As we enter another national lockdown, this is the perfect opportunity to explore any innovative product ideas you have discovered whilst spending more time at home. Now is your chance to investigate any business opportunities you have always wanted to get involved with. Make the most out of lockdown and use it as a new business venture!

Need Some Inspiration?

A client from our past, Barry Freeder developed a product with us that has thrived during lockdown! Barry worked with us to produce CouchCoaster, a weighted silicone cup holder that fits over the arm of a sofa. Sounds simple right? No surprise sales rocketed during lockdown, more people are turning their dining tables into workstations and watching more TV than ever before! As we are currently in the middle of a global pandemic, there’s no surprise that his product has become hugely successful in the US too.

To find out more from the man himself, take a look at the article below from Alain Guillots podcast review.

From Unemployed To One Million in Annual Revenue

Barry Freeder was always interested in design but he ended up studying real estate because he was concerned about job security. However, on 2015 he was laid off.

After losing his job, Barry Freeder had to figure out what to do with his life. He decided to dust off his dreams to be a designer and started building his first product.

In a way, Barry Freeder regrets not starting working on his passion a lot earlier and only making a decisive move when his job was taken away from him. He suggest that people who have a dream, should work on their dream on the side, while they keep their full time job to pay the bills.

It’s not a big sacrifice to start a side hustle. The average British or American spends 28 hours per week watching TV. If they take half of that, 14 hours per week and invest them in their side hustle, they could have something going within one year.

Even though Barry was unemployed, he invested 20,000 to 30,000 British Pounds in research & development, consulting, and manufacturing of the first prototypes. He was afraid but he thought it was a risk worth taking and “now” was the perfect moment.

“I had to put my friends and family to the side, they thought I was bonkers, to leave a stable career in real estate to develop a cup holder? It doesn’t sound very sensible.”

He started distribution from his spare bedroom, with one product, The CouchCoaster a weighted Silicon cup holder that fits over the arm of a sofa. Since then he has developed two additional products, The TableCosater a weighted cup holder to prevent spills, and the phonetag a mobile phone holder that doubles as both a phone stand and a ring that allows for a better grip of the device while doing things like taking selfies. Within five years of operation, Barry is hitting over one million dollars in revenue while operating solo.

As far as distribution, Barry allows Amazon to do the heavy lifting. He lists the products in Amazon, send his products to the different Amazon warehouses and Amazon does the shipping for him. Because Amazon is a global platform, Barry can reach clients all over the world.

The important thing is to have motivation and discipline the good thing and the bad thing is that you don’t have a boss telling you what to do. You have to take initiative and responsibility for your own action. If you show up consistently and do a good job, your will thrive, if you don’t show up when no one is waiting for you, then you won’t survive.

Watch the full interview with Barry here. Video Credit: Alain Guillot.