Hola Outliers ☀️
How’s your week been?
I took a couple of days to go chase waterfalls in The Lake District and had some time to zoom out and reflect. One thing that came to mind was how to make the most of our time and resources on the journey to business success.
Now able to write it all down, this email might be a good reminder for all of us — especially those at the beginning of their business journey or those struggling to see any signs of growth.
Sculpd is a home-pottery brand launched by one of Jonny’s schoolmates during lockdown. They’ve seen incredible success since but started out in the simplest way possible. I believe we can all learn a thing or two from their approach!
One quick thing - if you’re looking to experiment with a new business or product, let us know! We’d A) love to hear about it; and B) be happy to share our 2 cents on ways to test it quickly.
Here’s what to expect today:
📰 Story: How Sculpd knew their idea was worth pursuing
🧠 Insight: Test and learn as fast as you can
💪🏼 DIY: How to test your idea, fast
🔗 Good links: Sculpd magic on Insta, The Locksmith Moment & Smoke Testing.
📰 Story: How Sculpd knew their idea was worth pursuing
An idea is only as good as its execution, as they say.
Well, nothing rings more true when it comes to starting a business.
Sculpd’s founders knew this before they even came up with the idea and used this knowledge to their advantage.
They had a feeling the idea for home pottery kits would be strong during lockdown but they needed to move fast to make the most of the opportunity.
So they moved fast!
“We built the site, acquired and sourced all the product in 10 days” — Matt Clements, Co-founder Sculpd
They didn’t have time to debate over the idea or get the product perfect, they needed to just get the simplest version of it out there. And this meant sourcing the product components from wherever they could - eBay, alibaba and a local clay merchant!
The important thing was to just get the concept and proposition together in the most resource-efficient way possible. For Sculpd, speed was the priority. Like many other businesses at the time, they saw an opportunity with people stuck at home during lockdown.
“It's really just that phase of pushing through the idea stage and executing it that will allow you to move forward.” — Matt
They increased their numbers gradually, rather than going all in before they had a feel for what was working.
“We launched with just 10 kits and sold them all. So then we bought 100, and it's just snowballed from there. So if you have an idea, get it to market and test it. If it works, go forward.” — Matt
They’ve now sold thousands of Sculpd kits and collaborated with some huge brands.
The journey is only just beginning for Sculpd and their decision to put execution over perfection is what they owe a lot of their success to.
“My one bit of advice would be: if you have an idea, and it doesn't have to be the most amazing idea in the world, get it to the point of testing it in the market.” — Matt
🧠 Insight: Execution > Perfection
No matter how great you think your idea is, it’s worth testing it first because you really never know what the market response is going to be.
And the faster you can learn what works and what doesn’t the better!
💪🏼 DIY: How to test your idea, fast
Depending on the type of business you’re building, there are various ways of testing your idea before you invest too heavily.
👉 Set up a Shopify site with your product and direct social media traffic to it through very specific ads on paid social
👉 Go door-to-door asking people to sign up for your product (before you’ve bought anything)
👉 Smoke test! This is where you put together a landing page with a buy button but don’t actually have the product ready. You can either take payment and then refund it immediately, or direct your buy button to a survey — track the button clicks and you’ll still get some validation for your idea.
P.S. As a bootstrapped founder you might not think you’re investment is ‘heavy’ but remember that your time is even more valuable than your money. So if anything, it’s even more important to test properly as a bootstrapper!
🔗 Good links
🔗 Get lost in the magic of Sculpd magic on Insta
🔗 Find your Locksmith Moment by Matt Lerner at Systm
🔗 A Complete Guide to Smoke Testing by F+L Capital
💌 Tell us what you’d like help with…
We started this newsletter for entrepreneurs just like you, and we want it to be as helpful as it possibly can. So tell us what you’d like help with and we’ll dig into it.
Or if there’s a brand you’d like to know more about, let us know and we’ll reach out to them.
Until next week…
Keep being an Outlier,
J + K