Hi kids! This is Super Power Kid Neva Lee Recla and today I’m super excited for what we are talking about. We are talking about product ideas for kids’ business.
Have you ever had an idea of a product and you thought, “Wow! This is such an amazing idea, it’s gonna be an amazing invention!” But then thought to yourself, “Well is this gonna sell? Am I gonna make money from it? Will it even work?”
Well I don’t personally know how this works but our guest today does and her name is Carrie Jeske. She is a direct licensee in the As Seen on TV category. And what that means is she gets to use the As Seen On TV in her brand, in her business and all of that so I’m super excited to talk to her today about product ideas for kids’ business.
Without further ado will you please help me welcome our guest Carrie Jeske. Hi Carrie!
Hi Neva, great to see you.
Great to see you, thank you for coming on.
Kids are the greatest inventors and I can help them without them having to spend a lot of money.
I am so excited to be here. Kids are the greatest inventors and I can help them without them having to spend a lot of money. Without them having to do a lot of the normal steps that people waste time and money on like getting a patent and some things that are important but necessary for As Seen On TV products. I’d love to talk to your group about how they can license their product and make money just by sharing the idea with me and then my company will fund everything.
That’s awesome. I have a question for you, what are your super powers?
Oh my gosh, my super power is being able to look at product idea and tell you if it’s already been on the market, already been tried or if some company has already tested it and it’s failed, then you don’t wanna waste your time and money on it. And that’s a super power because I’m spending literally all day looking at new product ideas and seeing what companies are testing and seeing whether those products succeed or fail. I’m really sharp right now and I think that’s a very unusual superpower to have.
Yeah, I think that’s also a really good superpower to have, as you get to tell people, “Do you want to spend your time and money on this or not?”
Yes.
I think that’s really cool.
It’s hard sometimes because sometimes people love their ideas, which they should and I feel like sometimes maybe I have to rain on their parade. But I would much rather tell somebody, “Don’t spend time and money on that because it’s already been tried and it’s failed. Spend your time and money on something different that hasn’t been.”
And I see something different, it stands out like a lightning rod to me, so when people are showing me their products, if it’s unique I immediately know that and I’m like, “Wow, that could the winner.” I’ll know right away.
Yeah, that’s awesome. Can you explain more to our listeners and me, about what is As Seen On TV mean?
Yeah. As Seen On TV is a section of shelves at Walmart, it’s also in CVS or Walgreens and you’ll find it in Targets and other places. But if you go into a Walmart there’s sections like hardware, sporting goods, grocery, office supply, beauty supply.
There’s a section of shelves usually near the front of the store called As Seen on TV and these are products that we’ve done a TV commercial for and put them in this section of shelves. Here’s a little picture of it that you might see in the Walmart. I don’t know if you can see that, I have that explains it all. Anyway-
That’s cool.
It’s a section of shelves and so if you, kids will go to Walmart, find the As Seen on TV section of shelves. They’ll see the kinds of products that we’re looking for. You might remember that loom bracelet, do you remember that about two, three years ago? It was a little machine that made the loom bracelet.
Oh yeah.
That’s one of our products.
That’s cool.
That’s an As Seen on TV product, anything that solves a problem.
That’s really cool, I like that. What was your inspiration to start working with As Seen On TV and start helping people out in those industries?
Yeah. Mostly my inspiration was that it’s a speed-to-market strategy, so we go to market very fast. If one of your kids shows me an idea and we put it through our tests and those tests succeed, we can have the product on the Walmart store shelves in 6 to 12 months. That’s lightning fast and they didn’t have to buy a patent on it, they didn’t have to spend a lot of money on product development.
What drew me to it was people. Everyday, people could play in the game of inventing without risking a lot of money. And I have been inventing for 15 years and I’ve seen many people or talked to many people, they’ve spend their kids’ college education on their idea. They’ve spent their 401(k)s on their idea. They’ve invested a lot of money, they’ve borrowed money on their idea and that’s a very big risk for people to take.
If I can help people not risk that kind of money and find out early if it’s gonna be successful. And then if it is successful, we’ll pay for all the big expenses, get it to market quick and then the inventor ends up making more money too because these are home-run product ideas. They’re sold right at the front of the store where a lot of product inventory turns.
A kid inventor could make a minimum $330,000, could be 1.1. The average product, if you look at the average product on that store shelf, the average inventor is making about $4.2 million. It’s gigantic the money that could be made and the cost of getting in wasn’t that much and that’s what really drew me to it. I felt like I could help more people.
Well, that’s really cool I think because that actually reminds me, I have a dream to make a million dollars. Now I know this animal is not a million dollars. I wanna get a pet pig. My parents and I made an agreement that if I make a million dollars, I can get a pet pig and I wanna name it Hamlet Recla.
That’s wonderful! I’m on your pet pig bandwagon.
Thank you. I think that the As Seen On TV products, it’s such a cool industry. I watch YouTube videos on it. And so have you met somebody and did they help you with your inspiration?
When you fail and it hurts, you don’t make that mistake again.
I’ve met so many people along the way that have helped me with my inspiration. My husband and I started 20 years ago with inventing our own products and I’ve been president of a technology company, so I thought it was gonna be easy. I thought I was real smart and I knew how to do it and it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life.
And so I feel I’ve made every mistake you could possibly make over 20 years and I’ve had a lot of people that have helped me and I’ve met some people took my money and didn’t offer me anything. It’s up and down, but a lot of people have helped me and that does inspire me to help other people.
Yeah, that’s awesome. I love the idea of helping people and also learning to teach other people to help people in need but also learning myself, the roller coaster that is business and life. Like you have some ups but with ups there’s always the downs, so it’s so fun.
The downs you learn. Everybody loves to be up and I love the time of up. But the downs, if you can pick yourself up and move forward and after a failure, those things you keep in your heart. When you fail and it hurts, you don’t make that mistake again.
You touch a hot stove, you don’t touch the hot stove again. So it’s really a great learning experience. If people can just reboot and not take it so personal and not be like, “My life’s over because I failed.” No way, your like just began when you failed.
Exactly, so we can talk more about this but we actually have to take a quick break but can you remind people where they can go to find out more about you?
Yeah, InventiveIdeas.com or WillItLaunch.com and my email is [email protected].
Awesome! Well definitely go check that out because she is awesome. We’ve been talking with Carrie Jeske about product ideas for kids and kids’ business. We’ll be right back.
To listen to the entire show click on the player above or go to the SuperPower Up! podcast on iTunes.
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