Success in the Niche World of Balisong | Lucas Cao | Squid Industries
On this episode of Honest Ecommerce, we have Lucas Cao. Lucas is the founder and CEO of Squid Industries, an American manufacturing company with a focus on the butterfly knife and trainer industry. We talk about investing in passion and in the community, effectively conveying your idea to manufacturers, vertical integration and quality control, and so much more!
Honest Ecommerce · Chase Clymer with Lucas Cao
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Show Notes
Lucas Cao is the President and CEO of Squid Industries, an American manufacturing company with a focus on the butterfly knife and trainer industry.
In This Conversation We Discuss:
- [00:49] Intro
- [01:48] Getting interested with the idea of balisong
- [03:00] Becoming a collector & joining the community
- [03:57] Seeing the barriers for interested newcomers
- [04:44] Trying to make a balisong trainer
- [05:37] Discovering the popularity of balisong
- [06:30] Testing the waters and the success rate
- [07:37] Gaining traction bit by bit
- [09:03] Planning things ahead and investing on manpower
- [10:27] Running the business remotely
- [11:15] Purchasing their first manufacturing equipment
- [12:29] Continuing the business full time
- [13:09] Vertical integration and quality control
- [13:53] An unexpected success in hindsight
- [14:32] The meticulous process of picking a brand name
- [17:26] Investing on passion and in the community
- [18:34] The goal is to make the best product possible
- [20:05] Sporadic growth, full of highs and lows
- [21:26] A shift on the velocity of production
- [22:18] Leveraging the resources available to you
- [22:52] Episode sponsors
- [26:17] The challenge in manufacturing and prototyping
- [27:46] The importance of versatility
- [28:50] Maximizing influencer marketing
- [30:20] Standing out from the competition
- [30:54] Trying different avenues of advertising
- [31:39] Effectively conveying your idea to manufacturers
- [34:05] Talk to manufacturers with different processes
- [35:14] Where to find Squid Industries Co.
Resources:
- Subscribe to Honest Ecommerce on Youtube
- High performance and community-driven balisongs squidindustries.co/
- Follow Lucas Cao linkedin.com/in/lucas-cao-6a3412b1/
- Schedule an intro call with one of our experts electriceye.io/connect
- Take your retail business to the next level today https://shopify.com/honest
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