FINIEN

Some background on the inspo behind today's post:
My startup is significantly behind in sending out pre-orders that were fully paid months ago. Instead of asking for discounts or refunds, 98% of customers keep cheering us on. Even when a unit arrived with a broken part due to rough handling by UPS and an early packaging solution, that customer wrote to us about how amazing the unit looks and the overall quality, saying it was 'just a pity about that small hiccup.' When I received that message, I knew I had successfully created brand love. Now it's just a matter of dialing in our California-based production so we never have to repeat this test.

I’m honored to have served on the inaugural Executive Jury for this year’s The w3 Awards. It was a privilege to help recognize outstanding digital creativity from around the world.

See all of the Winners this season > https://bit.ly/4xLN7wx

Brand Therapy Thursday is back from its very first hiatus.
Long live BTT 🙌🏻

I’m thrilled to help select the best creative work from small shops and indie creators, proving that big ideas don't need big budgets 💪 Davey Awards

Missed the latest Episode of Hitting The Mark?

Brandon McCraney is the Founder and Master Blender at Olde Raleigh Distillery, a family-owned and operated craft distillery focused on small-batch and limited-release bourbon and whiskies. Two years into this journey, Olde Raleigh was honored with the prestigious title of Best Micro Distillery in the US.

This brand story is as much about persistence as it is about art, and Brandon was so focused on brand storytelling that there was a line around the block on opening day. Lots to take away from this swift convo:

Listen
↠ FINIEN — https://loom.ly/5b24wBs
↠ Apple — https://loom.ly/dfn8IYc
↠ Spotify — https://loom.ly/VQaWeY0
↠ Simplecast — https://lnkd.in/gR2gQA3n

For the past 9 weeks, I have opened the curtain and given you transparent behind-the-scenes stories about 'my other' professional life, running Toneoptic.

If you missed any posts, or would like to revisit them, we created a place for them in chronological order: https://loom.ly/05JfsWQ

I will now be taking a month-long hiatus from my Thursday posts, and then we will be back to regular programming with weekly Brand Therapy Thursdays. Can't wait!

→ This is post 9 of my Walking The Talk Summer Thursday series: a transparent look behind the scenes of building my product innovation brand in the music space, Toneoptic – a humbling and rewarding experience of me choosing to walk my brand talk ←

I spent my career as a brand strategist preaching to companies to be better. Better to their employees, better to their customers, and last but not least better to the environment.

When I started Toneoptic, it was deeply ingrained to walk my talk.

Fast forward, pictured: Me horribly stumbling on my walk of shame.

How did I get to a point of cutting corners?

Simply put, it came down to startup survival.

Our first product had to be made outside the U.S. to keep the cost low enough that all 143 premium parts were still somewhat affordable (to the few). Producing it in the U.S. from the get-go simply was not an option that customers were ready to open their wallets for.

I wanted packaging to be sustainable. Reading the fine print of biodegradable peanuts, I learned that they are made of corn and will attract rodents. That, we can’t have in the factory. Unless we create a ginormous sealed container for the huge amounts of peanuts. And that we do not have the resources for yet.

Early on, we decided that we’d like to not support certain industry giants that don’t share our values as a brand. That, too, became impossible when cost and speed to market became realities for survival.

This list goes on, and I find myself walking this walk of shame daily. Daily, until we will be at the point of creating a business that is financially sustainable; and I promise myself (and you, and my stakeholders) that the minute we can, we will. And that will start with becoming a B-Corp to be held accountable across the entire supply chain. It will be the next difficult step to take, and one that I can not wait for.

But for now, I am proudly holding a ginormous bag of horrible-for-the-environment peanuts from ULINE, padding our backs that we are producing the new products locally now, and we are packing deliveries securely so our customers will love their products. The brand will have to follow suit.

Until we are a sustainable company, we simply, and sadly, can not be as sustainable for the planet as we wish.

One step at a time. Even if it hurts.

That is the real painful cost of starting small. And a wake-up call for me.

Will I go any easier on my clients? 99% of them, I sure will not. But that 1% that is in true startup mode like we are now, you bet. I might even swing by to lend a hand.

⚫ Learn more about the Toneoptic brand: toneoptic.com
💫 Get notified via e-mail about next week’s post: https://loom.ly/b_vi8ig
🙋 Want to hear me talk about something specific in my startup’s journey? Leave a comment or DM me.

→ This is post 8 of my Walking The Talk Summer Thursday series: a transparent look behind the scenes of building my product innovation brand in the music space, Toneoptic – a humbling and rewarding experience of me choosing to walk my brand talk ←

An app is a wonderful thing. You build it, push it live, and then keep improving it while people are already using it.

The traditional side of product development is a completely different beast.

Physical products require endless adjustments, prototypes shipped around the world, factory visits, and production runs of hundreds or thousands of units at a time. There are far fewer chances to pivot.

Then those boxes arrive in a warehouse. And you pay for every day they sit there instead of in a customer's home.

So you have to sell quickly. But not too quickly, because reordering takes time and a lot of upfront cash. And of course, by then you've already learned things you'd love to improve in the next version.

Pictured is me in China, in our original factory, at 30°F, working the production floor assembling and packing. A month later, a container with 500 Toneoptic products arrived in Los Angeles.

Today, we're manufacturing all new products in Los Angeles. The ambiguity and complexity of overseas production is largely behind us. Instead, we've traded it for a different set of challenges. Investing in specialized machinery, sourcing aluminum by the ton, and building a manufacturing process that can scale while still allowing us to improve.

I often see titles like Product Designer or Product Manager, but most refer to digital products. The difference is substantial. When you launch an app, you can immediately react to user behavior and iterate. When you launch a physical product, you have a warehouse full of thousands of decisions already made. Every decision echoes months into the future.

That's been one of my biggest lessons, and it's one that I keep learning different variations of on a daily basis. It's what has made building Toneoptic one of the most complex learning experiences of my career.

⚫ Learn more about the Toneoptic brand: toneoptic.com
💫 Get notified via e-mail about next week’s post: tinyurl.com/finiennewsletter
🙋 Want to hear me talk about something specific in my startup’s journey? Leave a comment or DM me.