Hey, guys. Welcome to episode one of the Launch and Scale podcast. If you are confused and wondering why there is an episode before this, that is the overview episode. That is a way to give you a flavor of the show and see if this is something that you want to give a shot and listen to. If this is your first time listening to the show, be sure to head over to khierstyn.com/podcast and subscribe to the show, and if you like what you hear, please do leave a review, as it helps other people find the show. If you cannot find my name, it's probably because you can't spell it. No one can spell my name properly, but that's the fun in this. My name is spelled K-H-I-E-R-S-T-Y-N.com. I'm just stoked about this episode. Last week, I emailed the Crowdfunding Uncut family, which is the name of the old brand. That launch and scale evolved too. I asked them what do you want to learn in e-commerce? Here are the name and the topic of the new show Launch and Scale. What is a question you'd like me to cover? Brett Buxton is one of the people that emailed in a question, and actually, his evolved into a two-parter. The meat of his question is covered in episode two, so the next one, which is how to make sure people actually want your product before you sink thousands of dollars into it.

Brett, where he's at in his product cycle is he is an Amazon seller that is now creating a proprietary product, so a product that is his own. It's not necessarily a white label product or a commoditized product like on Amazon because he wants to actually build a brand around a product that he owns the IP for. His question had that in there, so I was like that would actually also make a good branch of an episode. I'm going to read his question in episode two because his question is heavily related to product validation and being sure that someone wants your product before you actually go and sink money into it. For this episode though, the question really is do you have a me-too product or do you have a brand? Because frankly, in my mind, I think that you cannot have both at the same time. I think that one should evolve into the other or you make the conscious decision to go with one and grow into it as you go. Let's start by looking at what a me-too product is.

A me-too product is as it sounds. It's like a knockoff or it is a white label version of something that's already selling. If you are someone that wants a me-too product, you would generally go to Alibaba, look for the manufacturer of that product, and then slap your brand name on it and then start to sell that product. With me too products, typically you'll find them on ... in my world, it's Amazon sellers that start off with the me-too products. There's nothing wrong with me too. I think it's an excellent gateway plan to learn the ins and outs of manufacturing and bringing a product to market. It does have its downsides, which we'll talk about with the what is a brand in a second, but me too products have one thing that I don't like, and it is a race to the bottom. In my mind, you sell a product or a service based on price or quality. With Amazon, with me too products, unfortunately, it is just so easy to sell based on the price that you, by actually being a best seller in a product, may have another seller come in and undercut your prices because they've found a way to manufacture and create your product better and faster.

So, it's a quick race to the bottom of the price war, which actually is a detrimental long term strategy because if you have a product that's selling really well and you have healthy margins and everything is great, any day some other seller can come in and undercut your prices in half. Suddenly, they start to take all the traffic that you got, and it's dangerous because at that point you're going to be ending up slashing your prices if you are only selling to people that value price over value. With that quick race to the bottom, unfortunately, your prices,...