Even Travis didn’t realize how this simple and kind gesture of his (for one of his youngest fans) would have virally materialized. Travis was quoted by the Washington Post saying, “I didn’t even recognize that it would be this big, It just became really viral, and I just wanted it to become aware that everyone is the same, and one man can make a difference.”

Pretty understandable to see where Travis is coming from. I mean why would anyone think that such a small simple action could produce such pronounced results? Let’s take a closer look and try understanding the reasons for why this story went as viral as it did!:

1. Simplicity: how often do you hear the phrase “the more simple the better?” I imagine plenty of times and when it comes to making something go viral this statement surely applies. When you want to see something resonate and grow with the public from a viral marketing standpoint you can’t have this “something” be confusing for people to understand. The public has to “get it” instantly and in this case the action of having lunch with a lonely autistic child was something that people instantly understood and appreciated. 
2. Everyone Can Relate To It: a majority of people on the planet grew up and went to some sort of elementary school. This same majority of people also had lunch time in the cafeteria while attending elementary school. This 60 minute period which was usually combined with recess, holds a special place in people’s hearts even as you enter adulthood. When you have a story that everyone can relate to personally, the odds of the story going viral increases dramatically. As a result exponentially more people are able to relate to the story and think back to their own childhood days of eating lunch in the cafeteria, and this gives you a much larger population of people to have the story resonate with.
3. Feel Good: this kind of story makes people feel very good inside and it also makes the public as a whole feel hopeful. See when people’s emotions get involved for the better, the chances of there being a viral effect increases. If you feel good about a story the odds of you wanting to share this story with your friends and family increases so that they can experience this same heartfelt feeling as you did. Positive stories usually have a much greater chance of gaining traction and going viral, over negative stories and this example clearly displays that.
4. Local Star Player: this entire unplanned event took place at a local middle school near Florida State University. Travis Rudolph is a superstar in that geographic area of Florida near the state capital Tallahassee. Although Travis wasn’t a nationally recognized figure last week, the fact that this event took place near Florida State University, gave the story a larger foundation for viral traction to be catapulted off of. 
5. Authenticity: this action by Travis was unscripted and as he even said himself he had no idea people were taking pictures of him eating lunch with Bo. When it’s easy recognizable how organic ones actions are as opposed to looking completely scripted the chances of this action going viral increases because people can see that authenticity. Usually scripted actions can easily be depicted and as a result people will usually be less willing to want to share a story or piece of content that seems fake.

Many of the reasons this story went viral as explained above I experienced first hand with my former Hoverboard company. For example when it came to authenticity, it was very apparent how organic the love for the Hoverboard product was when people rode one. There was no scripting the smiles, joy, and fun millions of people were having when they rode a Hoverboard and as a result millions of other people wanted to experience that same feeling. 

I think this story in particular can demonstrate to entrepreneurs that oftentimes creating more simple marketing campaigns for your company can end up producing the largest results. If young entrepreneurs can keep in mind some of the concepts and strategies above they should be able to see some of their own companies go viral, but for all the right reasons!