Hey! Welcome back to the podcast. This episode’s guest is Dustin Bouch. Dustin Bouch has designed,developed and manufactured many different physical product lines in his career. Dustin’s newest project has him co-founding Backmate, a revolutionary doorway massage system designed to relieve back pain, neck pain, headaches and more.
In this episode we discuss:
Loving to fix things when he was a kid [2:32]
Dustin tinkering with stuff around their home [3:22]
Why he took a job with a significantly lower pay [4:05]
How he became an entrepreneur by accident [5:51]
Letting go of his first business [7:46]
Working on his first product [10:58]
Developing a combination outdoor survival device (FOGO) [12:51]
Lessons from FOGO that he applied to Backmate [15:00]
How to test for product-market fit without a finished product [18:19]
Challenges in manufacturing a product overseas [22:40]
Importance of growing an audience before launching a crowdfunding campaign [26:30]
Marketing Backmate [31:34]
Best way to learn more about Dustin and Backmate [33:07]
Quotable Quotes
If you don’t have a good product-market fit there’s nothing much you can do.
Scientists really fight tooth and nail to get a little bit of budget to work on their pet projects.
It’s really important to be able to have that margin so that you can sell it to distributors, so they can sell it at retail. But also when you sell it online that you have enough margin to cover your customer acquisition.
Develop a community first around a product and using that to leverage your crowdfunding and then your first product pushout.
It’s really important to not get married to your ideas. Have 2 or 3 products that you’re going to be testing through that process at the same time and know that you’re only picking the best one.
It’s so important to get really large backing on Kickstarter within the first 24 hours. It’s a huge indicator of success.
Links to sources and tools
Learn more about Dustin his co-founder and their product - Backmate - at https://mybackmate.com/ and find out how it can help relieve back pain
Connect with Dustin on his social media accounts where you can ask him questions, recommendations or referrals.
Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/mybackmate/
Personal Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dustinbouch/
Company LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/18223194
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mybackmate/
Subscribe to their Youtube channel -https://www.youtube.com/c/mybackmate- to see Backmate in action.
Thanks for listening. Don’t forget to like us on Facebook -https://www.facebook.com/passthesecretsauce- to get updates on new episodes. If you haven’t already, please follow and leave a review for our podcast, we’ll really appreciate it. And as always, don’t forget to pass the secret sauce.
Support our podcast
If you’re a fan of the show, there are three simple things you can do to support our work:
Rate and review the podcast on iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/pass-the-secret-sauce-by-matt-shields/id1506940483 or wherever you subscribe.
Tell a family member, friend, or colleague about the show.
Subscribe so you never miss an episode.
Subscribe to us on YouTube and follow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/pass-the-secret-sauce-podcast
Do you have experience in launching a crowdfunding campaign? What challenges did you have? Share your stories in the comment section below.
