$36 Million Dollar Per Year Products Your Grandma Could Sell

$36 Million Dollar Per Year Products Your Grandma Could Sell…

Welcome back! If you’re a first time reader, get ready.

This ain’t your grandma’s newsletter, but today we’ll be focusing on brands and products you’d definitely find in your grandma’s house. Regular, everyday items you’d never think could be rebranded into 7 & 8 figure per year businesses.

If you’re new here, this is the up-next newsletter where we bring you the latest data, trends and biz ideas to help you launch businesses that actually make money.

I took a quick hiatus last week as I had a slight emergency, but all is good and we’re rolling heavy this week with some outside the box, old school products that have pulled off a flawless modern rebrand.

I’m talking steam irons, lunch coolers and more..

Here’s a sneak peak of what we’ll be looking at: 

• Brands your Grandma could launch (while raking in millions per year)

• The art of the rebrand and how to turn boring products into a modern business

• Unique opportunities you can take advantage of 👇👇

Before we jump into today’s report, do me a favor and answer the poll below..

💰The Multi Million Dollar Steam Iron

When our team is researching brands for the companies we work with, once in a while we come across outside the box products and brands that are seeing huge success.

Our first brand feature is Nori (yes, iron spelled backwards.. glad you caught that) - they design and manufacture steam irons and fabric shavers and have built a very impressive business with just a handful of skus.

The first thing that comes to mind with irons; there’s no real leader or go to brand I can think of. A steam iron is something you store in the closet and pull out before work or a special occasion and Nori is looking to change that.

They have dialed in and targeted a female demogaphic and within just a few years have built an impressive audience. Nori also invested a lot of money into the design of their iron, with a focus on quick, on the go steam ironing without the need for an ironing board.

The brand is extremely relatabale, female focused and began by solving their own problem. Their founders didn’t want to have to pull out ironing boards that often take up a ton of space or are no where to be found when travelling.

Instead of using a hair straightener to remove the wrinkles, they solved their own problem developed a winning product (a recurring theme in this newsletter)

The most impressive part? With a loyal audience and customer base, Nori can continue to release household sku’s and build a very successsful long term business.

Most product companies start with a simple product, find their customer base and continue to sell them:

1. What the customer desires
2. What falls in line with the brand

This requires some customer questions and research but will ultimately lead you to preselling your new products and essentially build your business risk free (more on that in another newsletter).

Check out Nori Below…

Modern Picnic: Redefining the “Lunch Box”

“Modern Picnic was launched in 2018 with the mission to provide women with a chic alternative to the traditional lunchbox.”

Here’s another example of a female founder redefining a space and solving her own problem. When most people think of a “lunch box” it’s typically for their kids at school or husband on a job site. There’s not a ton of options for something sleek and stylish professionals can bring to work.

The origins of Modern Picnic started with a Google search. Their founder recognized that if you have a problem, many others probably do as well.

“How many busy professionals would be interested in a sleek and stylish yet functional lunchbox?”

A ton apparently…

What stands out most about Modern Picnic is the endless options and styles they provide. It’s another shining example of a small brand that started out with a single sku and was able to expand to further meet their customers needs.

From backpacks, to totes, to childrens lunchboxes they’ve done the unthinkable and made lunch boxes stylish and exciting.

They’ve built an impressive audience on instagram and built a multi-million dollar business in a market no one else dared to explore.

The lesson and takeaway from these brands is simple. If you’re facing a problem, explore it and see if others are facing the same issue. Chances are there’s an underlying business and you’ll need some basic research to confirm that you’re on to something.

This is how I built my first ecommerce business that’s now gone on to do over $40 million in sales and I’ve heard countless others mention the same.

It’s important to note that not everything is about keyword research or data.

In fact, I often find most great businesses start with a gut instinct or intution there’s room for a new product in the market, then use keyword research and trends to backup and verify their hunch.

Standing Out and Rebranding Old School Products

I love a great rebrand.

It’s extremely difficult to design packaging and products that stand out today, especially with a boring product. Most CPG, supplement and food brands hand their design ideas off to a creative agency - and well, everything ends up looking the same.

Not this Mac n Cheese company though. Our design of the day feature is none other than Matty Matheson’s new Mac and Cheese. Old school packaging with a slight modern twist and looks better than anything we’ve seen recently. A true original…

Grab some inspo from the Matheson food company rebranding a classic product without the classic “Consumer Package Goods Agency” feel.

What Other O.G. Markets & Opportunities Exist That You Can Take Advantage Of?

Within 6 feet of any direction you look you’ll probably find a product based business that with the right rebrand, has legs to run.

With that said, there’s a few ideas that come to mind and opportunities we feel have a gap:

Gardening

Home grown fruits, vegetables and plants in general are becoming more popular as both inflation and health trends rise.

There’s some cool gardening brands out there now (in fact, we’ll have an entire newsletter issue dedicated to this) such as Gardenheir doing amazing rebrands with a very interesting line of skus in the outdoors market. They’ve also dropped an apparel line while staying on brand.

Their products have a very distinct feel to them and from the looks of it, they’re crushing it both online and in retail.

Content based companies like Epic Gardening, are pulling in over $30 million per year with their various seed companies and accessories. This is built off the back end of a youtube media company. An incredible story of building an audience and creating brands on the back end.

There’s dozens of micro niches within the gardening space that anyone with some experience and business chops can jump in and take advantage of.

It’s a whopping 100 billion dollar industry, you just need a small piece of that pie to become Scrooge Mcduck rich. As I mentioned above we’ll dedicate an entire newsletter to the industry and brands leading the space.

Office, Home and Desktop Organizer Sets

Another classic industry with major rebrand opportunity is office organizers, desk space and productivity systems. A little outside the box, but hear me out..

I was at my office desk the other day feeling very uninspired. It felt bland and boring. I’m all about minimalism, but minimalism by design.

One company rebranding this category is Ugmonk. Their USP is strictly design based but it caught my eye and I had to grab their organizer set.

The prices definitely put them into the luxury category but they truly look amazing and are one of a kind pieces. The money goes a long way if it means you feel slightly more inspired in your work space.

And… when you feel you can’t charge more for your product, bookmark this link.. (a $125 phone stand)

There’s a ton of ways you can jump into the “boring” office space with productivity sets and customized desktop pieces designed with unique artwork.

Companies like Ikonick built huge businesses in the motivational art space, I think the same can be built in office and desktop decor.

Hopefully you see the opportunity in redesigning and rebranding everyday boring products

One more note on pricing before we finish up. I often suggest founders don’t look at amazon or etsy for pricing strategy.

1. Many of the companies selling on there are barely breaking even.

2. They offer very little in terms of unique design that stands out.

Their pricing is algorithm based, designed to bring in the most customers possible and that means profit often gets squeezed out in order to maintain a high search rank.

Look at companies like Ugmonk and Bang Olufsen that start with design first, identify a customer and price from there.

Grab a few ideas and run with’em. Someone will, why not you?

Have a day!

-Ken

P.S. Click the poll below and let me know what you thought of this one, then drop some feedback on what you’d like to see more of.