Page 38 - 597 Business Ideas You can Start from Home - doing what you LOVE! (Beginner Internet Marketing Series)

Step 2. Bring Your Idea to Life 27

ucts and companies are the most successful and long-running. This
information will help you frame your product properly within its
larger industry and learn from others' failures.

If they can do it, •.

So taJ1 foul ..

J ibbitz are those l ittl e perso n a l ized charms that people use .lli
to customize their Crocs shoes (or these days, a ny one of the
i m itation Crocs shoes). Sheri Schme lzer, who created J ibbitz,
had three kids who wore Crocs. She had trouble differentiating
whose Crees were whose, so she made little cha rms (now cal led
Jibbitz), such as soccer balls a n d flowers, then pu nched them
into the holes in her kids' Crocs. Her husband had a l i ght b u l b
moment when he saw these customized Crocs. Sheri began
selling them i n Aug ust 2005, and by September 2006, J ibbitz
was g rossing $2 million a month and selling in more than 4,000
stores international ly. In October 2006, Crees bou ght J ibbitz for
$20 mil lion. Ta lk about an overni ght success!

Visit stores large and small, inexpensive and expensive, near and
far, and study your competition. Go in with an open mind. Make
sure your product will be better, faster, more unique , an improve­
ment, an upgrade, whatever! Basically, you want yours to be the
better choice for the buying public.

Look at the way similar products are packaged and marketed,
and study the lingo that is used on the packaging. Figure out who
they have been marketing to (men? women? bargain shoppers? etc.)
and who you will be marketing to based on the differences that you
will be offering. Get into the marketplace and touch and feel, look,
listen, and observe.