I dive into innovation in online business, inspired by a video about REI and product innovation. Then, I discuss the future of my podcast and share some of the analytics.
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Hey, what’s going on? Welcome to the Doug Show. My name’s Doug Huntington, and in this episode I’m gonna talk a little bit about innovation and innovation in like online business and how it might apply to us. It was inspired from a video I saw from some other industry. So I watch a lot of like outdoor channels like hiking and uh, van life kind of stuff, even though I’m not gonna get a van.
Or convert a van, I might rent one. It seems interesting to be, you know, out there right by the trail sort of thing. But I’m not gonna get a van. It’s too much work. Usually better to rent stuff like that than to buy it and have to deal with, I don’t know, water leaks, insurance, all the other details about like owning a huge, uh, you know, piece of property like that.
So, anyway. Watching a video got inspired and in the second half I’ll talk a little bit about the podcast in general. And one thing that I, you know, I looked at some analytics and had some conversations while I was out in the world at a retreat over the last few days, and it was financial independence related, but a lot of people want to be content creators or they’re interested in, you know, my story since I.
Got laid off and then was self-employed and then retired and all that kinda stuff. So this video that I watched was about innovation and it was indeed an outdoor channel. And you know, they talked about the, the retailer. I. REI, it’s a big outdoor retailer in the US and they, they were talking about how, like the products in REI or other big retailers, and it could be any industry by the way, but many of the products are just not that innovative.
It, it’s really few and far between where like a new product comes out and then it kind of shakes things up Now. It can be, you know, guitars or like crafts or something else. But the thing is, these companies, these re retail shops, they carry products from. You know, all over, many different companies sell their stuff there and it, they do need to get into the retailers if they’re not selling directly.
And a lot of times, like it’s great to be in a retailer because the market’s there, people are going in, like they wanna buy something, right? So there’s buyers at these retailers and. They look at the analytics and metrics and see what has sold over the, the last year, what was hot, what was kind of declining and that sort of thing.
But generally, they look and they see, hey, this stuff is selling well. So big companies that have products, they tend to just keep making the products that are doing well and selling, because that is what the retailers want. And kind of, I mean, that’s what the market wants. That’s, that’s what the, the buyers and the retailers are trying to do.
Okay. But those companies, uh, as they’re, they’re big and they are successful. They are innovating less typically, not always, but typically they’re innovating less because they wanna sell the things that they have been selling. So they just keep moving forward with that. So you see fewer like new products out there.
And one interesting thing that comes out of this is the innovation typically. Typically comes from like the, the smaller companies, the companies that they don’t have enough money. They don’t have like the equipment to manufacture like the standard products. They don’t have the resources and like, you know, human uh.
Capital to like actually like make the products. So they’re at a spot where they have many constraints all over the place. They may not have enough time either, so they have to be creative and come up with new solutions. They have to innovate, right? So they have to come up with either brand new ideas for an industry or more likely, I mean, people are pretty smart.
They thought of a lot of things. So a lot of times there’s a good idea in some other industry that is not yet used in, you know, some other industry. So you could borrow ideas from different places and then innovate, uh, by basically taking an existing technique or technology. Or maybe it’s a process, maybe it’s a specific material, and then you could take that material to a different.
Industry and then it’ll be an innovation because no one has used it there before. So, quick example, and I can’t remember, I, I may have mentioned this guitar pick that I got, um, like in the last month or so. It’s called Blue Chip. And these are, they’re pretty nice. They cost about 35 to $50 and a normal guitar pick, they cost about 50 cents.
If you’re fancy, maybe you, you get some different material or something with a name brand or maybe it’s endorsed by a celebrity and it might cost, uh, two or three or $4. Those are expensive ones, two or three or four. So to go from like 50 cents or less, if you buy in bulk and then you, you go to $35 or $50.
It seems crazy. The thing is like $35 is not actually that expensive in the grand scheme of things. People typically have guitars that are multiple a hundred dollars or multiple thousand dollars. So to spend $35 on a pick, I mean, they could afford it. A pack of strings, maybe, you know, $6 to 15, $20 if you’re getting something fancy, a different material with a coating.
But $35 is within the reach of almost everyone, but it’s just kind of hard for people to make the leap ’cause of the comparison. The blue chip. Pick is a material that is used in, i, I believe, the microchip industry, something high tech. So it’s a interesting, uh, super durable material. It, uh, can withstand a lot of wear and it’s sort of slick in, uh, lubricate.
Type material. It’s, I mean, not wet, but it has, um, a texture that is very slick, a low, uh, friction coefficient if you’re an engineering nerd, or physics or whatever. So this machine shop that actually helps the. The microchip industry, build their manufacturing things, had this material and someone played guitar and they were like, oh, this material is kind of something that maybe would be good for a guitar pick.
So about 20 years ago, they started making guitar picks. They gave it to a couple bluegrass players who were like, yeah, this is super awesome. And then most of us hear about a $35 pick, and we’re like, no fucking way. That’s crazy. I could buy. A great pick for 50 cents. But then I watched a bunch of reviews and I was like, well, let’s see.
I mean, basically the reviews say, I thought I wasn’t gonna like it as much, but it turns out I love this thing. So yeah, it turns out I love this thing. And I ordered, I ordered two when I ordered them, and I just ordered a couple different shapes and thicknesses just to see what I like. So the thing is they took this different material.
And they innovated and created this pick, which is now super popular. There’s competitors now, however, um, the competitors don’t use that material as far as I know, because that material is super expensive and perhaps a little bit more difficult to work with. I don’t know the details. Maybe it’s hard to acquire, but it is very expensive.
I, I feel like I remember hearing them say like a sheet of it that is like, the size of a sheet of paper is like $9,000 or something like that, so it’s extremely expensive. Like insanely expensive more than you would think. So again, it’s from some other industry Blue Chip opened it up though, so now there’s competitors that have 30 or $50 picks and there’s a market out there for it. So. Bringing it back home to online business. Things are, are churning. And I looked back at some of the data, some of the most popular, um, episodes in the last few months.
It was like, what online business, what I’d start, what business models are working, what happened to niche sites? And those are the top few downloads all published in May, and they’re doing well. So the thing is people are, are still interested in working online. They’re interested in niche sites. If there’s some pivot that we can move to, maybe it’s print on demand stuff, maybe it’s a little bit different.
But basically you’re in a situation where, um, there’s a lot of people that are, are interested, but they just need to figure out what to work on, and that’s what they’re looking for. So it’s still very turbulent out there and. I mean, I, I’m on a couple email lists these days and it’s mainly, you know, people are dabbling in this or that, or they’re talking about how SEO is still valid.
And I mean, from where I sit, I would not do anything with SEO in the traditional way with, uh, Google and niche sites and that sort of thing. It seems like a total waste. If you had a business. If you had a local business, maybe there’s a route there. But just in a general sense, I would not have anything to do with, um, websites.
It just doesn’t quite make sense to me the way the landscape has changed. That said, things could change and because it is turbulent, I sort of think before too long there will be some business models that are. They, they kind of show up, but maybe they’re piecemeal from some other different industries where ideas are taken and then put together.
And now we have something where maybe if you’re an expert in keyword research, you can take that over to like Etsy print on demand, and then make that work even better because you’re an expert in keyword research. So my hunch is in a few years we’ll be able to see like different business models emerging, and there’ll be some that work a little better than others.
let’s switch gears a little bit. So I mentioned, I’ll talk about the podcast a little bit. I was looking back at some of the analytics. And I don’t look too often, maybe once a quarter or so, and it’s a nice way to not burn out. So I don’t look too often, and if I was really trying to grow the show or the channel or something like that, then maybe I would look a little bit more closely and more often.
But it is a path to burn. So I was looking and I see. Basically how to start an online business. What business models are not bs, what happened to niche site. So it’s all around that sort of thing. These got a good number of downloads around four 50 to 500. And basically I was looking at the analytics and I’m happy to share.
So there’s a handful with, um, you know, not great topics. It’s just like whatever I wanted to talk about. So it’s like selling my truck on Craigslist. AI recipes suck. And podcasting editing service for the top podcasters. So there’s a handful that are just really whatever I wanted to talk about. And there’s got about 300 downloads.
And basically I was looking at the analytics and I’m like, that’s enough people that I really, I appreciate you listening to the show and it’s. Enough people where I don’t think, I wouldn’t want to just quit the show. When you go over to YouTube, eh, it’s hit or miss. So it depends on if the algorithm picks it up.
And basically if you look at the purely self-indulgent topics that don’t have a great thumbnail and maybe not a great title, they may get like 70 or 80, maybe a hundred views. And of course, not everyone watches the whole thing. A lot of people just watch like 10 minutes or something like that. But if it’s a good, good topic, if it’s a better topic, it may get few hundred, couple thousand, although it’s probably been a little while since that happened.
But if it is an evergreen topic, people may actually check it out for a while and I, I obviously, you know, look at more recent shows, but essentially there are a few hundred to probably like. Low, um, low thousand maybe below 1500 or so that still listen to the show or watch it because I was thinking about if I should keep doing the show.
I was chatting with people at the retreat. I was just that. I’m like, Hey, I got this other show. And they’re like, oh wow, you have another podcast that’s pretty crazy. They only know me from Mile High Fi, not this show. Mile High Fi is I. 10 times bigger, something like that. It’s much bigger than the Doug show.
Different topic, bigger audience. But this show I’ve been doing every week for six years. I used to publish two per week and I’m down to one. And this show in the YouTube channel used to be the top end funnel for me selling courses. However, I stopped selling the courses two years ago and I sunset the courses one year ago.
So. There’s no, uh, significant regular money coming in for the show. There’s a couple advertisers that may pop in occasionally, and occasionally I’ll mention a specific, um, affiliate product or something like that, but it doesn’t convert very well at all anymore. So back in the day, I’d be able to. Mention a product, a WordPress plugin, for example, and a few, uh, maybe 10 or a couple dozen people would buy that product and I’d get a decent commission off of it.
Now people aren’t buying those products, and when I recommend something, it might be like the nootropics or other supplements I’m taking or maybe like a specific, um, microphone or product or something like that. But it’s not a super good connection, um, with what. The audience like wants and needs to solve their problems.
All that said. As I was talking to people, I’m like, ah, I’m thinking of like, is this show still serving me in some way? It does provide a, a good outlet where if I’m, if there’s something on my mind, like I watched that, the video about innovation, and then I could take that I idea and talk to you about it.
So, I mean, that could be from a book or other videos or another podcast, and of course, you know. I can watch a video, I can read a book and listen to a podcast, and maybe there’s like a few ideas all around a central theme, and then I could put those together and add some of my own thoughts in there. So it’s interesting, but the hard part is because I am bound to a schedule that is self-imposed, that does make it feel more like work, and I don’t want it to feel like work.
That’s again, when you get burned out, when you’re like, oh, I have to do this thing. And I see why, you know, YouTubers will, will say, I am gonna quit YouTube. I’m gonna stop doing all this stuff because it, it’s just overwhelming for me and I never let it get to that. I would sense, um, probably annoyance is the right word, but I would sense something.
And realize, hey, I need to chill out for a second and not, um, not take it so seriously. The problem with the YouTubers that were quitting, I think this may have been a year ago, but maybe at the BE YouTubers are always getting burned out or whatever, content creator, but I just happened to be on the YouTube side and there were a bunch of people creating videos, but they end up in a situation where they are making videos and they probably worked really hard making the videos and it was.
You know, driven by passion and what they wanted to spend time on, then they became successful. Then they started earning a lot of money and they needed to stick to a schedule because they had gotta get the fucking ad revenue because they signed a contract. Then they have to publish something because they signed a contract to do the thing.
So you end up in a situation where they’re like, oh, I have to create a video even though I’m not feeling it at all. So that’s what I don’t want it to lead to. And recently I think it’s hit a little bit more where I’m like, is this thing something I’m interested in continuing on? ’cause I was working on a talk, I was a speaker at the retreat that I was just at, so I was actually like writing a talk.
And then rehearsing it and trying to iterate on it and making it better, which it actually went really well. Very happy with the results, and I felt comfortable. It was about, it was a room of about, uh, 60 people or so, and I wanted it to be. Educational but not boring. And I wanted it to just be entertaining in general.
So I, I, I hit the marks and I didn’t want to be like super nervous and freak out ’cause it’s pretty hard to deliver if you’re um, if you’re a little bit too anxious and that sort of thing. So. Anyway, I was thinking about that and like the live audience sort of performance is a, a different stressor than, you know, recording down in my basement by myself or something like that.
You have to stand right in front of people and look them in the eye and have the right pauses and cadence and deliver the jokes properly and hit the slides and all that kinda stuff. So little. There was a little stress there, so I was like, ah. I need to work on that. I don’t wanna try to record the podcast just to get it out.
So anyway, one thing that might happen, and I probably threatened this, uh, many times in the past, is just like, I’m gonna do some shorter shows and today will actually be a shorter show. I hit a topic and then it was interesting, hopefully, and then maybe there’s a little bit extra, but I only added the second half because I was looking at the analytics and thinking about this sort of thing.
So. We’ll wrap it up for the day. If you have any show topics or things that you’re interested in, let me know. You can send me an email feedback at Doug show. Send it for the email list. If you’re not on the freebies are completely outta date. They’re like, um, different kind of templates and stuff that you might do to build a website, which I just said no one should waste their time doing that sort of thing.
So I should probably go in there and make it something a little more general or useful or something like that. But. Hey, that’s work. I, I don’t want to do any of that. So, alright, that’s it for today. Have a great one out there and we’ll catch you on the next episode.