032 - Success in Small Niches with Jill Bong of Chicken Armor - The Product Startup: Product development for small business

Jill Bong is an entrepreneur, homesteader, and inventor of Chicken Armor - a different chicken saddle. She is also the author of over a dozen books on homesteading and self-reliant living. In this episode, we learn about * Why Jill and her husband created their product despite established competition in the space * Differentiating the product from competitors * The design drivers - few components, washable, easy to manufacture, and low cost * The process of working with material suppliers * Keeping startup costs low - "We almost had no choice, we had to work with a shoestring budget, or almost no budget in this case" * Why it's rare to come up with your final product on your first try and the iterative part of product design process * Taking a year (multiple seasons) to test the product * Jill's experience getting laughed out of a gardening forum - and landing her first user who was also a business owner with a similar experience * Selling Chicken Armor on eBay to validate the market * Handling customer objections and their perception of quality through money back guarantees and up-front education * Why Jill and her husband abandoned pursuit of a patent * Why they haven't scaled up to large scale manufacturing and distribution or branched out into other designs and target markets * When sales actually picked up and Jill's solution to marketing and outreach (especially for unique products) * The product sales as a result of mentions in large broad publications versus small targeted outlets * Their most successful marketing tactic - pitching to the editors of publications and appealing to their audience worked better than influential bloggers and magazine ads * Some of the other passive income streams that Jill has started * How to know when you should continue validating your market, and when to quit Links and resources mentioned in this episode * Website * chickenarmor.com * byjillb.com * Social Media * Twitter: @chickenarmor * Facebook: facebook.com/chickenarmor * Instagram:  * Pinterest: pinterest.com/chickenarmor * Google Plus: +Chickenarmorsaddles