
A 24-year-old made $345K in 2 months by beating Kickstarters to market - esalazar
http://www.cnbc.com/2017/01/30/a-24-year-old-made-345000-by-beating-kickstarters-to-market.html
======
mosselman
Do I understand correctly from reading the comments here that he just found
the 'knock-offs' on alibaba and ordered them?

The article made it seem as if he actually created the knock-offs himself and
then found a factory to make them for him. Which is it?

Also, if I had an idea for a small little toy/gadget, how would I have to go
about finding someone in the world who can make it for me in a factory?

~~~
rijoja
Yes, somebody other than him made the products. He didn't actually make
blueprints and make a Chinese factory make them. The real genius is some
forgotten guy in China. He made at least 50'000 USD which I suppose buys you a
lot more status in China.

I really don't like being negative but this article feels has the same feeling
as the Taboola ads at the bottom of the page. This guy made a smart deal sure,
but really he didn't create anything new so I'm a bit disappointed with the
article since it's not about someone who managed to complete an engineering
project in record time or something really cool... but just a $ sign to spark
interest.

If you want to manufacture something I guess that you go about basically the
same way as you would if you wanted to find a company that creates a software
product.

~~~
mosselman
Thank you, and the rest of the commenters for the answer, the title and
article where somewhat misleading and I didn't watch the video.

You are right about the article being poor, it is basically just click bait
and it is annoying to have to waste brain energy on trying to decipher this
incoherent story.

On the plus side though, I have just learned that alibaba factories try to
outpace kickstarters and the like, that is pretty interesting and quite
clever, despite the sneakiness.

~~~
Mithaldu
A good way to handle stories like this is to flag them.

------
StavrosK
Here's a viable business model (I want 10% of profits):

* Create Kickstarter with innovative new idea, take money and fund it.

* Wait for someone in China to copy it.

* Order the things at a massive discount (ie their normal price).

* Send them to your backers.

Keep the rest of the money for making a single slick video.

~~~
koolba
How about this _improved_ business model:

* Create Kickstarter with innovative new idea, take money and fund it.

* Wait for someone in China to copy it.

* Order the things at a massive discount (ie their normal price).

* Set up a new store to sell the knock offs.

* Stiff your backers.

You end up with all the kickstarter money and the knock off money but only
have to pay for half the merchandise.

~~~
karmakaze
Of course, once it becomes a pattern there will be the Chinese corollary, that
appears to maka a knockoff, then waits for a big order.

~~~
koolba
Was going to add a part about stiffing the chinese suppliers as well but you'd
probably end up like this guy (separate article currently on HN front page):

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13532856](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13532856)

[https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/31/world/asia/xiao-
jianhua-c...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/31/world/asia/xiao-jianhua-
china-hong-kong-billionaire.html)

------
devmunchies
I'd say lots of these entrepreneurs are designers or engineers who were
passionate about an idea they had and began crowdsourcing their idea, without
much business experience. They are gonna learn the hard way that time to
market is a bfd.

A product is absolutely useless until its in the hands of the consumer.

------
ChuckMcM
The value of execution. Being able to get something done is a powerful thing
and this is one way it can be monetized. Reminds me of the German startup
knockoff company that made its mark doing successful US startups in Europe.

~~~
beaconstudios
that company is called Rocket Internet, for anyone who wants to look into this
story.

------
spaceflunky
So basically this kid made money by selling cheap knockoffs before the
original designers could launch a patent lawsuit? Seems like the moral of the
story is that you can make some money before the slow gears of our patent
system kick in.

Also, links to those stupid inflatable bags on alibaba were everywhere once
the kickstarter went viral. The article makes it sound like the kid magically
found it.

~~~
Cyph0n
Would something like a Stress Cube even be eligible for a patent? I don't see
the technological novelty to be honest. Maybe I'm misunderstanding how patents
work.

~~~
takingflac
Considering that the magic 8-ball has a patient, why not? (Granted it is
actually an interesting patent since it solved the problem of air bubbles
obscuring the answers on the answer die)
[https://www.google.com/patents/US3119621](https://www.google.com/patents/US3119621)

------
satysin
Just looked up the Fidget Cube. It is $22?! Yet the Stress Cube "knockoff" is
under $5. It is a little plastic and vinyl cube with some switches.

Not to mention the Fidget Cube is still on pre-order whereas it looks like the
Stress Cube has been available since around the end of last year.

Is it a kinda crappy thing to do? Yeah I think so. However how on earth are
Antsy Labs not selling these things yet?

~~~
Falling3
Also worth mentioning that the quality of the stress cube is not great. A
coworker ordered one and two of the pieces didn't work out of the box. It's
very grainy looking plastic (almost seems 3-d printed) that was poorly glued
together.

But 5 vs 22 is a fairly big price differential.

------
drewmate
There's an excellent documentary on the hardware/hacking ecosystem in Shenzhen
on YouTube: [https://youtu.be/SGJ5cZnoodY](https://youtu.be/SGJ5cZnoodY) . A
lot of people there seem to embrace the ethos of moving fast and ignoring IP
laws (both original creator and spoofer) because by the time you get a lawsuit
or patent filed, the tech will have moved far beyond what you were trying to
protect, and it will no longer be worth your time.

Basically, move fast and try to keep up. It's crazy how fast the tech cycles
are there.

~~~
beautifulfreak
I wonder how a person in the West can connect with people in Shenzen to import
products, or even to collaborate. There are niches I think are ripe for
targeting here, if they only knew _there_. Can anyone recommend a meeting
place online?

~~~
angry-hacker
Alibaba?

------
mcphage
Time is definitely huge. I've got one of the knock-off fidget cubes on my desk
right now, a Christmas gift, but my kickstarter-backed one doesn't arrive
until later today. I expect the real one to be higher quality, but it
seriously got scooped.

~~~
gambiting
Yeah, I supported the so-called NiftyDrive(a micro-sd adapter that fits within
your SD card port in a macbook) because it was such a cool idea at a time -
but they had several delays, and in that time, I could just get an identical
adapter off ebay, delivered next day, for 1/3 of the price.

~~~
madebysquares
Also, supported the nifty drive... great idea, by the time I got it, I didn't
need it anymore.

------
koreyb
What wasn't said in the article/video is that Chinese mfgs are scooping
kickstarter.

One of many stress cube listings on Alibaba [https://www.alibaba.com/product-
detail/Hottest-stress-cube-i...](https://www.alibaba.com/product-
detail/Hottest-stress-cube-in-
stock_60580604549.html?spm=a2700.7724838.0.0.yOaWG7)

~~~
JoblessWonder
? Did you read the article? They literally say that and show a screenshot.

"As with Cozy Bag, Chinese manufacturers on Alibaba had been offering
comparable products since shortly after the Kickstarter appeared."

~~~
koreyb
Re-read what I wrote. The 24 yr old is good at marketing..not doing anything
special.

The interesting aspect is that Chinese mfgs are all over Kickstarter. As
others have written, makes it a more difficult proposition going forward.

~~~
yazaddaruvala
Step 1. Launch a Kickstarter - without any plan for manufacturing. Step 2.
Wait for Chinese manufacturing to copy it. Step 3. Buy as many of the product
from those manufacturers. Step 4. Deliver to Kickstarter backers ahead of
schedule.

Zero risk, minimal effort, and happy Kickstarter backers. All Kickstarters
should adopt this model.

~~~
lawless123
Oh god that might actually work..

~~~
rtkwe
It's at least a little risky because you're depending on the Chinese knock off
coming in at the right price. Though I guess you could just sit on the
Kickstarter money while you wait so you don't have to raise money if one
doesn't materialize.

------
Cshelton
I dunno, I see this more as an Instagram marketing play than a 'knock-off'
play. The fidget cube is little significance, it could have been anything. He
found a trend, got supply, and marketed it on the right channels.

------
koolba
Link is dead for me. Get's a 404 on CNBC's site.

Here's the Google cache of it:
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:LGuJ4sN...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:LGuJ4sNwuEIJ:www.cnbc.com/2017/01/30/a-24-year-
old-made-345000-by-beating-kickstarters-to-market.html)

------
ChrisBland
So RocketInternet but with products instead of websites?

~~~
vthallam
Haha. Actually, RocketInternet is for startups/websites like the age old
knockoff's for products. This is nothing new, but he must be good at
marketing.

------
Eridrus
I was looking at making an IoT doodad recently that already had a pretty
crowded market because everyone who is currently making the same basic idea,
including US and Chinese manufacturers, sucks at software.

The one US-based iteration of this product, understands what consumers want,
but it's software very much looks like it was produced by hardware people. It
works, but only barely. I bought it second hand yesterday and there are
already two software-only features I would add that would have increased the
usefulness of the product significantly.

The Chinese versions are so damn cheap, I wanted to buy one, but their
software (even from xiaomi) doesn't even meet my basic requirements.

Part of this is probably the fact that consumers (like me) are stingy and
software developers are expensive, and you have to keep paying them even after
you've gotten all the money you're going to get from consumers since people
hate paying for subscriptions.

Maybe these knock off makers will get better with software, I don't know, but
at the moment I feel like there's a big gap in what knock off makers can do.

------
oceanofsolaris
What seems weird about this is that he did very little of actual 'beating
Kickstarters to the market'. If you read the article, he is just selling
things that are already listed on alibaba(so it's the chinese manufacturers
who are beating Kickstarters to the market).

So the question is: where does the margin of the guy in the article come from?
If you read the article, he bought the toys for 2.5$ or so on alibaba and sold
them for 20$. That's quite a markup for...some marketing. You could at any
time probably have gone to aliexpress and gotten the same thing for 4$
including shipping.

I think the answer is that not enough people in China are savy in how to
market their products to US+EU. And not enough people from US+EU are aware of
the gadget candy-store that is Aliexpress. The overall profit is too small for
a large company to swoop in, so what is left are some shady indiegogo campains
(that try to sell a product that is already offered on alibaba) and the kind
of company portrayed in this article.

~~~
bambax
Ordering things on Aliexpress as a "normal" customer is not a great shopping
experience because:

\- there are thousands of sellers selling the same thing and finding the one
that isn't a scam is difficult -- not difficult as in, flying to Mars, but
harder than ordering from Amazon FBA (although AMZ is getting worse by the
minute in this regard)

\- shipping times are VERY long (3 to 5 weeks) unless you're willing to double
the purchase price for express shipping (which will still take around a week)

Therefore, there is opportunity for arbitrage where you order lots of gadgets
and then sell them in your local market with very good shipping times (and
less choice between competing, identical offers).

------
Overtonwindow
Wow! I can't decide if this is innovation, disruption, or something a little
less than ethical. I also wonder what the IP issues about this might be.

~~~
devmunchies
> innovation, disruption, or something a little less than ethical

¿Por qué no los tres?

~~~
rebootthesystem
Definitivamente los tres.

------
sireat
Article is not quite clear but it appears it was $345K in sales not net.

The guy's edge is marketing which has been always been the great
differentiator.

Of course, it could be just luck as there must be thousands of people
attempting the same type of "business".

Reminds of that Ipod clone kid in Australia which HN had an article about a
few years ago. Made some 100K from selling iPod clones in late 200Xs.

~~~
giarc
It is confusing, but it appears he paid $70,000 for the product, throw in
$5-10 for site, ads, marketing etc. Still doing quite well.

------
trizic
Usually if you ask a company for a customized product it won't happen or you
have to be willing to put a lot of money in it. But if you go through the work
of mocking up your imagined product on Kickstarter, China may get it to the
market for you at no cost.

~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
Now _that 's_ true innovation!

------
HeyLaughingBoy
Good for him!!!

I had a similar idea years ago where I was searching through RentACoder
projects for potential product ideas. I figured that there had to be a few
gems in there, but never found anything worthwhile. Glad to see someone else
made the same concept work!

------
s369610
Saw the article mention FollowLiker
[http://www.followliker.com](http://www.followliker.com) not really sure what
it does. Is it for creating a bunch of fake accounts?

------
nodivbyzero
Page not found

------
serge2k
Man makes business out of identifying market, finding supplier, ordering
product, reselling at higher price.

Amazing.

~~~
candiodari
And all of the "I have an idea I just need a technical cofounder" (ie.
management and sales and wannabees of every company) cried out in horror,
tears, and injustice !

